April 28, 2008 7:55AM # Carbon Credits and Persian Prostitution By Indur M. Goklany --- SHARE What do they have in common? Apparently, buying and selling indulgences. A piece in Slate, [How To Spot a Persian Prostitute: Streetwalkers in chadors,](http://www.slate.com/id/2189816/) by Juliet Lapidos, informs us: > The penalties for prostitution \[in Iran\] are severe—ranging from whipping to execution. But there’s a loophole in Islamic law called *sigheh*, or temporary marriage. According to Shiite interpretation, a man and a woman may enter an impermanent partnership with a preset expiration date. There’s no legally required minimum duration (a day, a week, anything goes) and no need for official witnesses—unless the woman is a virgin, in which case she needs the consent of her legal guardian. An Iranian who’s wary of arrest can simply escort a prostitute to a registry, obtain a temporary contract from a Muslim cleric, and then legally satisfy his sexual needs. QED (quite easily done). Is this reminiscent of purchasing [carbon credits for that jet flight to Bali](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=aPbfclqokwcw), or what? Were getting real meaningful emission reductions as simple. ##### Related Tags [Energy and Environment](https://www.cato.org/research/energy-environment), [General](https://www.cato.org/general) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).