Jordan Bateman exposes an example of the foolishness of carbon credits in his Aug. 3 guest column “Carbon Trust has run its course.”

Apropos his point that such schemes would be rejected in a free market, the Chicago climate exchange collapsed (but Al Gore made millions from it before then).

There will always be people who try to take advantage of something they shouldn’t.

Europe’s carbon credit trading schemes were scammed, in one case the U.K. government had to force the price of something to zero to plug a loophole among laws that would have cost taxpayers huge sums. European governments lost billions trying to prop up carbon trading.

The risk is especially high with an irrational theme such as the blame-humans-for-climate-variation scam.

A few decades ago many Canadians were hurt by low quality installation in the government-promoted foam-in-place insulation business.

Today governments and private investors are losing money from investments in solar and wind power, as they failed to recognize limited life of equipment and the need to accommodate the varying output of those sources of energy (expensive energy storage schemes are needed).

Will voters put a stop to the nonsense in forthcoming elections?

Keith Sketchley, Saanich