By all the news reports, you would have thought the old Dutch windmill in Golden Gate Park was spinning like an airplane propeller to power all those lights at the Emerald Bowl football game at AT&T Park, San Francisco.But it was nothing more than about carbon offsets bought by the bowl organizers in order to give the American public a "teaching moment."
This is not a bad goal, by the way. It's just that public impressions are easily manipulated and mass misunderstanding can lead to poor policy and poorer governance.
There is nothing more abstract than buying a commodity that doesn't exist. But that's what the Emerald Bowl organizers bought when they purchased Green-e renewable energy credits for a reduction in greenhouse gases equal to the amount produced by illuminating the stadium with non-renewable power sources.
It's this transaction that made the Miami-Cal game "carbon neutral."
Whether or not these energy certificates do anything more than buy peace of mind or great corporate PR is anybody's guess at this time. But people fascinated by the profit opportunities of
financial derivatives, the kind that got us into our current mess, will be cheered by the possibilities of an uncontrolled, unregulated carbon offsets market.
It just might be the next great "windfall." For the Onion's hilarious take on the retail carbon offsets market:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/90883/
Oh, yeah, the windmill in the picture you see above is actually one of two windmills at Golden Gate Park's west end near the Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden. Not a mandatory tourist stop in San Francisco, but definitely worth a look if you go to the park.
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