Climate-smart forestry (CSF) has recently emerged as a ‘hot topic’ in the U.S. forestry community. Forest development, the health benefits of forests, and other forest products and services are long-term goals. Finally, CSFs enable forests and communities to adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Forests are considered an important part of the carbon cycle and play a key role in controlling, mitigating, and adapting to climate change. Poor forest management accounts for 17% of global carbon emissions. However, forests are likely to contribute approximately 10% of estimated global emissions between 2024 and 2050. Additionally, forest products continue to store carbon even after deforestation, and their shelf life varies depending on how long they have been used. CSF's mission is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve forest management to achieve efficient and sustainable forest products and services. Afforestation and reforestation (AR) on marginal lands is a natural solution to climate change. There is a gap in understanding the potential of augmented reality for conservation and commercial use to influence forest management and the use of trees for climate change mitigation. Here, we summarize these differences to assess 100-year economic and conservation realities (known and new) across different cropping and thinning systems using quality of life and various survival measures. The new AR industry can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from wood products (CLT) and biochar (3.73 × 3.69 GtCO2e) over 100 years compared to the anti-AR industry (3.35 × 3.69 GtCO2-eq.) and augmented reality. This resulted in a reduction of 4.15 Gt of CO2 emissions, especially in the study area. Forests, which store more carbon than produce CO2 (3.17 to 3.51 GtCO2e), are cold and dry and have variable soil binding sites and CLT odors. In the short term (approximately 50 years), eliminating AR would lead to greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.