We were happy to hear that the New York Stock Exchange has withdrawn its proposal asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow “natural asset companies” to be traded on the Exchange.

But we are still unclear whether the proposal was part of a globalist plot to usurp private property rights, or just a scheme to extract listing fees and commissions from virtue investors.

It’s possible that two things can be true at once.

The NYSE and Intrinsic Exchange Group, the private company that floated the proposal, say NACs would end the “overconsumption” of land and “underinvestment” in nature.

Intrinsic said NACs would license “ecosystem services,” such as climate stability, and bar mining, “unsustainable logging,” “traditional fossil fuel development” and “industrial agriculture” on public and private land.

Intrinsic developed an “accounting framework” to measure the performance of ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity, clean water and climate stability.

NACs would have been required, for a fee, to value ecosystems using Intrinsic’s proprietary reporting framework.

Intrinsic, along with the NYSE, would also get a commission on every trade.

So, it was clear how the exchange and Intrinsic were going to make money. How would investors make money? The short answer is they wouldn’t necessarily make money off the investment. That’s what made NACs different.

Public companies can already buy farms and forestland. But, to be traded on the exchange under the current rules there has to be economic activity. The land has to be used — or held for some future use. Private companies can buy or lease property and do absolutely nothing with it.

NACs would be able to access market capital without the promise of economic activity. There are a number of reasons why investors would buy such a stock, and no doubt the companies could raise a lot of money to buy or lease land.

The lack of solid information prompted concerns that the offering was actually a nefarious plot to buy up huge swaths of farmland, or through leases rob owners of their property rights and end productive use.

As we said, two things can be true at the same time. It’s also true that a clever plan to make a ton of money could have unintended consequences on the wider economy and on society at large.

But we do have to wonder how the braintrust at NYSE and Intrinsic think the world will function without extractive and productive use of our natural resources.

We can’t build more housing without lumber from our forests and aggregate from the river bottoms.

Those who want to replace fossil fuels with electricity from wind and solar generators, and stored in batteries, will have to mine and process billions of tons of minerals to build the infrastructure.

To feed the world’s 8 billion people, farmers have to be able to produce massive amounts of food.

This proposal will resurface, but no matter its purpose it must never be approved. The world needs access to its natural resources.