XM MLB Chat: Kiosks open at San Francisco airport selling 'carbon offsets' for non-existent global warming

Goldman Sachs 'Carbon Desk' approves

Commenter: ""Carbon credits are like a fat man paying a skinny man to lose weight for him. So all you gullible folks swipe that card if it makes you feel better. It'll make somebody else rich. Probably ALGORE"

(SF Gate): "Travelers flying out of San Francisco International Airport can be the first in the nation to wipe away some of the damage their flights wreak on the planet by swiping their credit cards.

On Thursday, the Bay Area's largest airport unveiled three Climate Passport kiosks with touch screens that determine how many pounds of carbon dioxide a trip will produce, calculate the sum an environmentally conscious traveler should contribute to projects in San Francisco and California that help reduce greenhouse gases, then allow fliers to purchase certified carbon offsets.

"We realize people are going to fly," said Steve McDougal, executive vice president of 3Degrees, a San Francisco company that helped SFO develop the program. "This gives them something they can do to reduce their impact. This is just one of many small things people need to do."...

Climate Passport contributions fund the Garcia River Forest, a reforestation project in Mendocino County where redwood and Douglas fir trees are being added to a forest that had been heavily logged.

They also go to the SFCarbon Fund,

which is steering the money to Dogpatch Biofuels, a bio-diesel fueling station in southeastern San Francisco."

From Reuters by Gavin Newsom:

"The offsets for Climate Passport customers, supplied by San Francisco-based carbon firm 3Degrees, are currently sourced from the Garcia River Forest, a conservation-based forest management project located in Mendocino County, Calif.... Offsets from the Garcia River Forest Project are

third-party verified against the Climate Action Reserve’s

rigorous, transparent and comprehensive forestry protocol."

Climate Action Reserve is in the trading business, like a stock or commodities market:

3/17/09: "The Voluntary Carbon Standard Association, which launched trading services in November, is finally adding a global registry to its services.

However, a key component of the registry that would allow carbon offsets to be traded across multiple registries has been delayed because of technical problems, Reuters reports.

Traders of carbon offsets have awaited such a system that would provide transparent tracking and trading of Voluntary Carbon Units (VCUs).

David Antonioli, CEO of the association, said the system will enable companies to know their VCUs aren’t being double-sold and make them more tradable.

The system ideally will allow VCUs to be transferred across registries, a feature that might save buyers from having to open accounts in different registries. However, more news on this feature will not be available at least until April 1, Antonioli said.

A criticism of the carbon offset market is that some offsets have been double-traded. Last April, the California Climate Action Registry launched Climate Action Reserve to create voluntary carbon market standards in the United States.

Last fall, Point Carbon put out a paper addressing what it called

“significant market confusion regarding the

complex relationship between the renewable energy
and carbon markets.”"

And finally, inevitably Goldman Sachs appears:

“We are enthusiastic about the work the Reserve is doing because it provides increased certainty about investing in this sector” said Ken Newcombe, Managing Director and

Head of U.S. Carbon Desk, Goldman Sachs.

About Climate Action Reserve

The Climate Action Reserve is a division of the California Climate Action Registry that provides accurate and transparent measurement, verification, and tracking of greenhouse gas reduction projects and their inventories of greenhouse gas reduction tons assuring a high degree of environmental integrity in the voluntary carbon reduction market. http://www.climateregistry.org/offsets"