So what if “generating enough electricity to power NYC requires huge turbines across an area the size of Connecticut, and they only work eight hours a day on average”. The beauty of electrical power is that its use is independent of its source. The same light bulb can be powered by coal generated electricity, hydro generated electricity, nuclear generated electricity, wind generated electricity, or electricity generated by any other means. You add incremental electricity generation capacity by building what is most efficient based on current economics; I can recall periods of incremental electricity generation capacity by coal, nuclear, and most recently, natural gas. Most good hydro cites are long gone, but west coast ocean wave power is now being tested in a few projects. Geothermal has long been used in California and a new facility under the Cascade Mountains in Washington is being considered. Home scale solar hot water heating is already cost efficient for some new home construction, even in such places as western Washington State, about as far north as you can get in the US (further north than Presque Isle ME, Duluth MN, or Fargo ND) and with not much bright sunlight either. And in many places, the most cost efficient way to meet incremental energy needs is to improve energy efficiency. Given a choice, many public utilities would choose to finance additional insulation in residential and commercial buildings if they were allowed to capitalize their investment in energy savings rather than build incremental generating capacity.

No competent scientist thinks fossil fuel produced CO2 is the only or even the largest component in earth’s temperature control system. But fossil fuel produced CO2 is very important never-the-less because all the other components are more or less balanced against one another and controlled by their own natural cycles, while we are generating fossil fuel produced C02 at a monotonically increasing rate that appears to be beyond the capacity of nature to regulate.