Vermont forest land is taking on a new and valuable role in an age of global warming. That's as an environment that soaks up some of the excess carbon in the atmosphere.

Now a University of Vermont researcher has come up with a dollar figure to assign to that new role and it's upward of a billion dollars.

University of Vermont professor William Keeton says foresters and land owners ought to be able to sell carbon credits to industries like electric utilities that put carbon into the atmosphere.

That's because trees and plant life on forest floors take up carbon from the atmosphere and convert it into leaves and wood, locking up the carbon until the leaves or wood burn or decay.