'Mildred," cried Uncle Fred as he surveyed the rain through the window of their home on Gabriola Island, "I have concluded that we must go green, really green."
"What prompted this, Fred?" asked his astonished wife.
"I have been reading party platforms and declarations from NGOs. I want to leave a better Earth for our grandchildren. We must turn to renewables now. So I have developed a Swiftian solution to our problems."
"What does that mean, Fred?"
"Jonathan Swift had a plan for solving the Irish problem. I have one for the environment. No more fossil fuels. They must all stay in the ground. No tankers. No pipelines. No oil. No natural gas. No coal. Only renewables."
"What does it mean for us?"
"Solar panels on our roof, for starters. Solar panels across B.C. – on mountainsides, fields, roofs, buildings."
"But it's been raining for a week," Mildred said." We've only seen the sun for a few days since Christmas."
"I know. We'll need base load capacity for the four months when the sun doesn't shine much. Since we can't use fossil fuels for base load, we need a couple of nuclear reactors. They don't produce carbon. They're greenhouse gas friendly. One reactor in Surrey or Richmond for the Lower Mainland, and one in Sidney for Vancouver Island. Because you need them rather close to population centres."
"I didn't think environmentalists liked nuclear power, Fred."
"Mildred, you've got to have base load power. Since we must never burn fossil fuels, you gotta think nuclear."
"Those things I used to read about?" Mildred said. "What were they called? I remember now: fuel cells. Some Vancouver company made them."
"Ballard Power Systems made them, but they petered out. Kind of like hydrogen as a fuel source. Great in theory, not so good in practice. Maybe some day, but not now. What we really need in addition to solar is wind power."
"Not those ghastly, ghostly turbines, Fred. They're awful."
"They are beautiful creatures. Haven't you seen them all over Germany and Denmark and Britain and Ontario? We've even got some up in northeastern B.C."
"They kill birds, don't they," Mildred asked.
"That's anti-green talk. They don't produce a single smidgen of carbon. They are the ultimate renewable resource. We should start by putting eight or 10 on Gabriola."
"People sometimes don't like turbines, Fred. A lot of people in Ontario voted against the government that spread them like mushrooms. Didn't the Kennedys oppose them on Nantucket Sound?"
"Look Mildred. If you don't want fossil fuels, and the sun doesn't always shine and you don't like nuclear, you've gotta love wind. So I have a plan."
"What's that?"
"You build turbines where the wind blows, right? Where does the wind often blow? By the sea or on mountainsides. We've got lots of both in B.C."
"Where do we put them, Fred?"
"We do what the Danes and Germans and Brits have done. We put them along the shores and in the ocean."
"Go on," Mildred said.
"We put big turbines – big because we need a lot of power – on all the Gulf Islands: Saturna, Gabriola, Galiano, Pender, Saltspring, all of them. Then, Mildred, we line both sides of Georgia Strait with turbines: from Victoria to Comox on the west side, and from North Vancouver to Powell River on the east. Both sides of Howe Sound, too.
"Then, my dear, we put several hundred turbines in the middle of the Strait, just like they do off Jutland or in the Irish Sea. And, since the wind really blows on the west coast of Vancouver Island, we put them from Ucluelet to Tofino."
"Sounds awful, Fred. The people will revolt."
"Nonsense, it's absolutely logical. If we're going green, we need nothing but renewables. We've got to walk the talk. Turbines for tankers. Panels for pipelines. Reactors for LNG."
"What about cars, Fred?"
"Ban them or tax them, unless they are electric. Teslas for all!"
"Don't Teslas cost more than $100,000 each?"
"There's a new Tesla model coming that's going to cost less. Mildred, we've got to make a stand. We should tax every gas-driven car that gets off the ferry to Gabriola. Tax every resident's car that isn't electric. Electricity we get from the turbines on the island. I'm starting a petition declaring the island a Renewables-Only Zone. I'm making it my life's work, or what's left of it."