A Wikistan first?

It’s risky being at the vanguard of advanced thought, but the rewards are immense. This handy little piece from the Financial Times nicely compliments what we suspected earlier this month and provides a little amateurish satisfaction.

A Financial Times investigation finds serious problems with the burgeoning carbon-offset industry, including:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Opportunistic (and sometimes shady) companies preying on well-meaning dopes should be regulated precisely because other well-meaning dopes used even dopier regulations to create the market in the first place! Nobody saw this one coming, did they?