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Earlier this week, the famed TV scientist Bill Nye went on an MSNBC talk show to discuss the economic cost of climate change and the consequences it could levy on rural America.

Nye’s chat with Hardball host Chris Matthews took a surprising turn when the Science Guy started advocating for a U.S. incursion, of sorts, into Canada.

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As global temperatures rise, Nye said, “the growing (of crops) in North America is going to have to move north into what would nominally be Canada. We don’t have the infrastructure, we don’t have the railroads and roads to get food from that area to where we need it around the world.

“Of course it can be built,” Nye added, “but the longer we mess around and (don’t) address this problem, the more difficult it’s going to be.”

It wasn’t entirely clear if Nye meant to imply that Canada does not, in fact, have roads to transport crops, or if by using the word “nominally” he was envisioning an apocalyptic future in which the U.S. flexes its military might and annexes us out of self-interest. (If so, it’s worth noting that Gwynne Dwyer, a Canadian journalist and historian, warned of a wealth of similar outcomes that could unfold around the world in his 2008 book Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats.)