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.
OK, I’ve had it with this kind of rip off and me not getting any due to having a moral compass.
Time to compromise my values.
We need a carbon offset website with paypal billing, some way to automatically buy the carbon offsets from the exchange at nearly nothing a ton, and a BIG poster at the airport: “Buy your carbon offsets from your cell phone! $x/ton and instant service while you wait in the line, or the lounge!”
No staff, no labor cost, all automated.
Anyone up to fund this puppy?
Ka-Ching! (Will sell soul for $1,000,000+ tbd 1/2 :-}
3 decades ago, they sold us on margarine for health reasons and now they are trying to ban it for the same reasons. Years from now, they will PAY you for every ton of CO2 emitted, when they accept the fact, doubling CO2 increases some crops by as much as a third.
Personally, I think this is just a giant experiment to determine how many actually stupid people exist and how far they can take such hoaxs. When people will allow the air, they breathe, to be taxed, or they will pay for it, then nothing is too far fetched for the modern day snake-oilers.
Michael D Smith (18:42:37) :
I don’t think I’ve ever quoted myself here, but after posting that previous message and thinking about how valuable such a golden goose machine could be, it occurred to me that such a network of machines, selling overpriced carbon credits, could actually be the mechanism for finally getting AGW into court. Someone would feel hoodwinked by their guilty conscience’s decision to support a CO2 tariff / offset, and find out it was sold on an exchange for virtually nothing, and the profits went into MY POCKET. I am falling in love with this idea, WOW!!!
Consider me the first documented case ever of a skeptic turning into an alarmist. It’s over folks, signing out, buying machines now. Hmm, which bank to choose. CO2 is BAAAAD! Yaaaaayyyyy!
It’s been an hour now. Can I sue you yet? 🙂
I love the idea of taking money away from eco geeks by using their own religion against them. It’s so Alinsky-ish.
Say what you will, but it works. Best thing about it, it can work either direction.
It’s been an hour now. Can I sue you yet?
It’s only been a microsecond in geologic terms, sir… perhaps you have underestimated the effects I am describing. While the market for CO2 offsets seems to be in a bit of a funk, we also make a market in sea level rise, polar bear offsets, and ocean de-acidification, all of which seem to mesh very well with the personality traits we have determined from your previous responses here. Now, how can we be of assistance? What a gold mine! Oops. Are gold mines bad?
3×2 (18:17:24) :
philincalifornia (17:49:58) :
Does it have a Kilner bank?
————————-
Yes, of course.
It’s also the area that was the centre (center even) of the Luddite revolution – at least when the real action started.
With regard to AGW – you’ve probably read some of my posts over there. Just doing my duty and spreading the word. I get the impression from the responses (i.e. 100% of them) that they already know it’s a crock.
I’m also in a large e-mail group of UK current and ex-chemistry professionals, spread out throughout the world. They probably also don’t need my barrage of data – but they get it anyway (mostly culled from WUWT and its links).
Spread the word.
philincalifornia (23:11:08) :
3×2 (18:17:24)
Me Dad were from ‘Uddersfield – Slaithwaite!
At this time only the AGW faithful will buy these things, the trouble will come when it becomes manditory for all to buy them. Its a SCAM!
ps should I have put a comma in there somewhere?
Ian
canberra
“One born every minute.”
How about: “Never give a sucker an even break.” (c/o W.C. Fields)
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philincalifornia (17:49:58) :
FAO 3X2
“Yes again, and on the right side of the Yorkshire/Lancashire border !!!”
I may be prejudiced, but it sounds like the wrong side to me.
I don’t like to say ‘I told you so’, but here is an extract from my Carbon Credit article, written in November 2008 – before the UK had even gone into recession.
Quote:
Meanwhile, back at the financial dealing desks for Carbon Credits, another commodity is about to crash. But perhaps I should not use the term ‘commodity’, for Carbon Credits (CCs) are an abstract construct that have even less contact with the real world than our over-inflated monetary systems. If there was ever an emperor with no clothes, it is a carbon trader declaring that a CC is worth £30 or £20 or £10, or any other figure that he or she may invent. CCs are a new pyramid selling scheme, that only survives as long as someone is promoting it and as long as there are more gullible customers pilling into this new market. But there are not. A small element of science is beginning to doubt the Global Warming trends, fraud has destabilised the Carbon Trading market, and a global recession will flood this already unsteady market with millions of unwanted CCs. The price of a CC is about to fall through the floor, and I expect that the whole concept of a Carbon Trading market will fall over the cliff with it.
.
But I am going to anyway – ‘told you so’.
.
>>>Amazing! This is just like buying an indulgence in the
>>>Middle Ages. In this case we seem to have changed one
>>>religion for another.
Hmmmm. Is there a similarity here?
Roderic Borgia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pope_Alexander_Vi.jpg
Al Gore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Al_Gore.jpg
.
For the unfamiliar Roderic Borgia (aka (Pope Alexander VI) was perhaps the most corrupt of the corrupt Catholic popes, selling indulgencies by the million and keeping a veritable harem of busty belles.
.
Selling to the stupid rich always was a good business proposition.
>>>Wow, a machine that takes people’s money and
>>>gives them absolutely nothing in return? And people
>>>put money in it?
>>>Is this a great country or what?
Hey, newcomer, you are WAY behind the drag-curve on this one – in fact nearly 2000 years behind. Here is the same machine, but circa AD 50 from Alexandria, Egypt.
http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/hero/section21.html
Made by Hero (Heron) of Alexandria, it dispensed holy water at a hugely inflated price, for the benefit of the priesthood. (Probably the same water that was available outside in the horse-trough).
Guilt for money – it works every time – [snip; best not go there ~ Evan].
.
Allan M (03:00:36) :
I may be prejudiced, but it sounds like the wrong side to me.
————-
It’s the right side if you look on a map !!!!!!!
But to put it back in context, let’s put the Wars of the Roses thing aside, and focus our combined abilities to bear long-term grudges on the carbon offset scammers, shall we ?
commodity markets and speculators—they know there’s a sucker born every minute
From the website on where the money goes:
“The cost per ton for offsets purchased through the Climate Passport Carbon Calculator is $13.50. For every ton you purchase, $12.00 goes to purchasing carbon offsets from the Garcia River Forest Project as well as covering costs associated with locating, researching, and verifying high quality projects as well as the other general operating costs typically incurred by any organization. The remaining $1.50 goes to the San Francisco Carbon Fund to support local San Francisco carbon reduction projects.”
[snip – ad hom speculation]
I think that the kiosk is a great idea! It leaves the ignorant with less money to support the dangerous organizations such and the Sierra Club abd Green Peace.
If you truly beleived in AGW or the Green Mantra you just would not fly— no real need.
Paying offsets is a bit like a paedohpile puting $20 in the school fund and saying its OK— NO its not!
Just another example of its OK for us, but not for you
ralph (07:10:15) :
[snip]
I’m surprised this kind of talk is allowed here.
[REPLY – You have a point. It is snipped (including, of course, your copy of it). ~ Evan]
philincalifornia (08:06:58) :
Allan M (03:00:36) :
I may be prejudiced, but it sounds like the wrong side to me.
————-
It’s the right side if you look on a map !!!!!!!
But to put it back in context, let’s put the Wars of the Roses thing aside, and focus our combined abilities to bear long-term grudges on the carbon offset scammers, shall we ?
————
Just having fun.
I have heard that the only thing which will unite a Lancastrian and a Yorkshireman is the threat from the south. I shall imagine that carbon offsets are based in Surrey.
Allan M (13:37:52) :
Me too, just havin’ fun.
Somehow though, I really do feel that I will not be able to resist poking fun at THEM for many years to come, sometimes with the vitriol associated with having had to pay the bogus airline taxes for flying into and out of the U.K.
I’ll go with Sussex (that just came to mind after I checked the county cricket scores for today).
philincalifornia (13:57:25) :
At least the Championship came north!
Alright – Alright.
Now I’m lookin’ at the map from the south here, and the only thing between Lancaster and Yorkshire is Cowthorpe Plompton on an Oxton, a Cattail, and a Biggen Wighill.
And iffen you guys can’t squeeze a carbon credit from udderneath a ton of cowthrowpn’ onna Wighill, you need to stop complainin’ around start diggin’ under de cow before the Moorends…..
RACookPE (23:27:47) :
“Alright – Alright.
Now I’m lookin’ at the map from the south here, and the only thing between Lancaster and Yorkshire is Cowthorpe Plompton on an Oxton, a Cattail, and a Biggen Wighill.
And iffen you guys can’t squeeze a carbon credit from udderneath a ton of cowthrowpn’ onna Wighill, you need to stop complainin’ around start diggin’ under de cow before the Moorends……”
—
Nah. It’s symbolic.
RACookPE (23:27:47) :
Any road, them carbon offset sellers is just warzeling slamtrash.
And round ‘ere, credit is only given to folk over the age of 80 when accompanied by both parents.
Jack Simmons (13:37:47) :
tallbloke (10:03:21) :
A fool and his money are easily parted.
I understand everything except: where did the fool get the money in the first place?
Probably from you, Jack. And Tallbloke and me and everyone else on this blog. Once it had been taken from us by the taxman, of course.