Missing: $36 million worth of carbon permits

This final note today: The curious case of the missing carbon permits. Europe, as you may know, has an emissions market (cap-and-trade is the term). The whole thing revolves around permits that companies can buy and sell that let them generate more greenhouse gases should they have a need to.

Anyway, the European carbon market has been shut down for at least a week, because computer hackers have stolen $36 million worth of the permits, which are traded electronically.

Before things were brought to a halt, the right to put one metric ton of carbon into the atmosphere was going for 14-and-a-half euros, almost 20 bucks U.S.