There is no registered methodology anywhere for crediting avoided wildfire emissions, so financing restoration thinning through carbon markets is a policy aspiration, not a market. The finale asks whether the model can be paid for, whether it travels, and what the verdict is. The 2025-26 environment gave it procedural gifts but removed operational capacity: treatment acres fell about 35 percent despite stronger legal authorities.
Who's who
- Barbara Haya+4 more episodesLed the 2023 review of carbon quantification across improved forest management protocols
- Grayson Badgley+2 more episodesCo-author of 2022 over-crediting and buffer-pool analyses
- Danny Cullenward+3 more episodesCo-author of the CarbonPlan over-crediting analyses
- Spencer PlumbCo-submitter of a 2015 avoided-wildfire-severity methodology
- Matthew Hurteau+2 more episodesModeler of the thin-and-burn carbon crossover
- Tom Schultz+1 more episodeForest Service Chief commenting on the research budget request
Where it happens
- Colville National Forest, Washington+8 more episodesForest with nineteen listed projects and little posted detail
- Colville, Washington+3 more episodesMill town where the mass timber plant was sold back
- Midway, British Columbia+1 more episodeMill shut indefinitely in January 2023
- Moscow, Idaho+6 more episodesForestry Sciences Laboratory site
Timeline
- 2015Avoided-wildfire-severity methodology submitted to the American Carbon Registry; later inactive
- October 25, 2022Verra's VM0045 improved forest management methodology goes active
- March 1, 2025Executive Order 14225 expands American timber production
- Calendar 2025About 2.6 million acres treated, against 4.1 million in 2024
- June 30, 2026Climate Action Reserve adopts a forty-year permanence commitment
- August 18, 2026USDA advances repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule
Still debated
Agency and independent treatment-acre counts use different definitions and do not reconcile, though both show direction of travel. Whether any wildfire-crediting methodology is in development is unclear, and the scale of the Forest Service reorganization is disputed between agency and union.
Connected episodes in other series
Common PracticeThe Price of a Tonne · Episode 7Also features Barbara Haya, Danny Cullenward
The Carbon LedgerFire Returns to My Backyard · Episode 9Also features Danny Cullenward, Grayson Badgley
Dismantling a Century of Forest ScienceGround Truth: Forest Service Research · Episode 10Also features Tom Schultz