Wind Noise, Health, & Safety

An impressive line-up of speakers including the master debunker of the mythical “Wind Turbine Syndrome”, Professor Simon Chapman, attracted a large crowd of enthusiastic renewables supporters. Chapman’s reading of the public mood that the community is no longer buying the fear campaign was certainly played out in Canberra, as Callum Davidson’s photos show.

Anti-wind groups will no doubt continue to disseminate hyperbolic misinformation through the veil of secretive front organisations, compensating for a lack of evidence with the assumed authority of a registered company name. Let’s hope they choose a better pun next time.

Anti-wind farm activists are blaming turbines for everything from herpes to doubling power prices

Though the researchers set out to show how irresponsible reports in the media can trigger a nocebo effect, they ended up showing how easy it is to make a person feel sick with just a a prop and a few choice words. . .

Further study, as demanded by opponents of wind, will appropriately continue, and will take time. Given, however, the well-documented and peer-reviewed evidence thus far, there is no medical contraindication to wind power and, given the crisis of our unstable climate, there is no time for further delay.

If wind turbines were as “bad” for you as windbaggers in the US would like you to believe, there should be a lot of body bags piling up in places like Germany, Denmark, and, well, Iowa – places that have large penetration by wind generated electricity.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the peak national body for research in Australia, issued a Public Statement: Wind Turbines and Health – July 2010 that there was no published scientific evidence to positively link wind turbines to adverse effects.

However, the available evidence does not support claims
that inaudible sounds can have direct physiological effects.
Physiological effects on humans have only been
detected at levels that are easily audible.