Environmentalists get it backwards

In today's Opinion Journal Political Diary, Brendan Miniter writes:

Exhibit A is Boulder, where officials voted recently to make their county "climate neutral" by 2025. The idea is for the county -- a hot bed of environmental activism -- to produce no net waste by becoming more energy efficient and by offsetting any greenhouse gases it creates by planting trees and funding other "green" programs. How to do this? One idea already on the table is to require contractors to use both sides of the paper they use to submit bids. "We've got a long way to go," Commissioner Ben Pearlman said in late November after voting to move the county toward climate neutrality, "but it is very exciting." . . .

Of course, decreasing the demand for paper causes a drop in the price of paper and a drop in the number of trees planted. Younger trees grow faster and absorb more CO2 than older trees.