According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the SFO airport has now installed carbon offset purchase kiosks so that you can remove the guilt from your flight. Only one problem. The carbon offsets sold by kiosk sell at a rate that is about 60 times what carbon credits are actually selling for on the market now. There’s no frequent flyer polluter discount either.
Here’s what the kiosk start screen looks like according to the company website:
You can run the kiosk interactively yourself here. Let’s say you chose the “Use Typical Flight Distances” option. This is the screen you’d get:
If I chose the medium range flight at 2000 miles, the cost would be 11.44 for 1869 pounds of CO2 that is estimated to be emitted on my behalf. That works out to about $12.24 per ton of CO2.
Here’s the rub, you can buy a ton of carbon offset on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) for 20 cents. That’s about 60 times less than what you would pay at the SFO kiosk!
Here’s the closing numbers from CCX yesterday:
From CCX: Price and volume reported in metric tons CO2. Change based on previous day’s closing price.
P.T. Barnum would be proud.
UPDATE: Maybe they set the price last year during early planning when carbon was at $7 per ton?
It appears there was a big selloff last Friday, when investors got wind of a major suspension by the UN before it hit the press. On Sept 11th, there were 292,500 transactions (largest in over a month) and the price fell from the previous day closing price of 25 cents:
The Sunday Times has the story:
The legitimacy of the $100 billion (£60 billion) carbon-trading market has been called into question after the world’s largest auditor of clean-energy projects was suspended by United Nations inspectors.
No wonder carbon offsets are falling to 20 cents a ton. Coal is still much more valuable at 40-50 dollars a ton.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Selling carbon credits has clearly led to the recovery of Arctic ice this year.
(You know it’s coming)
Not so sure on this one. Fact is if there is a demand there will at some time be a supply. As long as this firm and others function on market terms and not by public subsidies or government contracts…. then what is the harm?
Its like people paying for stuff i don’t personally care about. Its their choice and as long as it is not done ‘collectively’ it does not harm my wallet. I can agree that I would never myself pay for this product and find it ridiculous – but if a ‘tree-hugger’ sleeps better at night…. then I couldn’t care less – other than having one more amusing thing to laugh at.
Silly waste of money and ineficient allocation of personal ressources? Yes.
A scam? No. Only if in fact the firm does not spend the majority of potential profits and a significant part of revenue on reforestation does it constitute a scam.
And just as a minor point. Unless one would argue that the carbon offset market is an efficient market it hardly constitutes a fair or reasonable benchmark.
Even if we would stretch our imagination and take the carbon offset market as efficient it is for a global market whereas the underlying market and thus costs for this specific firm is local. Nothing wrong with reforestation being more expensive in California than in other parts of the world. That this imply inefficient use of the revenue stream is merely another thing to be amused about.
Why are “vintage” ’09 and’10 more valuable than previous years ?
There is a sucker born every minute, fill them with guilt and fear and then offer them redemption(at a price) and they are putty in your hands, the snake oil salesmen did their business in the same way in the old west, the dark ages priesthood made a killing for centuries.
The carpet bagger capitalists set this scam up to net billions, creaming off the wealth of an entire civilisation like a Chicago mob, money talks.
The sucker pays up, the polititians get their cut, its the numbers game from 1920s Chicago, the gangsters get rich and the mug sucker gets fleeced, its as old as civilisation.
Where there is easy money to be made, the carpet bagger camp followers are never far behind, where the herd goes the wolves follow. The poltical classes have found that by enlisting the foolish,the gullible,the naive,the fanatical,the cynical,the crooked in a giant cartel they can rig the roulette wheel/slots to jackpot every time.
The masses pay the price of course, they suffer so the few can gorge themselves on wealth and power, some things never change.
Clever enterprising people taking money from stupid, self-loathing, naiive people is a good thing. The market system working correctly.
Great idea. A fine life insurance company sold travel insurance also from machines. It is incredibly cheap to buy insurance from a regular source for a term policy.
Much of this ordeal is grounded on creating guilt feelings.
This is a brilliant scam!
What’s more, it is almost certainly legal, especially given its location.
Where can I buy one of these machines? That’s what I call profit margin, AWESOME!!!
The Clean Air Conservancy provides an on-line emissions calculator and way to “retire the equivalent amount in CO2 emission reduction credits” using PayPal.
http://www.cleanairconservancy.org/calculator_air_info.php
By their calculation a 2,000 mile airline flight generates 0.36 metric tons of CO2 compared to Climate Passport’s 0.85 metric tons. Even if Climate Passport’s calculation is based on a round-trip (4,000 miles total — the web site is unclear on this point) the numbers still don’t match.
Plus, the Clean Air Conservancy charges “only” $7.27/ton to retire the credits.
At best Climate Passport is a high priced impulse purchase. At worst it short changes the environment by over charging for its product. Put another way, it’s ripping off the environment.
It’s too bad I have a conscience… I was all prepared to get into this kind of thing a few years back. I suspect that ANYone doing this is soon enough exposed to the reality, but some people choose to go ahead with it anyway.
Personally, I find it repugnant, disgusting, foul manipulation (fleecing) of the ignorant.
So is SFO the only airport with such a ‘convenience’? I can’t imagine so. Can’t wait to hear which US region has the most gullible travelers.
The guy marketed ‘Pet Rocks’ made a Fortune. But at least you got a rock out of the deal!
Definately circulatating this story!!!!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2343017/posts
Thanks Anthony!
I read elsewhere that the average American uses about 40,000 lbs of CO2 a year – about 20 tons, if I recall the correct conversion. At 20 cents a ton, that works out to $4.00 a year for the average American.
I’m surprised there is any market at all for CO2 at the moment, especially among private citizens. Actually, I take that back. For $100 you could pay for your carbon footprint for the next 25 years. I’m surprised all the believers of AGW are not jumping on this low cost to pay off their guilty conscious for much of the rest of their life – or even using the low market as a sales gimmick to try to get the federal government to add a new $5 annual carbon tax per person in each household (or perhaps added to each household’s electric bill). The extra dollar is to cover overhead. At about 300+ million people in the US it should be more than enough – even taking government inefficiency and inflation over the next decade or so into account.
“That’s about 60 times less than…”
Arrrgh!
I know that phrasing has become commonplace these days. But every time I read that type of mathematically illiterate construct it just makes me cringe. I suppose ‘1/60th’ just doesn’t command attention. Why, that’s HUGELY smaller! It’s ENORMOUSLY tiny by comparison.
As to the actual point of the post, while you and I might think this usurious, why don’t we just call it what it is: A Stupidity Tax.
MikeW
This is awesome! I now know that I have an additional entertainment source when waiting for a flight at SFO: Laughing at the morons who use this kiosk.
No. P.T. Barnum would be jealous as hell. You can also buy them on Ebay.
There’s one born every minute…… a sucker that is.
Come in Spinner!!!!!
So what? Sucker born every minute. I only wish I had thought of it first.
Free markets.
Buyer Beware.
This is a non-story.
Overpriced, yes, but how much guilt can you assuage for 20 cents? Our carbon sins are so great that we have to be punished for them!
Hey, it just occurred to me: a kiosk that could also administer a good spanking should make a fortune. 🙂
We have a government department called the SFO in Britain
Any guesses.
http://www.sfo.gov.uk/
I’ve got a deal for the folks inclined to buy credits from this kiosk or other similar ones. Go ahead and calculate your cost. Then multiple that amount by 2 and send me the sum in American dollars. You will feel twice as good about your efforts. I will plant a tree for every check over $15 I receive and another for each additional $25. I am primarily interested in wildlife habitat for small birds, raptors, and small mammals and for an additional $5 I will send you a digital photo taken by me (provide your e-mail address on your check) from one of the three categories mentioned – your choice, of course. I also have a very nice photo of a cinnamon-colored black bear available for $25 and will plant a huckleberry bush for him if your check clears.
Thanks for all your help, John.
Paraphase from the Simpsons.
Homer: Well the Bear Patrol is sure working out well, not a bear in sight
Lisa: Dad that is like saying this rock is a Tiger Repelling Rock because there are no Tigers around
Homer: How much for that rock?
If you are going to buy something that does not do anything, it may as well be overpriced.
It’s strictly a voluntary transaction. It’s the best of the free market at work. Someone is providing something that some buyers (not me!) value. IMO, a fool and his moeny are soon parted, but I still say more power to ’em if they can buy carbon credits for next to nothing and sell them for a bundle.
However, Harold Vance (09:32:21) :, makes this excellent observation.
“Why does this market need a middle man? If one is going to give away money to a cause, why not just send the check straight to a favorite charity that promotes reforestation? The middle man is totally unnecessary here.”
Government, more and more, is playing the role of middleman in activities that aren’t really any business of government order to take a cut of the action. Sadly, that’s just the way it is nowadays.
The higher price appears to be using what is called a convenience mark-up or in some cases, an admitted tacked on convenience fee. I am attending Lewis and Clark for some administrators classes. You can pay your tuition online. If you use a direct account method there is no extra charge. If you use a credit card, there is an added convenience fee of between 3 and 5% of tuition. Kiosks are nearly always placed in a busy area for convenience purposes and therefore have to rent the space they sit in, be serviced regularly, and so on. The added price of carbon offsets included increased overhead, convenience, profit margin, and just because they can.
I agree that this isn’t that big of a deal. There are literally hundreds of ways to stupidly waste one’s money at a major airport – supplemental rental car insurance, anyone? Adding one more shouldn’t make much of a difference.
It’s basically an automated version of a person seeking charitable contributions for a particular cause. I wonder if we’ll start seeing WWF or Oxfam kiosks next?