Wildfires are ravaging forests set aside to soak up greenhouse gases
Credit…Kristina Barker for The New York Times
The wildfires in the American West are burning vast expanses of specially protected forests — those that are part of carbon-offset projects meant to counterbalance the carbon dioxide pollution being pumped into the atmosphere by human activity.
Carbon-offset programs, which are designed to fight climate change, typically pay landowners to manage their land in ways that store carbon. Usually, that means paying landowners to not chop down trees.
Wildfires, however, don’t respect those agreements. Read more.