Nature's Vault

You may not know this, but I just happen to be an "eco-jabbering meadow muffin."

Give me a chance to jabber about ecology and I will jabber all day.

My primary objection to reviving the gold standard is that I really dislike the environmental damage done by cyanide-leeching gold mines.

If you could make a gold-backed currency without having to dig it up, I would go for the gold standard.

The fact that my local store is willing to accept Federal Reserve Notes which are backed by nothing less than promises of an independent central bank suggests that people are happy to trade in abstract monetary units.

IMHO a bank note that referenced physical gold in the ground would be a step above a currency note backed by a promise.

My first proposal for the Utah Monetary Summit is a thing I call "Nature's Vault." In this program, one would issue currency backed by mineral resources in an environmentally sensitive area.

The program would buy up the mineral rights for an area, then issue currency based on the estimates of the mineral resources of the area.

I believe that such a currency would be valued by environmentally minded investors seeking a way to hedge their investments ... without the environmental damage done by mining.