Give us $, or the trees get it!

The Massachusetts Audubon Society runs a scam popularized by National Lampoon in 1973.

The Massachusetts Audubon Society has long managed its land in western Massachusetts as crucial wildlife habitat… But in 2015, the conservation nonprofit presented California’s top climate regulator with a startling scenario: It could heavily log 9,700 acres of its preserved forests over the next few years. The group raised the possibility of chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees as part of its application to take part in California’s forest offset program.

The program allows forest owners like Mass Audubon to earn so-called carbon credits for preserving trees. Each credit represents a ton of CO2. California polluters … buy these credits so that they can emit more CO2 than they’d otherwise be allowed to under state law. … The Air Resources Board accepted Mass Audubon’s project into its program, requiring the nonprofit to preserve its forests over the next century instead of heavily logging them. The nonprofit received more than 600,000 credits in exchange for its promise. The vast majority were sold through intermediaries to oil and gas companies, records show. … The fossil fuel companies were able to emit more CO2 while abiding by California’s climate laws.

Disgusting.