A new report confirmed the great insight of economics: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. We are told that weaning the United States off fossil fuels is going to poison the Inuit in Canada. I think the claim is a bit of a stretch, but it is being made.

The connection is that if we don’t burn coal or natural gas, then we need to get our energy from somewhere. If that’s from damming the Canadian rivers, then those vast hydropower lakes produce methylmercury, which then poisons the food chain. The concentration rises as we ascend the food chain, and given that we humans tend to be at the top, we’re the ones who suffer the most.