Yeah I think it's a pretty open secret that a lot of carbon offsetting is just straight up greenwashing. How do you actually account for the CO2 that a tree off

Yeah I think it's a pretty open secret that a lot of carbon offsetting is just straight up greenwashing. How do you actually account for the CO2 that a tree offsets? Well let's take the most conservative approach, you start with a deficit - you account for the CO2 emissions involved in clearing the land and delivering the tree. You then account for wasteage - not all these trees will surive. Then you account for how much CO2 it soaks up, but until the tree is atleast close to maturity that's basically nothing. Oh no wait not that - we shove a tree in the ground pat ourselves on the back and assure ourselves it will capture CO2 for the next hundred years so we'll just go ahead and count that all now. What do we do now though? You can't plant more trees on the same land, so let's just sell that off- we can get a good price I know a guy who wants some land I hear he's got a plan for doing some sort of tree planting project.