Wilbert, I appreciate your visits, too, but I find your arguments are just smoke and mirrors.

Because if I’ve found you through the power of Google, then denier is the only category that fits your dogma. I have no problem with scientific skeptics. But anyone who takes a fact easily explained by scientists and then distorts that fact (to say, for instance, that carbon dioxide doesn’t cause global warming) must have his head planted firmly in the sand. Skeptics have an open mind, and can be convinced by the evidence.

The science is clear. And you can’t be convinced by it.

Here, by the way, is the scientific answer to Wilbert’s false talking point about CO2 lagging temperature increases.

Obviously, Wilbert and I share a common acadian ancestry, but that’s about it.

Wilbert also tries to minimize the harmful effects of pollution (a dash of this, a soupcon of that) while suggesting that wind turbines have serious environmental issues, too. I’ve never argued otherwise.

But I’m shocked that he would suggest that the photo on this page is somehow as hideous as the photos on this page and this page.

If Wilbert can’t see the difference, then we have nothing to talk about.

Oil and gas aren’t annoyingly dirty… They are dangerously dirty. We’re talking about 30 billion metric tons of CO2 annually, and billions of tons of toxic chemicals. And the science now says that even low levels of exposure to smog cause chronic lung problems and lasting damage. (As a former medical student, this is something that I’ve seen directly on the autopsy table). I could quote stories about how more than 186 million US citizens live in areas with unacceptable air quality, and I’m shocked that Wilbert would argue for the perpetuation of this system that has so clearly damaged the health of the planet, humanity, and the people who live here.

Similarly, he asks if I care about the pristine ocean surrounding this province, and he could almost be making my point for me. If we don’t do something about climate change, there is ample evidence that we’ll see mass extinctions and that huge areas of the ocean will become dead zones. We’re already destroying the planet. The science is clear.

We need to find solutions. This is one of my solutions because business as usual is killing us.

To quote James Taylor:

Now I used to think that I was cool,

Running around on fossil fuel

Until I saw what I was doin’

Was driving down the Road to Ruin.

Thanks for the comments and the insight. Yes, we would totally need to recreate the electrical infrastructure with high voltage direct current cables — and lots of them — so that Maritime Canada could send its energy stateside. That should be job one, before even lining up the wind turbine manufacturer because the lag time might be five or six years.

I did briefly mention that we need to allow for wind’s intermittency by becoming experts at energy storage, too. I also (very briefly) mentioned wave energy… The motion of the ocean never stops, but the technology is in its infancy. That would be where I’d put some notable long-term money.., creating stores of hydrogen from wind, pumping steam deep into undersea caverns that we used to run turbines when needed, and so on.

But you’re also right… We’d need to have peak capacity readily available if we’re to become popular in New England because Hydro Quebec already has many solutions lined up.