But in modern financial markets, you can get an economic benefit from not chopping down trees: You can turn the trees you chop down into lumber or paper, but you can turn the trees you don’t chop down into carbon credits , which you can sell on financial markets to companies that want to offset their own carbon usage. Chopping down trees and selling them for money feels like, you know, normal business, but not chopping down trees and selling their not-chopped-down-ness for money feels like financial engineering. Selling wood is business, selling abstractions is financial engineering.

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FROM:

Matt Levine

Money Stuff: The SEC Wants to See More Phones