Vatican plants trees in environmental penance

The Pope has been vocal lately on environmental issues, encouraging Catholics to get out of environmental limbo, and now an article in the IHT reports that an island will be reforested in Hungary to offset the Vatican's carbon emissions. This would probably make it the first carbon neutral country, albeit a small one. Policy Innovations recently covered the complexity of the new carbon offset industry. Forestry projects are especially difficult to calculate accurately. Perhaps Benedict was reflecting on the contrasting fates depicted in Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (1504).