Jobs…..or Industrial Wind Turbines? You can’t have both!
Ford closes as energy costs in Australia sky rocket
Senator Ros Boswell called it – either you can have renewable energy or an industry sector – not both. You can remind yourself of his speech at our Wind Power Fraud Rally here – where he lists the demise of our industry sector, industry by industry, and breaks down the power bills of a Wyndham iceworks factory to reveal the impact renewable energy policies are having on their operation. He has declared that Australian manufacturers face a “killing field”, and that the RET was on track to cost $5 billion a year by 2020, and that the carbon tax and renewables schemes had played a significant part in tipping businesses “over the edge” (see our post here).
It is a problem the world over. Today’s article is by Matthew Sinclair, who is an economist and the author of Let Them Eat Carbon: The Price of Failing Climate Change Policies, and How Governments and Big Business Profit From Them. In this article Matthew explains the green myth – that is why renewables (or as our friends like to call them unreliables) instead of creating new green jobs, actually destroys jobs.
The green myth: Why renewables destroy jobs
Matthew Sinclair
25 Math 2014
POLITICIANS and activists are celebrating the news that Siemens is prepared to invest £160m in facilities in and around Hull to produce and install offshore wind turbines. It sounds like good news: 1,000 new jobs. But our embrace of renewable energy will cost jobs overall, not create them.
The UK is putting eye-watering amounts of money into low carbon sources of energy. Most commentators think £200bn needs to be invested in the energy sector, mostly to meet government environmental targets.
Any investment on that scale will create jobs. If you invested hundreds of billions in building statues of Nick Clegg, workers would be needed to design, build, install and maintain them. It is also reasonable to believe that there will be more jobs in the energy sector if we shift from conventional energy – coal and gas – to renewable energy. More labour is needed to generate a megawatt hour of renewable energy than a megawatt hour of conventional energy. If we switched to generating our energy by hiring people to run around in circles, carrying children’s pinwheels, it would almost certainly create even more jobs. But do we really think that would be a good idea, or increase overall employment?
We pay a price for those green jobs. Energy firms need to make a profit on that £200bn investment, and the return on that investment will come straight out of the pockets of families and businesses. Analysts at Liberum Capital expect that total power costs could double by 2030 in real terms.
Higher energy bills will mean that families and businesses have less to spend on other goods and services. That means fewer jobs at the many, many firms which would have supplied those goods and services.
We can also expect energy-intensive industry to steadily relocate to countries where energy is cheaper. Due to high energy prices, the International Energy Agency expects Europe to lose 10 per cent of the global export market for energy-intensive goods.
If these industries leave, that costs jobs. Hundreds of jobs were lost when the Alcan Lynemouth aluminium smelter closed in 2012, for example, and the other sectors which depend on energy-intensive industries as suppliers or customers will also suffer.
The government is trying to help, and industry representatives welcomed the relief announced at the Budget. But for firms planning long-term investments, reliefs are a limited and unreliable substitute for the low prices competitors enjoy in the US.
Studies in Spain, Italy and Germany have confirmed that renewable energy subsidies destroy more jobs than they create overall. It is only possible to create net green jobs if you secure significant net exports. Basic arithmetic tells you not everyone can win that game.
Every country cannot simultaneously sell more wind turbines or solar panels than it buys, and installing lots of expensive offshore wind turbines in Britain will not make us the most competitive location in which to make them. Over time, the jobs will leak to other countries where costs (including energy costs) are lower. While it is understandable that people are celebrating in Hull now, they need to plan for the day when the constant stream of expensive subsidies which offshore wind depends on dwindles, and the green jobs dry up.
The sad thing is that jobs lost when energy policy raises prices are at firms that could have otherwise stood on their own two feet. Britain’s green jobs are no sustainable replacement.
Matthew Sinclair
Matthew Sinclair
Letters to the Australian Medical Association- Very Interesting and Informative! A Must-Read!
Letters to the AMA in alphabetical order
Heartwrenching Letter from Wind Turbine Victim, Annie Gardener
Annie strikes again
Annie and Gus: Life before the turbines
Annie and Gus Gardner are hard working rural folk who have shared their battles with the AGL wind factory us at our Wind Power Fraud Rally last year and in letters covered in our posts here, here, here, here, here andhere.
The outrage that stemmed from the Gardner’s reading of the AMA position paper on wind farms and health is captured well in this letter to the President and Vice president of the AMA
Mr. Steve Hambleton, President,
Prof. Geoffrey Dobb, Vice-President,
Australian Medical Association,
P.O. Box 6090,
KINGSTON, A.C.T. 2604
25 March, 2014
Dear Mr. Hambleton and Professor Dobb and AMA members,
My name is Ann Gardner and I have lived and worked happily and healthily for 34 years, on my husband’s and my farming property in south-west Victoria until October 2012, when the first only 15 turbines of the Macarthur wind farm began operation, and threw our lives and those of many others, into turmoil.
At the time of writing this letter I am suffering terribly from the infrasound emitted by the 140 turbines located FAR TOO CLOSE to our property.
I have a bad headache. I have a very strong pain shooting up through the back of my neck and into my head. I have extremely sore and blocked ears and very painful pressure in my nose. I have pressure in my jaws and my teeth. My heart is POUNDING …… I can feel the vibration going through my body, through the chair, like an electric charge. I have just taken yet another two tablets to try and alleviate the pain.
I am also exhausted, as last night, along with every other night, I spent more time awake than asleep. The infrasound in our bedroom, was appalling …… I could feel the vibration through the mattress and the pillow, like an electric charge through my body. My head felt as if a brick was on it, and the pressure and pain in my nose was extreme. I have always been a very sound sleeper, that is until October 2012. I am now lucky if I am able to get two or three hours sleep each night, in my own home.
My family’s common law right to a good night’s sleep in our own home HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM US BY AGL and THE MACARTHUR WIND FARM.
My nights are spent as above. I take at least two tablets in the middle of the night to try and get back to sleep, but most times they just don’t work. Getting up in the morning I feel wretched and reach for at least two more tablets to try and make me feel able to start my working day, with any energy at all.
My husband is severely impacted by the infrasound also, to the extent that since October 2012, we have been forced to leave our property for at least two nights of each week, which literally means three days away. We do this to try and get at least two decent nights sleep each week, and also to remove our bodies from the cumulative impact of infrasound. In your position, surely you would know what infrasound does to the human body. If not, read the link www.lowertheboom.org.au.
When we move away, which is at great cost to us and our business, our symptoms go away and we feel like normal people again. Our animals suffer, our business suffers, but we can no longer live in our own home for a whole week. What an absolute disgrace this is …… in a country such as Australia. When we return home again, after several days respite, the symptoms return immediately.
The above description is just how it is EVERY DAY. and EVERY NIGHT we spent in our home and on our property, thanks to AGL’s monster Macarthur wind farm where the turbines have been constructed far too close together, and far too close to people’s homes. Already two families have been forced to leave their homes, their jobs and their properties due to the impact of the wind farm turbine noise and infrasound/low frequency noise. Other families, like ours, are forced to leave their homes regularly for respite and to get a good night’s sleep.
THIS IS NOT RIGHT ……
So to read the AMA’s position statement released recently, we were just appalled.
It is such a disgrace to see that the AMA has allowed the wind industry to infiltrate this association, whose Mission Statement goes along the following lines –
“The AMA promotes and advances ethical behaviour by medical professionals and protects the integrity and independence of doctor/patient relationship”.
The Position Statement released literally promotes the lies and fraud which is endemic within the wind industry, and you two men, who have no doubt been elected with a responsibility and duty of care to protect the health of ALL Australians, have allowed the reputation of the AMA to fall into disrepute, by allowing the AMA to be aligned with and influenced by, the greedy wind industry.
The claims of the “nocebo” effect and “scaremongering” are just OUTRAGEOUS.
These are outright LIES and the AMA knows it.
My family did NOT EVER imagine we would be impacted in any way by this enormous wind farm developed next to our farming property. We feared the noise and vibration could possibly resonate within the walls of our shedded sheep enterprise, but not for one minute did we anticipate any problem regarding our own health.
Do you know why?
We were told by AGL that there would be no more noise than any ordinary working farm!!!!
LIES, LIES, LIES and more LIES, is what the innocent, hard working families were spun by this large Australian company, whose conduct in this district has been shocking.
We, along with so many other families CANNOT SEE the turbines, but we can certainly FEEL them.
What amazes me is that for the past year, various organisations have been “trotting” out reports claiming there are NO health impacts from wind turbines.
BUT each of these reports (bar the NHMRC’s) DO NOT HAVE AUTHORS. Why is this?
Could it be that a certain academic from a well-known university, or the Clean Energy Council, or wind developers have had a very large part in writing these shonky reports ?
First of all, we saw the release of the Victorian Health Department’s two fraudulent reports titled Wind Farms, Sound and Health. But alas, NO AUTHORS …….
Recently the NHMRC released its latest report. It did have the names of the authors, however a serious conflict of interest has been discovered between several people involved, and the wind industry …….
Now we have the AMA Position Statement released. Again, NO AUTHOR.
No doubt, release of names of all those who participated in this appalling statement, would identify the very close involvement of the wind industry within this organisation also.
I have several questions which I would appreciate your immediate answers to please.
- How many impacted victims did you interview at various wind farms around Australia ?
- Why did you NOT visit the Macarthur wind farm ?
- Why did you NOT interview impacted families surrounding the Macarthur wind farm?
- Why did you NOT carry out multi-disciplinary research at the Macarthur wind farm?
- Why did you NOT carry out HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENTS at the Macarthur wind farm?
- Why did you NOT carry out ANY investigation in the field at the Macarthur wind farm, when you are WELL AWARE of the preliminary health survey carried out in 2013 in this district, whereby around 23 families (around 66 people) reported various degrees of health problems associated with the turbines?
Just in case you’ve conveniently forgotten about this preliminary health survey (bearing in mind it was not truly representative of all the district, as many families have signed confidentiality agreements to host turbines for another wind farm proposal) the link is as follows –
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/macarthur-preliminary-survey-shows-effects-out-8-9km/
I suggest you read it and thoroughly digest, particularly the chilling comments made by the people responding to the survey.
In line with your totally unacceptable behaviour trotting out this recent fraudulent report full of the wind industry’s lies, I suppose you condone the behaviour of AGL Energy Ltd. whereby in November 2012, they had the audacity to send a letter to the 12 medical centres in this large south-west Victorian district?
This letter literally advised all the doctors that should any of their patients present with symptoms which they attributed to the turbines at the Macarthur wind farm, there is no evidence of health impacts from wind turbines, and the doctors should advise the patients simply to go home and read the AGL website.
This action by AGL seriously breached the contract between doctor and patient, and caused doctors in this district to neglect their patients and simply not investigate any further their problems, not assisting their sick patients in any way.
Thus I would like your answer to my question –
Does the AMA condone AGL’s actions in trying to influence the medical practitioners in this district, thus ignoring their duty of care and responsibility to the health of their patients?
The totally irresponsible manner in which the AMA has acted, literally allowing themselves to be an advocate of the wind industry, and the behaviour of AGL in this manner, remind me of what it would be like to live in a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY, where those in authority treat the people with such contempt and shocking disregard.
I ask you, how can the AMA and its members ABUSE their duty of care to PROMOTE ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR when both the President and Vice President have allowed themselves to compromise the position of this Association whose mantle is literally DO NO HARM?
The harm your Association has caused to the hundreds of rural Australians whose health and lives have been destroyed by wind turbines, by the greed of developers, by promoting what I am of the opinion to be the corrupt actions of wind developers, is immeasurable. You, along with the wind industry, insist on denigrating innocent families who dare to speak out, in their desperate attempts to prevent further damage to their health and wellbeing.
All I can say to you is SHAME ON YOU.
Could you please inform me the name/s of those who authored this Position Statement?
I ask that you immediately REVOKE this disgraceful example of dishonesty and “spin”, and start acting in the manner which is expected of you, as leaders of such a supposed exemplary body.
Put simply, this Position Statement is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH and you two men should RESIGN immediately. You do NOT DESERVE the positions which you hold, having severely abused the privilege bestowed upon you to hold such offices.
I would also appreciate your HONEST answers to my NINE questions, by return mail please. Yours sincerely,
ANN C. GARDNER (Mrs)
PENSHURST, Vic.
The AMA makes statements, with no real proof. Were humans studied? NO!
Attorney warns Aust. Medical Assoc. that its reckless statement on WTS is “actionable”
Mar 28, 2014
.
To: The President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA)
From: Terrence Conn, Attorney at Law (New South Wales, Australia)
Regarding: The AMA’s “actionable” and reckless formal statement on wind turbines & health
Date: 3/28/14
.
Excerpt:
It is time to put the “anxiety from scare mongering” and Professor Simon Chapman’s “nocebo” argument to rest and move on. The idea is illogical, cruel and ridiculous in the context of rural communities and there is not one skerrick of evidence to support it. . . .
To put it briefly, I am flabbergasted by the recklessly negligent AMA position statement. The position statement is reckless in the extreme. It parrots wind farm protagonist propaganda and shows no hint of independent research into health issues or energy issues. The statement is negligent because, firstly, your organization has an acknowledged “duty of care” towards the citizens of Australia and secondly, “you know or ought to know” what the actual evidence is. . . .
Apart from the health issues (about which you would be well advised to limit any AMA statement – again, the case of negligence and recklessness would not be difficult to establish) the position statement makes gratuitous remarks about other aspects of industrial wind turbines. It repeats wind industry propaganda about the benefits of wind farms and the absence of ill effects. In this respect, your statement is patently political and ideological. . . .
In summary, your statement is ignorant, unprofessional, ideologically driven and ill-informed. It is a disgrace to the medical profession. It is dripping with the words of propaganda used by the proponents and supporters of wind farms. I note that its authorship is not acknowledged and it bears an uncanny resemblance to statements issued by the “clean energy council” (formerly the Australian Wind Energy Association) which consistently misrepresents the impact of wind farms. It is an embarrassment to your members and, quite probably, actionable. It should be removed from the internet and, if you must take a public position in the matter, re-done.
I am a solicitor [lawyer] and farmer living in the Central Tablelands of N.S.W. I, and my wife, were approached by a wind farm developer in 2008 and thereafter to consider “hosting” industrial wind turbines on our farm. As a result, I (unlike the AMA) carefully researched and studied the “impacts” of wind farms on rural communities world wide in order to form an independent judgment in relation to these matters. Having done so, I was appalled to read the “Wind Farms and Public Health Position Statement” dated the 18th March 2014 and published on the internet. This is a letter of protest.
To put it briefly, I am flabbergasted by the recklessly negligent AMA position statement. The position statement is reckless in the extreme. It parrots wind farm protagonist propaganda and shows no hint of independent research into health issues or energy issues. The statement is negligent because, firstly, your organization has an acknowledged “duty of care” towards the citizens of Australia and secondly, “you know or ought to know” what the actual evidence is. Even if the author (s) had read the recently released 264 page draft report by the NH&MRC and its referenced material, no “reasonable man” – let alone a qualified professional – could possibly come up with an “objective” statement that resembles anything like the “AMA position” on wind farm health impacts.
In addition to reading the NH&MRC report and references, the author of a proper (rather than a reckless and negligent) AMA position statement would need to consider and weigh the “peer reviewed” literature which the NH&MRC ignored.
Further, it has to be odds of at least 1,000 to 1 that neither you nor any of the authors of your report has ever spoken to a victim suffering ill-health from industrial wind turbines. The negligence case against the AMA in relation to its position statement would not be a difficult one!
Perhaps, if you have spoken to any victims you concluded they were suffering as a result of “heightened anxiety” or “negative perceptions.” As a long standing resident of a rural community and a 4th generation Australian farmer the notion that rural people can be led “lemming like” down a path of “anxiety” with their bulging eyes glazed over in a mask of unintelligent incomprehension into any abyss of physical ill health is absurd. Philosopher M Thomas Inge makes the observation that “farming is the sole occupation which offers total independence and self sufficiency.” The “independence” extends to their decision making.
There are any number of studies and written observations that exist in Australia relating to rural people’s consistent exercise of independence of thought. Do some real research. Look them up but I will refer to one study by Heidi Lindner, School of Health and Environment, La Trobe University. The study outlines an extraordinary propensity by farmers for stoicism, independence and self reliance and concludes that a strong tendency exists in the culture to “victim blame” – to assume that an individual has control over their own behaviours and that their poor health is their own fault. It is precisely this tendency to “victim blame” that makes your statement so utterly careless, negligent and destructive. It deliberately fosters and encourages such an attitude.
It is time to put the “anxiety from scare mongering” and Professor Simon Chapman’s “nocebo” argument to rest and move on. The idea is illogical, cruel and ridiculous in the context of rural communities and there is not one skerrick of evidence to support it.
Apart from the health issues (about which you would be well advised to limit any AMA statement – again, the case of negligence and recklessness would not be difficult to establish) the position statement makes gratuitous remarks about other aspects of industrial wind turbines. It repeats wind industry propaganda about the benefits of wind farms and the absence of ill effects. In this respect, your statement is patently “political” and “ideological.” More importantly, it demonstrates extraordinary ignorance of energy matters and is proof that you have not even been aware of persistent and continuous media and professional debates about the place of wind farms as a generator of electricity in a modern society with an electrical grid system. Hundreds of papers have been written and submitted to governments by professional economists, various engineering groups, individual engineers and acousticians (not involved with the wind industry). I have numerous references to these papers and submissions but I have no intention of attaching them to this letter or sending them to you because you need to first introduce the AMA to health issues rather than the issues that are much debated in energy circles.
That said, bit by bit, governments around the world are realising that they have been “conned” by wind industry propaganda in respect to efficacy, abatement of CO2 emissions, abatement of pollution and the cost of wind energy. In relation to efficacy alone, imagine trying to run just one hospital from power generated by every wind farm in Australia – you can’t. As you would know if you had done any research, even AGL admits this! The obstinate obsession by protagonists to limit discussion of wind farms to only the generation of electricity is another absurdity thrust upon us by the wind industry and its proponents, and apparently now by the AMA. Somebody should have informed the authors of the statement that the “generation” of electricity is just one part of a complicated system that provides 24 hour a day, 7 day a week power to consumers when it is needed. Why would you build a car and place it in an environment with no roads, bridges, traffic control or any of the other components needed for a complicated transport system. The evidence is now in and mounting – the engineers have been consistently correct, the ideologists incorrect. Case studies from around the world are demonstrating that running a national grid that is mandatorily connected to voluminous wind farms is a complete, dangerous and massively expensive flop in every respect.
To say that I am extremely disappointed by the quality and content of the position statement would be to put it more mildly than I am prepared to. At an intellectual level, much has been written recently by social commentators (you could start with the work of Nick Cater) about the emergence of a smug, superior class in Australian society, a class which has delusions of its own adequacy and which takes neither the time nor the trouble to remove itself from its own comfort zones and thought bubbles to connect with real people and “the real world.” It appears to me that the AMA echelons, which have now categorized rural people as worthless, stupid imbeciles incapable of knowing whether they are sick or not, have been permeated by such attitudes and they have no place in a professional organization.
In summary, your statement is ignorant, unprofessional, ideologically driven and ill-informed. It is a disgrace to the medical profession. It is dripping with the words of propaganda used by the proponents and supporters of wind farms. I note that its authorship is not acknowledged and it bears an uncanny resemblance to statements issued by the “clean energy council” (formerly the Australian Wind Energy Association) which consistently misrepresents the impact of wind farms. It is an embarrassment to your members and, quite probably, actionable. It should be removed from the internet and, if you must take a public position in the matter, re-done.
Wind Power….unreliable, unaffordable, unwanted…
Bjørn Lomborg: Wind power is the path to poverty
That wind turbine will make sure that we stay in poverty
Dr. Bjørn Lomborg is the Director of Copenhagen Consensus Center and Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School and conducts research into the smartest ways to improve the environment and the world. According to the UK Guardian, he is one of the 50 people who could save the planet.
Here he writes how the burden of ineffective ‘green’ technologies for generating electricity, such as wind energy, has fallen to the poorest of our community, ensuring they stay in poverty.
The Poverty of Renewables
Bjørn Lomborg
17 March 2014
According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “Climate change harms the poor first and worst.” This is true, because the poor are the most vulnerable and have the least resources with which to adapt. But we often forget that current policies to address global warming make energy much more costly, and that this harms the world’s poor much more.
Solar and wind power was subsidized by $60 billion in 2012. This means that the world spent $60 billion more on energy than was needed. And, because the total climate benefit was a paltry $1.4 billion, the subsidies essentially wasted $58.6 billion. Biofuels were subsidized by another $19 billion, with essentially no climate benefit. All of that money could have been used to improve health care, hire more teachers, build better roads, or lower taxes.
Forcing everyone to buy more expensive, less reliable energy pushes up costs throughout the economy, leaving less for other public goods. The average of macroeconomic models indicates that the total cost of the EU’s climate policy will be €209 billion ($280 billion) per year from 2020 until the end of the century.
The burden of these policies falls overwhelmingly on the world’s poor, because the rich can easily pay more for their energy. I am often taken aback by well-meaning and economically comfortable environmentalists who cavalierly suggest that gasoline prices should be doubled or electricity exclusively sourced from high-cost green sources. That may go over well in affluent Hunterdon County, New Jersey, where residents reportedly spend just 2% of their income on gasoline. But the poorest 30% of the US population spend almost 17% of their after-tax income on gasoline.
Similarly, environmentalists boast that households in the United Kingdom have reduced their electricity consumption by almost 10% since 2005. But they neglect to mention that this reflects a 50% increase in electricity prices, mostly to pay for an increase in the share of renewables from 1.8% to 4.6%.
The poor, no surprise, have reduced their consumption by much more than 10%, whereas the rich have not reduced theirs at all. Over the past five years, heating a UK home has become 63% more expensive, while real wages have declined. Some 17% of households are now energy poor – that is, they have to spend more than 10% of their income on energy; and, because elderly people are typically poorer, about a quarter of their households are energy poor. Deprived pensioners burn old books to keep warm, because they are cheaper than coal, they ride on heated buses all day, and a third leave part of their homes cold.
In Germany, where green subsidies will cost €23.6 billion this year, household electricity prices have increased by 80% since 2000, causing 6.9 million households to live in energy poverty. Wealthy homeowners in Bavaria can feel good about their inefficient solar panels, receiving lavish subsidies essentially paid by poor tenants in the Ruhr, who cannot afford their own solar panels but still have to pay higher electricity costs.
The list goes on. In Greece, where tax hikes on oil have driven up heating costs by 48%, more and more Athenians are cutting down park trees, causing air pollution from wood burning to triple.
But climate policies carry an even larger cost in the developing world, where three billion people lack access to cheap and plentiful energy, perpetuating their poverty. They cook and keep warm by burning twigs and dung, producing indoor air pollution that causes 3.5 million deaths per year – by far the world’s biggest environmental problem.
Access to electricity could solve that problem, while allowing families to read at night, own a refrigerator to keep food from spoiling, or use a computer to connect with the world. It would also allow businesses to produce more competitively, creating jobs and economic growth.
Consider Pakistan and South Africa, where a dearth of generating capacity means recurrent blackouts that wreak havoc on businesses and cost jobs. Yet the funding of new coal-fired power plants in both countries has been widely opposed by well-meaning Westerners and governments. Instead, they suggest renewables as the solution.
But this is hypocritical. The rich world gets just 1.2% of its energy from hugely expensive solar and wind technologies, and we would never accept having power only when the wind was blowing. Over the next two years, Germany will build ten new coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on.
In 1971, 40% of China’s energy came from renewables. Since then, it has powered its explosive economic growth almost exclusively with highly polluting coal, lifting 680 million people out of poverty. Today, China gets a trifling 0.23% of its energy from wind and solar. By contrast, Africa gets 50% of its energy today from renewables – and remains poor.
A new analysis from the Center for Global Development quantifies our disregard of the world’s poor. Investing in renewables, we can pull one person out of poverty for about $500. But, using gas electrification, we could pull more than four people out of poverty for the same amount. By focusing on our climate concerns, we deliberately choose to leave more than three out of four people in darkness and poverty.
Addressing global warming effectively requires long-term innovation that makes green energy affordable to all. Until then, wasting enormous sums of money at the expense of the world’s poor is no solution at all.
Bjørn Lomborg
Outraged, people are responding to the AMA’s statement!
AMA Statement: Responses of Concerned Professionals, Citizens, & Impacted Residents
22nd March, 2014
The Australian Medical Association Position Statement: “Wind Farms and Health” 2014 has provoked instant national and international condemnation from those who have first hand knowledge of the damaging impact of wind turbine noise, including impacted residents, researchers, and professionals providing either clinical care or acoustic services.
Some people are writing privately to the AMA, urging them to remove or update the ignorant AMAposition statement, whilst others would like their views made public. As the Waubra Foundation becomes aware of letters written to the AMA and receives permission to reproduce them, they are being posted below, in alphabetical order.
The Waubra Foundation’s Open Letter to the AMA is here.
The issue was mentioned in Federal Parliament by Senator Chris Backhttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/senator-chris-back-questions-evidence-from-vested-interests-at-planning-review-hearings/
An interview between Alan Jones and Senator John Madigan about the AMA is here:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/2gb-radio-alan-jones-interviews-senator-john-madigan/
Letters to the AMA in alphabetical order
Ashbee, Barbara. Resident in Ontario, Canada, driven out of her home from wind turbine noise and silenced.
Association ADTC French Environment Group questions AMA & comments on World-Wide Health Scandal.
Cool, Mark J. Resident of Falmouth, MA, USA, air traffic controller unable to work because of sleep deprivation whilst the turbines were operating at night.
Dean, Noel. Waubra resident who with his family has abandoned their farm due to ill health since Acciona’s Waubra Wind Farm commenced operation
Enbom, Dr Hakam, MD, PhD. Otoneurologist, Angelholm, Sweden
Evans, Emeritus Prof Alun. Centre for Public Health, The Queen’s University of Belfast
Gallandy-Jakobsen, Greta. Resident of Denmark
Gardner, Mrs. Ann C. Penshurst Victoria. Resident bearing the full brunt of ill health from AGL’s Macarthur wind facility.
Goodall, Narelle & Alan. Residents of Western Australia facing proposed wind facility near their property
Green, Lilli-Ann, Resident of the USA, has listened to wind turbine residents around the world and recorded their stories on film.
Hetherington, Janet “Jan”. Impacted resident near AGL’s Macarthur wind Development, Victoria, Australia
Hopkins, Dr Gary D. Emergency Physician, South Australia
Jelbart, Chris. Impacted resident near AGL’s Macarthur Wind Development, Victoria, Australia
Jonkman, Elisabeth “Lies”. Impacted resident affected by ILFN from multiple sources in the Netherlands
Krogh, Carmen. Researcher & Retired Senior Pharmacist with Health Canada, Ontario
Love, Virginia Stewart. Resident and grandchildren affected by wind turbines, Ontario
McMurtry, Professor R. Researcher, Expert Witness, Former Dean Medical School, Ontario, Canada
Mortimer, David. Impacted turbine host, Infigen’s Lake Bonney Wind Development, South Australia
Nicholson, Rikki. Impacted resident Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind Development, Victoria Australia
Palmer, William. Professional Engineer, Ontario, Canada
Papadopoulos, George. Pharmacist, Yass, NSW
Reider, Dr Sandy MD, Primary Care Physician, Vermont USA, has treated impacted residents
Rovensky, Mrs. J.D. Resident of South Australia
Stamos, Marie. Quincy USA
Tibbetts, Dr. Jay J. MD, Primary Care Physician, Wisconsin, USA, has treated impacted residents
Ware, Melissa. Impacted resident near Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater Wind Development, Victoria Australia
Name Withheld, Retired Nurse & Midwife facing approved West Wind wind project, Moorabool Victoria
The Plot Thickens in the Liberal Scandal concerning Cancelled Gas Plants
David Livingston, former Premier, Dalton McGuinty’s right-hand man…
OTTAWA — A curtain was pulled back Thursday on the police investigation into the deletion of gas plant emails under the Dalton McGuinty government, revealing that the former premier’s right-hand man is at the centre of a criminal breach of trust investigation.
The allegations levelled against former chief of staff David Livingston seem to turn not so much on what he is alleged to have done, but how he allegedly did it.
Authorities say they believe David Livingston, gave an “outsider” access to 24 computers in the premier’s office — access it is suspected was used to permanently delete information.
By allowing someone who was not an Ontario Public Service employee to alter government computers, police allege, Livingston breached the public trust.
The case against Livingston is detailed in the “information to obtain” (ITO) Ontario Provincial Police used last month to request a search warrant for a storage facility in Mississauga, where the government hard drives were being stored.
Some of the allegations are being made public for the first time after the Citizen and other media went to court to have the police document unsealed.
The accusations have not been tested in court, but a judge has ruled it is in the public interest to make them known.
Police allege that during the transition period after McGuinty had resigned as premier under a cloud of allegations over the cancellation of gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville, Livingston arranged to get special computer access so that one user would be able to access the computer profiles of the entire premier’s office.
Police allege that only days before premier Kathleen Wynne was sworn into office, Livingston was going through bureaucratic hurdles and the incredulous questioning of staff to get this special high-level clearance — the kind of access usually reserved for IT staff.
He is then alleged to have given it to his executive assistant, Wendy Wai, a woman who the police document says knew very little about computers.
“The reality is that you know she’s not a very technical person,” Thom Stenson, manager of the Information Technology Services for the cabinet office, told police investigators.
“I wouldn’t expect that she would be able to make any changes to the computer.”
The police document suggests Wai was just a token staffer — a Trojan horse, of sorts. It raises the possibility she was given the computer access so that her account could then be used by an outside expert who had the savvy to put the newly obtained privileges to good use.
This outside expert was connected to the government, in a way, police allege.
He was allegedly the boyfriend or “life partner” of Laura Miller, the deputy chief of staff of communications and strategy and the chief of staff to the minister of intergovernmental affairs.
Still he was never formally hired, according to police, and he was not part of the normal IT staff that would have been available to the premier’s office for most computer work.
“All contractors requiring access to the office of the premier require a security clearance,” police say in the information to obtain. “No security screening was ever conducted on Mr. Peter Faist, even though he was allowed to access the desktop computers of Premier McGuinty’s office and potentially sensitive government documents.”
When Livingston first sought out the heightened security access, some staff weren’t comfortable with the request, police allege.
Another Courageous Doctor Tells the Truth about Wind Turbines…
Enbom, H. Infrasound From Wind Turbines Can Trigger Migraine and Related Symptoms
Authored by Håkan Enbom, MD, PhD, Ear/Nose/Throat specialist, and specialist in otoneurology and dizziness disorders, employed at the City Health ENT, Angelholm, Sweden.
Letter to the Australian Medical Association
Dear Sir
It has come to my knowledge that you have released a position paper about the effects of low frequency noise and infrasound from wind power.
I would like to draw your attention to my recently published article about migraine and infrasound in the Swedish Medical Journal “Läkartidningen” which is available below.
As you well know, migraine is a polygenetic inherited disease with occasional episodes of headache. It is also well known that people with migraine are more sensitive to sound and light than the normal population, especially during an attack of migraine headache. Futhermore it is a well known fact that pulsating sound and flickering light are strong triggers to elicit an attack of migraine.
Migraine is a very common condition in the population with a 15% prevalence for migraine headache. It is quite obvious that the genetic predisposition is much higher – everyone with a genetic disposition will not suffer from migraine headaches. You may well live with the genetic predisposition and never suffer from migraine headache in all your life.
Recent studies have found that these genetic changes affect among others the Ca-channels. This channelopathie increases the cellular depolarisation and as a result the nerve cells are more sensitive to stimulation – less stimulus is needed to trigger a nerve-potential. The main triggers for migraine are – as we all know – all kinds of sensory stimulation, food containing biogenic amines such as tyramine, glutamine, histamine etc., and increased levels or fluctuating levels of estrogen.
Thus sound is a trigger. Loud noise of varying amplitude is a strong trigger that will increase the neural sensitivity in persons with migraine. For example a teacher with a genetic tendency to migraine in a noisy classroom. After a while all senses will become more sensitive (more sensitive to sound, more sensitive to light, more sensitive to vestibular stimuli for example). Hyperacusis makes the situation in the classroom worse and eventually an attack of migraine headache will appear.
Low frequency noise or infrasound noise is no exception. Even if the sound is not heard the sound pressure will exert the same force on the eardrum as audible sound. The sound waves will be transmitted to the inner ear and hair cells are then stimulated. Even if the stimulation is not recognized as sound it will affect brainstem centres and elicit other sensations.
Infrasound is normally not possible to hear, you more likely will feel it as a vibration. Low frequency sound is possible to hear if the volume (sound pressure in dB) is strong enough. But it is a known fact that there are persons who can hear low frequency sound and infrasound at sound pressure levels of 40 db or less. If you have migraine and have developed hyperacusis it is most likely that you are as sensitive to low frequency sound as to normal sound.
Infrasound from wind turbines has properties that differ from other types of infrasound such as infrasound emanating from natural sources (eg wind, rivers) and from artificial sources including road traffic. Infrasound from road traffic (as well as the other examples) has a continuous, constant character – a kind of constant background noise. Infrasound from wind turbines has a fluctuating character with varying amplitude. Infrasound from wind turbines also has three distinct frequencies with higher amplitude than the average infrasound pressure (blade pass frequencies).
A third issue is that the sound pressure for infrasound and low frequency sound is much stronger than the sound pressure for the sound you can hear (for audible sound). If the measured sound pressure at a given distance is 40 dB for audible sound, then the sound pressure for infrasound is 60–80 dB at the same measuring point. Additionally infrasound is amplified inside buildings by resonance effects.
Thus the conclusion is that low frequency sound and infrasound from wind power has the qualities to trigger increased sensitivity and eventually migraine headache or other migraine-symptoms – such as vertigo or tinnitus (without headache).
As migraine is so common in the population, this is a relationship that you can not avoid considering.
Futhermore there is increasing knowledge that continuous stimulation of triggers eventually will create a central sensitisation in the brain with a chronic extremely increased sensitivity to sensory stimulation.
I hope that you will take these facts in consideration and advocate for further studies and work for a safe distance for wind power from homes and workplaces that will protect the public health.
Kindest regards
Håkan Enbom M.D. Ph.D
Finally, some Honesty is Returning to the Debate!
U.S. National Academy Of Sciences: Doubling Down On Climate Alarmism (And Taking Science Down A Notch With It)
Last month, the United States National Academies of Sciences (NAS) issued the following news release inviting the public to a joint meeting with the UK Royal Society:
Join NAS and The Royal Society for the Launch of a Joint Publication on Climate Change Science
On Thursday, February 27th, the US National Academy of Sciences and The UK’s Royal Society cordially invite the public to the release of Climate Change: Evidence & Causes, a new publication produced jointly by the two institutions. Host Miles O’Brien from the PBS Newshour will guide a discussion about the publication with authors Dr. Eric Wolff of the University of Cambridge (UK lead), Dr. Inez Fung of the University of California, Berkeley (US lead), Sir Brian Hoskins* of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, and Dr. Benjamin Santer* of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences, and Professor Sir Paul Nurse,* President of the Royal Society, will kick off the event.
The publication, which is written by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists and reviewed by climate scientists and others, is intended as a brief, readable reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and other individuals seeking authoritative information on some of the questions that continue to be asked. The publication makes clear what is well-established and where understanding is still developing. It echoes and builds upon the long history of climate-related work from both national academies, as well as on the newest climate-change assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The event will be held on February 27 from 10:00-11:30 EST at the National Academy of Sciences building at 2100 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington DC or via webcast. For more information, and to register to attend, go to our website.
The publication and webcast will be available at http://americasclimatechoices.org and at http://royalsociety.org.
*by videoconference
Following this announcement is reference to a video by NAS on “The Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change” A new video
The video features Prof. Jim White, of the University of Colorado (Boulder), as speaker. Prof. White presents as fact a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (UNIPCC) chart of a 3 foot rise in sea level predicted by 2100. This is followed by statements of possible greater than 3 foot sea level rise by the end of the century. A 3 foot rise in sea level in 30 years is given as an example of abrupt climate change. Prof. White points out a sea level rise of 6 inches may have caused subway flooding in New York City by the October 2012 Hurricane Sandy.
Déjà Vu–1932
Perhaps Prof. White was influenced by the May 15, 1932 New York Times article predicting a huge rise in sea level during the 1910-1940 increase in global temperatures–NEXT GREAT DELUGE FORECAST BY SCIENCE.
One scientist quoted a sea level rise of 50 feet and another scientist quoted 151 feet. Hurricane Sandy took place on a day of a full moon. A six inch increase in storm surge height was reported due to the moon’s additional gravitational pull.
Does NAS consider events happening on a full moon an abrupt climate change impact? Experimental data show a sea level rise of 11 inches the past century with a reduced rate the past decade. Is this another example of NAS abrupt climate change impact?
Temp Alarmism Amid the Pause
Not to be outdone by Prof. White, the Royal Society had a video by Prof. Eric Wolff of the University of Cambridge who stated climate change is happening and global temperatures will increase by 5.4 to 9 degrees F. by the end of the century. It does not take a genius to observe climate change is always happening. The large temperature increase by 2100 is another UNIPCC computer model fantasy.
All UNIPCC statements about climate change are based on computer models that predict increased global temperatures as time progresses. None of these computer models show the pause in global warming the past 15 years (1998-to present) with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increasing 8 percent.
In addition, computer models can’t explain global warming from 1910-1940 without increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels; followed by a slight decline in global temperatures from 1945 to 1975 and increasing global temperatures from 1975-1998, at the same rate as the 1910-1940 increase, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increased about 16 percent.
Another problem with computer models is they predict a hot spot in the upper atmosphere from latitudes 30 degrees South to 30 degrees North that have shown to be non-existent by decades of radiosonde and satellite temperature measurements. Climate models are not accurate enough for policy decisions.
The Other Side
A thorough coverage of global temperatures, climate model failures, and errors in IPCC Reports is found on the Internet from a group of scientists, the Nongovernmental International Panel On Climate Change, and their most recent report Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Sciences.
Another report by Popular Technology lists 1350 + peer-reviewed papers challenging global warming by categories such as Arctic, sea level rise, temperatures, etc.
The fallacy of NAS joining the movement to stop fossil fuel use from global warming fears is outlined by Australian Prof. Garth Paltridge, emeritus professor at the University of Tasmania, in his essay “Climate Change’s Inherent Uncertainties“ in the February 1, 2014 Quadrant magazine.
Prof. Paltridge wrote the following:
The trap was fully sprung when many of the world’s major national academies of science (such as the Royal Society in the UK, the National Academy of Sciences in the USA and the Australian Academy of Science) persuaded themselves to issue reports giving support to the conclusions of the UNIPCC. The reports were touted as national assessments that were supposedly independent of the IPCC and of each other, but of necessity were compiled with the assistance of, and in some cases at the behest of, many of the scientists involved in the IPCC international machinations. In effect, the academies, which are the most prestigious of the institutions of science, formally nailed their colours to the mast of the politically correct.
Since that time three or four years ago, there has been no comfortable way for the scientific community to raise the spectre of serious uncertainty about the forecasts of climatic disaster. It can no longer use the environmental movement as a scapegoat if it should turn out that the threat of global warming has no real substance.
Conclusion: NAS, Cleanse Thyself
It can no longer escape prime responsibility if it should turn out in the end that doing something in the name of mitigation of global warming is the costliest scientific mistake ever visited on humanity. The current redirection of global funds in the name of climate change is of the order of a billion dollars a day. And in the future, to quote US Senator Everett Dirksen, “a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon we’ll be talking about real money”.
The NAS shows the lack of judgment written by Prof. Paltridge. It should be an organization that promotes careful examination of all factors involving climate change and not take sides on areas of controversy. Global temperature history and lack of climate model validation demonstrates lack of objectivity. Merging of science with politics may damage trust in the scientific community for decades.
The future may show embarrassment for many in the scientific community. Videos by NAS and Royal Society members on climate change impacts will be entertainment of scientists gone wild—but at our expense with their big budgets and bad policy.
—————-
James H. Rust, Professor of nuclear engineering and policy adviser The Heartland Institute.
Desperate times, called for desperate measures, for this man from France!
URGENT and IMPORTANT
Wind farm: Paul Boultareau began a hunger strike
Article of Ouest-France – March 20, 2014 – Vritz, Loire-Atlantique, France
Three questions to …
Paul Boultareau. A wind farm is to be built near his home at Grande-Lande, he thinks he does not have all the information regarding this construction. Since Monday, he has stopped feeding himself.
Paul Boultareau: why this hunger strike?
– First, because it is a peaceful action, one to attract the attention of government so as to set off a real debate on the merits, if any, of industrial wind turbines. E.g. what is their place in relation to other new energy sources? And what of their impact on the bocage countryside of our district, on health and on wildlife?
What are the answers you are looking for?
– I would like to understand the financial picture. First, what will be the cost of installing these wind turbines, then their operating costs, and the potential impact on the creation of new jobs in France. I would also like to know how long they will work, what they are to become at the end of the contracts obligating EDF to buy their electricity, and what is their expected output? I would also like to highlight how these contracts will affect the bills of electricity consumers in general and, finally, how these machines will benefit the citizen-consumer.
How will you proceed with this operation?
– I had my last meal Sunday night, and since then I took in nothing but pure water. Thursday, I will set up my folding caravan in the village of Vritz, in front of the town hall. I shall answer questions from the people who come to see me, and I hope this will lead to a real public debate, one which will present objectively all aspects of the case.
Our comments:
We don’t encourage people to put their health at risk in this fight, but when someone does it on his own, like Mr. Boultareau, we can only salute his courage and determination.
We know that some people have been driven close to suicide by these machines, unable to have a restful sleep. Some may have committed the act – but how can one be sure of their principal motivation? Others died of cardiac arrests – but there again: how can we prove the turbines were the cause?
Anyway, it is hardly surprising that someone would go on a hunger strike on account of these machines, which turn the lives of neighbours into a living hell.
Mr. Boultareau, if you ever read this, you are a courageous man. Our hat to you!
We only hope you won’t put your life in danger, and that a doctor will follow your hunger strike closely.
To all: here is the email address of the “préfecture” (the government office in the département or county):
prefecture@loire-atlantique.gouv.fr
We invite you to send them an email right away. It’s an urgent matter. Write on top: À Monsieur le Préfet. Tell him what you think of the action of Mr. Boultareau, and forward our present email to your trusted friends only, lest the enemy gets wind of it and have many emails sent condemning M. Boultareau. Best to write in French, even if it’s poorly done: people love it when foreigners make an effort – use Google translate. Or write in English if you prefer.
We don’t have the email address of Mr. Boultareau, this hero to our cause, but his mailing address is:
M. Paul Boultareau
Huberdières
44540 VRITZ
FRANCE
You can also do more for him:
– Call the “préfet” (top official in the département or county) +33 2 40 41 20 20 Monday to Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
– Write a letter to the “préfet”:
Christian GALLIARD DE LAVERNÉE,
préfet de région Pays-de-la-Loire,
6, quai Ceineray
BP 33515
44035 NANTES Cedex 1
FRANCE
– Take your car (and caravan?), or a plane, and go support Mr. Boultareau in Vritz, near Nantes. He is in a caravan outside the town hall.
If you decide to act, please do it right now. The clock is ticking for Mr. Boultareau.
Regards to all,
Wind pushers operate the same way as Tobacco pushers….underhanded!
“Wind Turbine Industry Copies Tactics Of Tobacco Lobby”….Craig Kelly
HISTORY REPEATS — WIND TURBINE INDUSTRY COPIESTACTICS OF TOBACCO LOBBY
Craig Kelly, Federal Member for Hughes, New South Wales
Victim of Wind Turbine Syndrome blasts the reprehensible “AMA” for touting the Wind Ind. Propaganda!
Wind Turbine Syndrome victim blasts executives of the Australian Medical Assoc.
Mar 26, 2014
From: Ann Gardner (Victoria, Australia)
To: The Australian Medical Association (AMA)
Date: 3/25/14
Regarding: The Australian Medical Association’s outrageous dismissal of Wind Turbine Syndrome
.
At the time of writing this letter I am suffering terribly from the infrasound emitted by the 140 turbines located FAR TOO CLOSE to our property.
I have a bad headache. I have a very strong pain shooting up through the back of my neck and into my head. I have extremely sore and blocked ears and very painful pressure in my nose. I have pressure in my jaw and my teeth. My heart is POUNDING …… I can feel the vibration going through my body, through the chair, like an electric charge. I have just taken yet another two tablets to try and alleviate the pain.
I am also exhausted, as last night, along with every other night, I spent more time awake than asleep. The infrasound in our bedroom was appalling …. I could feel the vibration through the mattress and the pillow, like an electric charge through my body. My head felt as if a brick was on it, and the pressure and pain in my nose was extreme. I have always been a very sound sleeper, that is until October 2012. I am now lucky if l am able to get two or three hours sleep each night in my own home.
My name is Ann Gardner and I have lived and worked happily and healthily for 34 years, on my husband’s and my farming property in south-west Victoria until October 2012, when the first only 15 turbines ofthe Macarthur wind farm began operation, and threw our lives and those ofmany others, into turmoil.
A t the time of writing this letter I am suffering terribly from the infrasound emitted by the 140 turbines located FAR TOO CLOSE to our property.
I have a bad headache. I have a very strong pain shooting up through the back of my neck and into my head. I have extremely sore and blocked ears and very painful pressure in my nose. I have pressure in my jaw and my teeth. My heart is POUNDING …… I can feel the vibration going through my body, through the chair, like an electric charge. I have just taken yet another two tablets to try and alleviate the pain.
I am also exhausted, as last night, along with every other night, I spent more time awake than asleep. The infrasound in our bedroom was appalling …. I could feel the vibration through the mattress and the pillow, like an electric charge through my body. My head felt as if a brick was on it, and the pressure and pain in my nose was extreme. I have always been a very sound sleeper, that is until October 2012. I am now lucky if l am able to get two or three hours sleep each night in my own home.
My family’s common law right to a good night’s sleep in our own home HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM US BY AGL and THE MACARTHUR WIND FARM.
My nights are spent as above. I take at least two tablets in the middle of the night to try and get back to sleep, but most times they just don’t work. Getting up in the morning I feel wretched and reach for at least two more tablets to try and make me feel able to start my working day, with any energy at all.
My husband is severely impacted by the infrasound also, to the extent that since October 2012, we have been forced to leave our property for at least two nights of each week, which literally means three days away. We do this to try and get at least two decent nights sleep each week, and also to remove our bodies from the cumulative impact of infrasound. In your position, surely you would know what infrasound does to the human body. If not, read the link www.lowertheboom.org.au.
When we move [travel] away, which is at great cost to us and our business, our symptoms go away and we feel like normal people again. Our animals suffer, our business suffers, but we can no longer live in our own home for a whole week. What an absolute disgrace this is ….. in a country such as Australia. When we return home again, after several days respite, the symptoms return immediately.
The above description is just how it is EVERY DAY and EVERY NIGHT we spent in our home and on our property, thanks to AGL’s monster Macarthur wind farm where the turbines have been constructed far too close together, and far too close to people’s homes. Already two families have been forced to leave their homes, their jobs and their properties due to the impact of the wind farm turbine noise and infrasound/low frequency noise. Other families, like ours, are forced to leave their homes regularly for respite and to get a good night’s sleep.
THIS IS NOT RIGHT……
So to read the Australian Medical Association’s position statement released recently, we were just appalled.
It is such a disgrace to see that the AMA has allowed the wind industry to infiltrate this association, whose Mission Statement goes along the following lines:
The AMA promotes and advances ethical behaviour by medical professionals and protects the integrity and independence of doctor/patient relationship.
The Position Statement released literally promotes the lies and fraud which is endemic within the wind industry, and you two men, who have no doubt been elected with a responsibility and duty of care to protect the health of ALL Australians, have allowed the reputation of the AMA to fall into disrepute, by allowing the AMA to be aligned with and influenced by, the greedy wind industry.
The claims of the nocebo” effect and “scaremongering” are just OUTRAGEOUS.
These are outright LIES and the AMA knows it.
My family did NOT EVER imagine we would be impacted in any way by this enormous wind farm developed next to our farming property. We feared the noise and vibration could possibly resonate within the walls of our shedded sheep enterprise, but not for one minute did we anticipate any problem regarding our own health.
Do you know why? We were told by AGL that there would be no more noise than any ordinary working farm!!!!
LIES, LIES, LIES and more LIES, is what the innocent, hard working families were spun by this large Australian company, whose conduct in this district has been shocking.
We, along with so many other families CANNOT SEE the turbines, but we can certainly FEEL them.
What amazes me is that for the past year, various organisations have been “trotting” out reports claiming there are NO health impacts from wind turbines.
But each of these reports (except for the NHMRC’s) DO NOT HA VE AUTHORS. Why is this?
Could it be that a certain academic from a well-known university, or the Clean Energy Council, or wind developers have had a very large part in writing these shonky reports ?
First of all, we saw the release of the Victorian Health Department’s two fraudulent reports titled Wind Farms, Sound and Health. But alas, NO AUTHORS …….
Recently the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) released its latest report. It did have the names of the authors, however a serious conflict ofinterest has been discovered between several people involved, and the wind industry …….
Now we have the AMA Position Statement released. Again, NO AUTHOR.
No doubt, release of names of all those who participated in this appalling statement would identify the very close involvement of the wind industry within this organisation also.
I have several questions which I would appreciate your immediate answers to please.
* How many impacted victims did you interview at various wind farms around Australia?
* Why did you NOT visit the Macarthur wind farm?
* Why did you NOT interview impacted families surrounding the Macarthur wind farm?
* Why did you NOT carry out multi-disciplinary research at the Macarthur wind farm?
* Why did you NOT carry out HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENTS at the Macarthur wind farm?
* Why did you NOT carry out ANY investigation in the field at the Macarthur wind farm, when you are WELL AWARE of the preliminary health survey carried out in 2013 in this district, whereby around 23 families (around 66 people) reported various degrees o f health problems associated with the turbines?
Just in case you’ve conveniently forgotten about this preliminary health survey (bearing in mind it was not truly representative ofall the district, as many families have signed confidentiality agreements to host turbines for another wind farm proposal) the link is as follows. http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/macarthur-preliminary-survey-shows-effects-out-8-9km/
I suggest you read it and thoroughly digest, particularly the chilling comments made by the people responding to the survey.
In line with your totally unacceptable behaviour trotting out this recent fraudulent report full of the wind industry’s lies, I suppose you condone the behaviour of AGL Energy Ltd. whereby in November 2012, they had the audacity to send a letter to the 12 medical centres in this large southwest Victorian district ?
This letter literally advised all the doctors that should any of their patients present with symptoms which they attributed to the turbines at the Macarthur wind farm, there is no evidence of health impacts from wind turbines, and the doctors should advise the patients simply to go home and read the AGL website.
This action by AGL seriously breached the contract between doctor and patient, and caused doctors in this district to neglect their patients and simply not investigate any further their problems, not assisting their sick patients in any way.
Thus I would like your answer to my question: Does the AMA condone AGL’s actions in trying to influence the medical practitioners in this district, thus ignoring their duty of care and responsibility to the health of their patients ?
The totally irresponsible manner in which the AMA has acted, literaly allowing themselves to be an advocate of the wind industry, and the behaviour of AGL in this manner, remind me of what it would be like to live in a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY, where those in authority treat the people with such contempt and shocking disregard.
I ask you how can the AMA and its members ABUSE their duty of care to PROMOTE ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR when both the president and vice president have allowed themselves to compromise the position of this association whose motto is literally DO NO HARM?
The harm your Association has caused to the hundreds of rural Australians whose health and lives have been destroyed by wind turbines, by the greed of developers, by promoting what I am of the opinion to be the corrupt actions of wind developers, is immeasurable. You, along with the wind industry, insist on denigrating innocent families who dare to speak out, in their desperate attempts to prevent further damage to their health and wellbeing.
All I can say to you is SHAME ON YOU.
Could you please inform me the name/s of those who authored this Position Statement ?
I ask that you immediately REVOKE this disgraceful example of disonesty and “spin,” and start acting in the manner which is expected of you, as leaders of such a supposed exemplary body.
Put simply, this Position Statement is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH and you two men should RESIGN immediately. You do NOT DESERVE the positions which you hold, having severely abused the privilege bestowed upon you to hold such offices..
I would also appreciate your HONEST answers to my NINE questions, by return mail please.
Wind turbines need to be backed up by gasplants….but not in Liberal ridings!
The Windscam is one of many corrupt deals made by the Lie-berals. Andrea Horwath condones this behaviour, by allowing it to continue….CALL AN ELECTION!!!
OPP ALLEGE CRIMINAL BREACH OF TRUST AGAINST MCGUINTY CHIEF OF STAFF OVER GAS PLANTS SCANDAL
Keith Bonnell — Ottawa Citizen — March 27, 2014
Police are pursuing a criminal charge of breach of trust against the right-hand man of former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty in an investigation sparked by the controversy over deleted gas plant emails.
Authorities say they believe McGuinty’s former chief of staff, David Livingston, gave an outside tech expert access to 24 computers in the premier’s office — access it’s suspected was used to permanently delete information.
By allowing someone who was not an Ontario Public Service employee to alter government computers, police allege, Livingston breached the public trust.
And while just what exactly the outside expert may have done to the computers in the premier’s office is not fully known, police now have two dozen hard drives in hand and are trying to see if they can figure it out.
The case against Livingston is detailed in the “information to obtain” (ITO) Ontario Provincial Police used last month to request a search warrant for a storage facility in Mississauga, where the government hard drives were being stored.
Some of the allegations are being made public for the first time after the Citizen and other media went to court to have the police document unsealed. Continue reading here…
Another Brilliant Aussie, Senator Chris Back, tells about wind industry & gov’t corruption & collusion!
Senator Chris Back Unloads
Healthy citizens are the greatest asset that any country can have – Winston Churchill
This was cited by Liberal Senator Chris Back at our Wind Power Fraud Rally in June 2013 (see our post here).
This time we have Chris unloading in the Senate on Infigen, the AMA and the NH&MRC. Occasionally, there are speeches that require no comment and no commentary. This is one.
MATTERS OF PUBLIC INTEREST: Wind Farms Speech
Senator Chris Back
26 MARCH 2014
I rise to express deep concern at the approval of an application for an industrial wind turbine development in New South Wales, the actions of the proponents and, indeed, the actions of the New South Wales Department of Planning. If the evidence that has been provided to me is accurate then it needs to be addressed urgently both by the proponent and particularly by the state department. If there is a failure to do so, I intend to proceed further.
I refer to an application which was approved on 14 March 2014 for the $200 million Flyers Creek wind farm just south of Orange, an application originally made by Babcock & Brown, subsequently renamed Infigen in April 2009. A number of potential host farmers have expressed their outrage, as evidenced in the media, about the development application to the Planning Assessment Commission on 12 February and the fact that the approval was given only one month later.
I go to the major application process for the project, which was made by Babcock & Brown under the name of an Adrian Rizza on 16 December 2008. The application form says:
Persons lodging applications are required to declare reportable political donations (including donations of or more than $1,000) made in the previous two years.
I notice that in that application, over the signature of Mr Rizza, exactly the same question was asked:
Persons lodging applications are required to declare reportable political donations … Have you attached a disclosure statement to this application?
The documents record the answer: ‘No.’ In this case, over the signature of Mr Rizza, no disclosure statement was made.
I then go to the figures of the donor annual return for the financial year 2006-07 submitted to the Australian Electoral Commission by a Christina Shi, a senior financial accountant with the company Babcock & Brown Australia. I notice that, in the space for donations totalling $10,300 or more for the period July 2006 to June 2007, the total sum is $43,000. The statement made by the proponent Rizza was that there was no disclosure to be made. I then go to the following year—remember, this is a two-year statement period. For the financial year 2007–08—again, this is a return from Babcock & Brown to the Australian Electoral Commission, and it is over the name Susanne Newhouse—there were donations totalling $108,800 to political parties. Of course, this causes me to ask the question: if donations of $108,800 and $43,000, totalling $151,800, were made to political parties, where is the validity in an application going back to 2008 in which the proponent stated there was no disclosure of payments to political parties?
The New South Wales Department of Planning declared, in Disclosure of political donations and gifts: guideline, dated October 2008:
A person is guilty of an offence under section 125 of the … act … in connection with the obligations under section 147 … if the person fails to make a disclosure of a political donation or gift in accordance with section 147 …
Furthermore:
Section 124A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979(Special provision where development consent tainted by corruption) deals with a decision of a consent authority to grant or modify development consent where the decision is tainted by corrupt conduct. In these circumstances … the Minister or the Court may suspend the decision pending the institution and determination of proceedings in respect of the decision. The Minister is to give the consent authority and the applicant for the grant or modification of the development consent written notice of the suspension as soon as practicable …
If the documents I am quoting from are accurate, and I have no reason to believe they are not—they are in the public arena—then it seems to me that we are looking at potential corruption occasioning the acceptance and approval of this project. To me, that is very, very serious matter and one that needs to be addressed in the public interest as well as in the interest of those affected by it. As I said, I will be inviting the department, the commissioner, the minister and the company to advise us where the anomaly may have occurred.
This whole issue of industrial wind turbines is not settled. On 24 February this year, the NHMRC released its long-awaited systematic literature review of the health effects of wind farms—a topic which I have a very keen interest in. The NHMRC did not say there were no health issues.They stated there was consistent but poor quality evidence that proximity to wind farms is associated with annoyance and, less consistently, sleep disturbance and poorer quality of life.
I draw attention to the names of three people who were on that review panel. I have no reason to believe they are not eminent, ethical and honest people, but I ask what they were doing on the review and whether they declared an interest. One of the people is Dr Norm Broner, the only acoustician on the panel. As I understand it, he is a paid consultant for SKM, which is a large multinational company with significant commercial interest within the global wind industry. He has performed work for wind developers, which was not publicly disclosed during the review process, as far as I understand it. During the time of the wind farms and human health review, Dr Broner authored or approved a report titled Flyers Creek Wind Farm—technical review of supporting documentation, dated 12 July 2013, containing influential advice which, it is reasonable to argue, the New South Wales department relied upon in making its decision to approve this particular project.
Another key person on the panel providing advice to the New South Wales Planning Assessment Commission was Professor Wayne Smith, Director of the Environmental Health Branch at New South Wales Health. His advice to the New South Wales Planning Assessment Commission that there was no evidence of adverse health effects is absolutely untrue and at variance with the report of the NHMRC review.
Also on the panel was Dr Elizabeth Hanna, President of the Climate and Health Alliance. This alliance assisted a major international wind turbine product manufacturer, Vestas, to launch their global denial of any adverse effects from turbines, in Melbourne in June 2013, whilst, I understand, Dr Hanna was a member of the review panel. This was despite a Vestas engineer admitting at an Australian Wind Energy Association conference in 2004 that wind turbine noise caused annoyance symptoms and needed adequate buffers.
We have a circumstance here, regrettably, where I believe the independence and, therefore, the veracity of the report of the NHMRC is very open to question. If some authors of that review have in some way had an influence on the decision of the New South Wales department in approving this particular project, I believe it must be the subject of much further scrutiny.
I now turn to a recent statement of the Australian Medical Association. On 18 March the AMA released a position statement on wind farms and health without any listed authors, with no references and containing information that had nothing to do with health research and everything to do with supporting wind farm development applications. It reflects wind farm industry promotional spin and it is a statement that essentially implied that health symptoms are not caused by wind turbine knows, rather by anxiety.
If the Australian Veterinary Association, the body representing my profession, were to come out with such a poorly structured document as this—not authored, not defended and not referred—I would be going to the association and saying, ‘Hide your heads in shame.’ But it does not matter what I would do as an old vet. It is more important to learn what members of the profession have said and done throughout the world.
There has been an outcry to the AMA from across the world, and quite rightly so, including from professors from the United States and Ontario, Canada. Dr Gary Hopkins from South Australia strongly condemned this statement and demanded the AMA revoke it and amend their position to support epidemiological research. Dr Hopkins is a man with 36 years experience in South Australia as a physician. He has been a lecturer at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, lecturing to undergraduate and postgraduate students, including students in the Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational and Environmental Health. He is one person who I thought might actually know something about the topic. I quote from a letter Dr Hopkins wrote to the AMA:
I am rendered speechless by your irresponsible, ill researched, ill advised and reckless statement that those who might suffer physical effects from the presence of turbines are suffering a psychological condition (anxiety). Indeed, your very statement itself causes anxiety in those likely to be effected (“who will believe me when I tell them I feel sick”?).
He went on to make the obvious point that any medical person makes to a student, and that is: first do no harm. He concludes the letter by saying:
Was this the attitude of your forbears to those of the London plague just before they died until a connection was made to the transmission of the disease by rats?
The AMA position statement should immediately be withdrawn.
The concern now reflecting on the Australian Medical Association is what role have they played in supporting the industrial wind turbine industry in coming up with this ridiculous statement, even after the NHMRC themselves continue to cast doubt and continue to agree with the position which we have taken for so long—and that is that there needs to be strong and independent research undertaken.
It is well known that I have been promoting for a long time to my colleagues in the coalition—and indeed with the strong support of Senators Madigan and Xenophon—the view that there needs to be independent research into the health effects of wind farms. I do not know whether or not these concerns are real, and neither does anybody else, but there is a growing body of medical opinion around the world that in fact these do have a profound effect—blind studies that have been done etcetera. What I have promoted to the parliament at different times is that the NHMRC be required to cause research to be conducted into the possible effect of wind farms on human health. Indeed if the CEO advises the Minister for Health that the NHMRC does not have the resources or expertise to conduct the research—and it may well be that they do not—then the health minister and the energy minister should jointly appoint an appropriate person or panel to undertake for the first time in the world properly and independently analysed studies.
I went on to say that any research undertaken, whether by the NHMRC or an independent panel, must include full spectrum acoustic monitoring, epidemiological and laboratory studies; seek the views of industry and the community generally; identify the range of interests and concerns of those whose views are sought—and I come back to my comments of a few moments ago with regard to the panel that did the latest so-called review; and include, but not be limited to, the research into audible noise, low-frequency noise, infrasound, electromagnetic radiation and vibration arising from or associated with wind farms, including wind, turbines, transmission lines etcetera.
In the few minutes that I have available to me, I want to return to the approval that was given by the department to Infigen on 14 March 2014, and there are, quite rightly, a number of conditions pertaining to and contingent on that eventual support. I remind you the original application was made back in 2008. There was a five-year period in which the proponents had to act, and they did not. There was a circumstance in which the New South Wales department was requiring further information. The company itself, not the department, failed to fulfil the terms of the approval and that was to meet the requirements within the five-year period. We are now in the circumstance, I understand, close to some six years later, that we are at the very point of an approval being given but I say this to you: ‘the project approval does not operate until the following deferred commencement conditions are complied with, and these relate to all land within the project area being identified within the document reference’. I say again: it is incumbent on the department and the proponent to come clean and tell us where the truth lies.
Hansard – The Senate
They worry about the noise pollution for seals….but not for humans!
Seals wear earphones to test impact of noise pollution
Biologists have studied grey seals’ sense of hearing by making wild seals wear specially adapted earphones.
The researchers were concerned about the effect of acoustic emissions from wind turbines on grey seals in the North and Baltic Seas. Grey seals use acoustic signals for communication in air and underwater, using complex vocal repertoires through a wide frequency range, but particularly lower frequencies. This is where offshore wind turbines also make a lot of their noise, and so their operation may prevent seals from communicating effectively or make a permanent impact on seals’ hearing.
Aquatic wildlife researcher Professor Ursula Siebert said that there has been an increase in noise pollution in the sea, including from shipping, construction work and sound cannons used to search for oil. “In order to assess the effects of underwater noise on animals, scientists need accurate data on their hearing.” Seals are important because they are some of the most common marine mammals in the North and Baltic Seas.
The last study of seals’ hearing ability was conducted around 40 years ago and indicated that the most sensitive frequency for these amphibious animals is around 4kHz. There were problems with the study of the seals, because the animals tended to close their ear canals in the presence of acoustic test signals through the manipulation of an external “auditory sphincter”.
Dr Andreas Ruser from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanoverand colleagues used earphone inserts in order to study the seals. Six animals were used in the study — five males and one female. They were tested at seal rehabilitation centres in Germany and Poland — these were seals that had been abandoned by their mothers or were rescued in poor health. The seals were sedated so that tracking devices could be attached to them before they were released back into the wild and while they were sedated, researchers tested their auditory brainstem response. This involved inserting earphones — some very basic Se-72 Monacors — into the seals’ auditory canals. The earphones were calibrated using an artificial ear connected to a microphone, and then the research team could pipe in sounds of different frequencies and monitor the nerve impulses relayed from the cochlea to the auditory nerve using needle electrodes placed at three positions along the dorsal midline of the seal — on the head, neck and between the seals’ “shoulders”.
By monitoring the responses to different sounds, the research team could assess how sensitive the seals’ ears were. They found that grey seals have similar hearing to humans, in a frequency range of 1kHz-20kHz, and are much more sensitive to sounds in the higher frequency ranges than was previously known. The tests in this study were conducted with the animals out of water, but the Ruser speculates that the animals would be able to hear even higher frequencies under water. The plan is to explore this in a secondary study using hand-reared seals based at the University of Southern Denmark. The seals are trained to give a signal to show when they hear a sound that is relayed into the water through hydrophones.
PECFN wins a stay for Ostrander Point!!! Wonderful news!!!
No Construction at Ostrander Point “pending the determination of PECFN’s motions for leave to appeal”.
For immediate release
Picton: A great cheer went up last evening from the crowd gathered to hear Terry Sprague speak at the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists monthly meeting. Myrna Wood, president of the club and leader in the fight to Save Ostrander Point announced that the Ontario Appeal Court had granted a stay of construction at Ostrander Point. “Now, Gilead Power will not be able to destroy any habitat before we can ask for leave to appeal. We are relieved, as early migration has begun and spring melt is starting to create the conditions needed by all the wildlife at Ostrander Point including Blanding’s turtle.”
Justice Blair’s comments in his decision are particularly interesting. He said that he had no hesitation in granting the stay as “the issues raised on the proposed appeal are issues of broad public implication in the field of environmental law.” The Justice went on to point out that “Once habitat is destroyed, it is destroyed – for at least short term purposes”. While that comment may seem self evident to the vast numbers of citizens protesting the development plans at Ostrander Point, hearing it from a justice of the Appeal Court is particularly gratifying.
The task ahead is to prepare submissions for leave to appeal the Divisional Court decision. PECFN’s legal arguments will be filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal on April 11. Gilead and the MOE will then respond with their legal arguments. Judges of the Court of Appeal will take some weeks to decide whether to grant us leave to appeal. Other organizations will consider whether to apply for intervenor status given the importance of this first appeal of a Renewable Energy approval on environmental issues.
While all these legal issue are going on PECFN continues fund raising. The Gala dinner and Art Auction sold out in two weeks – much to the delight of the organizers. Tickets are available at 613-471-1096 for the joint fund raiser with Picton Rotary. See Mamma Mia and The African queen for only $15 at the Regent Theatre on April 30.
On Saturday May 3rd, music and sound aficionados have an unprecedented opportunity to hear Tenor Audio’s 175 S Pre amp with 350M Mono Blocks driving Tetra’s flagship 606 “listening instrument” as it is used in the screening of the Bruce Cockburn documentary “Pacing the Cage” at Active Arts Studio in Rednersville. The evening includes County wine, canapés and sweets – and a performance by the Frere Bothers. Tickets are $50 atwww.saveostranderpoint.org
On Friday, May 9, Sandbanks Vacations and Terry Sprague join to provide an intimate and exceptional opportunity to tour the natural areas of the County in a comfortable coach. This is a limited offering – only 12 places are available. The cost for this day long excursion is $100 including a delicious picnic lunch.
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For information: Cheryl Anderson 613-471-1096
cherylanderson23@sympatico.ca
George Papadopoulos calls out the corruption in the windscam! STT promotes our petition! Thanks!!
George to Tony: AMA statement on wind farms and health
Tony and George
Another letter, this time by George Papadopoulos, calling on Prime Minister Abbott to take action on the issue of health and wind farms in light of the recent position statements by the AMA.
Subject: FW: AMA statement on wind farm – A need for an official enquiry into corruption
To: The Hon. Tony Abbott, MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Cc: Federal Senators and Members of Parliament
23 March 2014
AMA statement on wind farm – A need for an official enquiry into corruption
Dear Prime Minister,
Firstly I thank you for showing the care and concern for rural Australia by recently announcing a study into wind farms and health impacts – a position clearly mandated by the research gaps identified by the recent NHMRC Draft Information Paper: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health.
I am writing to you to bring to your attention two documents that unfortunately hint of widespread collusion between the wind industry and members of the medical profession: https://ama.com.au/position-statement/wind-farms-and-health-2014 and https://ama.com.au/media/no-evidence-wind-farms-harm-health-ama
Both AMA position statements reflect an abstract position that does not examine reality. The authors make it clear that they are in total sync with the opinions and “research” of Professor Simon Chapman of Sydney University, but ignore significant peer reviewed published literature, the abundance of anecdotal reports of harm to human and animal health and the ongoing litany of controversy that continues unabated.
Should any medical practitioner take the AMA position statement seriously and try implementing its recommendation, they will have to show disregard for clinical observation, tell any of their patients living around wind farms and complaining of wind turbine related symptoms that they are victims of scaremongering, and perhaps report the incident to authorities for action. It seems that the AMA perceives information and open discussion as a threat to the mental wellbeing of the modern Australian. The prime target of the AMA appears to be one of its own: Sarah Laurie, the CEO of the Waubra Foundation.
I feel enough is enough. The blind eco-fascist fanaticism displayed by many is ever evident. The colours of corruption, lunacy and patent stupidity are becoming apparent amongst the highest echelons of academia and professionals.
The wind industry appears to be well aware that these large pieces of mega machinery are prime and unique sources of infrasound and low frequency noise – they are also atmospheric air blenders, sources of turbulence and disruption to local microclimates.
The harm wind turbines can cause has been described by NASA scientists in the 1980’s. The response by Sarah Laurie to the AMA is very comprehensive and makes the case clear:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/open-letter-ama-their-position-statement-wind-farms-health-2014/
I urge you to consider calling for a Royal Commission (or at the least, some form of Parliamentary inquiry) into why we are so painfully rediscovering what was evident back in the 1980s. As a result, billions of dollars have been wasted; community after community is being divided, turned upside down and subjected to the same sonic torture reported elsewhere. Some of the least fortunate rural residents have spent almost two decades of their lives campaigning. And while all this is happening, government departments and authorities to date sit back like lame ducks, confused and disorientated while a few shrewd academics and professionals do their job to ensure confusion continues so that the wind industry may continue to proliferate.
Regards,
George Papadopoulos
STT says ‘Hats off’ George!
If you would like to have your say you can sign this petition organised by full-time wind warrior, Shellie Correia, (Mothers Against Wind Turbines) that calls for the AMA to withdraw its position statement and support the much needed research with modern turbines.
Vic Fedeli reveals Wynne Gov’t $4.5 billion budget shortfall…. Gone with the Wind?
New internal documents show not only does the Wynne government have no plan to balance the budget by 2017-18 as they claim, but is in fact facing a $4.5 billion shortfall, said Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli, the Ontario PC Finance Critic.
The Ministry of Finance documents from 2013 are at the heart of the latest Fedeli Focus on Finance, a watchdog newsletter that looks at Ontario’s Finances.
A key secret Ministry of Finance document states “For 2014-15 and 2015-16, not on track to meet 2012 Budget deficit targets.”
“The Premier and Finance Minister need to explain why they’re insisting on one thing to the Legislature, the financial community, and to the public, when their own internal documents say quite another,” Fedeli said, who added this helps to explain why the mid-year fiscal outlook wasn’t included in the Fall Economic Statement, and why the Minister is withholding the province’s Third Quarter finance report.
“This is the gas plant cancellation scandal all over again when they tried to tell us it would cost only $40 million, when we said all along it was closer to $1 billion, a figure finally confirmed by the Auditor General.”
One of the most disturbing findings in the documents is that when presented with a multi-billion dollar shortfall at their Cabinet retreat last March, they actually enlarged the shortfall by $900 million at that meeting, Fedeli noted – coincidentally, the same value of the concessions the government made to the NDP to ensure passage of the 2013 budget.
“This raises very important questions, such as did the government and NDP already have a budget deal in place in March last year, if not earlier? Fedeli asked.
“Do they have a similar deal already done this year?”
Another key discovery is a document stating the government is looking at “no funding for incremental compensation increases for new collective agreements.”
“This was blacked out in many documents but left exposed in one. Why don’t they want their public sector union partners or the public to know that this is what they’re intending to do?” asked Fedeli.
These internal government documents confirm that the Premier and Finance Minister have no plan to stop their Greek-style accumulation of debt, despite the risk it poses to core frontline services like health care and education, Fedeli added.
“This is irrefutable proof that this government can’t be trusted, and why it’s time to change the team that leads this province.”
Wind turbines – NOT CLEAN, NOT GREEN!
More facts about Wind turbines and rare earths
You will remember our earlier stories on the use of rare earths in wind turbines (here and here), and how the demand for these materials is causing environmental havoc in China.
You too-friendly neighbourhood wind developer has probably said that there are no rare earths used in wind turbines – well now you can listen to the Vestas representatives explaining just how they are used in modern turbines.
Here is our short version (8.22),
or you can get the full Chemistry lesson (17.30 minutes) here at the BBC web site
When Climate alarmists refuse to debate publicly, you know they rely on “junk science”!
The Main Stream Media hates to have to tell both sides of the story. It’s hard to scare people, when the sensible scientists, keep telling us the truth!
Kathleen Wynne, the fill-in premier, is playing the blame game!
Now that the possibility of an election is near, Wynne is looking for scapegoats….
Even the party faithful can’t be that gullible!
Prof Robert McMurtry, Former Dean of Medicine adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines
Re AMA Position Statement Wind Farms and Health
1. I am a Canadian citizen, formerly a dean of medicine, assistant deputy minister of health federally and a practising orthopaedist. I am a founding member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded Evidence Network.
2. I have engaged with over 100 exposed individuals residing near industrial wind developments in the province of Ontario. These cases are documented.1
3. I have appeared as an expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs in actions versus the erection of wind farms too proximate to human habitation.
4. I am writing to comment on the AMA Position Statement. The position statement is surprising. It is not well informed, references are absent and the authors of the document are undisclosed. Many of the phrases and claims in the document
No one denies climate change. Even the brightest scientists don’t agree on the causes! Follow the money!
“The climate change deniers have won”
Where else, but The Guardian?
Yes, Mr Cohen, those whom you deliberately and with malice call “deniers” are winning. Incredibly, even though they have only 0.03% of the funds, none of the machinery or the institutions, the enmity of western governments, existential opposition from the $350 billion renewables industry, no support from the large global carbon trading market, and only scorn and derision from the entire UN, and yet they are winning with nothing but wits and facts.
“Scientists continue to warn us about global warming, but most of us have a vested interest in not wanting to think about it”
- Any list of organizations, associations, committees.
- Any survey of keywords used in publications.
- Psychoanalysis, pop psychology, anonymous internet surveys
- Funding, imaginary or real.
- Studies of cults.
- Speculation about vested interests, oil companies, political ideology.
- Observations about the climate – weather balloons, ice cores, satellites, corals, rocks, thermometers, stuff like that.
All of which is a long way of saying that the global warming deniers have won. And please, can I have no emails from bed-wetting kidults blubbing that you can’t call us “global warming deniers ” because “denier” makes us sound like “Holocaust deniers”, and that means you are comparing us to Nazis? The evidence for man-made global warming is as final as the evidence of Auschwitz. No other word will do.
Tempting though it is to blame cowardly politicians, the abuse comes too easily. The question remains: what turned them into cowards?
Rightwing billionaires in the United States and the oil companies have spent fortunes on blocking action on climate change. A part of the answer may therefore be that conservative politicians in London, Washington and Canberra are doing their richest supporters’ bidding. There’s truth in the bribery hypothesis. In my own little world of journalism, I have seen rightwing hacks realise the financial potential of denial and turn from reasonable men and women into beetle-browed conspiracy theorists.
Climate change deniers are as committed. Their denial fits perfectly with their support for free market economics, opposition to state intervention and hatred of all those latte-slurping, quinoa-munching liberals, with their arrogant manners and dainty hybrid cars, who presume to tell honest men and women how to live. If they admitted they were wrong on climate change, they might have to admit that they were wrong on everything else and their whole political identity would unravel.
Climate change believers are as committed. Their belief fits perfectly with their support forfree market economicsgovernment handouts,opposition to state interventionthe green religion and hatred of all thoselatte-slurping, quinoa-munching liberals,those who stand on their own two feet, and contribute more tax than they take, with theirarrogantunfashionable good manners and refusal to be told how to live. If the believers admitted they were wrong on climate change, they might have to admit that they were wrong on everything else and their whole political identity would unravel.
I am no better than them. I could write about the environment every week. No editor would stop me. But the task feels as hopeless as arguing against growing old. Whatever you do or say, it is going to happen. How can you persuade countries to accept huge reductions in their living standards to limit (not stop) the rise in temperatures? How can you persuade the human race to put the future ahead of the present?
Nick Cohen “deniers have won” — gets startlingly close to the truth, 9.8 out of 10 based on 59 ratings
The Global Warming Scam …Exposed Again!!!
How many times must we keep telling people that there is very little, if any, correlation between CO2, and the earth’s climate. We have had no global warming for 18 years, but CO2 continues to rise. It is the faux-green sales gimmick for their “unreliable” energy scam!
Sunday Post talks about pollution from Industrial Wind Turbines!
Part Two of The Sunday Post’s hard-hitting probe into the true impact of wind farms.
Damning evidence of wind farms polluting the Scottish countryside can today be revealed by The Sunday Post.
Scotland’s environmental watchdog has probed more than 100 incidents involving turbines in just six years, including diesel spills, dirty rivers, blocked drains and excessive noise.
Alarmingly, they also include the contamination of drinking water and the indiscriminate dumping of waste, with warning notices issued to a handful of energy giants.
The revelations come just a week after our investigation showed
£1.8 billion in Government subsidies have been awarded to operators to build turbines since Alex Salmond took office in 2007.
Anti-wind farm campaigners yesterday insisted Scotland’s communities are now “under siege” and demanded an independent inquiry into the environmental damage.
Murdo Fraser MSP, convener of Holyrood’s Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, said: “I am both surprised and concerned by the scale of these incidents.
“The fact there were more than 100 complaints is a dismal record.
“This should serve as a wake-up call that wind energy is not as clean and green as is being suggested.”
He added: “What’s worse is that the current Scottish Government seems to have an obsession about wind power and the expansion in the number of turbines shows no signs of relenting any time soon.”
Promotion of green energy, particularly the growth of onshore and off-shore wind farms, has been one of the SNP’s key policies since 2007.
The Scottish Government’s target is to generate the equivalent of 100% of the country’s electricity consumption, and 11% of heat demand, from renewables by 2020.
In recent years, ministers have invested heavily in the sector, insisting Scotland has a quarter of all of Europe’s wind energy potential.
But wind power is becoming increasingly unpopular, with giant turbines now scattered across much of the Scottish countryside.
There are now 219 operational wind farms in Scotland, with at least 2,400 turbines between them.
Moray has the most sites, with 20 in operation, while Orkney has the most turbines, with 600 across the archipelago, although the majority are owned by farmers and other individuals.
Now, we can reveal the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has investigated 130 ‘pollution reports’ connected to wind farms or turbines over the past six years. In June 2012, elevated levels of the banned insecticide Dieldrin were found in samples from a private drinking water supply in Aberdeenshire.
A redacted SEPA report, obtained under Freedom of Information, states: “It was noted a wind turbine had recently been erected by the nearby farmer.”
Run-off from the construction of a wind farm near Loch Fyne in February 2012 caused concern that fish had stopped feeding, with SEPA officers discovering a burn was “running brown” and that “a noticeable slick on Loch Fyne was visible”.
In another incident in November 2011, 1,000 litres of oil leaked from a turbine at the Clyde wind farm in Abington, Lanarkshire, resulting in an emergency clean-up operation.
Warning letters have been sent by the environment agency to a number of operators, including Siemens, after another fuel spill at the same 152-turbine site four months later.
A report on that incident states: “Siemens…maintained it was under control. However…operators who then visited the area did not see any action being taken and fuel ponding at the base of the generator”.
A warning was issued to Scottish and Southern Energy in February 2011 after the Tombane burn, near the Griffin wind farm in Perthshire, turned yellow as a result of poor drainage.
The same firm was sent another letter in June that year after SEPA found high levels of silt in a burn near a wind farm in Elvanfoot, Lanarkshire.
Officers also then discovered “significant damage” to 50 metres of land and found “the entire area had been stripped of vegetation” as a result of unauthorised work to divert water.
Other incidents investigated since 2007 include odours, excessive noise from turbines and heavy goods vehicles and the indiscriminate dumping of waste and soil.
Dr John Constable, director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a charity that publishes data on the energy sector, said: “The new information from SEPA deepens concerns about the corrupting effect of overly generous subsidies to wind power.
“Many will wonder whether wind companies are just too busy counting their money to take proper care of the environment.”
Linda Holt, spokeswoman for action group Scotland Against Spin, said: “A lot of environmentalists actually oppose wind farms for reasons like this. If you go to wind farms they are odd, eerie, places that drive away wildlife, never mind people.
“The idea they are environmentally-friendly is not true — they can be hostile. We have always suspected they can do great harm to the landscape and now we have proof.”
Officials at SEPA stressed not all 130 complaints were found to be a direct result of wind farms, with some caused by “agricultural and human activities” near sites and others still unsubstantiated.
A spokesman added: “While a number of these complaints have been in connection with individual wind farms these are generally during the construction phase of the development and relate to instances of increased silt in watercourses as a result of run-off from the site.
“SEPA, alongside partner organisations, continues to actively engage with the renewable energy industry to ensure best practice is followed and measures put in place to mitigate against any impact on the local water environment.”
Joss Blamire, senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables, insisted the “biggest threat” to the countryside is climate change and not wind farms.
He added: “Onshore wind projects are subject to rigorous environmental assessments. We work closely with groups, including SEPA, the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage to ensure the highest conservation and biodiversity standards are met.”
• The revelations come just months after evidence emerged of contamination in the water supply to homes in the shadow of Europe’s largest wind farm.
People living near Whitelee, which has 215 turbines, complained of severe vomiting and diarrhoea with water samples showing high readings of
E. Coli and other coliform bacteria.
Tests carried out between May 2010 and April last year by local resident Dr Rachel Connor, a retired clinical radiologist, showed only three out of 36 samples met acceptable standards.
Operators ScottishPower denied causing the pollution, but admitted not warning anyone that drinking water from 10 homes in Ayrshire was, at times, grossly contaminated.
Dr Connor said: “I would expect this likely contamination of drinking water must be happening all over Scotland.
“If there is not an actual cover-up, then there is probably complacency to the point of negligence by developers and statutory authorities.”
The environmental costs of industrial wind turbines is never mentioned….
Tobacco companies used to pull the same stunts! Tell doctors to DENY!
The medical profession, as a profession, is meant to self-govern and self-regulate its members in order to uphold the highest ethical standards in delivering medical advice, care and treatment. Integral to which is the almost sacred Doctor-Patient Relationship. That relationship requires utmost confidence in the Doctor’s ability to act impartially and in the best interests of the patient at all times.
AGL – which operates Macarthur and Glen Thompson wind farms – has turned that relationship on its head by sending crudely written propaganda sheets to a dozen medical clinics adjacent to wind farms.
An example of the type of letter sent to Macarthur Doctors is available here.
Imagine how long-suffering Macarthur victim, Jan Hetherington felt when she saw a copy of that letter sitting on her GP’s desk, listening to her GP parrot the unsubstantiated dribble tossed up by AGL about noise, sleep and health?
Finding good medical support in regional areas is hard enough (trust and confidence in the medico is critical to good long term health outcomes) having corporate interests interfering in that relationship to preserve their own selfish interests, is nothing short of outrageous.
The windpushers have told me that you are imagining things, that won’t be a problem, will it?
Bill Palmer blasts the AMA for their biased position on wind!
Concerning: AMA Position Statement – Wind Farms and Health 2014
Credit: William K.G. Palmer, P. Eng., March 22, 2014 ~~
Dr. Steve Hambleton
President – Australian Medical Association
president@ama.com.au
Professor Geoffrey Dobb
Vice President – Australian Medical Association
vicepresident@ama.com.au
Dear Dr. Hambleton and Professor Dobb:
Following my review of the AMA Position Statement on Wind Farms and Health 2014, as well as my review of the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Draft Information Paper: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health, and its source document, the University of Adelaide Systematic Review of the Human Health Effects of Wind, I felt compelled to write to you. I wish to express to you my grave concern that the Position Statement as it is issued is not consistent with the Code of Ethics of the Australian Medical Association which your website identifies as representing the core of fundamental principals to guide doctors in their professional conduct, concerning issues such as respect for patients, standards for care, and so on.
I must openly identify that I am not a Medical Doctor, but as a Professional Engineer, compliance with a Code of Ethics is core to my profession as well. Without getting into every detail, a code of ethics that calls to “Consider first the well-being of your patient” in the case of the AMA or in the case of an engineer to “regard the duty to public welfare as paramount” would require that a position statement such as issued by the AMA on Wind Farms and Health actually should confirm that those first considerations are met. The AMA Position Statement on Wind Farms and Health fails that test in many aspects.
My primary concern relates to the absolute nature of the statements in in the Position Statement that sound from wind farms does not cause adverse health effects, and that individuals who experience adverse health do so as a consequence of heightened anxiety or negative perceptions. These statements do NOT consider the well-being of the patient first, NOR do they treat patients who report adverse health effects with compassion and respect. Instead of considering the patient first, the AMA Position Statement is filled with many (incorrect) laudatory remarks about wind turbines, such as:
- “Wind turbine technology is considered a comparatively inexpensive and effective means of energy production.” Wind turbines certainly are not effective as they generally produce poorest when the demand is highest, and if one considers the need to include and build an alternative generating system or storage means to be able to have energy available when needed, neither is the overall wind turbine system inexpensive.
- “These upwind turbines generate much lower levels of infrasound and low frequency sound.” Than what? This is a meaningless statement. If the intent was to compare upwind and downwind turbines, the statement needs to identify that downwind turbines have not been produced for industrial use for years.
- “Both indoor and outdoor infrasound levels are well below the perception threshold, and no greater than that experienced in other rural and urban environments.” This statement completely misses the point that it is not the “sound level” that makes it most noticeable and annoying, but the cyclical quality of the sound. To paraphrase Dr. Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp, former Vice Chair of the Acoustical Society of America, and an engineering acoustics researcher from the Technical University of Berlin, “Assessment of sound by level alone is like assessing soup by temperature alone. One you will sup and say ‘pleasing’ while the other you will spit out and declare ‘awful’. The quality of the sound is very important like the flavor of the soup, not just the level of the sound or the temperature of the soup.”
- “Misinformation regarding wind farm developments may contribute to heightened anxiety and community division …” In fact the misinformation about wind farms often is perpetuated by the proponents – by statements suggesting there will be no impact – or that there will be advantages in job creation, no pollution, and economic benefits that are not realized.
- “Electricity generation by wind turbines does not involve production of greenhouse gases, other pollutant emissions or waste, all of which can have significant direct and indirect health effects.” This statement completely neglects that operation of wind turbines does result in a significant emission of noise, which is defined as a pollutant in many jurisdictions, as it certainly is of a distinctive character, annoying, sleep disrupting, and noticeable.
The AMA Position Statement would lead one to believe that the AMA has dismissed consideration of the well-being of the patient, or treating the patient with respect, to instead become a cheerleader for the wind turbine industry. Including erroneous statements as just noted questions compliance with the AMA Code of Ethics position on “The Doctor and Society” to share a responsibility to society in matters relating to the health and safety of the public, or to retain a “Professional Independence” from third parties.
Reading through the source documents, the NHMRC Draft Information Paper, or the University of Adelaide Systematic Review of the Human Health Effects of Wind makes it clear that it is indeed difficult to identify a definitive direct cause for the adverse health effects identified by citizens after wind turbines are erected and go into operation in their neighbourhoods. Yet, instead of choosing to investigate the associations that are identified between wind farm exposure and annoyance, of disturbed sleep, and poorer quality of life, and how these might have an impact on health, the studies instead looked at how to dismiss these associations by claiming selection bias (by only looking at people who identify problems for example) or by showing that some other factor might be involved. This is rather like the claim made by a Canadian Medical Doctor who has often identified at conferences, or in public forums, “I have high blood pressure, and I do not live near wind turbines, so you cannot say wind turbines cause high blood pressure.” This is also like a parent saying, “My son had a car accident but was not drinking, so you cannot say that car accidents are caused by alcohol.” These dismissive statements are meaningless. Instead the recognized associations between wind turbine exposure and adverse effects should be investigated not dismissed, based on a code of ethics that recognizes a responsibility to improve and maintain the health of patients who entrust themselves to medical care.
Not only is the AMA Position Statement not considering the patient first, but also, the Position Statement simply shows no respect for those individuals who have reported adverse health effects. These real people are dismissed without further investigation. If any medical doctor had the receptionist say to the incoming patient, “Go away, the doctor has been told that you are not really sick, and is not going to waste time examining you,” one would suspect the AMA might raise its corporate eyebrows. Yet, this appears to be the position the association is advocating. It is hard to rationalize the AMA Position with a code of ethics that calls to treat a patient with compassion and respect.
Real people have identified their problems, yet the AMA position statement will cause the medical practioners to simply ignore their patients. As I acknowledged earlier, I am not a Medical Doctor, not would I venture to diagnose a person’s illness, yet, as a human being who cares for his neighbours (in the broader sense, not as a medical doctor does) I acknowledge that many people have identified to me disrupted sleep that adversely impacts them the next day, and they have identified numerous other conditions of dizziness, nausea, ringing in their ears, uncontrollable blood sugars (in diabetics) and elevated blood pressure. Some of these people are ones I had known for decades before wind turbines came into their environment. In none of the many cases could a suspicion of simply heightened anxiety or negative perceptions be detected. I have experienced witnessing a person break down and cry at a meeting with regulators, and say they cannot go to their doctor because all he will do is take away their driving licence because they are falling asleep while driving, and then they will lose their job, and thus their home. The AMA Position Statement will not address the real problem of why these patient’s sleep is disrupted. I have watched previously healthy people get worse month by month, until finally they give up and walk away from their home, before their health improves. These are real people, and they certainly do not seem to be simply experiencing adverse health from heightened anxiety or negative perceptions. They do not need yet another literature study dismissing their conditions because they are self reported, or because an adequate control group was not included in the study.
As an engineer, a lesson learned early in my career was that when a system that was previously working well starts to have problems, look for what has changed. This led me to research the acoustic conditions around the homes in a wind turbine development. My research has been published in the Proceedings of Meetings of Acoustics of the Acoustical Society of America, the Canadian Acoustical Association journal, and in the Conference Proceedings of the Wind Turbine Noise Conferences in 2007 / 2009 / 2011 / 2013. Two of these papers were noted in the University of Adelaide review, but they were excluded from consideration as not meeting the criteria of the study. Yet, the papers do identify that there are indeed differences in the sound conditions, and particularly in the sound quality that is not sufficiently addressed by level alone. As one example only, the work shows that there is a very real difference between the cyclical sharp rise times of sound from wind turbines and the much more random sounds of nature such as lake waves or the wind. In my work I have drawn the analogy between the disruptive nature of “sharp” visual or taste stimuli compared to the pleasing “smoother” nature of other stimuli to wonder if the sharp, cyclical nature of wind turbine sound might not be the beginning of an explanation why they are so disruptive to some. I would be willing to forward copies of the work to you so that you might consider a medical follow up of how these differences might impact a person’s health. Simply dismissing the recognized associations and telling people there is no link between wind turbines and adverse health is not matching the AMA Code of Ethics to treat patients with compassion and respect.
I cannot help to note that in the windfarm of 110 turbines in a neighbouring community over an 18-month period there were 4 sudden deaths due to cardiac arrests of people whose homes are near the wind turbines. In three cases the closest turbine is within 550 m of the home, with 1 to 4 more wind turbines within 1 km. In the fourth case, the nearest wind turbine was about 1500 metres. There is obviously a need for discretion, but this information is from the public record:
- A gentleman in his 50’s who stood at a public meeting to declare he was suffering no adverse health effects from wind turbines near his home suffered a cardiac arrest and died within one week of his declaration.
- A young lady in her 30’s suffered an unexpected sudden cardiac arrest and died.
- Another gentleman in his 60’s had a cardiac arrest while out fishing and could not be revived.
- Another gentleman in his 60’s suffered a cardiac arrest while driving and passed away.
None of these individuals’ deaths were expected, and their families and community were indeed grieved. Obviously I cannot and do not say that the wind turbines were the cause of the cardiac arrests, and recognize there are other causes of cardiac arrest, but the above average frequency and similar environment surely begs a question to warrant investigation.
In conclusion, I would ask that the Australian Medical Association reconsider the Position Paper – Wind Farms and Health 2014 specifically in light of the AMA Code of Ethics. Similarly, I will request the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council to reconsider their Draft Information Paper – Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health to actually initiate follow up on the associations identified between wind farm exposure and annoyance, of disturbed sleep, and poorer quality of life, and how these might have an impact on health rather than just dismissing them. Hurting individuals deserve better treatment. Luke 10:37 (NIV) commands each of us to “Go and do likewise,” to have compassion and help those who are hurting, not to pass by, averting our eyes.
With respect,
William K.G. Palmer, P. Eng.
Paisley, Ontario
March 22, 2014
Download original document: “Concerning: AMA Position Statement – Wind Farms and Health 2014”
Climate Alarmists are NOT Fooling anyone! It’s politics!
American Physical Society has Second thoughts
I received info that the triple threat of Lindzen, Christy and Curry are on an American Physical Society (APS) review committee on Climate Science, Climate Models, and the assertions of the IPCC and their allies.
Nice.
Here is great commentary on the development by a meteorologist of great repute, Chuck Wiese.
Here’s the note from Chuck:
If there is any sense of honesty within the APS Executive Board, they will have to admit there is a serious problem with “climate models”. As a meteorologist who has some understanding of model construct, it was an absurd assumption in my mind that it is OK to run such a model and assume you don’t have to get weather evolution correct, but somehow the energy balance will track accurately through time and give an accurate result, especially since none of the limits in any of the equations are truly satisfied from being parameterized.
Then there is the issue of not getting any answers as to why the founding work in atmospheric radiation done by Elsasser, Goody, Emden and a host of others was set aside without refutation while the work of Arrhenius was dredged back to life that is a gross exaggeration as to the true effect of CO2 in the earth atmospheric system, and never questioned when the results of modeling are so drastically different from what this founding work ever suggested it would be.
I learned ( and still firmly believe ) that CO2 is a GHG of only secondary importance in the earths atmosphere. It is really acting similarly as a proxy to what would otherwise be a larger water vapor optical depth without it. In the presence of a hydrological cycle it should not have an effect on the surface temperature. If anything at all, it would slightly enhance the hydrological cycle because of the increased cooling effect it has on the upper troposphere. We were taught that CO2′s effects are short circuited by the hydrological cycle, and water vapors presence in the troposphere is self-limiting by its own physical and radiative properties.
That gets us to the recent works of Ferenc Miskolczi, whose recent paper I believe leads us to the correct way in which CO2 actually behaves in the earths atmosphere. His paper received no attention by these groups as they all claim he is wrong but yet refuse to prove it or meet with him to allow him to challenge their erroneous conclusions.
And finally, I also believe that money ( the BILLIONS wasted on climate models and the fake hype that surrounds the fraudulent claims of their skill and ability ) that continues to flow into academia like a fire hose geyser from our government that wants to regulate and control energy is the real corrupting entity that is mutually beneficial to both groups that will be difficult to break. But the lack of willingness by these groups to even admit their claims are invalidated scientifically already is now making this arrangement a fraudulent one that should have a punishment behind it if it continues.
The outright lying about what is actually happening with the climate and manipulation of climate data by these groups is appalling and criminal. I have never seen such corruption on a grand scale such as this and could have never imagined that academic institutions would even entertain the thought of engaging in it.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Lib/NDP government has run us into the red….BIG TIME!!!
Families are struggling to make ends meet, while the Government of Ontario continues to throw our money into the wind. Might as well burn it!
Wind Industry Continues to Deny the Harm they are Causing!
Rikki Nicholson: A real person, not just a receptor locator
Rikki Nicholson: Victim at Cape Bridgewater
STT Champion, Rikki Nicholson, shared this letter in response to the recent AMA position statement. Rickki lives in the horrors of the Cape Bridgewater wind farm in Victoria.
Open letter
Rikki Nicholson
16 March 2014
I am responding to the ill informed rubbish concerning health effects from wind turbines.
Sarah Laurie is one of the few medically trained Doctors worldwide who are prepared to abide by their Hippocratic Oath “first do no harm”.
I live at Cape Bridgewater, Victoria where 80% of my neighbours have been forced or chosen to leave their homes.
Sarah Laurie is unfairly blamed for scaremongering health problems. How is this possible when in 2008 we officially complained at a time when the Waubra Foundation did not exist?
Why is there not one wind farm operator prepared to publicly state that wind farms do not disrupt sleep and therefore cause a myriad of illnesses as a consequence?
Great people in history are ridiculed before they are proved right.
Where would we be today if Columbus had not believed in himself?
Rikki Nicholson
(A real person, not just a receptor locator)
Letter from Physicist, Gordon J. Fulks, on the politics of climate alarmism!
Dear Dr. Bachhuber,
Thanks for your political opinions. As a physician you should be able to understand the basic climate issues. A lot of physicians do. People with many different backgrounds work in this field, not just climatologists. The most prominent one is the Great Global Warming Guru Dr. James Hansen who recently retired from NASA/GISS. He is an astrophysicist like I am and comes from the astrophysics group at the University of Iowa. I’m from the competing group at the University of Chicago. The other prominent climate alarmist is Professor Michael Mann at Penn State. He has degrees in geology and physics, studies tree rings, and calls himself a professor of meteorology. None of this is particularly unusual in science, although I agree it would be in medicine.
Where we do get into the inappropriate is when biologists, ecologists, and yes physicians claim expertise in physical processes in the atmosphere when they likely have none at all. Such is apparently the case with Warren Aney (above). He is prescribing treatments for planet earth without any apparent knowledge of their effectiveness or even if the planet is suffering from Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming caused by man’s burning of fossil fuels. And he is not just prescribing low-cost sugar pills but vastly expensive treatments with no efficacy.
Such is the difficulty with ignorance. In your field, the ignorant are prevented from practicing by licensing laws. The same holds true in many other professions from the law to engineering. Unfortunately in science too many like you claim enough expertise to advise the public when you should not be doing so.
To be sure, some physicians long ago figured out the Global Warming nonsense. It does not take a PhD in Physics. Perhaps the most famous is Michael Crichton, MD. As a writer of science fiction, he specialized in stories that minimized the fiction and maximized the facts. You should read his famous lecture to students at Cal Tech, ”Aliens Cause Global Warming”.
Crichton’s final sentence is especially poignant to me:
“Personally, I don’t worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.”
And this is the central problem for science. How do we keep the ignorant from practicing when their knowledge is purely political and their zeal is pseudo-religious.
Science involves logic and evidence only. That is why I present such arguments. The facts that the earth has not warmed in 16 years and that Pacific Northwest temperatures have been trending downward is highly relevant. They show that our planetary physicians do not understand the disease they propose to treat. Isn’t it time to find planetary physicians who can get things right?
As to salmon doing well because of restoration efforts, a scientist would point out that would not be effective if the Columbia River water temperature had risen enough to cook the fish! As to ocean acidification, a scientist would know that any increase from our burning of fossil fuels is so minute as to be less than natural variations.
As to the death of some farmed oysters in Washington State, most biologists realize that living organisms are multi-parameter creatures that can suffer from a variety of illnesses that may seem similar. Non-native species may not be suitable for the farming intended in local waters.
As to the claimed rise in deep ocean temperature, you obviously need to be a scientist to be a little skeptical of all you have been told. Convenient answers to inconvenient problems should trigger a lot of questions.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA
My Op-Ed must have really hit home with the climate cult, because they are certainly swarming like a nest of angry hornets. But like hornets, they find it difficult to mount an effective counterattack if their intended victim is the least bit prepared.
Dr. Sandy Reider takes Aim at Irresponsible Placement of Industrial Wind Turbines.
Intentional bias behind AMA position statement?
Credit: Sandy Reider, MD ~~
Dear Dr. Hambleton,
As a rural primary care physician (graduate of Harvard Medical School in 1971) in northern Vermont, USA, I have observed first hand the adverse health effects experienced by individuals living too close to the two large wind projects that have been brought online in the area over the past few years. In my testimony (see attached below) last year before the Vermont Senate Health Care Committee (as well as testimony before the Senate Natural Resources Committee and the Governor’s Siting Commission), I described one such patient in detail. His complaints are typical, and similar to symptoms reported by the 5 or 6 others, who I have seen in my office, as well as many other reports around the world. Though industry and health authorities alike have dismissed these case reports as anecdotal, their sheer numbers and consistency can be ignored only if there exists an intentional bias, but not on scientific grounds. I do understand there is much current debate about whether the health effects are “direct” or “indirect”, but from a clinical perspective, looking at health outcomes, this is an entirely academic distinction, and not at all pertinent for the person(s) adversely affected.
Likewise, the industry’s refusal to consider that very low frequency sound may be contributing to these adverse health effects, seems to represent another example of intentional scientific bias. A detailed study of infrasound produced by large downwind bladed wind turbines, and its health effects, was undertaken by the US Dept. of Energy and NASA in the mid-1980’s:
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/kelley-et-al-1985-acoustic-noise-associated-with-mod-1-wind-turbine/
It clearly documented the significant adverse effects of infrasound generated
by large downwind bladed wind turbines, and recommended protective sound threshold standards. This is far from new information, and taken with other more recent papers, it does not seem credible to exclude from consideration the adverse health effects from infrasound produced by these large modern wind turbines.
I cannot escape the conclusion that the siting standards for large wind projects have been, and continue to be, inadequate to protect the health of many persons living in their vicinity, and sincerely hope the Australian Medical Association will review it’s current position that negates such concerns.
Sincerely,
Sandy Reider MD
Dr. G.D.Hopkins, takes offense at the Australian Medical Association’s failure to tell the truth!
Dr Steve Hambleton
President, the AMA
Dear sir,
I write with regards you recent press release on wind turbines.As a practicing physician with 36 years experience in fields as diverse as rehabilitation, emergency medicine and forensic medicine. Previously a senior lecturer at both the University of South Australia and the Adelaide University lecturing both at an undergraduate and post graduate levels. In particular I lectured to the post graduate diploma of Occupational and Environmental Health, and to candidates for the College of Occupational Medicine.
Over the years the AMA has been considered conservative, cautious and at times even out of step with modern advances in medical practice. I should point out however that the above is not meant as a criticism but rather as a compliment. Indeed it is the very conservative and cautious nature of the AMA which gives it, it’s strength, authority and power both within the profession and to outsiders.
The above being said I can only say that within the 36 years of listening to advice from the AMA your recent public statement on the effects of wind turbines on health has for the first time caused me to be embarrassed to be a physician. Through out my personal 36 years of practice and drummed into the hundreds of juniors who have passed through my care has always been the pivotal Hypocratc pronouncement ” first do no harm”. Your recent press release at the very least has broken this very basis of good medical practice not to mention decreased the credibility of the AMA itself.
I am rendered speechless by your irresponsible, ill researched, ill advised and reckless statement that those who might suffer physical effects from the presence of turbines are suffering a psychological condition (anxiety). Indeed your very statement itself causes anxiety in those likely to be effected ( “who will believe me when I tell them I feel sick ” ? ).
Was this the attitude of your forbears to those of the London plague just before they died until a connection was made to the transmission of the disease by rats.
Even the NHMRC has suggested caution till further evidence is gained.
“First do no harm” What harm have you now done by your statement ?
Once I manage to recover from my disbelief and disenchantment with the AMA at such an outrageous statement I will communicate further. Hopefully by then you will have realised your error and retracted your ” harmful ” statement.
Dr G D Hopkins
This Host Farmer Hates Wind Turbines…..Here’s Why!!!
David and Alida Mortimer
Japanese debunk AGW Theories
Climate change nothing to do with humans
Recent satellite evidence from the Japanese climate satellite IBUKU shows that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is coming from temperature-induced high vegetation equatorial regions of the earth and not from human use of fossil fuels in Europe, UK or US.
As a result Japan has abandoned its carbon targets, as also have Australia, Poland, Russia and Canada.
The carbon dioxide is also from de-gassing out of the oceans due to the warming effects of the Medieval Warm Period (1000AD-1300AD. It takes hundreds of years for the oceans to warm and release carbon dioxide.
By contrast ground-based temperature stations have been maliciously interfered with. Temperatures before 1998 from recording stations have been reduced while temperatures after 1998 from stations have been deliberately increased, all to give the unwary the impression of warming.
This has been fully documented by evidence to the House of Lords economic committee and by the WUWT climate science blog.
The small rise in temperature over the last few decades has been due to the earth coming out of the Little Ice Age which ended in 1850. It has nothing to do with humans.
Present levels of carbon dioxide are not dangerous; in fact, they are too low (only about 0.04% of the atmosphere).
Carbon dioxide is a gas we all need to survive and if it gets too low we humans will die.
Plants are already struggling. Proxies such as ice cores measured by scientists show that temperature and carbon dioxide levels have been much higher in the past.
The changing sun means the earth is headed for a new ice age.
It is the sun that is affecting the jet stream.
Professor Matt Collins of Exeter University, a top Met office scientist, said recently that the present floods in England have nothing to do with global warming.
The most recent ITV poll shows that over 65 per cent of people in Britain do not believe that humans are causing climate change. They are right!
Terri Jackson
Membership Secretary,
Principia Scientific International (PSI)
Wind Contracts CAN and SHOULD, be CANCELLED!!!
Companies ‘do not have a right [to expect the compensation] not to be changed’
Governments across Europe, regretting the over-generous deals doled out to the renewable energy sector, have begun reneging on them. To slow ruinous power bills hikes, governments are unilaterally rewriting contracts and clawing back unseemly profits.
In Italy, one of Europe’s largest economies and one that lavished billions in subsidies on the renewable sector, the government in 2013 applied its so-called “Robin Hood tax” to renewable energy producers. Under the new rule, renewable energy producers with more than €3 million in revenue and income greater than €300,000 must now pay a tax of 10.5%.
That follows a 2012 move to charge all solar producers a five cent tax per kilowatt hour on all self-consumed energy. The government also told solar producers that it would stop taking their power – and would offer no compensation – when their output overwhelms the system.
The result of these and other changes, says the solar industry, has been a surge in bankruptcies and a massive decrease in solar investment.
In Belgium – where both regional and federal bodies hand out renewable subsidies – a number of retroactive changes have capped the largesse renewable producers once received. In one region the price for “green certificates” – which producers received for renewable energy – was slashed by 79%. The government original committed to buy green certificates at a benchmarked price for 20 years, then cut it to 10 years.
Belgium’s regulators tried to impose a fee on all energy added to the grid from small- to medium-sized solar producers. While the country’s court of appeals struck down that fee, a defiant regional government plans to reintroduce it next year, forcing all solar producers to pay an annual fee that varies with the power they pump into the grid. Various municipalities, meanwhile, are introducing taxes on new and existing wind turbines.
As in Italy, Belgium’s renewable sector in the county has gone dark –“imploded” in the view of a solar industry publication. Many companies shrank or went bankrupt.
In France the government last year cut by 20% the “guaranteed” rate offered to all solar producers, and retroactively applied it to projects connected to the grid in the previous three months. The government is also considering ending an 11% tax break on solar energy producers.
Perhaps the most dramatic moves occurred in Spain, for years the poster child for those touting a transition to green energy. Since 2000, Spain has given renewable producers $41-billion more for their power than it has fetched on the open market. To recover those subsidies, the Spanish government recently killed its Feed In Tariff (FIT) program for renewables, which paid them an outlandishly high guaranteed price for their power, replacing it with the market price for their power plus a subsidy deemed more “reasonable.” Companies’ profits are now capped at a 7.4% return, following which they must then sell their power at market rates. That measure is retroactive, with renewable energy producers who got too fat off their profits now being starved until they reach the 7.4% cap.
For example, if a company spent $100-million on a solar installation in Spain and was posting a return of 14%, or $14-million, annually on that investment, then the government would cut it off from subsidies until its total return – starting from when it was first built – fell to 7.4%, or $7.4 million, a year.
Wind projects built before 2005 will no longer receive any form of subsidy – a move a wind energy trade group called a “sacking” of the sector that will see more than a third of wind producers lose their subsidy.
The fallout in Spain was immediate. Its solar sector, which once employed 60,000 workers, now employs 5,000. The wind sector is estimated to have laid off 20,000 workers. Ikea – the Swedish furniture retailer that became enamoured of renewables – announced it was cutting its losses and abandoning a solar plant it had built in Spain. Investment in the sector also collapsed. In 2011, Spain attracted $10 billion in solar investment. In 2013, the level of investment dropped by almost 90%.
Spain’s Supreme Court offered no sympathy to the solar industry, in ruling against its argument that the government’s retroactive changes were wrong. “The evolution of the energy sector … was putting the financial sustainability of the electricity system at risk,” the court decided, adding that the companies “do not have a right [to expect the government compensation regime] not to be changed.”
Europe’s renewable energy investors are facing a harsh reality – that the promises from politicians can be taken away at any moment. Canada’s renewable energy investors may soon face that same reality.
Brady Yauch is an economist and executive director of Consumer Policy Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.
Dr. Sarah Laurie, Defender of Wind Turbine Victims everywhere!
Recently the Australian Medical Association (AMA) released a disgracefulposition statement in relation to wind farm noise and health.
This is Dr Sarah Laurie’s cutting response.
AMA statement on wind farms and health
Sarah Laurie
14 March 2014
Dear Dr Hambleton and Professor Dobb,
I will be formally writing to the AMA Federal Council members on this matter shortly, but I just wanted to bring your attention to the fact that today is World Sleep Day, and that the rights of children to a good nights sleep are being abrogated by the failure of state and federal authorities to properly regulate environmental noise (including wind turbine noise pollution) and to ensure that the known harm from infrasound and low frequency noise from wind turbines is prevented by adopting safe noise pollution guidelines and actively enforcing them.
The AMA have just endorsed that abuse of the most vulnerable members of our communities with the position statement released yesterday, which is misleading, ignorant, and dangerously ilinformed. Your statement is available here, in case you are not aware of it :https://ama.com.au/position-statement/wind-farms-and-health-2014
Environmental sleep disorder is a recognised clinical sleep condition, and it is the major problem reported by wind turbine neighbours including wind turbine hosts and their families.
Definitive research was conducted by the US government funded SERI and NASA research project led by Dr Neil Kelley, which showed direct causation of symptoms including repetitive sleep disturbance from wind turbine generated impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise, in the 1980′s. The wind industry’s response to that groundbreaking research was to change the design of the turbines to reduce the generation of those frequencies, and then to ensure that the frequencies were not measured by any regulatory authority. Please see our explicit warning notice for more information:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/explicit-warning-notice/
In other words the global wind industry has known for years that wind turbine generated infrasound and low frequency noise can cause symptoms described by them as “annoyance” but which include sleep disturbance and a range of other symptoms which medical practitioners are increasingly referring to as “wind turbine syndrome”. The Kelley research was well known to the industry, and buried by them for nearly thirty years.
Please read our media release about World Sleep Day carefully, together with the material at the links below, especially the comments by 6 year old Sophie Hartke. http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2014/world-sleep-day-time-stop-abuse-children-from-environmental-noise-pollution-2/ . I know this information and our release is circulating around the United Nations in New York today, and that even members of the International Doctors for the Environment are starting to get concerned about this issue of child abuse from noise pollution so well illustrated by Sophie Hartke’s story.
What your AMA position statement has just done is endorse the ongoing abuse of children such as Sophie – and there are numerous Australian families in an identical situation to the Hartke’s.
I am sure that was not your intent.
The health damage from environmental noise pollution at night is not restricted to wind turbine residents – children and families living near CSG field compressors, gas fired power stations and coal mines are also being badly damaged. Children with disabilities and conditions such as autism are particularly vulnerable to the effects of low frequency noise. The Waubra Foundation have actively campaigned for full spectrum monitoring at all industrial noise generating sites where noise problems are reported – as you will see from our acoustic pollution assessment guidelines. The first edition of that document, endorsed by acousticians internationally, came out in May 2012.http://waubrafoundation.org.au/about/acoustic-pollution-assessment/
The “nocebo nonsense” the AMA is so clearly supporting in this statement has been propagated by individuals with vested interests (ideological, political, and/or financial), and interestingly is only ever applied to the wind industry and wind turbine noise pollution.
Some of those conflicts of interest are starting to be exposed in Federal Parliament, with more to follow. (seehttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/nhmrc-ceo-prof-anderson-questioned-about-draft-review-by-senate/ )
You may be unaware that a product manufacturer (VESTAS) is using some health advocacy organisations and Professor Simon Chapman to push their denials of any harm from their product – despite having publicly admitted that harm ten years earlier. (seehttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/2014/public-statement-home-abandonment-due-environmental-noise-pollution/ ) Imagine the outcry if cigarette companies, or James Hardie were launching global denial campaigns of harm with respect to their products. Both industries knew very well the damage their products cause but continued to deny it for years, and were supported by “experts” including health practitioners and public health academics. The same is happening with the wind industry.
As a former AMA state councillor in South Australia some years ago, I am aware that the AMA needs to be “across” many issues, however I am somewhat appalled at the ignorance of those who wrote this particular statement and urge the AMA senior office bearers to remove the statement immediately before it does any further damage to the AMA’s reputation, and do your own due diligence on this issue. It is not a good look for the AMA to be effectively supporting an industry which is knowingly harming people and lying about it, or silencing sick and vulnerable people with gag clauses in agreements with the noise polluters, especially when the NHMRC has recently said high quality research is required, (research which the Australian Senate also recommended in 2011).
To ignore even the recent findings of the NHMRC that ” there is consistent but poor quality evidence that proximity to wind farms is associated with annoyance and, less consistently, with sleep disturbance and poorer quality of life” and that there is a need for high quality research in this area as your position statement does, brings your organisation into international disrepute and may be embarrassing for both the organisation and for you both personally if not urgently addressed.
With respect to the hypothesis that scaremongering is causing the symptoms, please reflect that the very first Australian rural medical practitioner to alert health authorities and conduct his own research was rural general practitioner Dr David Iser, from Toora in Victoria, in 2004. David found that the reported health problems related predominantly to sleep deprivation and physiological stress, and our own field work strongly supports his conclusions from ten years ago. David is an unsung hero for the work he did 10 years ago, and is someone the Australian medical profession can be very proud of.
There is no research, conducted in the homes of those reporting the symptoms, which supports the “nocebo nonsense”. There is research indicating that it is wind turbine noise which is directly causing the reported health problems (the Kelley research from the 1980′s particularly, together with the more recent research in the US and Australia by independent acousticians such as Rick James, Rob Rand, Stephen Ambrose, Dr Paul Schomer, Professor Colin Hansen, Dr Bob Thorne, Les Huson and Steven Cooper.
I have worked closely with all these acousticians over the last three years, and to say they are appalled and disgusted at Professor Chapman’s conduct would be an understatement. However they understand that he has no medical or acoustical training. They will be even more appalled at the statement the AMA have just put out, because they will consider that “medical practitioners should know better”, and indeed have a professional obligation of a duty of care, and a longstanding obligation to “first do no harm”. In this instance, the AMA’s ignorance on this issue will do immense harm because it will be enthusiastically picked up by the wind industry globally. Unwittingly, the AMA then becomes one of those organisations which is enabling the abuse to continue. As senior office bearers, you will no doubt be held responsible.
You may also be interested to hear that the Irish Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Colette Bonner is sticking by her public comments expressing concern for those people who develop the symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome” http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/2014/irelands-deputy-chief-medical-officer-continues-to-endorse-wind-turbine-syndrome-despite-big-wind-bullying/?var=cna and that recent research funded by the Ontario government, conducted by University of Waterloo researchers has confirmed that there is a dose response relationship between wind turbines and sleep disturbance, and symptoms of vestibular disorders including tinnitus and vertigohttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/paller-c-et-al-wind-turbine-noise-sleep-quality-symptoms-inner-ear-problems/.
Senior acousticians in America (even those who work with and for wind developers) have come to the same conclusion that wind turbine generated infrasound and low frequencies are affecting the vestibular system (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/schomer-et-al-wind-turbine-noise-conference-denver-august-2013/ ), and neurophysiologist Professor Alec Salt’s work supports that and explains how the cochlea functions when stimulated with infrasound in a quiet background noise environment. (see http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/prof-alex-salt-expresses-deepest-disappoint-victorian-dept-health-report/ )
This information and much more is available on our website, and I urge you to have a good look at it and inform yourselves properly about this growing and entirely preventable public health problem resulting from infrasound and low frequency noise pollution.
Alternatively, please ring or email Emeritus Professor Colin Hansen – the recipient of the only Australian Research Council Grant to investigate wind turbine noise. His recent comments to the misleading information on the Public Health Association of Australia website and the Victorian Department of Health report may help give you further background material : http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/prof-colin-hansen-writes-victorian-dept-health-recent-wind-farms-health-doc/ andhttps://www.wind-watch.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/letter-to-CEO-Moore.pdf .
I would be delighted to introduce you to Colin or any other national or international experts with direct knowledge of the severity of the problems being reported by the residents. I would also be delighted to facilitate you meeting with affected residents including those forced to abandon their homes, who will be grossly offended and distressed at the AMA’s position statement, but from whom you can learn directly what the problems are. You will soon find out that scaremongering is not causing their symptoms, and I hope will be appalled at the way they have been treated.
The PHAA have not changed the information on their website, despite receiving Colin’s informative letter (above), which comes as no surprise to us. I hope that the AMA does not adopt a similar “head in the sand” approach to this issue.
Sarah Laurie BMBS
sarah@waubrafoundation.org.au
The Wonderful Senator Madigan!!! Those Aussies are lucky to have him!!!
Senator John Madigan is an international hero, to people suffering from wind turbines all over the world! I can’t praise him enough for his refreshing and courageous stand against Big Wind corruption, and the soulless creatures, willing to cover it up!
Australia is home to some of the most well-respected “Wind Warrior Champions”, in the world. They refuse to be led down the garden path of lies and deceit, or give in to money that the windpushers throw around, to convince others to turn a blind eye, to innocent residents who are suffering. To our Australian Cousins….You have our Undying Gratitude and Respect!
Story of Child, Tormented by Wind Turbine Noise…and still, windpushers deny.
“He asked if his brain had a heartbeat! He was talking about a pulsing in his head!” (Australia)
Mar 15, 2014
— Patina Schneider, Australia
As the main contact of the Australian Industrial Wind Turbine Awareness Network I hear from many people who are impacted from noise pollution created by industrial wind turbines. Nothing is worse than the plea from a parent who can’t protect a child from the invasion of noise pollution created by wind turbines that were forced on their once peaceful rural community
One mother has given me permission to share extracts from her emails. Like so many other people I hear from, she tells how her family’s life changed for the worse when the wind farm began operation. The following are excerpts from her distraught emails regarding her child.
Try living with the noise all the time. It becomes unbearable!”
“How would you cope watching your child scream out in the middle of the night, pleading for the turbines to be turned off so they can sleep and to stop their bed from vibrating?”
“He even asked me if his brain had a heartbeat! What he was talking about is a pulsing in his head.”
“He gets angry and frustrated from the lack of sleep.”
“I even laid on his bed one night, and I couldn’t believe the vibration.”
“He has the right to have a good night’s sleep and not have to go to school too tired to learn and concentrate. He should have the same rights as every other child to get an education.”
“Kids are supposed to be important, but apparently kids near turbines aren’t considered. Where are his rights and why is he not considered?”
“His whole life is being affected. If he can’t concentrate to learn, what happens to his future?”
“I emailed the [wind energy] company, asking if they could put my son up in a house in town through the week so he could get a good night’s sleep before going to school. Our call for assistance went unanswered.”
“Do you know how frustrating it is not to be able to protect your child, and have that all taken away from you?”
“IT’S ABOUT TIME SOMETHING WAS DONE. OUR SON IS IMPORTANT AND SO ARE ALL THE FAMILIES OUT THERE!”
This family has filed several hundred complaints since the wind farm began operation. They are trapped in their home because of financial constraints and their property devaluation. Their once happy life has been ruined, along with their business which they previously ran from their property.
Numerous correspondence to the developer and government authorities pleading for help and for them to be relocated to another property has got them nowhere, nor have their hundreds of complaints.
They are trapped, treated with complete disrespect or ignored.
They are sleep deprived, angry and frustrated and just want back what they had — a normal, peaceful life with a happy son who can get a good night’s sleep in his own bed and who can go to school and achieve his best. Not a son waking, screaming in the middle of the night for the turbines to be turned off.
Is this too much to ask?
Please Sign this little girl’s petition, she is trying to protect her community!
Maine Superior Court finally gives protection to the people! Fox Island Residents—Victorious!
Maine Superior Court rules at last: for Fox Island Wind Neighbors and against state agency Maine DEP charged with enforcing wind turbine noise standards
March 13, 2014
After three years of litigation, a Maine Superior Court decision has finally found in favor of wind turbine neighbors complaining about excessive noise from three nearby 1.5 megawatt GE wind turbines. Although citizens across the United States living near wind turbines are complaining — including lawsuits against wind turbine operators — this is the first court case where a state judge has found against a state agency charged with enforcement; the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The judge’s decision follows the key claim of the plaintiffs who proved that FIW (Fox Islands Wind) was not complying with the State’s noise limits and that the DEP failed to enforce against the turbine operator or to require compliance. The immediate impact of the court decision is to remand to the state agency and work with neighbors to find an equitable way to measure and enforce against ongoing noise violations.
For years Fox Islands Wind Neighbors has felt betrayed by the DEP for not protecting them by enforcing against excessive wind turbine noise. Falling back on their own resources, neighbors were forced to do noise measurements to state regulatory specifications — often in extraordinary weather conditions — , then engage in a protracted administrative process to clarify for state regulators the deficiencies of antiquated rules; rules never designed to protect people from wind turbine noise. Throughout the lawsuit, the wind turbine operator, FIW (Fox Islands Wind LLC), stonewalled both the state and the neighbors. It failed to produce data and information about the noise from the turbines, thumbing its nose at due process, and when the neighbors proved at their own expense that violations were occurring, the wind turbine operator flexed political muscle to operate the turbines its own way.
The Vinalhaven wind turbines are permitted to operate at 45dbA at night time. In other parts of Maine, after complaints by neighbors and a public hearing process by the state of Maine, noise levels are 42dbA.
This decision is an important step in the neighbors’ long battle that began in late 2009 when the wind project commenced, threatening health and depressing property values. But it is hardly the last word. Fox Islands Electric Coop informed ratepayers (July 2013) that it has already spent more than $800,000 on behalf of the wind turbine operator’s legal troubles with the state.
The judge’s order also notes that that Patricia Aho, who worked for FIW’s law firm, Pierce Atwood, LLC previous to her appointment as Maine DEP commissioner, “… created an enormous amount of mistrust by the Neighbors as to whether their grievances can receive fair treatment by the Commissioner and the Department… Commissioner Aho’s continuing participation in deciding upon operational and complaint protocols could be viewed as antithetical to the common notions of impartiality which Maine citizens understandably expect from decision makers in Maine agencies.”
The wind industry has retreated from poorly sited turbine locations like those on Vinalhaven where wind shear and turbine placement present significantly more noise than predicted in the planning phase of the project. For example, Harvard Business School’s George Baker — former president of FIW and chief promoter of the project — assured neighbors and Maine DEP during initial permitting that turbine noise would be masked by wind rustling leaves. Baker, former Vice President of Renewable Energy for the Island Institute of Rockland, Maine, both minimized and ignored consultants who had warned of likely noise problems. In one Harvard Business School study of the project, Baker took pride in speeding the Vinalhaven project past likely objectors. Not one director of Fox Islands Electric Coop, Fox Islands Wind, or George Baker live within earshot of the Vinalhaven wind turbines.
Around the world communities impacted by wind turbine noise are pleading for lower noise thresholds and, also, for improved acoustic metrics compared to poor standards in effect, today. Fox Islands Wind Neighbors look forward to working with the DEP to formulate protocols that will assure compliance by FIW in the future.
Another Legal Challenge is Won for the Residents near Wind Turbines! Maine Superior Court!
Maine Superior Court rules at last: for Fox Island Wind Neighbors and against state agency Maine DEP charged with enforcing wind turbine noise standards
Credit: Fox Island Wind Neighbors | March 13, 2014 | fiwn.wordpress.com ~~
After three years of litigation, a Maine Superior Court decision has finally found in favor of wind turbine neighbors complaining about excessive noise from three nearby 1.5 megawatt GE wind turbines. Although citizens across the United States living near wind turbines are complaining — including lawsuits against wind turbine operators — this is the first court case where a state judge has found against a state agency charged with enforcement; the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The judge’s decision follows the key claim of the plaintiffs who proved that FIW (Fox Islands Wind) was not complying with the State’s noise limits and that the DEP failed to enforce against the turbine operator or to require compliance. The immediate impact of the court decision is to remand to the state agency and work with neighbors to find an equitable way to measure and enforce against ongoing noise violations.
For years Fox Islands Wind Neighbors has felt betrayed by the DEP for not protecting them by enforcing against excessive wind turbine noise. Falling back on their own resources, neighbors were forced to do noise measurements to state regulatory specifications — often in extraordinary weather conditions — , then engage in a protracted administrative process to clarify for state regulators the deficiencies of antiquated rules; rules never designed to protect people from wind turbine noise. Throughout the lawsuit, the wind turbine operator, FIW (Fox Islands Wind LLC), stonewalled both the state and the neighbors. It failed to produce data and information about the noise from the turbines, thumbing its nose at due process, and when the neighbors proved at their own expense that violations were occurring, the wind turbine operator flexed political muscle to operate the turbines its own way.
The Vinalhaven wind turbines are permitted to operate at 45dbA at night time. In other parts of Maine, after complaints by neighbors and a public hearing process by the state of Maine, noise levels are 42dbA.
This decision is an important step in the neighbors’ long battle that began in late 2009 when the wind project commenced, threatening health and depressing property values. But it is hardly the last word. Fox Islands Electric Coop informed ratepayers (July 2013) that it has already spent more than $800,000 on behalf of the wind turbine operator’s legal troubles with the state.
The judge’s order also notes that that Patricia Aho, who worked for FIW’s law firm, Pierce Atwood, LLC previous to her appointment as Maine DEP commissioner, “… created an enormous amount of mistrust by the Neighbors as to whether their grievances can receive fair treatment by the Commissioner and the Department… Commissioner Aho’s continuing participation in deciding upon operational and complaint protocols could be viewed as antithetical to the common notions of impartiality which Maine citizens understandably expect from decision makers in Maine agencies.”
The wind industry has retreated from poorly sited turbine locations like those on Vinalhaven where wind shear and turbine placement present significantly more noise than predicted in the planning phase of the project. For example, Harvard Business School’s George Baker — former president of FIW and chief promoter of the project — assured neighbors and Maine DEP during initial permitting that turbine noise would be masked by wind rustling leaves. Baker, former Vice President of Renewable Energy for the Island Institute of Rockland, Maine, both minimized and ignored consultants who had warned of likely noise problems. In one Harvard Business School study of the project, Baker took pride in speeding the Vinalhaven project past likely objectors. Not one director of Fox Islands Electric Coop, Fox Islands Wind, or George Baker live within earshot of the Vinalhaven wind turbines.
Around the world communities impacted by wind turbine noise are pleading for lower noise thresholds and, also, for improved acoustic metrics compared to poor standards in effect, today. Fox Islands Wind Neighbors look forward to working with the DEP to formulate protocols that will assure compliance by FIW in the future.
Source: Fox Island Wind Neighbors | March 13, 2014 | fiwn.wordpress.com
Dr. Sarah Laurie Tells the AMA, that they are allowing Abuse!!! Go Dr. Laurie!!!
Dear Dr Hambleton and Professor Dobb,I will be formally writing to the AMA Federal Council members on this matter shortly, but I just wanted to bring your attention to the fact that today is World Sleep Day, and that the rights of children to a good nights sleep are being abrogated by the failure of state and federal authorities to properly regulate environmental noise (including wind turbine noise pollution) and to ensure that the known harm from infrasound and low frequency noise from wind turbines is prevented by adopting safe noise pollution guidelines and actively enforcing them.The AMA have just endorsed that abuse of the most vulnerable members of our communities with the position statement released yesterday, which is misleading, ignorant, and dangerously ilinformed. Your statement is available here, in case you are not aware of it : https://ama.com.au/position-statement/wind-farms-and-health-2014Environmental sleep disorder is a recognised clinical sleep condition, and it is the major problem reported by wind turbine neighbours including wind turbine hosts and their families.Definitive research was conducted by the US government funded SERI and NASA research project led by Dr Neil Kelley, which showed direct causation of symptoms including repetitive sleep disturbance from wind turbine generated impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise, in the 1980′s. The wind industry’s response to that groundbreaking research was to change the design of the turbines to reduce the generation of those frequencies, and then to ensure that the frequencies were not measured by any regulatory authority. Please see our explicit warning notice for more information: http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/explicit-warning-notice/In other words the global wind industry has known for years that wind turbine generated infrasound and low frequency noise can cause symptoms described by them as “annoyance” but which include sleep disturbance and a range of other symptoms which medical practitioners are increasingly referring to as “wind turbine syndrome”. The Kelley research was well known to the industry, and buried by them for nearly thirty years.Please read our media release about World Sleep Day carefully, together with the material at the links below, especially the comments by 6 year old Sophie Hartke. http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2014/world-sleep-day-time-stop-abuse-children-from-environmental-noise-pollution-2/ . I know this information and our release is circulating around the United Nations in New York today, and that even members of the International Doctors for the Environment are starting to get concerned about this issue of child abuse from noise pollution so well illustrated by Sophie Hartke’s story.What your AMA position statement has just done is endorse the ongoing abuse of children such as Sophie – and there are numerous Australian families in an identical situation to the Hartke’s.I am sure that was not your intent.The health damage from environmental noise pollution at night is not restricted to wind turbine residents – children and families living near CSG field compressors, gas fired power stations and coal mines are also being badly damaged. Children with disabilities and conditions such as autism are particularly vulnerable to the effects of low frequency noise. The Waubra Foundation have actively campaigned for full spectrum monitoring at all industrial noise generating sites where noise problems are reported – as you will see from our acoustic pollution assessment guidelines. The first edition of that document, endorsed by acousticians internationally, came out in May 2012. http://waubrafoundation.org.au/about/acoustic-pollution-assessment/The “nocebo nonsense” the AMA is so clearly supporting in this statement has been propagated by individuals with vested interests (ideological, political, and/or financial), and interestingly is only ever applied to the wind industry and wind turbine noise pollution.Some of those conflicts of interest are starting to be exposed in Federal Parliament, with more to follow. (see http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/nhmrc-ceo-prof-anderson-questioned-about-draft-review-by-senate/ )You may be unaware that a product manufacturer (VESTAS) is using some health advocacy organisations and Professor Simon Chapman to push their denials of any harm from their product – despite having publicly admitted that harm ten years earlier. (see http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2014/public-statement-home-abandonment-due-environmental-noise-pollution/ ) Imagine the outcry if cigarette companies, or James Hardie were launching global denial campaigns of harm with respect to their products. Both industries knew very well the damage their products cause but continued to deny it for years, and were supported by “experts” including health practitioners and public health academics. The same is happening with the wind industry.As a former AMA state councillor in South Australia some years ago, I am aware that the AMA needs to be “across” many issues, however I am somewhat appalled at the ignorance of those who wrote this particular statement and urge the AMA senior office bearers to remove the statement immediately before it does any further damage to the AMA’s reputation, and do your own due diligence on this issue. It is not a good look for the AMA to be effectively supporting an industry which is knowingly harming people and lying about it, or silencing sick and vulnerable people with gag clauses in agreements with the noise polluters, especially when the NHMRC has recently said high quality research is required, (research which the Australian Senate also recommended in 2011).To ignore even the recent findings of the NHMRC that ” there is consistent but poor quality evidence that proximity to wind farms is associated with annoyance and, less consistently, with sleep disturbance and poorer quality of life” and that there is a need for high quality research in this area as your position statement does, brings your organisation into international disrepute and may be embarrassing for both the organisation and for you both personally if not urgently addressed.With respect to the hypothesis that scaremongering is causing the symptoms, please reflect that the very first Australian rural medical practitioner to alert health authorities and conduct his own research was rural general practitioner Dr David Iser, from Toora in Victoria, in 2004. David found that the reported health problems related predominantly to sleep deprivation and physiological stress, and our own field work strongly supports his conclusions from ten years ago. David is an unsung hero for the work he did 10 years ago, and is someone the Australian medical profession can be very proud of.There is no research, conducted in the homes of those reporting the symptoms, which supports the “nocebo nonsense”. There is research indicating that it is wind turbine noise which is directly causing the reported health problems (the Kelley research from the 1980′s particularly, together with the more recent research in the US and Australia by independent acousticians such as Rick James, Rob Rand, Stephen Ambrose, Dr Paul Schomer, Professor Colin Hansen, Dr Bob Thorne, Les Huson and Steven Cooper.I have worked closely with all these acousticians over the last three years, and to say they are appalled and disgusted at Professor Chapman’s conduct would be an understatement. However they understand that he has no medical or acoustical training. They will be even more appalled at the statement the AMA have just put out, because they will consider that “medical practitioners should know better”, and indeed have a professional obligation of a duty of care, and a longstanding obligation to “first do no harm”. In this instance, the AMA’s ignorance on this issue will do immense harm because it will be enthusiastically picked up by the wind industry globally. Unwittingly, the AMA then becomes one of those organisations which is enabling the abuse to continue. As senior office bearers, you will no doubt be held responsible.You may also be interested to hear that the Irish Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Colette Bonner is sticking by her public comments expressing concern for those people who develop the symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome” http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/2014/irelands-deputy-chief-medical-officer-continues-to-endorse-wind-turbine-syndrome-despite-big-wind-bullying/?var=cna and that recent research funded by the Ontario government, conducted by University of Waterloo researchers has confirmed that there is a dose response relationship between wind turbines and sleep disturbance, and symptoms of vestibular disorders including tinnitus and vertigohttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/paller-c-et-al-wind-turbine-noise-sleep-quality-symptoms-inner-ear-problems/ .Senior acousticians in America (even those who work with and for wind developers) have come to the same conclusion that wind turbine generated infrasound and low frequencies are affecting the vestibular system (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/schomer-et-al-wind-turbine-noise-conference-denver-august-2013/ ), and neurophysiologist Professor Alec Salt’s work supports that and explains how the cochlea functions when stimulated with infrasound in a quiet background noise environment. (see http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/prof-alex-salt-expresses-deepest-disappoint-victorian-dept-health-report/ )This information and much more is available on our website, and I urge you to have a good look at it and inform yourselves properly about this growing and entirely preventable public health problem resulting from infrasound and low frequency noise pollution.Alternatively, please ring or email Emeritus Professor Colin Hansen – the recipient of the only Australian Research Council Grant to investigate wind turbine noise. His recent comments to the misleading information on the Public Health Association of Australia website and the Victorian Department of Health report may help give you further background material : http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/prof-colin-hansen-writes-victorian-dept-health-recent-wind-farms-health-doc/ and https://www.wind-watch.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/letter-to-CEO-Moore.pdf .I would be delighted to introduce you to Colin or any other national or international experts with direct knowledge of the severity of the problems being reported by the residents. I would also be delighted to facilitate you meeting with affected residents including those forced to abandon their homes, who will be grossly offended and distressed at the AMA’s position statement, but from whom you can learn directly what the problems are. You will soon find out that scaremongering is not causing their symptoms, and I hope will be appalled at the way they have been treated.The PHAA have not changed the information on their website, despite receiving Colin’s informative letter (above), which comes as no surprise to us. I hope that the AMA does not adopt a similar “head in the sand” approach to this issue.regardsSarah
Sarah Laurie BMBSCEOPO Box 7112Banyule VIC 3084AUSTRALIA0474 050 463
You have got to see this video!!! Riveting….Cary Shineldecker – Awesome!
March 11,2014
The Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (PECFN) gave notice to Gilead and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) of its intention to request leave from the Ontario Court of Appeal to appeal the Divisional Court ruling that overturned the Environmental Review Tribunal success.
PECFN’s Chery Anderson said the Appeal Court registrar is to receive PECFN’s notice of intention Wednesday, March. 12.
“Over the next month PECFN will be preparing our legal arguments in consultation with other environmental groups. By mid May all parties will be submitting their motions to the Appeal Court for consideration,” Anderson said. “Three judges of the Appeal Court will then consider whether to allow our appeal. That consideration could take several weeks. If and when leave to appeal is given, a court date will be established and that, again, will be sometime in the indeterminate future.”
Lawyers assembled in Osgoode Hall Jan. 21-23 to hear the arguments of the Ministry of the Environment and Gilead Power against the Environmental Review Tribunal ruling that revoked the minister’s approval of the nine turbine project planned for Ostrander Point, on the south shore of Prince Edward County.
The decision of the Divisional Court received Thursday Feb. 20 was that the tribunal erred in its ruling.
Unless appealed, the decision will result in the industrial development of Ostrander Point Crown Land Block on the South Shore of Prince Edward County.
Prince Edward County Field Naturalists are disappointed with the ruling of the Divisional Court and do not agree that the Environmental Review Tribunal was wrong. Read rest of article here.
Emotional public objection, scientific and government publications, and legal proceedings all play into the debate around the issue of wind turbines and human health. While some argue that electromagnetic fields, shadow flicker, and audible/inaudible noise from operational wind turbines are related to self-reported health effects, others suggest that subjective variables like visual cue, attitude, personality, and expectations related to media, rather than turbine-specific variables, are linked to reported effects. In his presentation, Dr. Loren Knopper will highlight his experience in the field, the most prominent information found in the popular literature, the state of scientific/medical knowledge on the issue, and provide a weight-of-evidence conclusion on this debate.
Presenter: Dr. Loren Knopper
Dr. Knopper is an internationally recognized environmental health scientist at Intrinsik Environmental Sciences. Dr. Knopper’s career has focused on human health and ecological risk assessment, human and ecological toxicology and health, public communication, and scientific training. He has been involved in risk/scientific communication with a number of stakeholders including government and regulatory officials, industry representatives, aboriginal councils, and the general public. He maintains an active academic practice and holds adjunct professor appointments at the University of Waterloo, the Royal Military College of Canada, and the University of Guelph. Dr. Knopper was recently nominated for the prestigious Eni Award, which recognizes researchers who have achieved internationally significant results in the field of human activity and the natural environment.
Please note: This is an open invitation, and may be forwarded to interested parties. Attendees may join in person or via webinar.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies or views of Public Health Ontario, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by Public Health Ontario.
For Seminar/Webinar details please read here.
Ontario’s Industrial Disease
View original 705 more words
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Commenters on my recent posting about using graphics as effectively as the Forces of Darkness do, but to use them to tell the truth, said they would like a smarter version of the 99.5% no-consensus pie-chart in that posting.
My large and able staff have burned the midnight o. The hi-res image below is the result. Attach it to every email. Send it to every news medium. Mail it to the White House. Make buttons out of it and wear them. Time to send the F. of D. sniveling into their noisome lairs.
Excellent Article from Paul Kuster on Climate Alarmism!
P KUSTER: “WHEN WILL STUPID PEOPLE STOP LISTENING TO STUPID PEOPLE?”
“Climate Change Causing Lake Superior To Warm ‘Faster Than Any Lake On The Planet”
Now if the lake is warming at such an alarming rate, how could this, be possible?
Very Important Survey…. Please send to every pro-wind person you know of. (especially politicians!)
Tim Hudak Alarmed at Wind project’s threat, to Peterborough Airport!
Peterborough PC candidate Scott Stewart and PC Leader Tim Hudak take part in a boardroom discussion regarding The Million Jobs Act and green energy with Examiner reporter Joelle Kovach on Friday, March 7, 2014 at the Examiner office on Hunter Street in East City. CLIFFORD SKARSTEDT/Peterborough Examiner/QMI Agency
Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak says he’s alarmed that a proposed wind farm could threaten the Peterborough Airport just as the city has invested big to make the airport fly.
Hudak was in the city Friday for a jobs-creation forum hosted by the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce.
But he said he was upset to learn the proposed Sumac Ridge wind farm will put turbines in the approach space of the Peterborough Airport, potentially limiting the impact of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money spent on the airport’s expansion.
“It (the wind farm) will basically shut that airport down,” Hudak said.
The Progressive Conservatives have a plan to deal with community outrage over wind turbines.
If elected, Hudak says the PCs would put a moratorium on new turbines developments and also give municipalities the power to reject wind farm proposals.
Hudak said it’s wrong that cities can determine whether a new Tim Horton’s comes to town but can’t reject a wind farm application.
“Surely cities should have a say about a 500-foot-tall wind farm in their backyards,” he said.
The same day Hudak was in town the proposed Stoneboat wind farm development in Bethany was cancelled.
Scott Stewart, the Peterborough riding Progressive Conservative candidate, said that was good news.
But he also pointed out that there are still three proposed wind farms for the Peterborough area, including the one that could put the local airport “in jeopardy”.
“If we don’t stop and get that moratorium – things are only going to get worse,” Stewart said.
Stewart and Hudak were also talking about jobs on Friday; they spoke of the Conservative plan to create a million new jobs in the province over the next eight years.
Hudak said they will do it through lower taxes, more skilled-trades training and affordable energy.
But they will also “need to reduce the cost of government,” Hudak said – meaning potential cuts to public service jobs, of which there are many in Peterborough.
But don’t worry, Hudak said – it won’t mean fewer doctors and nurses. Instead he plans to reduce the ranks of bureaucrats “pushing paper behind desks.”
“There’s a lot of bloat we can pare down,” he said, adding that his party will create enough new private-sector jobs to more than make up for any lost government jobs.
joelle.kovach@sunmedia.ca
Poll
Ross McKitrick has created a new website…..yourenvironment.ca – the truth about climate!
Hello colleagues and friends,
You might be interested in a new website I’ve created, with funding from the University of Guelph, called yourenvironment.ca.
It’s more or less self-explanatory and the usefulness of it will be conveyed faster by you taking a look rather than me trying to explain it, but briefly, the idea is very simple: it presents the complete environmental record of every city and town across Canada.
At this point I have all federally-available air pollution records back to 1974 and daytime high temperatures back to 1900, for hundreds of communities coast to coast to coast. I also have national air emissions by source back to 1985. Over the summer I’ll be posting water quality records for thousands of rivers and streams (and hopefully the Great Lakes), some of which go back to the 60s. I have put some sample graphs (only back to 2002) up for the Grand, Speed and Kaministiquia rivers.
The layout is self-explanatory and it’s very easy to use. The data are all from government agencies, but most of it has not hitherto been disseminated in a usable form to the public. All my sources are, or will soon be, linked and the data I use will all be easily-downloadable.
So the next time you find yourself in a conversation with someone who (i) is convinced that Canada does nothing to protect the environment, or (ii) thinks winters around here used to be a lot colder/longer/snowier; or it never used to be this warm/cold in April/October/ etc, or (iii) worries/guffaws about the alleged/obvious ecological disaster all around us, and you wonder what, if any, of this is true, look at yourenvironment.ca and find out.
I especially hope households with high school students will learn about it, though from the experience at our home it might put some kids at risk of being expelled.
Please pass on to anyone you think might be interested.
Cheers, Ross
Dr. Crysdale is Fighting Valiantly Against the Corrupt Wind Pushers….
Throwing caution to the wind
Shelburne Free Press
Dear editor:
As a physician, I also share with Mayor MacIver of Amaranth concerns regarding health issues not only associated with industrial wind turbines but the 230 kv line that DWPI wishes to install. Actually many of these concerns were expressed in my brief to the Ministry of Environment last winter and subsequently to the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) last fall regarding the DWPI project.
It defies reason that the provincial authorities have approved this project (and others) while there is an ongoing federal health study regarding possible adverse health affects of industrial wind turbines. As Mayor MacIver points out, there is ample evidence on the adverse health effects from the electromagnetic fields associated with high voltage lines.
Much of my presentation to the ERT last fall focused on the precautionary principle alluded to by Mayor MacIver. In Canada, we unfortunately have many examples of where the precautionary principle has been ignored. Last July, we witnessed an example with catastrophic consequences – Lac Magantic. The railway company involved allegedly made a special application to have only 1 person managing their freight trains (as a precaution, a minimum of 2 apparently had been legislated). It apparently was argued by the company lawyers that railway accidents are relatively rare and there was no scientific proof that reducing the size of the crew to one (1) would increase the probability of an accident. The guidelines respecting staffing levels of freight trains carrying hazardous materials have already been changed.
Yes, DWPI is storming ahead with construction. Yes, these turbines are being erected in a rural environment but it is a populated rural environment. Already there are other jurisdictions that have enacted residential setbacks that are multiples of what is legislated in Ontario as a result of appreciated concerns. The precautionary principle – is it not logical to have a moratorium on the installation of wind farms in Ontario until we have the results of the federal health study? Are we going to witness yet another example where harm will occur because the precautionary principle was ignored.
William S. Crysdale M.D.
Children are Innocent Victims of this Windscam!!!
Editor’s note: This article was sent to us by a man in the Midwest, who knows this girl’s family. The girl’s father, Ted Hartke, “is an engineer and surveyor,” wrote my friend. “He was initially in favor of the California Ridge windfarm. You already know what happened next.”
We’d like to dedicate this story and the plight of 6-year-old Sophia (yes, that’s her name) to Australia’s Professor Simon Chapman and the U.K.’s Dr. Geoff Leventhall.
Sophia, my sweetheart, both these brilliant professors ridicule what you’re suffering from. It’s called ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome.’ Both men say it’s nonsense. Mr. Chapman says people like you become ill because you envy your neighbors who have wind turbine leases. (Really, Sophia! Are you really truly envious of them? You can tell me, confidentially.) Whereas Mr. Leventhall seems to think you don’t understand that wind turbines don’t produce infrasound of any significance. And, even if they did, he’d assure you it couldn’t bother you in the least, my love!”
(It’s clear what Sophia’s problem is. She doesn’t have a PhD degree. Nor does she “consult” for wind energy companies. Nor does she get herself quoted by world media, ridiculing people with symptoms like hers. If she did have a PhD and did consult for wind companies, she’d know in a flash that she’s making all this up, and being hysterical, and probably needs to be told by her mom to stop this naughty behavior RIGHT NOW! Then of course get sent to her room.)
This is a snapshot of the Hartkes, Christmas 2013. Just days before they fled this acoustically toxic home. (Merry Christmas from the wind developers and their enablers!)
Click here to read more about their horror story, and view more photos. The following was written, I believe, by Mr. Hartke.
InvEnergy Wind Turbine Victim – California Ridge Wind Farm (Vermillion County, Ill.) 3/3/14
This six-year-old girl is wearing her Hello Kitty headphones to bed in July 2013 because the wind turbines operating on the adjacent farm property are making too much noise.
This photo was taken at 10:43 PM after her being in bed since 8:00 PM.
The closest wind turbines are 1665’ and 2225’ away, they are 495’ tall GE 1.6 MW nameplate capacity, and they are owned & operated by InvEnergy in Vermilion County, Illinois.
This scenario was repeated for so many nights during each week that, within six months after this photo was taken, the parents and both children abandoned their home and moved into a doublewide trailer eight miles away — to get away from the nighttime noise.
Now, she regularly asks her parents, “When can we move back into our old house?” and “I want to have a normal life and get to have my old bedroom back again because I don’t like living here because there’s not enough room for my stuff and there’s no place to keep my things.” Her parents have gently reminded both kids that they love them very much and that their health is away more important than having material things such as a nice big house with all the toys and things.
Good parents know when they have to set priorities, and this family is making the right decision to inform the public so that other families do not have to suffer the grief and life-changing setbacks caused by improper wind turbine siting.
Are there children who live in your county? Are there any families who live near wind projects proposed for their rural community? Have you seen the letter from the Armstrong Grade School Superintendent?
If not, please take a few minutes to learn more by visitingwww.fairwindenergy.org and www.edgarcountywatchdogs.com and search “Vermilion” to see what can happen to your friends or family when wind turbine siting is overlooked and decisions are made by ill-informed government bureaucrats.
-
Comment by Marshall Rosenthal on 03/04/2014 at 2:51 pm
.
And I thought child abuse was illegal in this country. My bad. -
Comment by Sarah Laurie, CEO Waubra Foundation on 03/04/2014 at 7:07 pm
.
This abuse of children, as well as their families, extends to all those in the acoustic shadow of wind turbines and therefore includes the children of wind turbine hosts who are not absentee landlords, as well as the non-participating neighbours.Some hosts are prevented from speaking out about the adverse impacts, and so too those neighbours not hosting turbines, who are signing “good neighbor agreements.” Both turbine hosts and non-hosts are misled by the developers and the wind turbine manufacturers about the noise impacts and the current state of knowledge.
In both circumstances, money buys silence, which may include silence about what amounts to damning evidence later of child abuse. The adverse health impacts of sleep deprivation alone on the bodies and brains of growing children are serious and well known.
In Australia some of those wind turbine host families have coincidentally moved away, after the start up of a new wind project. As Australian wind turbine host David Mortimer has illustrated, along with the 23 Texan turbine hosts now suing their wind developer, deriving an income from hosting wind turbines does not provide a magic shield against the adverse health effects of the penetrating infrasound and low frequency noise pollution emitted by the wind turbines.
For the families left behind, who are not receiving turbine rent income, and whose properties are now judged to be unsaleable by their bank’s valuers and real estate agents, they have no choice but to stay and endure, and subject their children to conditions which are health damaging, or reluctantly flee in order to protect their children and their own health, as the Hartke’s have done.
Not all families can afford to do this. What are the options then?
Trapped in an acoustically toxic home, or homeless?
This abuse of children and their families is being enabled by both health and acoustics professionals, who are not acting ethically and according to professional codes of conduct to protect the health and wellbeing of members of the community, especially those who are most vulnerable. Some professionals appear to be grossly ignorant and reluctant to learn. Others professionals appear to be actively complicit, and have an attitude that rural residents are “collateral damage” and can be sacrificed, or just ignored or ridiculed.
Those within the ranks of government public health departments and climate health advocacy organisations who have not directly investigated the acoustic or clinical problems themselves, are particularly culpable. In Australia these are the respective state health departments, and the advocacy organisations are the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA), the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA) and the Doctors for the Environment (DEA).
The individuals within these health departments and advocacy organisations, have chosen to actively support the “nocebo nonsense” hypothesis uncritically, rather than objectively examine the mounting acoustic and direct clinical evidence of a serious and growing public health problem from infrasound and low frequency noise and vibration. They have not ever chosen to directly investigate themselves, rather their efforts have focused on “shooting the messengers.”
Interestingly the “nocebo nonsense” is not ever applied by these public health “city armchair experts” to residents driven from their homes by infrasound and low frequency noise and vibration from coal seam gas-field compressors, coal mining noise, or noise from gas-fired power stations.
The health problems being reported by those residents to the Waubra Foundation are identical in many respects, making it clear we are dealing with an unregulated infrasound and low frequency noise pollution problem as a major and growing public health issue.
This then begs the question, “Are these organisations also being funded by the wind industry?”
Sarah Laurie, MD
CEO The Waubra Foundation
Wind Turbine Project Near Temple, gets cancelled. Now do the same for the rest.
Time for 24 hr. Surveillance of these Windslaughter machines…
Windweasels might not care who they hurt, but we do. We need to start keeping close watch, on the birdchoppers!
Horwath suggests a rebate, paid with our own money. Typical NDP logic….
http://www.lfpress.com/2014/03/05/pov-horwaths-rebate-wont-fix-power-ills
Horwath is just as bad as Wynne, when it comes to the windscam… I wouldn’t trust her for one second. She is just K. Wynne’s enabler.
Aussies preparing to scrap Renewable Energy Targets….Yaayyy!
http://stopthesethings.com/2014/03/06/judith-sloan-junking-the-ret-is-the-right-thing-to-do/
Judith Sloan, taking a swipe at the RET in Australia.
This smart lady knows a scam, when she sees one!!!
http://www.mdr.de/sachsen/windkraft-initiative100.html
Saxony and Bavaria bring an initiative to wind power
Saxony and Bavaria have introduced an initiative to wind power in the Federal Council on Thursday. It’s about the distance from wind turbines to settlements. Then the distance of such plants to houses should be at least ten times the height of a wind turbine. The Saxon Economy Minister Sven Morlok said, it is a matter, targeted to control the construction of wind farms and protect the citizens against sprawl. From the opposition comes criticism. . Thus the energy change was being boycotted, it said. The proposed law had been decided by the State Governments of the two republics at a joint cabinet meeting in July 2013. The Federal Council is to deal in March with the advance of the two German states.
Google translate this article and please read the comments afterwards. These citizens are elated and relieved with their leaders. Here is one comment:
10 Hedwig Oechsler:
Donna Laframboise talks about Bob Ward….the “Rat Snake”!!!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/05/bob-wards-rat-snake-ploy/
This is “Rat Snake Bob”! He tells lies, to try to convince people, that AGW, is real, and is dooming the planet. Sorry Bob. We don’t believe you. End of Story.
They build the lousy, useless, turbines too close to homes!!!!
http://stopthesethings.com/2014/03/05/us-judge-orders-noisy-turbines-to-be-shut-down/
All windweasels care about is the money. Whether or not, we get any sleep at night, makes no difference to these miscreants!
Bylaw sought for noisy turbines
NORFOLK – A movement is afoot that could ultimately force wind turbine companies to shut down some units after dark.
North Perth Coun. Warren Howard is touring Ontario building support for a common bylaw that would silence turbines after dark if they produce noise that is audible to residents nearby.
“The legal advice we have is we can enforce a `quiet night’ provision,” Howard told Norfolk council Tuesday. “Yes, we’ll be challenged. But the legal advice we have is we can win.”
The Liberals’ Green Energy Act stripped municipalities of planning authority in the area of renewable energy projects several years ago.
In a recent ruling, a court said that Wainfleet Township had over-stepped its authority by trying to establish a large setback for wind turbines. However, the judge also said municipalities have the right to pass bylaws on nuisance issues that affect residents’ quality of life. Read rest of article here.
From Wind Concerns Ontario
NEWS RELEASE
March 4, 2014 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ENERGY MINISTER CAN CANCEL WIND POWER CONTRACTS
Despite statements made to the media by Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli that it would be “illegal” to cancel Feed In Tariff contracts with wind power developers, court documents show that the opposite is true, Wind Concerns Ontario states in a letter to the Minister today.
“The decision in Trillium vs. Ontario, 2013, clearly states that governments are free to alter policies in the public interest,” says Jane Wilson, WCO president. “As well, a legal opinion from Osler Hoskins Harcourt advises that companies in the renewable power bu
Today’s Climate Alarmists are nothing new. Fear mongering is an old game!
http://junkscience.com/2014/03/04/stop-its-over-the-world-has-a-fever/
There is always an agenda behind fear mongering….this time, it is to scare people into going along with exorbitantly priced unreliable, renewables. It is a big scam, which we are paying dearly for, and it will only get far worse, if we don’t put a stop to the Lib/NDP war on ratepayers….NOW!!!
Facebook Censorship has gotten out of hand. Now the are censoring the TRUTH!!!
http://quixoteslaststand.com/2014/03/04/todays-cartoons-that-fb-censored/
I have tried countless times to get Kathleen Wynne to help save my special needs child from the onslaught of the largest turbines in North America, at over 600 ft, and 3 mW. She ignores us completely. The Lib/NDP party, has GOT to go!!! Do it for the sake of our children, and families.
Well, how many excuses can they come up with??? None of them worth the paper they’re written on! LOL!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/04/no-global-warming-for-17-years-6-months/
Even Wayne and Garth know that AGW is a monumental scam, designed to scare people into submission, while the government robs them blind! Not gonna let that happen!!!
This is what is happening to our climate, while the CO2 levels are steadily rising….NOTHING! They have a million silly reasons why, but they are all fantasy!
Renewable Energy Targets? What a scam!!!
http://stopthesethings.com/2014/03/04/kill-the-ret-and-save-the-poor/
The world-wide wind fiasco is unsustainable, unaffordable, and intolerable!!! We MUST stop it ASAP!
Personal Score-Settling Is the New Climate Agenda
The Wall Street Journal Holman Jenkins
The cause of global carbon regulation may be lost, but enemies still can be punished.
Surely, some kind of ending is upon us. Last week climate protesters demanded the silencing of Charles Krauthammer for a Washington Post column that notices uncertainties in the global warming hypothesis. In coming weeks a libel trial gets under way brought by Penn State’s Michael Mann, author of the famed hockey stick, against National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, writer Rand Simberg and roving commentator Mark Steyn for making wisecracks about his climate work. The New York Times runs a cartoon of a climate “denier” being stabbed with an icicle.
These are indications of a political movement turned to defending its self-image as its cause goes down the drain. That’s how thoroughly defunct, dead, expired is the idea that humanity might take charge of earth’s atmosphere through some supreme triumph of the global regulatory state over democracy, sovereignty, nationalism and political self-interest, the very facts of political human nature.
Reminder Tuesday Norfolk Council Tuesday- Quiet Night Bylaw presentation by Warren Howard
Hi please send out a reminder to anyone who might be interested (including an invitation to your council members)
Warren Howard will be doing his presentation for the Quiet Nights Bylaw in regards to regulating Wind Turbine Noise. He will be the first speaker on the agenda.
Norfolk County Chambers, Simcoe tomorrow Tuesday March 4th at around 5:15pm
One more Country says NO to outrageous “climate” targets.
http://www.thegwpf.org/slovakia-eus-proposed-climate-goals-unacceptable/
Some countries caught onto the scam sooner than others. Too many governments are personally invested, and would hate to get off of the gravy train! Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedos!
Wind Farm Stops Work
By Tom Sebo Goulburn Post, NSW March 3, 2014, 10:02 a.m.
THE NSW Government has asked the proponents of the Gullen Range Wind Farm to stop work on key turbines after an investigation by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure found “serious” breaches of its approval.
Many of the 73 turbines have been constructed in different locations to what was originally approved.
Gold Wind has voluntarily complied with the stop work order but has been warned it could face legal action in the Land and Environment Court.
Planning and Infrastructure executive director Chris Wilson was disappointed by the breaches and said the matter was serious.
“It is essential that the company stop work on the turbines that have been moved closer to homes,” he said.
Last week the proponents voluntarily stopped working on the turbines that had been identified however a spokesperson for the company disputed there had been any breaches. He said they had focused carefully on complying with the Development Approval.
“The project approval authorises the construction of the wind turbines in the locations identified in the environmental assessment but those locations may be subject to ‘minor relocation’,” he said. Read rest of article here.
Minor relocation????!!!!!!! 187 meters off target is minor????? Reminds me of a Monte Python skit where some poor fella loses a few limbs and calls it a “minor flesh wound”. LOLOLOL Here in Ontario we have a five turbine wind installation with four of the turbines out of compliance. One is 27 metres not where it should be. The developer though doesn’t seem to have an issue with that. It is not a home it’s in violation of but someone’s property. I guess it’s ok then right? http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2014/02/10/group-says-turbine-violations-should-halt-project
Public Statement from our Friends Down Under!!! Health Problems are REAL!!!
Australian Industrial Wind Turbine
Awareness Network
PUBLIC STATEMENT
rd
3 March 2014
Network members from around Australia are pleased that the NHMRC have recommended
multidisciplinary research directly into the adverse health impacts experienced by residents
living near industrial wind turbine developments. This research is long overdue, and was
recommended “as a priority” in June 2011, after the Federal Senate Inquiry into “The Social
and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms”. No health research has since been funded.
Many members have expressed their concerns and anger at the misleading and deceptive way many
journalists have portrayed the draft review by the NHMRC over the last week, and would like to
express this by way of this public statement.
The NHMRC have NOT said there are no health issues.
They have stated “there is consistent but poor quality evidence that proximity to wind farms is
associated with annoyance and, less consistently, with sleep disturbance and poorer quality of
life”
They have recommended research.
It is time the serious adverse health effects of rural residents currently negatively impacted by
industrial wind turbines are taken seriously, and that the continual denial, denigration of sick people
and lies about alleged scaremongering causing the symptoms stops.
Residents in Australia are leaving their homes both permanently and temporarily to reduce
their exposure, having been advised to do so by their treating doctors. These medical
practitioners understandably will not speak out publicly or put such advice in writing
because of the toxic nature of the public debate in Australia, due particularly to the
influence of wind industry advocate Simon Chapman from Sydney University, who recently
stated that “research was not necessary”. Simon Chapman’s views have not come from any
direct investigation of the residents – indeed he has refused to engage with them or to visit
them, and refused offers to stay in their homes to experience the wind turbine noise.
Simon Chapman’s ill-informed views have been actively propagated by others within the
public health and Green political movements in Australia, and the active support of these
trained health professionals in denying the serious adverse health effects has directly
resulted in further suffering. This is arguably a breach of their professional ethics. It is also
enabling the abuse of rural residents to continue.
While there are many stories to be told from negatively impacted residents I have included just one,
of the hundreds of “anecdotal” stories dismissed by the NHMRC expert review panel, and
not investigated by the state health authorities (in this case the Victorian Department of
Health).
This story tells the story so well of just how those who are negatively impacted from industrial wind
turbines feel and how they have been treated. This is the very reason why the research is so
urgently needed. Full spectrum acoustic monitoring including infrasound, low frequency
noise and vibration and concurrent direct objective physiological measurements of sleep,
blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol are required, inside their homes, – because real
people are being irreparably harmed by the sleep deprivation and physiological stress and
other symptoms wind turbine noise causes.
_____________________________________________________________________
The NHMRC has investigated wind farm health impacts only by reviewing scientific literature; they do
not accept personal stories or individual medical reports and have not directly dealt with people
experiencing harm in currently approved wind facilities or people about to be impacted upon.
In Australian society where public and individual health is protected by law and good government
management, it is a duty to continue to investigate exactly what is being endured within regions
hosting these massive industrial sites. Segregated by public outright dismissal, disregard and poor
quality of life experienced living near or inside wind facilities is unbearable and unacceptable. To raise
awareness of detrimental impacts of industrial turbines on people’s health, I share some of my
experiences living in the sphere of electricity producing generators, substations and high voltage
transmission lines or ‘wind farm’ for the past 6 years of operation.
Evidence of negative impacts occurring near industrial turbines is now available world- wide and
public education of and resolution of these problems is the NHMRC’s, the Health Department and
individually, our specific duty. True in situ, ‘hands on’ independent investigation of my families
deteriorating well-being and acting on the recommendations made in Parliamentary reviews into wind
farms can only help resolve the never-ending impact this industry inflicts on us.
My family and I are being profoundly disturbed with noise and vibration caused by wind turbines,
about 850m away. We have lived here 17 years after relocating for a peaceful rural life; enjoyed until
the wind facility was built against all recommendations in 2008. The ground was considered too
unstable and not the terrain to sustain the tonnes of concrete bases supporting the towers and
blades.
Problems arose from the start of construction, ignored by the Shire, the energy producer and the
Government and in October 2011 after many disturbed nights and days, I could no longer stay silently
living with distress. I started making further complaints, writing letters expecting someone would
listen, show concern for us and do something about unbearable noise/sensations I tried very hard to
ignore.
Nothing has actually been done here to stop the torment of noise or vibration, ever and no
investigations have been conducted to date on our behalf by the company or government to
specifically detect the cause of disturbance emanating from the wind facility.
I was shocked too at discovering rural people just like us, truly suffer and like us remain suffering. I
mistakenly thought we were alone with this incomprehensible situation. I mistakenly believed the
Planning Department was daily monitoring wind farm activities and everything would be taken care of.
The Victorian EPA is uninterested in wind farm noise, won’t investigate it and never came and took
care of it either.
It has publicly, untruthfully been stated by this company, “They have had no complaints at any of their
wind farms”. Many untruthful and uninformed statements are made and then blindly reported about
wind farms and so-called anti-wind farm people, but unless you live with this you will not have any
conception of how detrimental the actual wind facility is and name calling, labelling and belittlement
will never remove the measurable and preventable noise and vibration causing harm.
For years I believed company hype it was sustainable with the environment and people’s well-being
at heart. Convinced we could continue to live here, next to a wind facility; pretended there were no ill
health effects and property devaluations don’t occur. I have tried to support this industry, to not rock
the small community boat and used all kinds of positive thinking to convince my body it was lying to
me and I have failed.
Govt. approved and company methods of determining noise is ineffective, measurement of decibels
inaccurate and comprehensive, independent investigation is needed and wind farm permit conditions
and subsidies, changed accordingly. For months and years the vibration/noise from the facility has
been relentless.
I didn’t often actually ‘hear’ noises my family and neighbours were hearing, unfortunately with new
advanced digital hearing aids, even set to screen industrial noise, now I do. I feel/hear air borne
sound/vibration, bone conducted sound, and sound vibrating through the ground, the swishing
vibration from turbine movement, loud bangs, rumblings annoy me but high pitch squeals and
constant vibration through the house and bed is most agonising. I cannot block disturbances out and
it is not simply, an unproven case of nocebo. Like many others I can’t escape.
Broadband noises, directly give me headaches, sleepless nights, being jolted awake in distress even
after reluctantly taking prescribed sleep medication; often getting no further sleep, feelings of
electricity, vibrations and through my body, feeling ill in the stomach and forehead and no energy
what so ever.
Ongoing physical torture is the seismic like vibrations driving me mad most nights and days, and
there is no escape anywhere on our small farm or inside. I feel them throughout our whole house, in
my bed, at the kitchen table, everywhere. I feel this vibration as pressure on my body; I feel it
vibrating through the floor, furniture, in the car and even through the ground outside. Independent
monitoring conducted inside our house confirms a noise problem and acousticians and scientists
recognise and acknowledge what I perceive is there and measurable.
Lack of direct support and industry initiated falsehoods create feelings of social abandonment and
divide. I wonder just how we are expected to survive the torture of sleepless and disrupted nights
caused by industrial noise exposure. An Endocrinologist recommended it would be best for my long
term health to move away from the wind farm and my GP supports this.
Admission to Casualty with alarming high blood pressure caused great concern, a Cardiac Specialist
investigated symptoms. I am no longer calm under stress. I have woken in the night frightened, with
a pounding heart, rapid pulse and rapid breathing, for no reason other than wind farm
disturbances. Hurting teeth, especially my capped tooth. Frequency of urination at different times;
Hashimoto’s disease, related to thyroid; A gynaecologist was consulted, my cycle often unnaturally
commences when the turbines thunder, abating when the pressure eases.
Physically it is exhausting living near a wind farm I have little motivation left to get things done at
home due to extreme lack of energy. Co-operatively but reluctantly, I am now on ‘heart, thyroid,
sleeping pills, allopathic treatment is no cure. At times I am extremely sensitive to sounds and loud
noises and easily startled. I am always tired and my family all look tired, all the time; explained as
“ongoing years of sleep deprivation, move away”. Even after the rare undisturbed night’s sleep, I’m
exhausted and tired upon waking and more than being simply tired; it’s a cellular level, bone deep
tiredness.
It is difficult to concentrate and to stay patient. With no explanation or even words to describe some
experiences, I am mute, disadvantaged. I experience stress and feelings of panic as autonomic
response to noise. I was a person who rarely went to a Dr, never had headaches or this sort of
tiredness, until the wind energy facility was constructed next door. I never had pain, slept well, I was
healthy and I fortunately didn’t need drugs or blood tests.
I am shamed, angered and ‘so over it’ some times by my helplessness and distress caused by
ongoing maltreatment. We endured a lot, silently for a long time and telling my family’s story is not to
cause harm or to create fear, but to raise awareness of and concern about a situation that should not
continue uninvestigated.
Victoria, March 2014.
Individual Politicians, and Public Health and Climate Health Activist Groups in Australia who
have both failed to directly investigate the circumstances of these people, and who have
actively propagated the “nocebo nonsense” wind industry propaganda include:
Senator Christine Milne
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%
2Fhansards%2Fc8ba53c5-ebc4-47a7-938d-14571d80a1cb%2F0014%22
Senator Richard Di Natale http://yes2renewables.org/2013/11/14/pollie-watch-senator-
for-victoria-holds-anti-wind-farm-lobby-to-account/
ClimateandHealthllianceexecutivemembersand“expert”
advisors: http://caha.org.au/about/governance/
Public Health Association of Australia: http://www.phaa.net.au/board.php and
http://www.phaa.net.au/environHealth.php
Doctors for the Environment: http://dea.org.au/about/committees
At the Queen’s park Demonstration, Tim Hudak pledged to fight Wind turbine travesty!!!
WEST LINCOLN — Tim Hudak has renewed the call for a province-wide moratorium on new industrial wind turbine projects.
Last week, in an open letter to Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli, Hudak requested the Liberals implement an immediate moratorium on future projects in light of “the recent chaos” in West Lincoln.
The chaos the Ontario PC Leader is referring to is the revelation that four of the five HAF Wind Energy turbines do not meet setback requirements established by the ministry. Hudak said the ministry’s response is “unacceptable.” Since The News reported on the issue, it has come to light that four of the turbines infract on the minimum property line setback distance, rather than three as initially reported.
“The notion that the government is forgiving turbines that are breaking the law is just wrong,” Hudak told The News. “What they should do is stop them. Put in a moratorium. And secondly, enforce the law. If the turbines don’t sit with the law, take them out.”
Hudak has called on his Liberal counterparts numerous times to initiate an immediate moratorium on wind projects due to ongoing concerns of Ontarians in relation to health, plummeting property values and a loss of democratic rights. The Niagara West-Glanbrook MPP says the government needs to scrap the expensive Green Energy Act and focus on putting Ontario’s economy back on track — which includes reining in out-of-control energy costs.
“I’m not going to give up,” said Hudak. “It’s [moratorium] the right thing to do to get power rates under control and to restore local decision making. I’m not going to give up until that’s done.”
Hudak said the Liberal’s “expensive energy experiment” is a failure that has done nothing but drive hydro bills through the roof, cost Ontario jobs and divide communities down the middle. Hudak’s plan to put Ontario back on track was introduced Feb. 18, when legislature resumed. His Million Jobs Act will be debated at Queen’s Park Thursday.
Under the ministry’s guidelines, industrial wind turbines must be at least the height of the turbine from the nearest property line — which in this case is 95 metres.
Property owner Anne Meinen said it was visible to the naked eye that one of the turbines was too close to her property. In fact, the turbine was only 68 metres from her property — 27 metres shy of the regulation. She brought her concerns to the West Lincoln Glanbrook Wind Action Group, which used a range finder to determine the distances before contacting the ministry.
The group is also demanding the government do more than bend the rules for the wind companies.
WLGWAG chair Neil Switzer said the setback violations “illustrate the arrogance and disrespect” of the wind turbine industry. He is demanding the government cancel the project immediately.
“Do the right thing and cancel the permit,” Switzer urged
Switzer also commended Hudak and his party for again taking up the cause.
“We are elated that the PCs are providing some sanity to the energy portfolio,” said Switzer. “Where as both the NDP and Liberals appear to support proceeding with the spending of billions without preparation of a financial business plan according to auditor general reporter in 2011.”
Hudak said he will keep the pressure on the Liberals until there is a change in government.
“I hope to have a chance to change this government and end this misguided policy,” Hudak said. “Until that happens, I will keep the pressure on.”
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 
