Have not these zipperheads seen Spinal Tap?  Best in Show?  The lounge-singing chicks from Saturday Night Live?

One of the best and worst things about preparing for a wedding was that Rob and Kathy were obliged to talk about themselves.  People asked a lot of questions.  The idea for the honeymoon often came up.

“Why Nova Scotia?”

“It was Rob’s idea,” Kathy said.  “He went there as a child and has fond memories.”

“We can take our bikes and go camping,” said Rob.

“Halifax is a great party town,” said Kathy.  “It has tons of bars.”

“Plus, there’s the ocean,” said Rob.  “It’s nice and there’s good seafood.”

“I’ve only been there once,” said Kathy.  “To a basketball tournament.  We had a great time that year.”

“We’re just starting out,” said Rob.  “We can’t afford to fly anywhere right now.”

They left very early.  An hour east of Toronto, on the highway to Montreal, they got into their first married argument.  It revolved around which route they should take to Nova Scotia.

“We can go up on the west side of the St. Lawrence River,” said Kathy.  She held the Rand McNally Road Atlas in her lap as Rob piloted the Civic.  “Doesn’t that sound nice?  Becka’s boyfriend recommended it.  He said that it’s a beautiful drive.  Plus, we can take the ferry across the river at St-Simeon to Riviere-Du-Loup.  That sounds awesome!”

“Why would you want to do that?” said Rob.

“I don’t know,” said Kathy.  “I’d just like to see that area and take the ferry.  What’s wrong with that?”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Why not?  It’d be nice.”

“When have you ever listened to Ted before?  You can’t even call him by name.”

“He’s a knob, but he’s traveled a lot.  Look,” said Kathy.  She pointed to the Quebec page of the atlas.  “We could take this way down east.  On the way back, we can take the regular road—here it is, the Trans-Canada.”

“Why not take the Trans-Canada both ways?” said Rob.

“Both ways?” said Kathy.  “That’s crazy!  Why not see something different if we have the chance?”

“We’d make better time.  I don’t want to take some detour that’ll put us behind schedule.”

“We’re on our honeymoon!  We don’t have a schedule and we’ve got two weeks!  The only schedule we have is to drive to the Atlantic Ocean, hang out, turn around, and drive home.”

The rain started.  Rob flicked on the wipers and squinted down the four-lane highway.  He adjusted them to a rapid pace:  the quick, thumping was meant to express frustration (even anger) to Kathy.  They gave each other a violent silent treatment.

A few minutes later, he slowed the wiper rate to an easy intermittency.

“It’s the ferry,” he said.

“What about the ferry?”

“That’s the problem,” he said.  “With that route.”

“What’s the problem?” said Kathy.  “It can’t be too expensive.  It’s not Monte Carlo for God’s sake.”

“It’s not the expense,” said Rob.  “It’s the water.”

“What’s the problem with the water?”

“I don’t like it.  I have a fear of large bodies of water.”

Kathy made a face as if she had smelled rotting eggs.

“What do you mean:  you have a fear of water?”

“I can’t stand it,” he said.  “It’s just the way it is.  I get anxious around water and find it hard to breathe.  It’s as if I’d had ten pots of coffee.  One spring break in university, a bunch of us went down to Daytona Beach in Florida.  We hired a catamaran?  They had to cover my head with a paper, grocery bag.”

“What about your parents’ cottage?” said Kathy.  “We took the canoe out on the lake that time.  Remember?”

“The lake is more like a pond to me,” said Rob.  “It’s so familiar.  I’ve grown up with it.  I’m talking about big water.”

“If you can’t stand the water so much,” said Kathy.  “How do you go swimming?”

“Oh, I don’t know how to swim,” said Rob.

Kathy thought about this and about other things.  She thought about knowing people:  how you might grow up with them, work with them, spend hours talking with them, get naked with them, and even marry them.  But you could never really totally know them.  She might not know, for example, what languages they could speak.

“Then why are we going to Nova Scotia?” she said.

“Oh, I love the ocean.” said Rob.  “From a distance.”

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

They were famished, but they waited until Montreal for breakfast.  They pulled off the highway and drove to a bagel shop on St. Viateur Street.  They bought a dozen bagels, a tub of cream cheese, salmon pate, and coffees.  They found an old Greek church and sat under a tree.  They stuffed themselves and both felt better afterwards.

“I have been on a boat before,” said Rob.

“I know,” said Kathy.  “I was underneath you, remember?  I was the one with no pants.”

“That was a canoe,” said Rob.  “I’m talking about a real boat.”

“Oh?  When was this?”

“As a kid.  We took the ferry to Prince Edward Island.”

“How was it?” said Kathy.

“I got sick,” said Rob.  “But I survived.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Kathy.  “It was just an idea.  I don’t really care which way we go, as long as we’re together.”

“No,” said Rob.  “I survived that time and I’ll survive this time too.”

Kathy leaned over and kissed him.

“The thing about the canoe,” said Rob.  “I knew what I’d be getting out there.”

“I’ll be on the ferry too,” said Kathy.  “You can have whatever you want.”

They returned to the car.  Rob steered up Boulevard-St. Laurent and onto the highway.  He ignored the Autoroute Transcanadienne.  He chose the western side of the St. Lawrence River.  They traveled towards St-Simeon and the ferry.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

Rob freaked out a bit as the car went over the loading ramp and into the belly of the ferry.  At St-Simeon, the river looked like an open ocean.  It was wide and powerful.  He didn’t want to go up on deck, so Kathy stayed with him in the car.  She stuck her tongue in his mouth as a distraction.  One of the ferry workers came over to investigate, but the guy just nodded when he saw the pants on the dashboard.  He lit a smoke, turned down the lights in the car-hold, and went into his office to read Le Journal.  Rob got rid of some ballast and managed to survive his great adventure on the St. Lawrence River.

They woke up in a motel the next day.  They were in Riviere-Du-Loup and they were happy.  They washed, ate breakfast, got into the car, and headed towards the sunrise.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

Kathy couldn’t tolerate Rob’s driving.  He was conservative and slow behind the wheel.  She would make better time.  They left the mighty St. Lawrence River at Riviere-Du-Loup.  She gunned the throttle and passed a few pulp trucks.  The four cylinder motor of the Honda kicked in and whined.  The four-lane highway downgraded to a two-laner with occasional passing lanes.  Opposing traffic hurtled towards them at eighty-five miles an hour.  There were occasional villages with big churches, truck stops or roadside stripper-bars.  It was mostly tracts of forest land.  Kathy was a city girl and felt like she was traveling deep into wilderness territory.

The weather was clear and sunny.  There were mountains and a large lake.  The light hit the lake at a certain angle and it shimmered.  The steeples of the churches were lined with copper or tin.  The town names rolled into the brain like music:  St-Louis-Du-Ha! Ha!, Notre-Dame-Du-Lac, Cabano.  In addition to the slow driving, another of Rob’s slight faults proved to be a persistent habit of singing, humming, or drumming to himself.  He hummed a Barry Manilow melody and inserted his own lyrics:

“You’re up in Copa, Copa Cabano/the hottest spot north of Toronto

Here up in Copa, Copa Cabano

Black flies and stripping/hunting and fishing

In Cabano/You’ll fall in love.”

They crossed the border into New Brunswick.  The traffic congested and slowed in the single lane.  People were frustrated and desperate for speed.  Some attempted passes that required evasive maneuvering against oncoming traffic.  Kathy was one of those people.

They stopped for lunch.  It was still a French area, but they didn’t sell beer in the corner stores here like they did in Quebec.  Rob was disappointed about this.  He felt like having a drink.  But it was his honeymoon, so he kept positive.

“Welcome to the Maritimes,” he said.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

The custom in New Brunswick:  to pass long lines of RV campers, dump trucks, minivans, and rusted jalopies without having a clear view of the oncoming lane.  If a vehicle appeared, then the passer had to squeeze back into the proper side to avoid a head-on collision.

Kathy adapted quickly to this mentality and managed to keep on schedule—even if she’d claimed earlier that they wouldn’t need a schedule.

The speed increased near the city of Moncton.  The motor of the little car howled in the summer heat.  They had the windows rolled down and the wind whipped Kathy’s hair into the backseat area.  She wore sunglasses and gripped the steering wheel with one hand.  Her left elbow rested on the driver’s window-frame.  Rob noticed the new, reddish sunburn mixed into the tan of that arm.  He wanted to rub lotion on it—feel the heat in the skin and the coolness of the cream.  The thought of a full bottle of lotion and Kathy’s naked arm energized him.  It almost made up for the gut-wrenching anxiety that he had experienced watching her drive all day.

They flew around Moncton and continued for another hour.  They crested a shallow hill and the view flattened.  A wide, muddy plain appeared.  The road then dipped down into a marshland plain.

“What’s that?” said Kathy.

She pointed to a gigantic array of wires, constructed into a cubed grid.  It loomed on the horizon to their left and they watched it approach for several miles.  It had the height of a skyscraper and the area of multiple football fields.  It was a three-dimensional, spider web of industrial wiring and cables.  This hung from towers which were oriented at right angles.  It was like seeing the skeleton of a mountain.  A chain-link fence surrounded it.  A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sign hung from the fence.  There was a small, concrete-block building inside the perimeter.  A logo painted on the building identified it as belonging to E/A TECHNOLOGIES.

“It’s international shortwave radio,” said Rob.  “It must be a transmitter for Radio Canada.  That’s very cool.”

For some reason, Kathy felt relieved.  The wired, webbed towers comforted her.  They connected her to the modern landscapes of Toronto and the sedate effects of the CBC.  It was an international station, so this reminded her of great times in Europe.  The towers promised something familiar down on the east coast.

The road was rough and bumpy.  Kathy kept the gas-pedal down and the speed up.  They flew up over a hill and back down into marshland again.

“Look,” said Rob.  “There’s the border.”

She saw a bridge and government buildings up ahead.  Two groups of flags staked out either side of the bridge:  New Brunswick on the near side of a muddy river and the white and blue, Scottish X of Nova Scotia on the other.  The car jumped as it hit the bridge and the front wheels spun out.  They hurdled across, bouncing from side to side.

“Welcome to Nova Scotia:  Canada’s Ocean Playground,” said the welcoming sign.

A second sign appeared immediately after that.  It was a stylized, cartoonish silhouette of a bee surrounded by a red circle.  There was a slashing line cutting through the circle and across the image of the bee.  The sign stated:

HONEY BEE IMPORTATION PROHIBITED

NOVA SCOTIA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES

“Awwww,” said Kathy.  “Poor little bees.  What do they have against bees here?”

“I don’t know,” said Rob.  “I could understand banning killer bees.  But honey bees?  It’s discrimination.”

Kathy laughed.  She grabbed his thigh.

“Honey is so delicious.”

“The maple syrup companies must run the show here,” said Rob.

“I’m starving,” said Kathy.  “Can we stop for pancakes?”

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

They turned off the Trans-Canada to retrace the route which Rob’s family had taken years before.  The secondary roads followed the coastline where they found:  fishing villages, driftwood, and the dark, sparkling ocean.  They meandered along the narrow and twisty roads of the north shore.  Kathy liked it already.  She felt her metabolism slowing.  She let Rob drive.

They camped at a place somewhere between Pugwash and Tatamagouche.  It overlooked the Northumberland Strait and the grounds included tiny, colourful cottages, an RV park, and an outdoor swimming pool.  They pitched their little tent.  Rob set up a gas stove on the picnic table and cooked supper.  The sun set as they ate.  Prince Edward Island loomed across the water.  It got dark.  They grabbed the lantern and went for a walk down on the beach.

“It’s not that cold,” said Kathy.  “I’m going in.”

“You didn’t bring your bathing suit.”

“I don’t need one.”  She peeled off her clothes and splashed into the water.

“Don’t go far!”

He saw her body, vaguely, in the darkness.  It shimmered and rippled through the water.  He looked around for spectators.  A few kids playing up in the campground.  Tiny waves that splashed at his feet.  He removed his shoes and dipped his toes in.  It was cold at first, but he got used to it.

“I can’t see you,” he said.

“I can see you!”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said from the darkness.

“How’s the water?”

“It’s nice, once you get in,” she said.  “Aren’t you going to join me?  We could have some fun out here.”

“I can’t,” said Rob.  The little waves splashed at his ankles.  “I can’t.”

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

The honeymoon continued along the shore.  They crossed the Strait of Canso’s causeway onto Cape Breton Island.  They passed through Judique, Creignish, Port Hood, Inverness, Mabou.  They found a beautiful campground there with an empty, sandy beach that was cut off from the rest of the world by two mountains on either side.  They stayed for two nights.  Kathy loved to swim and sunbathe.  The weather was excellent.  Rob took out a sketchbook and charcoal and worked on his drawing.

They explored the Margaree Valley and continued north towards the Acadian town of Cheticamp.  They camped on a finger of land surrounded by water.  It was all sand and the beaches went on for miles and the water was warm.  They went into town and listened to fiddle music at a tavern.  They got drunk on draft beer.  Rob had to drive back to the campsite.

It was raining the next morning and they were hungover.  They packed the gear into the Honda and ate breakfast in Cheticamp.  It was here that the mountain roads began.  The hood of the car pointed up, and they began to climb.  It was the route, famous for its ocean cliffs and moose, known as the Cabot Trail.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

Kathy loved the beaches, although the water was cold at times.  Rob liked the scenery.  He listened to his singer-songwriters and filled a sketchbook with landscapes.  They bonded around the routine of camping:  they worked together to set up and break down sites.  They cooked meals together.  They enjoyed each other in the nylon confines of the little tent.  They found trails for hiking.  The food was often good:  the fish and chips, the chowders with biscuits, the mussels, the fried clams, the lobster and scallops.  They slowly worked their way around the coast.

They left Cape Breton and traveled down the southern, mainland shore to Halifax.  They only had a few days left by this time.  They planned on visiting a few clubs, listening to music, eating out at some nice restaurants, and exploring the sites and neighbourhoods.

Halifax was contained within the boundaries of a peninsula.  This forced people together in certain ways.  But the city also had distinct neighbourhoods divided by physical barriers such as the Commons and the Citadel fortress.  Some neighbourhoods consisted solely of wooden houses that were over a hundred years old.  It had five or six universities downtown.  Two tension bridges arched across the harbour.  It was pleasant to walk beneath the trees or to drink beer on an outdoor patio.

Rob and Kathy stayed in the south end at an old inn.  They watched buskers.  They visited Titanic victims in a hillside graveyard.  They went shopping during the day.  They went drinking in the evening.  They spotted a famous Hollywood actor at a trendy lounge.  They went to another bar and listened to a country-rock band.

They woke up in the morning.  The honeymoon was—almost—over.

The free, “continental breakfast” that the inn provided (dry cereal, wheat toast, fruit, yoghurt) would not help.  They took the bus across town to a renowned breakfast diner for heavier food.  It was a chilly, grey day.  The town itself seemed hungover.

Rob ordered bacon and eggs; Kathy got the fishcakes and baked beans.  She drank glass after glass of ice-water.  It was the last full day of their honeymoon.

“I’m not in the mood for much today,” she said.

“We can just relax,” said Rob.  “Hang out in a coffee shop somewhere and read.”

“That sounds good,” said Kathy.  She held the cold glass to the side of her head and moaned.

It was just after noon.  Rob paid the cashier at the doorway and met Kathy on the sidewalk.  They started to walk downtown, back towards the hotel.  A salty wind blew up from the harbour and into their faces.

“Hmmmmm,” said Rob.

“What’s that?” said Kathy.

“Look what I found,” he said.  “In my wallet.  I forgot about this.  Remember last night?  I was talking to that guy in the poolroom?”

“Not really.”

“You were talking to him too,” said Rob.

“Good for me,” said Kathy.  “I haven’t been that loaded since Ireland.”

“I told him we were on our honeymoon and that today was our last day in the province.  He said that we should visit this place.”

Rob held the note out for Kathy.  She looked at it:  a torn, bar napkin with an ink scrawl.

“What the hell does it say?” she said.

“It’s called Duncan’s Cove,” said Rob.  He studied his own writing.  “There’s a lighthouse out there.  This guy goes to smoke hash with his friends all the time.  He said that it’s an amazing place.”

“How far is it?”

“Not too far, from what I remember,” said Rob.  “My writing is too messy.”

“Maybe we should go,” said Kathy.  “We can say goodbye to the ocean.”

They went to a coffee shop downtown.  Kathy ordered coffee and a chocolate brownie.  They read a few newspapers and magazines, but she couldn’t relax.  They left the place and went window shopping for an hour.  They stumbled across a little Japanese restaurant and made plans to eat supper there.  They talked about Michiko, Kathy’s old boss in Toronto.  She would not be missed.  They walked back to the inn, and asked the guy at the front desk about the lighthouse.  He gave them a tourist map and traced the route out with a red pen.  They went outside and found the Honda Civic parked behind the building.  They climbed into the car.

Rob did the driving.  Kathy didn’t feel up to it.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

He had to survive a circular, rotary intersection in order to get on the shore road.  Cars shuttled at him and he had no traffic lights to guide him.  Kathy yelled at him and his incompetence.  She spent the rest of the drive in silence until they turned onto a narrow, asphalt lane.  They approached through swamp, spruce, and rock.  The lighthouse perched on the cliffs ahead.  It was painted the shiny red and white of the Coast Guard.  An old house was attached.  The cliff projected out into the entrance of the harbour.  A cold wind blew and they could see dark weather approaching from the open ocean.

Kathy snuggled against Rob as a way of apologizing.  Her hair blew up into his face.  He smiled and hugged her to his shoulder.  They took in the sights.

“Look,” said Rob.  “There’s the path.  That guy said that he liked to climb down to the shore.  That must be the way.”

“We should go down,” said Kathy.  “It’d be nice to get near the water.”

Rob agreed.  He needed a bit of exercise to clear his head.  Besides, Kathy was in the sort of mood that brought out the agreeable in him.  He grabbed her hand.  They crawled around a World War II cement bunker and started down the path.  Prehistoric boulders poked through scrub bush, moss, and tangled grass right to the cliff’s edge.  The path continued over the edge.  It cut sideways along the face through solid rock.  They held hands on the way down, their sneakers slipping across loose gravel.  It brought them to sea-level.  The water lapped at the rock beneath their feet.  Giant boulders, eroded cliff and rock loomed all around and above.  They climbed over a ridge.  Waves rolled in with gentle, soothing power.

At the very end of the path, a little peninsula of shale rock projected out into the harbour like a catwalk.  At the near end, daylight entered the mouth of a shallow cave.

The wind whipped their hair as they approached the tip of the rock.  Rob had a steel grip on Kathy’s hand and it hurt.  She rolled her eyes and recognized something.  Now that they were married, she felt perfectly free to include him in her exasperated outlook.

They stood surrounded by water.  The ocean laid open on their right.  The flat, dark border of the water merged with the grey-black sky.

“What the hell is that?” said Rob.

Kathy followed his finger and saw something approach.  It was a bump on the water.  She thought that it was a wave, but then recognized a discreet, solid object traveling through the water.

“What is it?” she said.

It was moving towards Halifax and it sailed close to their shore.  It was dark-grey, the same colour as the water.

“It’s a boat,” she said.

“It doesn’t look like a boat to me,” said Rob.

“It’s a vessel of some kind,” said Kathy.  “It’s huge.”

They waited.  It moved silently.  They heard only the wind and waves lapping at their feet.  As it passed, Kathy felt that she could almost hop on board.  There were no windows, rivets, portals, or signs of humanity.  It was a half-sunken, flat-black tube.

“A submarine,” said Rob.  “Must be military.”

Kathy watched it go by.  The silence impressed her the most:  how something that big could be so quiet.

“That’s cool,” said Rob.  “Very cool.”

They eventually lost sight of it in the grey of the tide.  Waves followed in a V-formation:  they rammed against the cliffs and shore in a regular, beating pattern.

“Look!” said Kathy.  “Look on the waves!  It’s whales!  Whales!”

Four whales rolled with the swells, riding the waves behind the submarine.  Then, they saw a group of seals behind the whales—half a dozen or more.  The seals zipped along with speed, but kept their distance from the whales in front.

“They’re playing,” said Kathy.  “They’re playing in the waves.”

The last seal swam along the edge of the shore, riding a wave.  They saw the black, goggled eyes and the whiskered nose.  The seal disappeared beneath the surface, and then popped up head-first at their feet.  It sat upright in the water.  The head angled at ninety degrees.  It bobbed up and down.  They looked back.

“Hello seal,” said Kathy.  The seal stared at them.  It seemed like a long time.  Then it disappeared into the water and was gone.  Kathy was sad to see it go.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

She remembered what happened.  But the timing was the difficult thing.  In memory, the series of events got scrambled, so it was difficult to make sense of it.  She didn’t completely trust her own recollection.  It was the shock and trauma of everything.  She did not feel good that day.  She felt general unease or anxiety.  She stood out on the rocks with Rob, and watched the submarine, whales, and seals disappear into the distance of Halifax Harbour.

She was irritated.  The ocean sky was dark-grey and the wind turned cold.  It made her shiver.  Rob was bothering her.  She hated the way he drove.  His nervousness was unbecoming.  She had a bruise on her wrist from the security grip that he’d applied during the hike.  How many song parodies would she have to listen to through the course of a married life?  He rarely had anything original to say, but was happy to offer safe platitudes like “cool” or “awesome” in response to her stories.  As if the submarine could be anything but a “military” one!  Who the hell would open up a used bookstore in a little, suburban, shopping plaza?  She hated how he characterized music into “acceptable” and “not acceptable”:  anything fun or modern was suspect in that regard, so she had to listen to hour after hour of acoustic, folk drivel.

This is what she remembered.

She had to pee.  She told Rob that she had to pee.  He pointed to the little cave.  It wasn’t really a cave—it was just an eroded sliver in the cliff.  A rock slab protected the entrance.  Kathy went behind the boulder to relieve herself.  She squatted and heard a splash.  She thought she heard a noise in the wind.  She finished peeing.  She returned to their look-off.  Rob was not there.  She walked out to the little point.  The surface was soaked, glistening, and shiny black.  Puddles had formed in any depressions.  She found one of his sneakers on a ledge beneath her feet—near where the seal had been poking around.  She reached down to the ledge and picked it up.  She stared out at the harbour.  The waves swelled up and down in gathering rolls.  There were no submarines, whales, or seals.  Rob wasn’t there either.  She sat on the rocks and turned to face the issue which was the ocean itself.  It began to rain.  Her hair and clothing got soaked.  Her forehead, cheeks, chin, and lips dripped water.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *

She remembered making it to the top of the cliff.  She ran up the path, returning through the scrub brush and boulders.  Kathy saw the Honda parked on the asphalt tarmac next to the lighthouse.  She knew, as soon as she saw it, that her relationship with that car was about to change in a big way.  There was a big bus next to it.  She stumbled over the WW II bunker and ran into the yard.  She couldn’t se anybody.  She ran around the back of the bus and found a group of people.  She screamed at them.  They weren’t speaking English.  It was Danish, Dutch, German—some Northern European tongue.  They understood her distress, but not the details.  She ran past them and up the steps to the house.  She ran in the front door and found a man in a plaid shirt sitting at a desk.  He looked up from his newspaper.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“The ocean,” said Kathy.  “It took my husband.”

Over the past few years we have repeatedly been told that we should quit using hydrocarbons.  Fine.  Global daily hydrocarbon use is about 200 million barrels of oil equivalent, or about 23.5 Saudi Arabias per day.  Thus, if the world’s policy makers really want to quit using carbon-based fuels, then we will need to find the energy equivalent of 23.5 Saudi Arabias every day, and all of that energy must be carbon free.

Robert Bryce; Power Hungry

WSJ review here.

…on the day of the big announcement, there was barely a breeze, underscoring the unfortunate fact that wind turbines produce electricity only about a third of the time, often when there’s little demand for it.

Second, wind-turbine health effects are not clearly understood at this time.

Ward and Mae Brubacher, a couple in their 50s, who live 750 metres from two turbines on remote Fitzpatrick Mountain, Pictou County. Ward says when strong winds blow, the noise vibrations are like the booming of car stereo speakers. “Many times we have laid awake in bed with all the windows shut in the house listening to the whompf, whompf, whompf,” he says. “You get up, you read, you wait until you’re exhausted so you can sleep through it.”

"What could possibly go wrong?"

Wind-turbines produce extreme low-frequency noise pulses (infra-noise).  Anecdotal reports are to be taken with a grain of salt and can be employed by the media to personalize any agenda.  But the effects of ”regular” noise exposure from, say, industry or hobbies are well documented:  these include cochlear hearing loss, tinnitus, hypertension, anxiety, headaches, and sleep problems.  It’s reasonable to assume that intense, pulsating, sub-sonic blasts of noise could have similar effects.

Nina Pierpont has written a book about “Wind Turbine Syndrome” which attempts to define a cluster of health problems that may be caused from living close to these windmills.

You’d think that this issue would have generated a plethora of research, but a quick search of a university library database resulted in only a few articles.  This might seem surprising, but the truth is that research funding schemes have resulted in university cultures which are enthusiastic about green-friendly endeavours.  Also, transducer limitations make it difficult to study this issue in the lab since most microphones and receivers (speakers) do not function well in the extreme, low-frequency range.

Whatever the case, it’s interesting to watch authorities scramble over one another to get these projects going.  The Coast and editor  Bruce Wark aren’t exactly from the right-wing, climate-denier caste.  So it’s refreshing (and a credit to Mr. Wark) to see these issues brought forward.

The four articles, published from December to February, claimed that Weaver cherrypicked data to support his climate research, and that he tried to blame the “evil fossil fuel” industry for break-ins at his office in 2008 to divert attention from reported mistakes in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on which he was lead author.

Megan O’Toole’s news story from December 3 boasts the headline:

Attempted Breaches Show Larger Efforts to Discredit Climate Science:  Researcher.

This Terence Corcoran column is likely one of these items.  Other Corcoran columns from that time period include this, this, and this.  Other National Post stories on climate change during this time can be found here.

Mr. Weaver is being represented in this action by McConchie Law Corporation.

From the January issue of the Canadian Association of University Teachers Bulletin:

He says the goal of the people who stole and published the e-mail archive was to distract from critical discussions aimed at achieving a binding figure for emissions reduction at the climate conference in Copenhagen.

“This is just one in a series of incidents that have been part of a sustained and well-organized attempt to discredit science and harass scientists, and scientists are being targeted precisely because the evidence is overwhelmingly demanding change,” said Weaver.

This article is from the February issue of the Bulletin.  Further background info can be found at rawstory.com here.

"Pass the popcorn, Lloyd."

Wow!  It looks like Avatar or something!

CTV newsreader, Jacqueline Milczarek about an image taken by the Hubble Telescope.

Yesterday, Premier Dexter one-upped the distinguished hired hands:  he laid out plans for N.S. to generate 40% of its electricity by 2020.  You go girl!

He’ll have to rebuild the grid to accomplish this.

Unbiased commentator, Reuben Burge (president of RMSenergy) who probably doesn’t stand to gain anything from this type of activity was impressed by the size of Mr. Dexter’s…er, targets:

“We know we are going in that direction and we have to meet it, and those are huge targets.”

Robin MacAdam from N.S. Power was also turned on:

“I think we can get there.  I think they are stretch targets but they are achievable.”

Translation from mandarin-speak to plain English:  the targets are a big pile of Antigonish manure.  The government’s foray into $green$ energy is founded on a crock.  How reassuring.  Have fun with those elevated electric bills!

The Ecology Action Centre distributes materials about “glass dildos” to schoolkids:

On Wednesday, 23 students in Gorsebrook Junior High School’s Grade 8 French Immersion personal development and relationships class went home with copies of the Ecology Action Centre’s Between the Issues, which deals with local and global environmental matters.

Next week:  the Canadian Taxpayers Federation visits and hands out bondage pamphlets.

"And so on."

Efficiency, Nova Scotia style:

It will be late spring or summer before the new agency designed to help Nova Scotians cut their energy use will be up and running, says Energy Minister Bill Estabrooks.

Estabrooks said he was “disappointed as minister” that Efficiency Nova Scotia isn’t yet in place. The target for replacing the provincial government’s Conserve Nova Scotia, as well as taking over Nova Scotia Power’s demand-side management program, was March 31…

…

Efficiency Nova Scotia will be funded through a charge to Nova Scotia Power customers. Nova Scotia Power expects to spend $22.6 million on energy efficiency this year, and has applied to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board to charge customers another $2 a month so next year’s amount can climb to $41.9 million.

Conserve Nova Scotia’s budget this year is $23.4 million.