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[quote user="Convicted One"] <blockquote> <div><img src="/trccs/Themes/trc/images/icon-quote.gif" /> Bucyrus:</div> <div>   </div> I would like to know more about cities who are using tax dollars to plant trees in order to avoid buying carbon credits.  <div style="clear:both;"></div>   </blockquote>     as tested in Denver:<a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/ecosystemservices/pdf/urban-tree-planting.pdf"> The potential of urban tree plantings to be cost effective in carbon credit markets</a>   The catch is, by insisting that the new plantings be located only  on park strip (city property) then only the city will be entitled to reap the (eventual) carbon credit benefit. <div style="clear:both;"></div> [/quote] As we live our lives from one moment to the next, every single move we make will either add or subtract from our carbon footprints.  Some higher authority will have to decide how big our carbon footprints are allowed to be.  If our footprints happen to exceed that maximum, we will have as many options to reduce our footprints as there are grains of sand.  Some higher authority will have to assign a value to all those options. And that authority must also decide a value for all the things we do to increase our carbon footprints.  So, we will each need an account that measures what we do to increase our footprint and what we do to reduce it.  The balance of that account will change with every breath we take.  There are bound to be disputes in how this accounting is carried out, so we will need a system of judges and arbitrators that will make rulings on the meaning of what assigned values are assigned to and how they are tallied. And just what happens if your carbon footprint happens to exceed your carbon allowance or cap?  Your carbon account will reveal this net carbon debit, and a punitive tax will be levied on you for the excess.  I suppose the higher authority that establishes the value of your nearly infinite carbon credits and debits will also establish the tax for non-compliance.  This means that your carbon account will have to be monitored in real time by the government in order to enforce compliance by levying carbon taxes and fines.  Maybe they will require us to post a carbon bond in a cash account as a fundamental requirement of citizenship. Then this cash account can be debited automatically in real time if our carbon account slips out of compliance. I would not plant a bunch of trees until I knew what their offset or credit value was.  It would be utterly foolhardy and irresponsible to the taxpayers for a city to be planting trees on the taxpayers’ dime if they did not know the value of the offset.  For one thing, the cost of planting the trees might be higher than the value of the offset, so it would be a losing proposition.  But, worse than that, there might not be any net credit at all from planting trees.  On one hand, trees consume CO2, but it adds carbon to create them, transport them, and plant them.  It adds carbon to fertilize them, water them, trim them, and spray them.  It adds carbon for the city to run the computer used to cut the check to pay for the trees, and pay for fertilizing, watering, trimming, and spraying.
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