Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
Optimizing sequestered carbon inforest
oset programs: balancing accounting
Lindsey Wise1, Eric Marland1* , Gregg Marland2, Jason Hoyle3, Tamara Kowalczyk4, Tatyana Ruseva5,
Jeﬀrey Colby6 and Timothy Kinlaw6
Background: Although there is broad agreement that negative carbon emissions may be required in order to meet
the global climate change targets speciﬁed in the Paris Agreement and that carbon sequestration in the terrestrial
biosphere can be an important contributor, there are important accounting issues that often discourage forest car-
bon sequestration projects. The legislation establishing the California forest oﬀset program, for example, requires that
oﬀsets be “real, additional, quantiﬁable, permanent, veriﬁable, and enforceable”. While these are all clearly desirable
attributes, their implementation has been a great challenge in balancing complexity, expense, and risk. Most forest
oﬀset protocols carry similar accounting objectives, but often with diﬀerent details, (e.g. Richards and Huebner in
Carbon Manag 3(4):393–410, 2012 and Galik et al. in Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 14:677–690, 2009). The result is
that the complexity, expense, and risk of participation discourage participation and make it more diﬃcult to achieve
climate mitigation goals. We focus on the requirements for accounting and permanence to illustrate that current
requirements disproportionately disadvantage small landowners.
Results: The simpliﬁed 1040EZ ﬁling system for U.S. income taxes may provide insight for a protocol model that
balances reward, eﬀort, and risk, while still achieving the overall objectives of standardized oﬀset protocols. In this
paper, we present initial ideas and lay the groundwork behind a “2050EZ” protocol for forest carbon sequestration as a
complement to existing protocols.
Conclusion: The Paris Agreement states that “Parties should take action to conserve and enhance, as appropri-
ate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases.” The Paris Agreement also refers to issues such as equity, sustainable
development, and other non-carbon beneﬁts. The challenge is to provide incentives for maintaining and increasing
the amount of carbon sequestered in the biosphere. Monitoring and veriﬁcation of carbon storage need to be suf-
ﬁcient to demonstrate sequestration from the atmosphere while providing clear incentives and simple accounting
approaches that encourage participation by diverse participants, including small land holders.
Keywords: Carbon accounting, Forest oﬀset, Sequestration program
© The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
(http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/
publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Carbon Balance and Management
1 Department of Mathematical Sciences, Appalachian State University,
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Page 2 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
The role offorest carbon sequestration
As we continue to struggle toward meeting a 2°C (or less)
limit for raising global average temperature [1, 2], there
is wide agreement that the only avenue to success is to
include negative CO2 emissions strategies [1, 3, 4]. Sim-
ply reducing emissions is likely not enough. One of the
most eﬀective ways to achieve negative emissions is by
sequestering carbon in the terrestrial biosphere (includ-
ing soils), and then increasing the time it takes for that
carbon to make its way back to the atmosphere. is can
be achieved in a variety of ways, from reforesting land
currently without trees, to increasing the growth of exist-
ing forests and preserving forest land likely to be cleared,
to increasing the mean lifetime of harvested wood prod-
ucts. While carbon sequestration represents negative
emissions it is often presented in the mitigation literature
as oﬀering oﬀsets while existing positive emissions are
While not without risks and uncertainties, reforesting,
improving forest management, protecting forests, and
increasing the life of harvested wood products increase
the overall stock of carbon pulled out, and kept out, of
If enough carbon is going to be stored in forests around
the globe in time to keep warming levels to the 2° tar-
get, this needs to be initiated soon and on a large scale
(e.g. ). At the same time, it takes time for a cultural
shift to take place, and gaining the needed support from
landholders where carbon can be sequestered is impor-
tant. Incentives can be oﬀered to increase participation
by making it more appealing to grow or maintain forests.
Understanding the motives and objectives of landowners
can give us insight into constructing incentives that will
work for a variety of diﬀerent motivations, motivations
that vary by country, by region, or even within regions by
the size of landholdings and the demographic character-
istics of landowners (e.g. [6, 7]). Land ownership varies
from countries where essentially all forest land is publicly
owned (e.g. Russia and ailand) to countries where the
dominant control over forest land is by private owners
(e.g. 58% private in the U.S. and 75% private in Sweden
in 2010) .
e Paris Agreement , now signed by 195 Parties
and ratiﬁed by 183 (as of 5 April, 2019), cites the need
to pursue actions for carbon sequestration and encour-
ages incentives for sequestration activities [9, 10]. e
Agreement does not specify a method or an accounting
approach, leaving these open to discussion and further
Current strategies include the ideas of carbon taxes,
cap-and-trade systems, carbon oﬀset markets, and small
scale investing in urban forests, among other activities.
ere has even been the suggestion of; growing trees to
bury in the ground where they cannot oxidize back to the
atmosphere (e.g. ).
Working toward increasing negative CO2 emissions,
some accounting issues present challenges to broad par-
ticipation in current programs. While we focus this dis-
cussion on the details of the California  program,
many programs for reducing carbon emissions attempt
to supplement these reduction eﬀorts with sequestration
“oﬀsets” (i.e. negative emissions), but then have to deal
with the question of the numerical equivalence of emis-
sions reductions and oﬀsets. With reductions for uncer-
tainty, leakage, reversion risk, and land value (avoided
conversion), oﬀsets earned are not the numerical equiv-
alent of tons of carbon sequestered, making a compari-
son to emissions debatable. In an attempt to prevent
loopholes and clarify procedures, oﬀset programs can
make participation subject to stringent requirements and
detailed reporting that make oﬀsets only economically
viable to a limited set of landholders, or appealing only
to the altruistic. Kerchner and Keeton  estimate that
the California forest oﬀset program, for example, is not
ﬁnancially viable for projects less than about 600ha.
e legislation establishing the California for-
est oﬀset program  requires that oﬀsets be “real,
additional, quantiﬁable, permanent, veriﬁable, and
enforceable”. While these are all clearly desirable attrib-
utes, their implementation has been a great challenge in
balancing complexity, expense, and commitment. Par-
ticipation in this program is low relative to the number
of potential participants . Accounting also encoun-
ters issues of leakage since only broad participation in
a closed system can insure against sequestration in one
area being negated by a responsive emission elsewhere.
Carbon incentives for the land sector can be struc-
tured in diﬀerent ways. (1) Practice-based payments
provide funding to support a variety of conserva-
tion programs, or (2) Pay-for-performance programs
wherein landowners are compensated on the basis of
how much carbon they actually sequester, in some
cases generating tradable carbon credits. e Paris
Agreement states simply that “Parties should take
action to conserve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks
and reservoirs of greenhouse gases” [2, Article 5.1]. e
Paris Agreement also moves beyond carbon and refers
to issues such as equity, sustainable development, and
other non-carbon beneﬁts. We must consider how
the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals  fac-
tor into such eﬀorts. Osborne and Shapiro , for
example, describe the relative successes of two carbon
Page 3 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
sequestration projects in Mexico when one is tightly
focused on carbon accounting and the other has less
rigorous accounting but is cognizant of social and envi-
e challenge is thus to provide incentives for main-
taining and increasing the amount of carbon seques-
tered in the biosphere while simultaneously pursuing
the other social and environmental goals of the U. N.
Sustainable Development Agenda and of program par-
ticipants and program neighbors. Monitoring and
veriﬁcation of carbon storage need to be suﬃcient to
demonstrate additional sequestration from the atmos-
phere. Motivations need to have adequate near-term
focus to confront current environmental and market
changes and to avoid foreclosing options for the future.
is short paper raises the question of motivat-
ing participation in forest oﬀset programs that would
involve increasing participation by adopting less strin-
gent program requirements, or by reassigning respon-
sibilities such as permanence and additionality from
the project level to the programmatic level. We focus
on “permanence” but speculate that less stringent
standards generally would increase participation by
small landowners or ﬁnancially marginal parties. We
suggest that overall program impact could be increased
by balancing ease of participation with the rigor of
accounting and veriﬁcation and that rigorous pro-
gram requirements disproportionally discourage small
The importance ofsmall landowners
Many barriers to entry with regard to the commonly
cited requirements disproportionately aﬀect small land
owners (landowners with less than about 200 ha), who
own more than 50% of the private, forested land in the
United States. Data from 1994 show that more than 90%
of private owners of forested land had holdings of less
than 40ha and that these smaller parcels involved over
30% of private, forested land in the U.S. . Figure1
shows the extent of current forest land in the contigu-
ous U.S. and suggests the broad suitability for increas-
ing forest coverage or improving forest management to
increase carbon storage. Figure2 shows the distribution
of land ownership parcel size (including unforested land)
in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Montana, illus-
trating the dominance of ownership by small landowners
Fig. 1 A map of forest land in the contiguous U.S. shows the broad suitability for forest cover and the broad potential for maintaining and/or
increasing carbon sequestration in forests
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Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
in North Carolina and of slightly larger parcel sizes in
With the suggestion above that parcels below 600ha
are not ﬁnancially viable for the California forest carbon
oﬀset program, 80% of the privately owned land (parcels
less than 100ha) in North Carolina is implicitly excluded
from participation in these programs by all but the land-
owners most committed to mitigating climate change,
and those landowners were likely to preserve their for-
ests regardless. Montana is diﬀerent, but still 25% of the
privately owned land is distributed in parcels of less than
100ha and more than 99% in parcels less than 1000ha.
is is hardly the additionality that oﬀset programs seek,
i.e. it does not motivate additional carbon sequestration
on lands that would not do so in the absence of the oﬀset
program. Figure3 shows the proportion of land and land-
owners in North Carolina for diﬀerent parcel sizes, dem-
onstrating the dominance of the state by small holdings.
Note that the histograms do include land not currently
in forest, which signiﬁcantly increases the proportion of
landowners of small parcel sizes. Over 60% of North Car-
olina is forested  and our interest is in both preserv-
ing and increasing forests.
In contrast to the roughly 50% of forest under private
ownership in the U.S., over 75% of forest land in Sweden,
for example, is privately owned, whereas 0% is privately
owned in Russia . While there is clearly great varia-
tion among countries, data from the U.S. and Sweden
illustrate the importance of the small landowner. Accord-
ing to Haugen etal. , the mean size of privately owned
productive forest land in Sweden (NIPF—non-industrial
private owners) is less than 65ha, accounting for 50% of
the area of productive forest land in Sweden.
Looking at the pattern of land ownership in North
Carolina and Sweden illustrates the challenge. Plus,
parcelization will likely serve to increase the importance
of small land-owners over time . Federal lands com-
prise 28% of U.S. land . Globally, Obersteiner etal.
 write about the 1.6 billion people who economically
depend on forests. Co-beneﬁts and issues beyond carbon
storage will continue to play a major role in land manage-
Given sequestration opportunities for terrestrial car-
bon storage in small holdings, how do we motivate car-
bon storage given the broad range of land ownership and
land management? Encouraging participation requires a
detailed understanding of what motivates small landown-
ers, in diﬀerent regions and diﬀerent countries; and ﬁnd-
ing ways to balance our rigorous accounting ideals with
the reality of the needed incentives. Gren and Aklilu
note pointedly that for forest carbon programs “speciﬁc
design problems are associated with the heterogeneity of
landowners, uncertainty, additionality, and permanence
in carbon projects.” e limits to carbon sequestration
are not all in the biophysics. Gren and Aklilu suggest
that one alternative is to “accept the magnitude of non-
additionality and non-permanence and design policy
instruments accounting for the deﬁciencies”. e key for
confronting climate change is to motivate establishment
of forest where forest does not exist and to motivate the
preservation of forest land as forest land.
Fig. 2 Maps of U.S. states North Carolina and Montana  illustrate land parcel size for the states. Yellow colored parcels are government owned.
The rest of the parcels are shaded by parcel size with the darker green indicating larger parcel sizes. Data are from the NC ONEmap  resource
produced by the North Carolina Centers for Geographic Information and Analysis
Page 5 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
A number of analyses have looked at potential barriers
to participation in forest oﬀset programs (e.g. [13, 26]).
Some few have even polled landowners to determine
their positions ﬁrst hand [6, 27]. While many of these
studies report most of the same barriers, there is varia-
tion by region. Here we discuss brieﬂy some of the pre-
vailing thoughts. Our objective is to understand what
then is required of an accounting system that would
motivate negative carbon emissions through sequestra-
tion in the terrestrial biosphere, especially for a system
that considers the interests of small landowners? And, do
we need to show these negative emissions on the same
balance sheet with positive emissions?
All approaches to forest carbon oﬀsets encounter
the problem of adverse selection, i.e. the prospect of
conferring oﬀsets to a project that would have taken
place regardless of the incentives oﬀered. Projects that
are not truly additional discredit the integrity of the pro-
gram and permit excess emissions elsewhere if they do
not generate true additional negative emissions. In a sys-
tem of practice-based payments it is often that govern-
ments are paying for the carbon oﬀsets (although there
are some projects with private sponsors) and it is impor-
tant to be able to show that oﬀset projects actually reduce
net carbon emissions.
From 1994 data for the United States, almost 30% of
forest landowners were retired and these older landown-
ers owned over 32% of the privately owned land . is
means that commitments over 20 years likely involve
committing the land beyond the ownership of the cur-
rent owner. While this may help transition commitments
Fig. 3 Histograms showing the distribution by parcel size of land ownership and land area in North Carolina. The top two panels reﬂect the
proportion of owners with diﬀerent parcel sizes while the bottom two panels reﬂect the proportion of total area in the state taken up by parcels of
that size category. Data is from the NC ONEmap resource produced by the North Carolina Centers for Geographic Information and Analysis
Page 6 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
over time for the same property and ensure stability of
the project, many landowners are reluctant to commit
to agreements for long periods of time. e California
forest oﬀset program, for example, has a minimum real
commitment of 120–100years past when the last credit
is earned. An agreement that.
Further, the administrative costs of initiating a project
are not insigniﬁcant and entail many of the same costs,
regardless of the size of the project. Initial inventories
of the land are scaled, but ﬁling papers and organiz-
ing reporting are similar. e earning of credits is often
delayed from the costs of listing the project. While it
hasn’t been mentioned prominently in the literature, due
to many of the programs being quite new, many of the
credits earned in forest oﬀset projects are heavily front
loaded. at is, the number of earned credits goes down
over time, for example when a reforested area begins to
mature. With the land committed to a program, little
income would be coming into pay for the ongoing pro-
tection, inventories, and administrative costs. e value
of the land with ongoing costs, little income, and limita-
tions on usage is likely diminished. With ownership turn-
over typically occurring every few decades, it is not clear
what the implications on values and future participation
might look like. To build a carbon market, carbon needs
to show desirable qualities as a stable object for trading
A common concern, additionality, is an essential crite-
rion for credits in all accounting standards and schemes.
Additionality is, however, a complex concept. It is essen-
tially a question of causation. Can one relate the emission
reduction to a particular incentive? ere is, however, a
direct impact on environmental integrity from non-addi-
Further barriers to entry include the initial process of
determining a baseline and reversal risk—never a simple
undertaking, especially for small land owners without an
analyst or accountant to expedite the process. Muddling
through the analyses necessary to evaluate and quantify
the baseline and reversal risk outlined in the California
protocol, for example, is no easy task. e necessary
accounting may be enough to turn many small landown-
Even within individual protocols accounting rules can
include inconsistencies in the evaluation and award of an
oﬀset ton. In the California cap and trade program, for
example, land-based carbon uptake is sometimes dis-
counted depending on the value of the land for alternate
purposes, i.e. the opportunity cost of choosing to seques-
ter carbon. In essence place matters because of the diﬀer-
ences in the value of other goals in land use.
In pay-for-performance systems, issues of base-
lines, additionality, risk, measurement uncertainty,
permanence, veriﬁcation, and leakage often get treated
diﬀerently in diﬀerent protocols and create challenges for
fungibility of credits among oﬀset systems (e.g. ). A
ton is not necessarily a ton . e value of emissions
oﬀsets can vary with their duration, their uncertainty,
their risk, the buyer’s (renter’s) discount rate, and with
the buyer’s (renter’s) expectation of the growth rate of
damages from carbon emissions.
One of the issues with current programs is a focus on
preserving standing forests and an aversion to harvesting.
While maintaining a healthy, standing forest is impor-
tant, harvesting wood and putting that carbon into long
lasting products can sometimes increase the chance that
the carbon will be stored for longer than if it remained in
the forest, and thus increase the total amount of carbon
stored in the biosphere. e half-life of forest products
in construction can be up to 100years and the chance
of reversal may be small compared to the risk of insect
infestation or ﬁre in a forest. In the California forest oﬀ-
set system landﬁll carbon is treated inconsistently and
the landﬁll is under-realized as a viable storage place for
carbon. Storing carbon in landﬁlls may be less desirable
than frugal use of resources and extending the useful
lifetime of a product, but the eﬀectiveness of a landﬁll in
carbon storage is still important .
Landowners have many diﬀerent motivations for
keeping their forested land forested. Many do not actu-
ally want to harvest at all and are more interested in the
inherent beauty of the landscape and the ecosystem liv-
ing in the forest. While it is challenging to place a value
on these intangible assets, some studies have shown sig-
niﬁcant willingness to pay for such environments .
Jurisdictions have, by and large, innovated towards
more standardization and streamlining of the concept of
additionality. Given the fragmentation of the carbon mar-
ket, many jurisdictions have set about creating their own
oﬀset scheme, more appropriate to their circumstances
and motivations. Increased ambition in reducing net
carbon emissions will likely raise the demand for inter-
national trading of oﬀsets, but will also increase scrutiny
on the credibility of the additionality determination of
oﬀsets [32, p. 23]. is implies a potentially bigger role
for international transfers of carbon allowances and cred-
its. As domestic carbon initiatives interact with national
commitments, carbon credits with diﬀerent additional-
ity protocols or demands may signiﬁcantly hinder linking
[32, p. 24].
The 2050 EZ
In a 2012 paper Richards and Huebner raised the ques-
tion of the feasibility of designing a forest carbon-oﬀset
protocol that provides both reasonable credibility and
Page 7 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
low transaction costs. ey wrote that “It is critical that
estimates of oﬀset projects emissions reductions and
removals reﬂect actual contributions” [33, p. 393]. ere
are serious limitations to a project-based carbon oﬀset
strategy . But, is it necessary that debits and credits
be symmetric and immediate? And, while we recognize
that time matters, that a ton of carbon emitted now is
not the opposite of a ton sequestered 10years from now,
there is not an agreed approach for the temporal dis-
counting of emissions and sequestration.
What then are the issues in equating a ton of carbon,
in oﬀsetting emissions, in trading of emissions, in evalu-
ating the multiple goals of land management, in deﬁning
and measuring negative carbon emissions?
In the case of forest carbon sequestrations, a less strin-
gent accounting approach may increase participation and
thus increase ultimate carbon storage, along with achiev-
ing greater buy-in for climate friendly policies and the
co-beneﬁts that generally accompany forest management
for carbon. Can we deﬁne “good enough” (Richards and
Huebner) while minimizing transaction costs? Olsson
etal.  have suggested a system wherein some uncer-
tainties are accepted in order to achieve clean develop-
ment and the participation of countries that are in an
early stage of development.
To encourage project participation, protocols must rec-
ognize that business-as-usual is market-based, dynamic,
and diﬃcult to demonstrate for additionality; and that
current decisions aﬀect current actions but cannot guar-
antee permanence. We need to recognize that place mat-
ters because of opportunity costs, risks, and non-carbon,
contextual factors. We need straight-forward and non-
punitive approaches for dealing with risks and reversals.
We also need a comprehensive and consistent treat-
ment of durable wood products and carbon in landﬁlls.
In sum, we need clear incentives and simple accounting
approaches that encourage participation by diverse par-
ticipants, including small land holders. We need to con-
front measuring, reporting and veriﬁcation at some level.
e simpliﬁed 1040EZ ﬁling system for U.S. income
taxes may provide insight for a protocol model that bal-
ances reward, eﬀort, and risk, while still achieving the
overall objectives of standardized protocols and credible
results. e 1040EZ tax form in the U.S. is designed for
people who have very simple ﬁnances or for people who
do not want to spend the time and eﬀort for ﬁling their
tax returns personally. People who use this form may
end up paying a bit more in taxes, but are saved the task
of compiling the data needed to document deductions,
expenses, and other related tax transactions. Its appeal is
We propose the idea of a “2050 EZ protocol” for for-
est carbon sequestration—as a complement to existing
protocols. We propose developing a very simple process
for enrolling land in a forest oﬀset program that lowers
the barriers that discourage small landowners from par-
ticipating. In the next section we outline the main ten-
ets of such a program and suggest strategies for reducing
administrative overhead, lowering transaction costs, and
reducing commitment lengths; but preserving environ-
mental integrity, albeit with some accepted analytical
uncertainty. e earned carbon credits could be less than
for the currently available protocols but the lower point
of entry might increase participation and provide a vital
contribution to the overall goal of mitigating climate
change. Our discussion alludes to the multiple barriers
to participation but focuses on the need for long-term
or “permanent” commitments. We note that forest oﬀset
programs do not require “permanence” to be eﬀective.
Marland etal.  described a system of carbon rentals
and Lintunen and Rautiainen  analyze the equiva-
lency of a rental approach with a traditional “subsidize-
e challenge then, is to develop a simple protocol that
many small landowners could implement for renewable
short-term contracts with minimum transaction costs.
A protocol that would encourage and reward retention
of forests and storing carbon in forests. We will call this
process the 2050EZ process in recognition of the US tax
form and the target date of many emissions scenarios.
ere are at least two reasons that the 1040EZ tax form
is worthwhile to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. First,
it is everyone’s responsibility to pay their taxes so that
everyone pays their “fair share”, and second, the govern-
ment needs the money to function. While the percent-
age of people ﬁling the 1040EZ paper form is only a small
fraction of total ﬁlings (about 13% of total paper returns),
that still accounts for over 5.5 million people in 2010 .
e impact on the government budget is important. We
look at the 2050 EZ form in the same way. Everyone has
a responsibility to contribute to solving the problem of
human-caused climate change (we all beneﬁt regardless
where the fault may lie), and if enough people participate
it can make a big impact on the sequestration of carbon
from the atmosphere. Participation of small landowners
would also provide a solid base of climate policy support-
ers who would feel vested in the solution and feel tangi-
ble beneﬁts from their investiture. We begin with the two
basic tenets of the 2050 EZ protocol:
1. e protocol should enable widespread participa-
tion in forest carbon oﬀsets without high transac-
tion costs that disproportionately disadvantage small
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Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
2. e protocol should produce fewer credits per pro-
ject than the standard protocols, to account for the
increased uncertainty of projects that do not ﬁt cur-
rent deﬁnitions of additionality and permanence, or
that have higher measurement uncertainty.
e goal is to create more buy-in from landowners with
small land holdings. e projects need to be eﬀective,
but the more buy-in the better for long-term and wide-
spread support of climate friendly and sustainable poli-
cies (see, e.g. ). Landowners who hold large areas of
land or particularly productive lands should be encour-
aged to participate in the more rigorous accounting of the
full protocols. ose protocols have more strict require-
ments and the projects under those guidelines may be
more likely to represent permanent reductions that have
more accurate accounts of the carbon sequestered from
the atmosphere. e 2050 EZ would likely produce fewer
dollars per hectare over the life of a project, but there
are so many parameters and uncertainties in the calcu-
lations that it is challenging to ensure that. With these
fundamental objectives in mind and the basic approaches
outlined, we turn discussion to several topics that war-
rant more discussion. In the past, short-term storage has
caused some debate. We oﬀer two arguments to sup-
port the use of short-term commitments and the value
of short term storage. As a simple model, we can look at
the eﬀect of short term storage in an intuitive way. More
realistic models would follow the same basic trends. Sup-
pose we assume that a single product might be produced
at a constant rate (J) and decay exponentially (ﬁrst order
decay—unrealistic, but a beginning). en the stock of
that product would follow the following model.
e rate of decay is r and the half-life (
) of the prod-
. If we replace r in Eq.(1), we get
In steady state, the total stock reaches a value of
Equation3 shows that the steady state stock of carbon
in the product is directly proportional to the half-life
of the product. Now suppose that we extend the half-
life of the product by 10% while the rate of production
is unchanged. is translates into a 10% increase in the
total, steady-state stock of carbon contained in that prod-
uct. So even though the carbon stored in a single unit
of product is temporary, the increase in half-life results
in more carbon retained out of the atmosphere. is is
where the value of short-term storage and the value of
short-term projects can make a diﬀerence. We need to
avoid thinking of each forest carbon project in isolation,
but instead consider its contribution to the larger pro-
gram comprised of multiple projects.
If we look more carefully at the accumulation of carbon
through short-term projects, we can look at forests them-
selves as examples. Forests are valued as vital stocks of
carbon. Forests can sequester large quantities of carbon,
and with careful management, can store even more. In
fact, a simple calculation similar to the one above shows
that if the average half-life of harvested wood from a for-
est exceeds the rotation time of the harvest, there will be
more carbon from the forest in its products than in the
Each tree in a forest has a ﬁnite lifetime, seen as short-
term carbon storage. But, trees do not live forever. A for-
est is a collection of short-term projects that we consider
to be a long-term storage of carbon. In the same way,
short-term carbon sequestration project can be consid-
ered as a part of a larger long-term program. Figure 4
shows a simulation of a conglomeration of short term
projects of varying length and magnitude and how their
Fig. 4 The left panel simulates a series of hypothetical, short term, small projects that begin and end over intervals of 10 to 30 years. The projects
are scaled to hold between 0 and 1 unit of carbon. The right panel shows the accumulation of carbon for all of the projects added together
Page 9 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
combination comprises a relatively steady, long term
In the “Discussion” section above we characterized the
nature of land ownership in both the United States and
Sweden, taking note of the distribution of parcel sizes and
the fact that small parcels collectively comprise a large
fraction of the total area of forested land. If the barriers
to entry into a forest carbon oﬀset program are too great
for all of these small landowners to reasonably consider
joining such a forest oﬀset program, we should consider
accounting protocols that lower the barrier for entry.
Two means to potentially increase the participation
of small land owners include shorter contracts of “per-
manence” for only, for example, 20years, and a simple
standard measure of forest carbon stocks. Shortening the
contract length to 20years at ﬁrst glance seems like a risk,
as a land owner could much more quickly and easily back
out of the program. However, the 100-year time commit-
ment is likely more of a gate- keeping obstacle that pre-
vents land owners from joining oﬀset protocols to begin
with. e generations-long commitment is unlikely to
appeal to those not part of a conservancy or other organ-
ization that will outlast them. It could be more beneﬁcial
to oﬀset programs to gain the interest and participation
of many land owners with shorter contracts, and then to
provide enough incentives for them during the timeline
of the contract that they consider extension for another
Second, the use of a simple approximation of carbon
based on data such as LiDAR or other canopy-cover
measures that are fast, simple, and inexpensive for a
given small plot of land could signiﬁcantly decrease the
upfront and monitoring costs to the landowner for plot-
ting and measuring. While this could increase small
landowner participation, this approximation must be
conservative enough that it does not appeal to land own-
ers with large enough tracts of land. For larger projects,
lower uncertainty is desirable and they can bear the cost
of more rigorous accounting. To create the model for the
2050 EZ, we begin with several ideas that could drive the
development of the model.
1. We assume a single forest project type—a forest.
e three categories in existing protocols—refor-
estation, improved forest management, and avoided
conversion—might be considered diﬀerent phases of
the same forest. First the forest must begin, then it
must grow, and ﬁnally we try to avoid having it revert
back to an un-forested state. As a consequence, oﬀ-
sets need to provide incentives for growing a forest,
growing it faster, and for keeping it as forest.
2. We credit carbon stocks rather than carbon relative
to a baseline. Baselines are both uncertain in long
term forecasting and are generally based on common
practice. In order to gain participation from more
people, credits in the EZ form could be given for the
total tonnage of carbon held in the forest and forest
products and thus kept out of the atmosphere. e
incentive for improving the management of the forest
is simply a consequence that it sequesters additional
tonnes of carbon and is therefore awarded more
credits. Increases in stocks could be rewarded more
than retention of stocks.
3. We propose short term contracts. e shorter time
reduces the permanence requirement of each indi-
vidual project but increases the appeal for more land-
owners. If a signiﬁcant fraction of the projects re-
enroll at the end of their term or if there is a constant
inﬂux of new projects, the total stock of carbon cur-
rently involved in the program at any one time would
be signiﬁcant. In the same way that a single tree in a
permanent forest is transient, the program as a whole
could be considered permanent even though individ-
ual projects may enter and leave.
For each enrolled project, the total carbon inven-
tory of the forest needs to be estimated initially and at
intervals to determine the credits earned. In between
measurements, models could be used to estimate inter-
mediate values that are then reconciled at the next inven-
e value of a ton of sequestered carbon could be esti-
mated based on tonne-years. ere would be incentives
for each year that a ton of carbon was retained out of the
atmosphere. Long-lived wood products would be more
attractive than short-lived products. Risks and uncer-
tainties would be unnecessary to consider since credits
would be only given for credits already earned. Penalties
are only applied for early termination of a contract.
Our intent in this paper is not to oﬀer a fully developed
protocol for carbon sequestration credits but to lay the
ground work and stimulate discussion of ways to increase
the incentives for participation and thus to increase the
total amount of carbon sequestered in the biosphere. e
urgency of addressing climate change suggests a need to
increase and protect the mass of sequestered carbon. e
ﬁnal question in implementing a 2050 EZ form for car-
bon sequestration activities would be to detail the best
approach for speciﬁc implementation. Selling carbon
credits on the open market works for large holdings. But
buying and selling credits from speciﬁc projects is cum-
bersome; and we must consider how the value of cred-
its from diﬀerent projects are equated. e Family Forest
Carbon Program of the American Forest Foundation and
Page 10 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
the Nature Conservancy is similarly pursuing to remove
the barriers that family forest owners encounter in many
forest carbon protocols .
e 2050 EZ credits should form a pool of credits that
have a deﬁned equivalence to each other and are com-
pensated equally. One method of monetizing the cred-
its is through tax credits. Another is to treat them as a
scheduling process. e ﬁrst credits that go in would be
the ﬁrst paid out. Since the credits are determined each
year, projects would be assured of being paid for their
year x credits before any year x + 1 credits are paid.
Clearly there are multiple possibilities for speciﬁc
implementation of easy accounting but likely fewer cred-
its. is paper oﬀers a framework for a new approach and
does not presume to construct an entire protocol Policy
is created through discourse and incremental develop-
ment. We oﬀer a ﬁrst step.
e end goal is to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels by
reducing the rate of emissions and increasing the rate
of sequestration. In an ideal world, all landowners and
stake holders would be in support of this goal. In reality,
we need to motivate and incentivize participation. We
need to develop programs that have appeal and gain buy-
in from many diﬀerent people with varying motivations.
at means that not only should they want to participate,
they should want to continue participating. To appeal to
a broad set of land-owners, it is not clear to us that a sin-
gle one-size-ﬁts-all program will be as eﬀective as creat-
ing multiple programs to appeal to speciﬁc audiences.
In this scenario, we are not trying to tie up land by buy-
ing people out. Some people want to tie their land up in
programs that prevent development and create a lasting
eﬀect long after they pass on. e system of conserva-
tion easements and conversion to public lands is a great
option for those people. Others need an alternative and
respond negatively to the idea that someone is eﬀectively
buying them out of their choices of what can happen on
their land. Instead of buying them out, we propose to get
them to buy in, repeatedly.
Here we have laid some ground work and proposed
developing a system that relies on short-term agreements
and easy accessibility for encouraging the accumulation
and retention of carbon in forests. is system will likely
not be as eﬀective in generating carbon credits per unit
of land area in each project as a more rigorous program,
but we propose getting people to buy in and become part
of an ongoing system. If they do not want to keep par-
ticipating, then we have created an insuﬃciently motivat-
ing system. We aim on obtaining lots of participation on
small eﬀorts. e challenge is balancing program strin-
gency and participation.
We propose that shorter contracts will be more attrac-
tive to small land owners but shorter contracts also oﬀer
ﬂexibility for the program administration. e terms of
the agreements could be modiﬁed as new ideas emerge
or as the climate changes. e ideal agreements now may
not be ideal 50years in the future and we may not want
to bind ourselves to a system that may not mesh with
reality at that time.
Finally, we note that one of the ways to move toward
more eﬀective climate-stabilizing policies is to get more
people vested in short-term outcomes. While a program
aimed at small landowners may not sequester as much
carbon per landowner as existing programs, each of
those landowners gets the same number of votes in elec-
tions. Participation in a small program now may turn into
support for broader programs later.
CO2: carbon dioxide; LiDAR: light detection and ranging.
We thank Sean Sweeney for his assistance and advice in the GIS work that
went into this project. Two anonymous reviewers oﬀered valuable sugges-
tions that greatly improved the coherence of this text. Also, we are grateful for
the Joint Venture Agreement with the United State Forest Service, Northern
Research Station, that helped to fund this work.
LW produced Figs. 1, 3, led writing. EM produced Fig. 4, guided project. GM
led background study and literature review. JH worked on literature review
and ﬁnal editing. TK1 worked on contextualization and accounting framing. TR
worked on policy framing and understanding barriers. JC and TK2 Led the GIS
work and produced Fig. 2. All authors read and approved the ﬁnal manuscript.
This work was not funded by any sources outside of the home institution.
Availability of data and materials
The raw data used in the work are all clearly referenced and available online.
The data used to produce the ﬁgures is available upon request.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Consent for publication
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
1 Department of Mathematical Sciences, Appalachian State University, Boone,
USA. 2 Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Appalachian
State University, Boone, USA. 3 Appalachian Energy Center, Appalachian State
University, Boone, USA. 4 Department of Accounting, Appalachian State Uni-
versity, Boone, USA. 5 Department of Government and Justice Studies, Appala-
chian State University, Boone, USA. 6 Department of Geography and Planning,
Appalachian State University, Boone, USA.
Received: 13 June 2019 Accepted: 15 November 2019
Page 11 of 11
Wiseetal. Carbon Balance Manage (2019) 14:16
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text:
We are happy to share with you the first release of Octane 2020.1
Make sure to use a NVIDIA Studio driver with version at least 435.80 for Windows or 435.12 for Linux to enable support for RTX hardware acceleration. There are no OSX drivers that currently support RTX.
OctaneRender 2020.1.1 has superseded this build.
Should you find any issues with this release please report using this thread so we can make sure we provide you with the best feedback.
What's new in 2020.1
- Support for RTX HW accelerated ray tracing using Optix 7.
- ACES: new workflow and Image Container File Layout
- Maxon Cinema 4D GPU Noises: Textures, Volumes, OSL, Vectron and displacements
- New Hosek-Wilkie Spectral Sky Model
- Particle and Strand Point Attributes
- Universal Camera 2: split focus and optical vignetting
- Curated OSL Procedural Shaders in LiveDB
- Hydra Render Delegate for Houdini 18 Solaris Viewport
- Improvements to Round Edges artist control
- SSS Improvements and Random Walk SSS
- Spectral Hair Material
- Volume Sample Position Displacement
- Volume Step % and Shadow Step %
- New Universal Dirt Dystem
Hosek-Wilkie Sky Model
We added the Hosek-Wilkie model to daylight environment. It produces more realistic and detailed results than other implementations specially in hazy conditions and near the horizon. To clean up the drop down Daylight model in the daylight environment node we renamed Old Daylight Model to Preetham Daylight Model and New Daylight Model to Octane Daylight Model.
As before, Sky color and Sunset color are only used in the Octane daylight model, but the ground color is also included in the atmospheric scattering of the sky of the Hosek-Wilkie model. It's a subtle but visible effect, e.g. to render a realistic sky over a forest you would set the ground color to a dark green and for a realistic sky over a snowy landscape you would set the ground color to white.
A daylight animation of the sky dome using the new Hosek-Wilkie model:
Original Octane daylight model for reference:
Here's a comparison of the same scene rendered with both Octane and Hosek-Wilke daylight models:
We have added support to use color and float attributes with sphere primitives which adds on top of the current attribute support for triangles.
This will be available to all plugins as well as via the Lua scripting interface.
The new universal camera exposes much of the already existing functionality of the rest of Octane built-in cameras and extends it with a number of new features including:
- Aperture texture.
- Cubemap layouts (6x1, 3x2, 2x3, 1x6)
- Fisheye lens.
- Improved DOF settings.
- Optical vignetting.
- Split-focus diopter.
Here is a sample render using the split focus feature which allows focusing the camera into two separate regions.
Display Color Management
You may now specify a color profile to be used by Octane. ICC and ICM profiles can also be imported in addition to the built-in presets.
ACES Image Container File Layout
We have added support for exporting Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) OpenEXR files (IEEE ST 2065-4:2013).
In Octane standalone this has been added as an option to the render passes export dialog.
As well as to the current render save into disk menu.
As always this will also be available to all plugins and via the Lua API.
Built-In Cinema 4D Noise Shaders
Octane supports now generation of native Cinema 4D noises. This means that users of the Cinema 4D plugin can make use of Maxon's built-in noise shaders directly within Octane.
Scenes that use Cinema 4D noise shaders can also be exported as ORBX and rendered in standalone with full built-in support.
Improvements to Round Edges Shader
We have updated our accurate round edges shader to produce better results in a wider range of scenarios.
This includes also a new option that allows specifying how many samples are used to evaluate the edge normal.
More samples will generate more accurate results and will also cause longer render times depending on each scene.
These changes will also be back-ported to Octane 2019.
New Procedural Shaders in LiveDB
A completely new collection of customizable OSL procedural shaders has been added to the LiveDB. These include new patterns, noises, volumetric shaders and other effects and useful utilities.
The new library can be found inside the OTOY section of the LiveDB:
Hydra Render Delegate for Houdini 18
Octane 2020.1 for Houdini 18 can operate as a fully functional Hydra Render delegate for the Solaris viewport, with support for USD preview surface and lights exposed by the Hydra API.
In 2020.1 we are adding RTX support that speeds up ray tracing. RTX on NVidia cards brings the next level of performance to Octane. We have implemented triangle mesh tracing in this experimental release, while highly scene dependent, we have witnessed ray tracing performance increase by as much as 500%. This will translate to different speedups depending how much time of the render of a given scene is actually spent doing ray tracing operations and how much is spent in shading but in most cases you should at least see some noticeable gain.
In contrast to the previous experimental builds we have decided to switch our ray tracing backend to make use of OptiX due to some issues affecting VulkanRT that still need to be solved by third parties. This change increases overall render performance for most scenes but specially for complex ones and reduces VRAM usage to almost half to what it was required before.
NVIDIA driver version 435.80 or newer is required to enable RTX on supported devices.
Below are example scenes with their speed improvement with RTX on mode vs RTX off mode:
Random walk SSS
We have added the Random Walk medium. This medium node takes in an albedo texture for specifying the expected SSS color, as opposed to the traditional absorption/scattering color spectrum in other medium nodes. You can also specify a color radius texture, which represents how far the light scatters into the medium.
In addition to random walk, we have modified our old media so that you can provide any texture as input to scattering/absorption textures. Including for when you want to use them for volumes.
Other than that, we have also introduced a bias slider for interpolating between the unbiased vs biased scattering in the medium. The biased scattering method (when bias is 1.0) enables faster convergence, but also allowing you to mix the two methods for meshes with high curvature.
Random walk SSS can be attached to any existing material similar to other previous medium nodes. Furthermore, it can be used in conjunction with layered materials to simulate things such as skin material.
Below is an example of random walk SSS in action, here we compare diffuse material with albedo texture in the diffuse slot (left), vs diffuse material with 0.0 diffuse reflection and 1.0 diffuse transmission with the new randomwalk medium node using the albedo texture as the medium scattering albedo with 0.0 bias (center), vs diffuse material with the new randomwalk medium node using the albedo texture as the medium scattering albedo with 1.0 bias (right). As we can see in the image, when the old scattering method is used (0.0 bias), the subsurface scattering is alot darker due to rays being lost inside the medium, but when the new random walk SSS is used (1.0 bias), the subsurface scattering effect does not lose as much energy inside the medium.
Below is an example of using random walk SSS for skin material. Random walk SSS with diffuse material/specular material can be used together with existing material layers. We can use multiple specular layers on top of the bottom medium layer for simulating multi-layer oily skin:
Here is an image showing how radius works in random walk SSS, the higher the radius, the more waxy the subsurface scattering effect would look on the model, where as the lower the radius, the more diffuse surface like it would look:
The orbx for random walk SSS radius is available at: https://render.otoy.com/downloads/36/b0/b5/a8/radius.orbx
Spectral hair material
We have implemented a new hair material in 2020.1 that improves hair rendering realism in general for Octane. The difference between hair material and traditional diffuse/specular materials is that hair material assumes the geometry it's assigned to is strictly a hair spline, allowing pre-integration for multi-scattering effects that occur in hair geometry.
Hair material has its unique set of parameters, allowing different coloring modes for hair, and also multiple roughness parameters for different scattering behavior along a hair strand:
The image below shows the render of hair with varying longitudinal roughness from low (left) to high (right):
Below is an image of hair material with varying azimuthal roughness from low (left) to high (right):
Volume sample displacement
Volume sample displacement allows you to use arbitrary textures to shift the sampling position inside the volume grid at all positions. In the case of noise, you can add micro detail without having to modify the volume data at all, and can be adjusted in real time.
Below are some images with volume sample position displacement with various settings:
The sample orbx for the above image is available at: https://render.otoy.com/downloads/15/48/b2/ae/vol_sample_displ.orbx
Vectron™ software module can now be used to create volumes at render time. By using an SDF input to volume scattering and absorption, you can use the same objects to define volumes instead of surfaces, as shown below:
We have added two default light primitives (including geometry) to the Spectron™ software module for 2020.1:
- Spectron area primitive
- Spectron sphere primitive
These light primitives can be added to the scene using the nodegraph editor's context menu:
We allow basic primitive scaling for both light types at the geometric level, and allows the usage of position node in conjunction for geometric transformations. We have also improved the light sampling algorithm for these two light primitives, taking into account the subtended solid angle of the receiving mesh surface. This will allow for improvement in noise reduction for direct light sampling, and will generally improve convergence of the image at a faster rate versus the usage of traditional mesh light sampling.
Here is a comparison of a sphere mesh emitter vs the Spectron sphere light:
Another look at the mesh quad emitter:
Another look at the new Spectron area light:
The following image shows the effect on the noise of the image using spectron area light versus traditional mesh light (at 1 samples per pixel) :
Spectron area light vs traditional mesh light (10 samples per pixel):
and Spectron area light vs traditional mesh light (20 samples per pixel):
We have included an orbx which allows for further modifying the quad light into a spotlight, an example of the extra parameter here is spread. Controlling the spread allows you to control the directionality in which the light emits.
An example of the customized spot light with 0.1 spread:
An example of the customized spot light with 0.2 spread:
An example of the customized spot light with 0.3 spread:
An example of the customized spot light with 1.0 spread:
The customized spotlight script is available as an orbx in: https://render.otoy.com/downloads/d9/07/6a/ab/Spotlight.orbx
The following three images show the effect on the noise of the image using Spectron sphere light versus traditional mesh light (at 1 samples per pixel, 10 samples per pixel, and 20 samples per pixel):
Volume step % and shadow step %
The step length inside medium/volume medium nodes is decoupled into general ray step length and shadow ray step length. By default, these are locked to the same value like previous versions of Octane. With this new feature, you can now decouple them and increase the ray step length of the shadow ray independently to avoid over raymarching unnecessary when not needed, which would improve the speed of volume tracing and reduce final render time.
Below is an image for comparison of volume ray march with various step length vs shadow step length (cloud model provided by Disney):
New Universal Dirt system
The dirt texture node is improved in 2020.1 with additional parameters for better flexibility. Prior to 2020.1, the dirt node used a uniform cosine sampling method for tracing out rays from the material surface, which caused an overall more uniform look to dirt similar to unbiased ambient occlusion.
In 2020.1, we have introduced several parameters for biasing the dirt node, so that you can control the spread of the rays, making it a cone rather than a cosine sampling method. You can also now control the distribution of the dirt rays, to make it more concentrated against the surface normal or more evenly like prior to Octane 2020.1 Additionally, we have modified the radius of the dirt node to be a texture input, so that you can control spatially the trace distance for a surface point.
Below is the parameters exposed for the dirt node:
Below is an image to illustrate what the spread parameter does. Dirt texture is attached to the ground plane here for visualization purposes. The lower the spread is, the sharpter the dirt would be since it's always sampling the dirt ray in one direction:
The dirt distribution makes the dirt ray more concentrated in the normal direction, or the normal + bias direction, the left image is with default 1.0 distribution (evenly distributed dirt rays), while the right image is with 1000.0 distribution (concentrated in the normal + bias direction):
Here is a comparison of dirt off vs unbiased dirt vs biased dirt:
Changes since OctaneRender 2020.1 RC4:
- Fixed CUDA error on the slave when RTX was enabled and the scene used dirt or accurate rounded edges.
- Fixed CUDA error happening when using AI light in scenes while enabling RTX and mixing RTX and non-RTX geometry.
- Fixed opacity issue with metallic material or with universal material with metallic set to 1.0.
- Fixed typo in geometry import preferences "Single pin for all object" -> "Single pin for all objects".
- Fixed issue causing the network daemon to give up starting the slave at start-up on slow machines.
- Fixed application crash importing LiveDB materials that would include material layer input linker nodes.
- Fixed camera target picker for mesh instances handled by RTX.
- Take into account max smoothing angle and join unwelded vertices options when reading or exporting Alembic and FBX files.
- Reduced required runtime memory per sample.
- Added missing material layer input and output linker entries to node graph editor context menu.
- Added transform pins to quad and sphere light nodes.
- Removed "(experimental)" from RTX flag text in the device settings.
Downloads for Enterprise subscription users:
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Standalone for Windows (installer)
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Standalone for Windows (ZIP archive)
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Standalone for Linux
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Standalone for OSX
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Slave for Windows (installer)
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Slave for Windows (ZIP archive)
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Slave for Linux
OctaneRender Enterprise 2020.1 Slave for MacOS
Downloads for Studio subscription users:
OctaneRender Studio 2020.1 Standalone for Windows (installer)
OctaneRender Studio 2020.1 Standalone for Windows (ZIP archive)
OctaneRender Studio 2020.1 Standalone for Linux
OctaneRender Studio 2020.1 Standalone for OSX
Your OTOY NZ team

domain: design


Sportservice Lorinser is a well known tuning firm with long traditions customizing Mercedes-Benz cars including the E-Class model pictured here. They have honored the Mercedes E-Class W212 premium limousine with a new stylish look. Re-designing the front, Lorinser added an all-black grille that is the center of attention. A front spoiler lip was installed underneath that extends farther than the stock bumper for a more aggressive look along with the LED lights. The middle of the front bumper was painted a different color to emphasize the grilles in the fenders, as well as the side skirts which also have vents towards the rear. Furthermore, the rear of the Mercedes E-Class features a new bumper with diffuser kit and roof spoiler for an extra sporty look.
For performance improvements, Lorinser installed a sports suspension kit to lower the vehicle and enhance its cornering abilities. They hooked up a four piped exhaust system for the proper sound, and included a wheel set with the package. Lorinser offers a wide variety of light alloy rims for the customers preferences. Pricing has not yet been announced for the Lorinser Mercedes-Benz E-Class.


Skip to comments.Bay Area transit up for unprecedented overhaul ( San Francisco )
Posted on 04/19/2010 12:14:29 PM PDT by george76
The 2009 annual report from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is a bombshell, a wake up call, a Klaxon - choose whatever metaphor you like - if you care about public transit ...
It shows, more clearly than any of the reports of budget woes coming from the individual transit agencies, that the entire system is unsustainable. Think the fare hikes and service cuts are bad now? Just wait.
"Looking at it another way, we will fall short of the resources our regional transit system needs by a cool $1 billion a year over the next quarter-century."
Translation: If you are a highly-paid administrator in a Bay Area transit agency, it's time to start polishing your resume.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Lavish public transit systems are a capital-consuming, economic black hole.
Don’t worry, they will make a profit with high speed rail...
I rode BART to the ballpark three times last week. There were very few empty seats. Also took the transbay bus this morning to the drupalcon conference at Moscone. Every seat filled.
Reading the comments section of the article is a hoot. Some of the natives are getting restless and then there are some real gems like:
The solution is obvious.
Just put a tax on fuel equal to every dime spent in the M.E. as well as every penny spent on the Navy maintaining control over the sea lanes for oil delivery.
That 350 billion per year will make private autos useless piles of junk without increasing our actual costs, given that OIL is being subsidized with tax money to that point.
Thus, endless supplies of money for mass transit will be available, since there won’t be an alternative.
Still a good idea. Let the profiteers pay the costs, and we’ll all act with more wisdom.
“the entire service is unsustainable.”
Yes, that IS the problem with socialism. Eventually you run out of other people’s money. Instead, they use confiscated money from non-participant taxpayers to prop things up.
If riders of the transit actually had to pay for the cost of running the system(s), things would be different.
For many, it would not be worth it. Those lines/systems would die off. Because they are not worth it.
For a few, perhaps it would still be worth it. Those systems would thrive, and probably be a lot more responsive to the riders.
Well, a FReeper can dream.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


text:
Toughness—pinpointed as a core attribute by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson in “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority”—is central to the U.S. Navy’s professional identity. The Navy’s “Full Speed Ahead” training amplified the definition of toughness by raising awareness of the mental, physical, spiritual, leadership, and followership attributes it requires. But hidden in plain sight in the Navy’s history is a model for building self and organizational toughness—the life of Admiral David Glasgow Farragut.
Known as the U.S. Navy’s first admiral, Farragut gained fame for his fearless fighting performance. It is no wonder that the sitting President of the United States attended his funeral with General George Meade, who later remarked, “I believe that the Admiral was more beloved than any other commander of the late war, either of the Army or Navy.”1

domain: history


text:
Social change as a source of macrosocial stress: does it enhance nationalistic does it enhance nationalistic attitudes. Does globalization diminish the importance of nationalism thus changes in the world have nationalistic groups who want to preserve their identity fight. The case for nationalism in the demise of the it was economic and nationalistic as the only viable outlet for enforcing change in eastern. Nationalism in africa and the middle east 1900's 1948 1910 during the 1900's nationalist movements brought immense changes to the middle east after wwi. Cassidy: immigration changes tap into a nationalistic populism updated april 21, 2017 13:02:31 the government's immigration changes reflect what donald trump is.
Nationalism and sectionalism after the war which tied to sectionalist events and economic between serbia and austria due to the nationalistic views of the. Aftershocks of 1812: nationalism and censorship in but there are a few other places in the piece that show nationalistic and why did a change need to be. European history/european imperialism and of massive social changes in title=european_history/european_imperialism_and_nationalism&oldid. This article looks at the relationship between shinto and the cause of japanese nationalism and ultra-nationalistic propaganda designed. Small medium large save article sign in to save.
Get an answer for 'what were the characteristics of the strongly nationalistic period in american history from 1815 to 1824 ' and find homework help for. 2 unit 4, the spirit of nationalism authors and works featured in the video: benjamin franklin how did this exclusivity change over time. This essay question deals specifically with analysis of continuities and changes over time and covers at a helpful worksheet for use when doing ccot: ccot_chart. Nationalism: nationalism own internal nationality conflicts and by nationalistic disputes over territory may make some formatting changes or correct spelling.
In this lesson, we will examine changes in africa following world war ii we will discover what factors led to decolonization in the wake of world. The empire and nationalism: henry viii’s role in the we live today in a nationalistic henry viii’s role in the fragmentation of christendom.
Define nationalistic nationalistic synonyms, nationalistic pronunciation, nationalistic translation, english dictionary definition of nationalistic n 1 devotion. In the 16th and 17th cent the nationalistic economic doctrine of fundamental change in the national question and the overcoming of nationalism are not.
The evolution of nationalism in 19th-century europe as the 19th-century was one of great change, it was also one of constant experimentation. Us climate change outlook worsens after further research the strange revival of nationalism in global has taken a nationalistic turn. The winds of change had been felt the tonal era and after: 1600 to the present that had become decadent and some nationalistic reaction in. 164 nationalism, the kosovo crisis, and political the kosovo crisis, and political change in and ultra-nationalistic views continue to enjoy.
A common misconception blames turkish nationalism as the cause of armenian massacres in turkey the ottomans saw how quickly nationalistic feelings spread in the. Nationalism in the 20th century by then came hitler, a man who wished to spread his nationalistic ideas to all of germany. How to make nationalistic values inspiring for students: the pronounced indifference to nationalistic values in the but facts do not change. Nationalism, materialism, and preferences japanese nationalistic feelings grew in parallel some evidence suggests that a change in preference from the. Climate change and the nationalistic march of the lemmings i don't want to spend to many words on the why's and where's. Nationalistic definition dictionarycom unabridged no amount of nationalistic rhetoric or demagoguery on his part will change this perception. According to zitzewitz, however, data from 2003 to 2009 shows that there was no change to the level of nationalistic bias in scoring.Get The change in sectionalist and nationalistic

domain: sociology


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text: It’s fair to say that Tom Hanks is no stranger to winning awards. After all, the Hollywood icon has not only picked up two consecutive Oscars, but he’s also received a Kennedy Center Honor and a Presidential Medal of Freedom during his four-decade-long career. Those are just a few of the star’s many accolades, too. But Hanks certainly doesn’t seem to be blasé about accepting awards if his appearance at the 2020 Golden Globes was anything to go by. It was there, you see, that the actor delivered his most emotional acceptance speech to date – and his words left some in the assembled audience fighting to hold back the tears.

domain: news


text:
Holy Basil/Tulsi (Ocimum sanctum L.) is native throughout the world tropics and widespread as a cultivated plant and an escaped weed. It is cultivated for religious and medicinal purposes and for its essential oil. Tulsi is an important symbol in many Hindu religious traditions, which link the plant with Goddess figure. The name ‘Tulsi in Sanskrit means ‘the incomparable one’. Tulsi is considered to be an adaptogen, balancing different processes in the body, and helpful for adapting to stress. Marked by its strong aroma and astringent taste, it is regarded in Ayurveda as a kind of ‘elixir of life’ and believed to promote longevity. Tulsi extracts are used in Ayurvedic remedies for common colds, headaches, stomach disorders, inflammation, heart disease, various forms of poisoning and malaria.
Traditionally, Tulsi (O. sanctum L.) is taken in many forms, as herbal tea, dried powder or fresh leaf. For centuries, the dried leaves of Tulsi have been mixed with stored grains to repel insects. With so many uses, it is not surprising that ‘Holy Basil +’ is thusly called a ‘God-sent’ made for you by Inner Engineering.
1. Holy Basil + in tea controls your metabolism and helps your body absorb essential nutrients. It helps boost your digestive system which is important for losing weight quickly.
2. It has zero calories that boost your stamina.
3. It helps in skin brightening, in curing skin infections and any sort of skin allergies.
4. Vitamin C & A and phytonutrients are essential oils that are found in Tulsi, which are used as excellent antioxidants that protect the body from premature ageing.
5. It helps in treating insect bites, fever, common cold, sore throat, headaches, kidney stones, Asthma and even heart-diseases.
6. Protects you from respiratory tract infections.
7. It helps manage stress levels.
8. It can act as a catalyst to help quit smoking.

domain: medical


QUEENSBURY, NY- Poststar.com writes that a collision occurred this week that injured a woman from Corinth. The incident took place on Connecticut Avenue and Central Avenue in the morning. The victim, identified as a 65-year-old woman, was traveling west on Central Avenue in a 2017 KIA SUV. The other driver, an 81-year-old man from Ocala, Florida, was heading northbound in a 2012 Honda.
Responders transported the injured woman to the Glens Falls Hospital. Police ticketed the Florida driver for failure to yield.
While drivers may be familiar with stop signs as one of the most common traffic control devices, these signs are not the best way to prevent crashes and create safe roads. In fact, traffic lights are also not particularly effective at making roads safe. Many motorists would likely be surprised to learn that when a traffic signal is installed at an intersection, rates of speeding actually increase. This is probably the result of drivers feeling the need to catch a green light.
More effective ways to slow traffic include speed bumps and curb extensions. These types of mechanisms prove better able to slow traffic down and reduce risks for road users than are signs and signals.
Similarly, roundabouts have proven better at preventing collisions than are traditional traffic control devices. The rate of deadly crashes, in particular, drastically declines when roundabouts are used. The reason is at least in part because drivers going through these traffic features are all traveling the same direction, and are forced to slow down. Pedestrians also fare better when roundabouts replace cross-section intersections with traffic lights or stop signs.
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text:
Living Life in Costa Rica Part 3: The National Park
November 13, 2019
The first thing I noticed when I arrived in Cahuita was how small it was. There were a total of maybe 5 streets, comprised of some colourful, but very modest houses that were all partially hidden by jungle vegetation. I think I saw more flora and fauna the first few days I was there than I have in my entire life. What I’d always suspected was hereby confirmed: nature is a concept unknown to a true Belgian citizen.
I soon discovered that people usually only stay in Cahuita for a couple of days, most likely to visit the national park, which is one of the biggest in the country. Other than that, there isn’t much to do besides wander around, go to the beach or sit in your car (a strange habit of the locals here, or so it seems). Although I was curious and excited to explore, in hindsight I can’t say this village appealed to me; I thought there was a bit of an awkward combination of local and touristy vibes going on. Not that it mattered, because I wasn’t going to be there for long anyway and our Airbnb, on the other hand, was lovely and the perfect place to adapt to a new environment.
Speaking of adapting, jetlag wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. I did fall asleep around 8pm, but in my defense, the sun goes down here at 5:30pm! Quite naturally I’ve gotten into the habit of rising early, which I’m enjoying. I think I can officially call myself a morning person now, who would’ve thought this day would come.
The highlight of my stay in Cahuita was obviously visiting the national park (never been in one of those) and swimming in the Caribbean sea for the first time! This may sound stupid but I was kind of afraid to do both of these (being ill for a prolonged period of time will do that to you), but I was (and still am) determined to do everything I can think of that scares me, because I’m sick of being overly cautious or, you know, a pussy.
Going into the park I did take all precautions I could think of: hiking boots (& socks!) on, fully covered in anti-mosquito spray, medical kit in my backpack, food and water for days… Although I did dare to go in without a guide, because I care even more about saving money than I do about not dying. No, I’m joking, it just seemed unnessecary, as we weren’t set on spotting EVERY animal in the forest on our first try.
Anyway, when I saw almost everyone around me walking around in swimsuits and flip flops (actual 2-year-olds were going in barefoot), I realized that perhaps I had taken it just a little too far. The Internet and my family sure know how to frighten someone! But alas, we weren’t attacked by jaguars or strangled by snakes. We did, however, saw some cute monkeys (dear god, run), lots of lizards, raccoons and even a sloth. The most spectacular thing was when we saw a mother monkey teaching her little one how to succesfully jump from branch to branch. Can you believe seeing this in the wild right before your eyes?? I was stunned, to say the least.
Now, back to the Caribbean sea part! Just to be clear: I love oceans, but I’m also kind of terrified of them. Not to the point that I won’t go in, but I’ll probably be swimming in fear if I can’t feel the ground beneath my feet. That was before I even entered an ocean that has sharks as inhabitants. However, I’m proud to tell you that this didn’t stop me from going in and fully enjoying the experience. As a matter of fact, the Caribbean sea and its beaches are fantastic and I could not. get. enough.
If you’ve made it this far, I salute you! My next diary entry will be about Puerto Viejo, which is where I gradually turned into a pirate. Or a mermaid. Take your pick.Don't forget to share!

domain: geography


text:
Costa Rica’s Tropical Coastline
A guide to some of our favourite beaches
While the incredible wildlife and adventure activities are undeniably a major draw for travellers to Costa Rica, most Bushbaby clients are also keen to include some downtime by the beach. Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, with more than 800 miles of tropical coastline, Costa Rica has no shortage of beautiful beaches to choose from, but where do you start? Here’s a quick guide to some of our favourites:
Playa Manuel Antonio
The beach for wildlife enthusiasts!
Playa Manuel Antonio lies within the National Park flanked by coastal tropical forest which is home to howler, squirrel and white-faced capuchin monkeys, sloths, iguanas and coatis. Manuel Antonio National Park is one of Costa Rica’s smallest reserves, but also one of the most popular so it can get very busy, particularly during high season (Nov-Apr). We suggest booking a guided visit early in the morning when the temperatures are cooler and the wildlife at its most active.
To protect the coastline, most hotels are built up high on the headland like Parador Resort & Spa but they offer shuttles down to the beach and National Park. If budget allows, Arenas Del Mar enjoys an unbeatable setting nestled within an 11-acre reserve and boasting direct access to not one but two beautiful beaches!
Playa Santa Teresa
The beach for sunset seekers!
The small town of Santa Teresa, on the tip of the remote Nicoya Peninsula, has a laid-back boho vibe, popular with surfers and yoga lovers alike. Its beautiful expanse of white sand beach is the perfect spot to watch the incredible sunsets and gathering early evening to enjoy a sundowner with friends has become a daily ritual here!
Nantipa is one of the best addresses in Santa Teresa offering barefoot luxury right on the beach. Head to the hotel’s Manzu Restaurant and grab a hammock or bean bag on the beach for prime sunset viewing while sipping on one of the hotel’s signature cocktails!
The beach for blissful relaxation!
Islita’s pristine beach is set in a small, secluded bay on the Nicoya Peninsula, a short drive from Samara along the winding coast road. Unspoilt and remote, this is the ideal setting to unwind and reconnect. The protected bay is suitable for swimming, although currents can be strong at times.
Built on a hillside, Punta Islita offers spectacular views over the Pacific Ocean, while down on the beach, the hotel’s Aura Beach Club has a restaurant, family pool, loungers and private cabanas for lazy days in the sun. Horse riding on the beach can also be arranged for an additional charge.
Playa Guinoes, Nosara
The beach for keen surfers!
Backed by tropical forest and protected by a ‘Green Zone’, there is no development directly on this beach, just a wide 7km arc of golden sand with a consistent surf break year-round. There is no shortage of surf schools in the little town so whether you’re a pro or a beginner, this is the place to embrace the surf scene and ride the wave!
Away from the surf, Nosara is the ideal destination for nature lovers. Home to the Ostional Wildlife Refuge, one of the world’s most important nesting sites for the Olive Ridley Turtles, visitors may be lucky to witness an arribada (mass sea turtle nesting) which take place from July-November, depending on the cycle of moon.
A 5-minute drive from the beach, perched on a hill, Lagarta Lodge undeniably boasts the best views in the area and admiral eco-credentials with its own private nature reserve and magnificent mangroves which guests can explore by foot or electric boat.
Playa Papagayo, Peninsula Papagayo
The beach for water activities!
Situated on the northern Pacific Coast, the Peninsula Papagayo offers 11-miles of coastline with its waters offering the opportunity to enjoy a plethora of activities from stand-up paddle, to kayaking, surfing and jet skiing. Bahía Culebra is a sheltered bay with soft sand and clear blue waters ideal for swimming and snorkelling.
The Peninsula is home to luxury resorts such as the Four Seasons and Andaz which feature exclusive Beach Clubs with pools, dining and a whole host of water sports to keep even the most active family busy.
Please note: Costa Rica is blessed with beautiful beaches but many are wild and remote with strong currents which aren’t suitable for swimming. There are a few popular snorkelling spots off the coast, however you usually have to take a boat trip to reach the reef so more suited to confident swimmers.
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domain: travel