Rick Bass

In the real-time here-and-now, however, though also operating in broad daylight, is another kind of sedition. Climate change — the nation’s and the world’s number-one national security threat. On Earth Day, President Biden issued an executive order to the Department of Agriculture, which includes the U.S. Forest Service, as well as Department of Interior, to inventory for protection all old and mature forests on the public lands. Old forests are carbon-storing miracles, and in the fight to slow climate change, we don’t have time to cut them down and wait centuries for the possibility of such giants arising once. How great are these old forests at keeping carbon in the ground? The largest 1% of trees in a forest can hold up to 50% of the forest’s carbon.