Universities could use their massive land holdings to offset carbon in their own backyard. My Piece in The Conversation is based on Jiaqian Wang’s work. The figure panel a) below shows how arable land stores the least amount of carbon per surface area, while panel b) shows that most of the current land use at Newcastle University’s Nafferton and Cockle Park farms is arable. Panel c) shows how medieval slash and burn agriculture created a boundary between agricultural land and woodland at Nafferton farm, that leaves trees only in the most inaccessible places such as Whittle Dene.