Articles by
Ketan Joshi
Power to the people: why clean energy must give more Australians a slice of the pie
By
Ketan Joshi
Australians are far more welcoming of change than we expect, and are furious at having been shut out of being direct participants
Why clean tech inspires a new magnitude of wrongness
By
Ketan Joshi
Renewable energy, presented as environmentally friendly and clean, must turn out to be harmful to humans and the environment. There's an ironic, vindicating righteousness in believing, as intensely as you possibly can, that technology used to reduce environmental impact actually increases it.
Why Germans are bemused by Australia’s wind turbine terror
By
Ketan Joshi
Germany, as it happens, has a very strong culture of benefit sharing. I had a chat to my host about my experience on the outskirts of Ebersheim. She told me about a neighbour in the small town who owns shares in those very turbines, and has been making money off them, and he loves them.
You can now get ‘wind turbine syndrome’ from solar panels and batteries
By
Ketan Joshi
As I've expected for some time, there's a new effort to create and propagate health fears around solar power, given the rapid decrease in costs, and the rising threat it poses to incumbent generators like coal and gas. It's going to take precisely the same shape as the campaign around wind farms, and unless we think deeply about the necessary ingredients for this type of techno-panic to flourish, it's going to last just as long, and cause just as much harm.
Climate Denial and Wind Turbine Syndrome: The Inquisition’s Rejection of Science
By
Ketan Joshi
There are reasons normally-rational people will angrily reject good science, and credulously believe bad science. We twist ourselves into awkward, dissonant ideological formations, and it seems people who wield the most power are most likely to engage in this proud rejection of reality.
Are German doctors trying to ban wind turbines?
By
Ketan Joshi
I've received a response from the German Medical Association - a group that The Australian claims were moving to ban wind turbines in Germany. As I described, they weren't, but I thought I'd check.
Some Air: Bad Science Reporting Causes Real Harm
By
Ketan Joshi
Spreading health fears can itself result in harm. A BBC Panorama report on the 'health dangers of wifi' warped a collection of already-flawed 'studies' to present the theory that WiFi causes health impacts. Subsequent research showed that people 'primed' with this documentary perceived a greater severity of symptoms, compared to a control group shown scientific information.
Pseudoscience: When You Really, Really Really Hate Data and Deduction
By
Ketan Joshi
The denial of deduction and causation is a necessary component in the concrete acceptance of extremely weak hypotheses, such as those underlying homeopathy, anti-vaccination fear-mongering, anti-abortion pseudoscience dating back to the 1950's, or 'wind turbine syndrome'.
Etwas Luft: Why Copenhagen Hasn’t Seen A “Wind Turbine Syndrome” Pandemic
By
Ketan Joshi
Even if Denmark had its own 'wind turbine syndrome' organisation, I strongly suspect the phenomenon wouldn't take hold. The Middelgrunden Wind Farm happens to be half-owned by Middelgrunden Wind Cooperative - 10,000 investors that own 10 of the 20 turbines.
Some Air: ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’ Causes Mink Mutations, And Other Correlations
By
Ketan Joshi
Logical fallacies are everywhere. Flick open the newspaper and hear the latest assertion from your politician-of-choice, and you'll see one being used to advocate a course of action, framed in something that sounds popular, but doesn't really make a lot of sense, once you look closer. They're usually swirled with little portions of truth. . . Sometimes, we see fallacies in their purest form; devoid of any truth. This happened recently when a group named the 'World Council For Nature' issued an urgent, graphic press release:
ReNewEconomy: What ‘wind turbine syndrome’ tells us about the future of cleantech
By
Ketan Joshi
The urgent need for rapid decarbonisation of our electricity system means we have to research, build, test and deploy a raft of new technologies, all in a short time period. As new technology collides with human nature, myth and misinformation take hold. Fighting back against this means looking closely at the cultural and cognitive drivers that lead to people rejecting science.
Etwas Luft: The Contours of Misinformation [about Wind Energy]
By
Ketan Joshi
Recently, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) released a comprehensive position statement on the curiously invulnerable issue of 'wind turbine syndrome'. One phrase from the statement caught my eye, because it goes slightly further than other institutions (like the Victorian Department of Health, the National Health and Medical Research Council, or New South Wales Health), in that it mentions the impact of misinformation:
