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What's the deal with carbon trading? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. He's given
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  Speaker 1: a little salute. I did. That was good stuff you
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  Speaker 1: should know. Army Sir, supporting for duty. I need a
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  Speaker 1: beard and a cigar. Yes, yeah, Chuck. How you doing
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  Speaker 1: wet like castro? Okay? Thanks? You know me way too well. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I'm doing great, Josh you I'm great, Chuck on the show.
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  Speaker 1: What's your witty set up here? I don't have a
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  Speaker 1: wity setup. It's more of a depressing setup. All right,
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  Speaker 1: it's here. Um. Obama finally conceded that the energy bill
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  Speaker 1: that Congress is going to pass under his first year
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  Speaker 1: or so of the administration is not going to have
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  Speaker 1: a cap and trade segment to it. No. No, it
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  Speaker 1: was going to the House passed at some thing with it. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The Senate's like, no, we're not going to. We just
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  Speaker 1: don't want to. We're not going to. It's not that
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  Speaker 1: there's anything wrong with it, but we're the Senate, so
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  Speaker 1: nothing's ever going to escape. This is like the black
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  Speaker 1: hole of legislation. Nothing can escape it, you know. Um,
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  Speaker 1: So cap and trade is dead and that's um really sad,
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  Speaker 1: as we'll see, because it can be beneficial, at least
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  Speaker 1: in theory. Um. And as a result, all of these
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  Speaker 1: voluntary initiatives, because it was going to be a mandatory
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  Speaker 1: cap and trade um set up for the United States,
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of voluntary stuff. Specifically out West, there was
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  Speaker 1: a regional cap and trade scheme that was going on
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  Speaker 1: or about to go on, and the whole thing was
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  Speaker 1: proposed and underwritten by Arizona because its greatest champion. And
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  Speaker 1: now that the Senate is like, no, we're not passing this,
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  Speaker 1: Arizona is like, by the way, we don't really want
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  Speaker 1: to do this voluntary falling apart. Um, there's a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of them falling apart. It looks like the only one
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  Speaker 1: that's knew that hasn't been set up yet it's still
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  Speaker 1: going forward as California. Well, of course, yeah, wow, that's disappointing.
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  Speaker 1: It is. And do you think we should let everybody
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  Speaker 1: in on what cap and trade scheme means? Yes, Josh,
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about carbon and it's basically a way to
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  Speaker 1: regulate carbon emissions through a market based much like you
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  Speaker 1: know any market basing like the stock market, except it's
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  Speaker 1: limiting carbon emissions. So what you do is you set
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  Speaker 1: a cap. That's the cap part, which is the limit
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  Speaker 1: of emissions you're allowed to admit as as a factory,
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  Speaker 1: let's say. And then the trade part comes in because
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  Speaker 1: you can if you don't use all of your emissions credits,
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  Speaker 1: let's say, you can bank them or you can trade
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  Speaker 1: them and sell them with your with your factory buddies. Right,
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  Speaker 1: there's a good way to say. That's exactly. It's perfect.
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  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, Thank you, Chuck, Brian, everybody. So, um,
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  Speaker 1: there's a regional UM cap and trade scheme up in
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  Speaker 1: the Northeast that's been fairly successful so far. No huh,
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  Speaker 1: the northeastern states, like in New England, among I think
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  Speaker 1: electrical utilities, and it's voluntary UM and basically what so
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  Speaker 1: you have a body that's governing this and then they say,
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  Speaker 1: like they said, a cap, like you said, and let's
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  Speaker 1: just pull the number out of there. They can. All
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  Speaker 1: of the people who are members of this, all the
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  Speaker 1: electrical companies there are members of this combined are allowed
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  Speaker 1: to admit a hundred million metric tons of carbon dioxide
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  Speaker 1: next to you, and you're just making up that number, right,
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  Speaker 1: pulling it out of there. And then you you create
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  Speaker 1: these credits, right um, that are slices of that trenches.
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  Speaker 1: So let's say each trench is UM one. That means
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  Speaker 1: there's one million credits out there available for everybody. And
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  Speaker 1: let's say they're distributed evenly, maybe at first, but then
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  Speaker 1: Factory A puts out and there's ten factories, so each
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  Speaker 1: one can put out ten million metric tons of c
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  Speaker 1: O two next year. Okay uh. And then Factory A says, okay,
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  Speaker 1: we're accidentally putting out eleven million. Factory B, we noticed
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  Speaker 1: that you're on track to put out eight million. That
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  Speaker 1: means you have two extra credits. Can we buy one
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  Speaker 1: of those from you? Boom done? So these things now
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  Speaker 1: have a value money value, right uh. And there is
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  Speaker 1: a penalty for going over, which should be more than
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  Speaker 1: the credit is right right, otherwise there would be no
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  Speaker 1: incentive right to stay under right, Yes, very well said so, yes,
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  Speaker 1: So that is a cap and trade scheme and they
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  Speaker 1: are in existence, right, and scheme just sounds negative because
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  Speaker 1: scheme just sound they should change. The name has a
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  Speaker 1: negative connotation. It definitely does, and I can't help help it.
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  Speaker 1: Think that there are people out there like, oh, I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to cap and trade scheme. I don't really
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  Speaker 1: know about it. So that's just the word for it.
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  Speaker 1: Though it's not bad. There's actually a scheme in Europe
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  Speaker 1: that's fairly vital, heavily criticized, but still also it's the
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  Speaker 1: first mandatory one, I think in the world. Then it
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  Speaker 1: was born out of the Kyoto Treaty, right, Yes, the
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  Speaker 1: e t S, the European Trading Scheme is uh, like
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  Speaker 1: you said, born out of the Kyoto Protocol, which does
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  Speaker 1: not tell people, uh, tell participating countries how to participate.
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  Speaker 1: They just have to meet the standards. So Europe, the
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  Speaker 1: EU came up with the the e t S and
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  Speaker 1: it includes twelve thousand factories and utilities in twenty five
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  Speaker 1: different countries and each member state, I thought this odd
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  Speaker 1: sets his own emissions cap based on the Kyoto Protocol,
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  Speaker 1: which we are not a member of. No, we're not.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, it's the Kyoto Protocol. This is the first
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  Speaker 1: time I've heard of this thing. That's not true? You okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but well although we helped draw it up right Clinton
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  Speaker 1: the Clinton administration and did yes, and then it was
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  Speaker 1: scuttled when it came before it came into effect in
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  Speaker 1: two thousand five by the Bush administration, right because of
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  Speaker 1: fears that it would aid that it wasn't properly put
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  Speaker 1: together to begin with, and be that um financial the
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  Speaker 1: financial impact might harm America's economy well. Plus also it
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  Speaker 1: was divided divided countries by Annex one and Annex two
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  Speaker 1: and next one being industrialized nations and Annex two being
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  Speaker 1: um developing economies. The problem is is two of the
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  Speaker 1: world's biggest developing economies, India and China, are also two
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  Speaker 1: of the world's biggest polluters as far as CEO two
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  Speaker 1: emissions goes. And that was one of the problems that
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  Speaker 1: the United States had with the Kyoto Treaties, that it
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  Speaker 1: didn't put heavy enough sanctions on developing countries because they
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  Speaker 1: they're not required to meet the same standards. And that
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  Speaker 1: makes sense. It does make sense um and there's a
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  Speaker 1: certain amount of Hey, we already screwed up the world,
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  Speaker 1: but we learned from it. So now you can't build
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  Speaker 1: your economy by screwing up the world. Because we've already
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  Speaker 1: learned the lesson the hard way, even though we wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be in this mess if we hadn't already screwed up
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  Speaker 1: the world. But you can't do the same thing we did.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a certain amount of that, But at the
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  Speaker 1: same time, there's also a certain amount of Okay, we
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  Speaker 1: need to remain competitive in the global marketplace. And one
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  Speaker 1: of the things, well, the whole point of carbon tax
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  Speaker 1: is to make it harder to emit or to make
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  Speaker 1: economic sanctions on emissions. So that means that there's an
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  Speaker 1: extra cost that American companies have to bear that companies
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  Speaker 1: in operating in China or India don't have to write.
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  Speaker 1: That's not a carbon tax, though that's different than carbon trading, right,
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  Speaker 1: it's no carbon taxes just straight up, you put X
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  Speaker 1: number of emissions out, you pay X number of dollars
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  Speaker 1: on those emissions. So there's an incentive to reduce your
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  Speaker 1: emissions because you're paying a lower tax. But both of
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  Speaker 1: them are de facto taxes on pollution. So we were
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  Speaker 1: talking about the e t S, sorry, the European trading. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this is that you're saying that it was controversial and
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons. It's controversial because they, um, you
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  Speaker 1: can the government can allocate kind of it will It
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  Speaker 1: seems like so preferred industries maybe might get some free
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  Speaker 1: credits if they're inching up towards their limit, their cap limit,
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  Speaker 1: And basically they call it a permit to pollut and
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  Speaker 1: it exempts those industries as favorite industries are the ones
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  Speaker 1: that have the best lobbyists. So that's no good. No,
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  Speaker 1: Like everything, it gets tainted, right. And it's also, um,
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  Speaker 1: there is a market over there. You can buy carbon
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  Speaker 1: credits from the e t S just as a speculator. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But it's mandatory, which takes a certain amount of market
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  Speaker 1: um fluctuations or market base out of the whole thing,
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  Speaker 1: the whole equation, right, the mandatory participation. Yeah, right, right,
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  Speaker 1: So if you have a voluntary participation trading scheme cap
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  Speaker 1: and trade scheme, UM, you would think that, based on
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  Speaker 1: Adam Smith's theories, this thing would be flawless. Right. Where
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  Speaker 1: would you find such a thing in the United States? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: you would, Yes, since we're not a member of the
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  Speaker 1: Kyoto Protocol, almost called it the Pyoto Protocol. I think
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  Speaker 1: that's what you should call it. Um. That is uh,
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  Speaker 1: that's what we have here now, so we have We
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  Speaker 1: didn't participate officially, but I think a hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 1: mayors across the country implemented their own programs in their
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  Speaker 1: city that met the similar standards as the Kyoto, which
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  Speaker 1: is as heartwarming as moose playing in a sprinkler. Yesedently. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So that's good though, because we're we're getting with the
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  Speaker 1: program anyway. And you you wrote about the Chicago Climate Exchange,
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  Speaker 1: is that right? Yeah, so tell me about that one.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a guy named Dr Richard Sandor and uh,
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  Speaker 1: I believe he's an economist. He's out of Chicago. I
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  Speaker 1: know that munch um. And in two thousand and five
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  Speaker 1: he founded something called the Chicago Carbon Climate Exchange, the
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  Speaker 1: c X r UM, and it functions exactly like a
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  Speaker 1: stock market does. Actually that's not true. It functions more
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  Speaker 1: like a commodities market does, so like pork belly futures
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  Speaker 1: or oil or gold or something. But what they trade
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  Speaker 1: on the Chicago Climate Exchange are carbon credits. Yes, but
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  Speaker 1: it's still legally it's voluntary, but it's still legally binding.
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  Speaker 1: Right when you sign up as a company on cc X.
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  Speaker 1: What you're saying is I agree to reduce my carbon
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  Speaker 1: emissions by x amount um, and if I don't, there's
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  Speaker 1: an actually huge penalty for it. It's five grand per
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  Speaker 1: metric ton. Yeah. Yeah, it does real quick, and it
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  Speaker 1: is legally binding. So the cc X can levy these
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  Speaker 1: really stiff penalties for people who don't meet their quotas.
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  Speaker 1: Now on the c c X what they trade our
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  Speaker 1: carbon credits, So on any given day they're like maybe
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  Speaker 1: three four bucks. I don't know what they're up to
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  Speaker 1: these days. I know the ones in Europe, since it's mandatory,
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  Speaker 1: they're usually about ten times higher ten times higher in
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  Speaker 1: value than the ones in Chicago. Um, but let's say
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  Speaker 1: four bucks for a hundred metric tons of c O
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  Speaker 1: two emissions. Right. So, just like what we were talking
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  Speaker 1: about before, a company who is going to emit more
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  Speaker 1: can buy these credits so that they don't have to
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  Speaker 1: pay these stiff fines, but they have to buy credits
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  Speaker 1: safe from somebody who another company who is coming in under.
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  Speaker 1: So the other companies provided a financial incentive for lowering
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  Speaker 1: their emissions in the form of these credits, right Uh,
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  Speaker 1: And then the company who's going over is being penalized
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  Speaker 1: in the form of these credits, right. You can also
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  Speaker 1: earn more credits, not necessarily just by buying some from
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: somebody else, but by UM funding projects that actually reduce
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  Speaker 1: carbon right yes, as long as they're verified. Yes, And
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  Speaker 1: you can actually do that in the e t s
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  Speaker 1: as well. You can earn credits through to UM Kyoto mechanisms,
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  Speaker 1: the clean Development mechanism that allows you to help out
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  Speaker 1: poor Annex two countries that can't afford their own to
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  Speaker 1: reduce their own carbon output. And then joint implementation is
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  Speaker 1: when you can partner with other Annex one countries, which
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  Speaker 1: I guess that's a good thing too. Well. Yeah, either way,
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  Speaker 1: as long as you're reducing c O two. That's one
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  Speaker 1: of the one of the very UM distinct aspects of
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  Speaker 1: reducing greenhouse gases and c O two is that no
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: matter where you do it, you're affecting everything. Yeah, So
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: planning trees and like say Sudan or something well ultimately
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: have an effect for the rest of the planet. Right. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of companies offer that now, UM it's part
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  Speaker 1: of like a Now certain airlines and UM airline websites
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  Speaker 1: will offer like an extra if you want to pay
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  Speaker 1: an extra ten dollars on your ticket, they'll plant ten
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  Speaker 1: trees for you in some other country. Right, So that's
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  Speaker 1: kind of nice in a way. It is nice. So
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  Speaker 1: you're ready to talk about that. Yeah, First, let me
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: let me correct myself. The cc X was founded in
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: two thousand three, not two thousand five. Yeah, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: let me go ahead throw out a stat since we're
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  Speaker 1: still on c c X. They traded about four years
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: ago a total of ten point two million tons of
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  Speaker 1: c O two and then and Chuck also, the the
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  Speaker 1: value UM went from like next to nothing a couple
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  Speaker 1: of years ago to I think as much as a
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  Speaker 1: hundred million dollars carbon offsets. The carbon market itself, I
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: think generated about thirty billion dollars in two thousand seven.
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  Speaker 1: And what we're talking about is something that doesn't exist.
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  Speaker 1: It's a reduction. They represent a reduction in CEO two.
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  Speaker 1: It's sort of hard to wrap your head around it. It
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  Speaker 1: It definitely is um and it actually it can work. Yes, right, Um,
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  Speaker 1: there's a model that's very similar. Do you remember, Chuck,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: when we were younger, acid rain, whatever happened acid rain?
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I know the fears of school children everywhere to go
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: outside and our skin would like melt in the rain.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: It was the Communists, AIDS, and acid rain. Yeah, the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: big three. We have a really rough childhood, didn't we. Yeah? Um,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: But acid rain you never hear about anymore. And the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: reason why is because the US government actually instituted a
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  Speaker 1: mandatory cap and trade scheme on UH methane emissions. Isn't
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: that what it was that caused acid rain? Uh? Sulfur dioxide?
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: That's right, so close. So the acid rain program, Josh, yes,
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  Speaker 1: limits sulfur dioxide that powers plants here in the States,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and it has worked to the tune of emissions have
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: dropped below what they were in nineteen Not bad, No,
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  Speaker 1: not at all. And they did it slightly differently. They
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: put a um, they put a cap on, they divided
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: it amongst um emitters of sulfur dioxide. To think, are
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: again electrical plants or power plants are the worst emitters
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  Speaker 1: for it UM? And they said, here, your allowances don't
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  Speaker 1: go over and if you do, you're in big trouble.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And they each year they revised the cap lower, lower,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: or maybe every couple of years. And that's the whole point.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think we talked about that. The point of
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a cap and trade scheme is that you don't just
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: put the cap somewhere and leave it there. Yeah, it
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: should go down. It should eventually go down with a
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: moderate pace, because you don't want to go too far
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: down or else the economy is going to be crippled.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be too high up or else
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: there's not gonna be any point to it. But you
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: do want to raise it systematically, which is actually lowering
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: lowering it systematically over time. So, Chuck, have you noticed
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that the carbon credits were talking about sound an awful
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: lot like something else called carbon offsets. I said that
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you and I can go on to the Chicago Climate
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Exchange and buy carbon, right, a hundred metric tons of
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: carbon if we want, for like four bucks I think
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a pop? Okay Um. You can also find a broker
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and say I want to buy a carbon offset, and
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: what do you give for that? Chuck, Well, these are
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: pretty popular now what you get when you buy a
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: carbon offset. Let's say al Gore made the headlines a
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: few years ago, Mr Green al Gore, who I love
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and you do as well? Uh? Was he was under
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: fire because of the amount of energy his large house
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee consumed, which was a lot. Yeah. Right after
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Inconvenient Truth came out, Drudge Report broke like his bill
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: or something like. Right, so they kind of held a
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: speed to the fire and he said, no, I've purchased Wait,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that was my Clinton. Good enough, he purchases car. Can
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you do a gore? Because it's so I do want
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to hear I purchase carbon offsets. That was actually really good, Chuck.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: So carbon offsets. Let's say you could go through a
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: company like Terra Pass, who will talk about in a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: little more detail, and uh, he would buy basically um,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: he would invest in renewable energy in other parts of
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the world. So let's say if he's using uh, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a hundred credits over what he should be using, He'll
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: buy a hundred credits worth of of renewable wind energy
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: in um in Africa, because like make up for what
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: he's using. If you alleviate CEO two emissions anywhere in
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the world, that has just as good of an effect
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: at home. Sure, So making him carbon neutral, I believe
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: is that is the word they like to use, right, right, So,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: like if he calculates that his electricity that he uses
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: annually at his house equals fifty metric tons of CEO
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: two emissions. He will purchase that. He can go buy that, right.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: So what you do is you go to a broker
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: who sells carbon offsets and cut and they sell them, right.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: They sell them for let's say nine bucks a metric ton, right, Okay,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and I think that's about right. Actually. Um, So you say, okay,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: well that's great because I only need two hundred of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: these for the year. Yeah, you gotta have some coin
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: in your pocket, a little extra spending money, sure, but
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: for bucks you can offset all of the CEO two
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: emissions that your family puts out for a year. It
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: sounds great, It does sound great, and you know what
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: it can be. We're not poop doing it. But there
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: is another side to the coin, Josh, there definitely is.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Um anything that sounds too good to be true, or
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: lets you sit back with your hand down the front
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of your pants, drinking a beer and still somehow alleviating
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: global warming, you should be suspicious of, yes, and a
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: lot of people are because a lot of times what's
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: happening as is, and this is the way I read
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: this article was that it's not necessarily creating new initiatives.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: A lot of these initiatives where the money is going
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: either we're already in place or we're going to be
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in place anyway. So these these firms are making a
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: little extra cash, which they seem to appreciate. But the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: firms who are undertaking these CEO two emission reduction programs, right,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: they have said, and there's some quotes in the article,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: they said, you know, I made sixteen grand last year,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and we're glad to get it, but we would have
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: been doing this anyway. Right. That was a farmer who
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: actually created or invested in um very high tech machinery
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that used methane emissions from his cows manure to generate
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: electricity for his farm so he could save money. Well,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: he's actually paid money through the through investment in this.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: The problem is that this guy was going to do
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it anyway. It is good that he's being rewarded for it,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: but why aren't we seeking out projects that won't get
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: off the ground unless there's investment, because then it means
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: this farmer was going to do it anyway. And there's
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: another project that wasn't gonna happen unless it got this investment.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't seem like there's a lot of active
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: seeking out of investments. These brokers struck me as somewhat
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: lazy and find stuff that's already there. Yes. And the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: other little hinky thing is that there's not a lot
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of transparency going on here. When you, um, when I
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: think it was this Business Week, Yeah, business Week got
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: in touch with some of these firms, and no one
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: will say the broker won't say how much of a
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: cut they're getting, They won't necessarily say who they're getting
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in touch with. Two uh, to help alleviate the carbon reduction,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to help manage the carbon reduction. So there's there's not
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: very much transparency and that has set off a lot
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of alarm bells with a lot of nonprofits. Yeah, and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: it should um. There there's also the farmer Darryl Vader.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Is this name? Um? Is it really Vader? D Vader Vander? Oh,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it's too good to be true. Um, just like a
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: carbon Darryl Vander who has his um poop powered electricity farm. Uh.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: He said that the right, Thank you for that, because
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I was about to start stammering. Um. The investment that
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: he's getting is two dollars out of the nine dollars
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: per less than two per ton. Yeah, Um, that that's
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: what he's getting from this firm. So you have terror Pass, right,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: which is a broker, and then he was set up
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: with terror Pass through a middleman. So from the nine
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: dollars that a person is putting in too Terror Pass
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: for that one ton of carbon dioxide, only two dollars
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: of it is going to the actual program. And we're
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: not poop pooing Terra Pass here. I mean, there's a
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: San Francisco company that I believe a teacher at Wharton
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: started and and he bikes to work, so he's he
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: proposed to his students to come up with an idea
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and they did and it's working. Uh, they're they've got
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I think, what close to fifty customers, So I think
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: they're trying to do the right thing. But it would
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: be awesome if there were some new initiatives and not necessarily, Hey,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: we'll give this farmer some dough for this thing he
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: was already doing to begin with. Right, But I mean,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: you can make the point that they are rewarding this
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: guy for going above and beyond. Word gets out and
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: YadA YadA YadA. Right. Um, there's a did you know
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that veils ski resort? Yeah, let's talk about that. Which
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: what's the company called, uh, it is called Veil Resorts.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Appropriately enough, they are a hundred percent wind power right.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Did you know that not one bit of their electricity
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: comes from wind. Yeah, so they're able to claim that
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: they're power by wind when in fact they have spent
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a lot less money buying renewable energy certificates representing the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: amount of wind generated that uh that they would require
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to generate all their power. Right, So what the and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and their pr flak is a pretty wrecked and saying
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: we're in the resort business. We're not in the power
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: generation business. But the resorts actually did look into powering
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: themselves their entire resort with wind power. But they're like, whoa,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of money when we can buy these offsets. Right.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: But there's a guy who actually, um does wind power
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: electrical generation. It's called FPL Energy, And he's quoted as saying,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: um that voluntary renewable energy certificates like the ones that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the Veil Resorts company bought our pure corporate marketing and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: image management, and that's it. And this guy is actually
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the one who's on like the receiving end, and he's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: like this isn't this is this is not right. It's
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: not it doesn't work. So when the boots on the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: ground are telling you that everything is all screwed up,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: that usually means something's really screwed up. And that again,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: when you're sitting back just writing a money out of
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: your checkbook instead of actually doing something in your own backyard,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: it's probably not having the same effect, even though on
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: paper it looks like it, right, Can I sell you
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: another quote? This is from on or Angel Colmus. She's
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: an outreach coordinator at Toughs Climate Initiative and it's an
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: advocacy group for for the environment, and she kind of
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: sums it up. Nature does not fall for accounting schemes,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So that kind of says it all. It's it allows
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Hollywood hot shots to feel good about their life by
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: purchasing offsetting their you know, massive energy consuming lifestyles. And
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: it allows companies like Veil Resorts to say, you know,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: we're powered all by wind when they're really not actually
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: powered by wind. So you know, I'm at odds because
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I'm a green guy, and it's good that people are
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: doing things like this and not anything at all. But
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: at the same time, new initiatives. Well plus um, that's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: there's also a big debate about exactly who the owners
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: should be on for reducing emissions in emitters. Right, So,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Delta Airlines had a little program I don't know if
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: they still do where for five dollars and fifty cents
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: for domestic flights or eleven dollars for international flights, you
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: could contribute extra. You pay extra in your ticket and
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Delta would planetree. The question is, is Delta is the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: one that's actually polluting. Yes, you are, you're contributing, but
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: you're paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for your ticket.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Why isn't Deltas putting out any of their money to
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: reduce their emissions or to find ways to reduce emissions,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: or to fund projects that actually reduce emissions? Like it
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: keeps this the whole carbon offset thing that these companies
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: are actually using for their own public image, are actually
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: being paid for by the company's customers, right, itta bit
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of a shell game. Although I did discover one place,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: at least one place that you can buy a carbon
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: offset and it actually has an effect. I talked to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: a guy once, Michael Short. Yeah, I got him right
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: here in my jacket UM, a guy named Michael Short
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: with a clean or campaign. They actually you can go
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: on to their website calculate what your car puts out
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: or you know how much you use in electricity as
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: far as CEO two emissions um and they'll give you
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: like X number of tons do you want to buy
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: an offset? And what they do actually is they take
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: your money to go buy carbon credits from like the
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Chicago Climate Exchange, and they sit on them, they retire them,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: they take them off the market, which drives the price
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: on the ones that are in the market because laws
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: applying demand scarcer something is, the more expensive it is.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So they're actually in the game like buying these these
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: carbon credits and taking them away from the actual emitters
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: so that they do it will eventually become more cost
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: effective for these people to take carbon reduction measures. And
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you know what, it's all paper, So yeah, it's Vaporit's
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: what's so hard to understand about it, But not really
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: once you wrap your head around it. And I'm not
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: even an environmental guy. Just love that. Yeah, you are
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: you kidding me? No, not real, folks. Josh headed up
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the recycling program here at work before he officially had
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: one and took the cans himself every week and allowed
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the canned thing collector to be at his desk. And
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: you didn't pick any credit for that, so it's a
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: little late for that. Thank you, everybody. You left out
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the part where I took the cans to a homeless
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: guy so he could take them in for money. Oh man,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that would have been like the ultimate cherry on top
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: that you really did that. Yeah, look at you. I
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: think I need to alleviate that the shame of being
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: so vain by buying some carbon offsets from the clean
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: air campaign. They should have like karma offsets just for
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: being like a bad person. You know, you could just
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: buy karma offsets. I could use some of those. We
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: should start selling them. Yeah, we should heavily invest ourselves
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: look for those in the future from chucking Josh. Until then,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about carbon trading, type
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: those two words into the handy search bar how stuff
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: works dot com And uh, it's now time for listener mail,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So everybody grab your carpet square laid down, Josh, how
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: about a Keeva update first? Oh, that's an even better idea,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and you want to just break it down real quick.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: For those who don't know, Keeva dot org is a
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: micro lending site where you can contribute to investors or entrepreneurs,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I should say, in developing countries and in the US.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: UM And we have our own team, which you can
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: find at www. Dot kiva dot org slash team slash
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know, right, And we have a hell
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: of a team, Chuck, we do, dude. We had a
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: goal of a hundred thousand dollars loan and uh we
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: are currently over eight thousand dollars loan through only uh
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: close to eight hundred members on our team. That's fantastic,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: which is awesome. But I do know that that is
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: a fraction of our audience. Oh yeah, So I put
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the call out to you folks who have said, oh man,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: to keep mening to do Kiva. Just go to Kiva
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and sign up. It's really fast and it's fun to
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: loan and um increments increments. My loans are recycling now actually,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: so they're going to be due up to read loan soon,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. That's awesome. Yeah, way to go, check,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Way to go, Josh. That's up to you, right all right,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: So now, listener, mail, it's time now for listening mail. Yes, Josh,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this. Uh my family were witch burners,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: just from Gwen in southern California. I'm so glad you
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: guys did the podcast on witchcraft. I've been interested in
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: witchcraft since i was a kid. In fact, it started
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: while researching my family history. I discovered a long line
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: of involvement with the craft. Our family is directly descended
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: from increase In Cotton Mather. And by the way, if
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I ever have a son, I'm gonna name him Increase
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Increase Bryant. Yeah, it's a great name. Or Goody Goody Bryant. Um,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: that's a girl's name. Oh, Goody's short for good wife. Okay,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: so I've had twins, I can name them Increase and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Goody if they were Um. They were both Puritan ministers
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: living in Boston in the seventeenth century. Cotton, who was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the son of Increase Or, wrote a great deal on
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the subject of witchcraft. Uh spectral Activity. In Spectral Activity
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: even directly accused a number of individuals to be witches.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: He was said to believe to be nearing He believed
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: we were nearing the last judgment and felt that he
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: himself led the way against the devil's legions, so we
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: all feel that way. Yeah, he was clearly wrong. Uh.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: He was personal friends with a few of the judges
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: that presided over the Salem witch trials and urged them
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: to use confession as the greatest evidence. And I'm sure
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the confession was probably wrung out beating he had beating
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: out of him. He and his father attended one of
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the final executions at Salem, but Cotton never recanted his
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: position on witchcraft or his involvement with the trials, although
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: his father became more and more vocal with his doubts
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: of spectral activity. Well slightly because his own wife was
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: threatened and called the witch. This is her family, dude,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: uht is that sinking in? It is? Cotton is pretty
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: famous and somewhat of a legend in the history of witchcraft.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: When I was younger, I got to visit Salem and
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: they did re enactments of the trials. Some was cheesy,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: some of it really cool. I later got got to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: visit the grave of Cotton Matters at Cobb Hill, where
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: we spoke with and learned as ton from the grave keeper.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Strangely enough, on the other side of my mom's family.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: The Alexander side, we had a female ancestor burned at
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: the steak, so she's really got it coming from both
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: directions here. Unfortunately we couldn't find out more about this
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: because the documents are locked up in Ireland. Hopefully someday
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I can pick up this investigation. They got more history.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: This all led me to study Wicca a lot when
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I was younger, and you guys did a great job
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: laying it out. So that is Gwen. Um, Well, we
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: already said the last name Mathers, and she said, well,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: she said they picked up an s in the last
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: hundred years. Weird. No, yeah, because it used to be
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: mother or mather. That means that the kid who played
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Beaver and Leave It to Beaver is related. Then yeah,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Jerry Mathers, maybe he was a witch hunter. Excellent, So
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: firsthand account from Gwen in southern California. Thank you, Gwinn,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: appreciate that um revelation about your family tree. Uh. If
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: you have a story about how the Irish are keeping
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: a strangle hold over information you wish to seek, put
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in an email and send it to Stuff Podcast at
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: how Stuff works dot com for more on this and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: thousands of other topics is that how stuff works dot Com.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Want more house stuff Works, check out our blogs on
• 32:45
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• 32:50
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• 32:53
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