A Sure-Fire Moneymaking Scheme

Whenever people start doing stupid things, I like to figure out what the best way is to make money off of their stupidity. One area that I think offers a lot of potential is in the area of carbon offsets, where rich liberals and the companies who fear them are giving people money to neutralize their carbon footprint -- frequently by doing something like planting trees or capturing methane.

Many organizations that offer carbon offsets are planting new trees that take a while to get big -- they're not as good at being CO₂ scrubbers as a big tree. My idea is this -- buy some land that already has trees, and sell "Mature Tree Saving" carbon offsets to gullible celebrities; that is, if the celebrity pays you enough money, you won't cut down the trees you own. The effect on net worldwide carbon is the same as planting many more new trees. The best thing is, you can sell the rights to save the same trees multiple times by not specifying the length of time the offset is good for, or by using strange units of time in the contracting language. ("This offset will ensure 10 mature trees will be left unmolested for one (1) Jovian diurnal cycle.") If they buy into that, you can expand into methane reduction offsets -- buy a cow (it can graze in your forest), and if the celebrity gives you enough money, you'll kill the cow so it won't emit methane anymore. As an added bonus, you get to eat the cow!