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Perspective

May 1, 2009

Carbon Offsets: the Next Credit Default Swaps?

Purchasing carbon offsets has become yet another vehicle for the kind of rapacious speculators who brought our economy to its current state of near-collapse, writes Robert Benson.

By Robert Benson

No sooner did we get rid of subprime mortgages and credit default swaps than the free-market ideologues, who seem happiest when building a bubble out of worthless pieces of paper, bring us carbon offsets. Billions of dollars and billions of tons of carbon credits are already circulating in the offset market, and it is growing faster than a tulip craze.

Carbon offsets are certificates you can use when the government tells you that you have to red...

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