Health Authorities in Ireland, Admitting Wind Turbine Syndrome is Real.

September 10, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Health authorities admit ‘wind turbine syndrome’ is real.

March 06, 2014 by: J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) An Irish health official has warned that people who live near massive wind turbines of the sort used to generate electricity run the risk of having their physical and psychological health compromised.

According to a report in the Irish Examiner newspaper, the official — Dr. Colette Bonner — says further that people who are at risk of the controversial wind turbine syndrome need to be treated “appropriately and sensitively as these symptoms can be debilitating.”

As the paper reported:

Following a review of international research on the health effects of wind turbine noise, the Department of Health’s deputy chief medical officer concluded that wind turbines are not a threat to public health, but “there is a consistent cluster of symptoms related to wind turbine syndrome which occurs in a number of people in the vicinity of industrial wind turbines”.

What is wind turbine syndrome?

It is supposedly a condition suffered by people living within earshot of the noise made by wind turbine blades as they spin round. The blades are known to make infrasounds, vibrations that we cannot consciously “hear” but still have an effect on the inner ear, Breitbart News reported. Symptoms include fatigue, dizziness, headache, difficulty concentrating and insomnia.

Irish official first ranking expert to give ‘syndrome’ legitimacy

A letter that reporters and editors of the paper claim to have seen tells how, in a review sent by Bonner to the country’s Department of Environment in November, “there are specific risk factors for this syndrome and people with these risk factors experience symptoms.”

“These people must be treated appropriately and sensitively as these symptoms can be very debilitating,” she added, according to the Irish daily.

Experts have disagreed on whether wind turbine syndrome is real or if it is merely a psychological concoction in response to anguish over not wanting to live near a turbine wind farm.

Bonner “has been quoted in a variety of policy proposals related to noise and set back distance, advising Minister Jan O’Sullivan regarding revisions to 2006 standards that ‘there is a consistent cluster of symptoms related to wind turbine syndrome which occurs in a number of people in the vicinity of industrial wind turbines,'” writes Hank Campbell at Science 2.0. “Well, that’s epidemiology right there. You can find almost anything if you try. We have had similar claims in the US, about self-reported mental health issues after wind turbines went up, especially among people who were against the turbines in the first place.”

Following her review, the Irish Department of Health’s Food and Environmental Health Unit wrote a letter to the Department of the Environment asking officials there to consider hiring more experts to further study the health effects of wind turbine syndrome.

The Department of the Environment, however, has dismissed Bonner’s literature review as “preliminary,” adding that it was “not a recommendation of the Department of Health.”

Not everyone is signing on just yet

The Department of Environment is currently conducting a review of the 2006 Wind Energy Development Guidelines, the Irish Examiner reported.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has said that the deputy CMO’s comments “did not constitute expert advice” but rather were “a general overview of the literature in this area.”

The department went on to confirm that a “range of symptoms have been described by people living close to wind turbines mainly related to general environmental noise exposure.”

“These symptoms include headache, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, dizziness, anxiety and sleep disturbance, and are often described in relation to annoyance,” a spokesman, who was note named, told the paper.

“Anyone who experiences such symptoms should seek medical advice from their family doctor, who may be able to prescribe suitable medication,” the spokesman continued.

Campbell added sardonically: “They may not be great for people but they sure are terrible for bats and birds. But they can’t hire paid lobbyists, so I bet wind turbines are here to stay.”

Sources:

http://www.breitbart.com

http://www.irishexaminer.com

http://www.science20.com

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/044196_wind_turbine_syndrome_health_authorities_mysterious_illness.html#ixzz3CrreQuOC

Nurses for Safe Renewable Power, Discuss Barnard…. (the Windweasel we’ve seen trolling around!)

September 9, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Big Wind blogger Barnard taken apart

We don’t usually pay much attention to the wind power lobby front line soldier Mike Barnard (who is by day an employee of IBM, working in Singapore) but we were amused recently by his diatribe on the claims of health problems from wind turbine noise and low frequency noise. (Mike, it’s this simple: don’t sleep, get sick.)

Claiming that wind power impacts on health have been almost universally dismissed in court, Mr Barnard actually had a “top 10″ list of witnesses who have appeared at Canadian quasi-judicial tribunals, including Ontario community health specialist nurse, Debbie Shubat. Doris Grinspun and the RNAO must be so proud. Anyway, Mr Barnard’s piece prepared for the so-called Energy & Policy Institute is so full of errors it doesn’t need any comment, except perhaps to point out that Ontario’s Environmental Review Tribunals are NOT “court” and the truth is the Green Energy Act and Regulation 359/09 have been so meticulously set up by the wind industry that it is almost impossible for an appeal to be won.

In fact, there was never supposed to be a successful appeal, as lawyer John Terry explained at the Ostrander Point appeal last January, where he represented the wind power lobby, the powerful Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA). He petulantly suggested to the panel of judges that the Ostrander Point success ought never to have happened, and that the judges should provide instructions to the ERT so that this could never happen again.

Open letter regarding Barnard, in an earlier post, today!

Leading Scientists Warn of Vibro-Acoustic Disease, from Wind Turbines!

September 4, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Are wind turbines a headache?

IN NEWS / ON SEPTEMBER 2, 2014

LEADING SCIENTISTS are concerned that a new threat may be posed by wind turbines, a threat that could damage our ears known as ‘Vibro-Acoustic Disease’.

This new warning may come as too little too late for a local Pembrokeshire resident, Gwen Burkhardt, who it is alleged had to sell her Newcastle Emlyn farm several years ago because the of the three wind turbines that were a mile away from her home and were adversely affecting her health. Her doctor, apparently, put it down to ‘infra-sound’, that sound which is inaudible to human ears. She was suffering from headaches at home, which was on a B road near to Emlyn’s three 250 foot wind turbines. According to Gwen Burkhardt, once she sold up and moved from the area, the headaches disappeared.

The main proponent of this theory, ‘Vibro-Acoustic Disease’, is Dr Nina Pierpont, who published a book entitled ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’ in 2001. In this book a link is alleged between low frequency noise and vibration and a range of symptoms such as tinnitus, dizziness, nausea, palpitations, sleep disturbance and migraines. Another disturbing case was reported in the Danish press who reported the story of a garden centre going out of business because of nearby wind turbines. Headaches were frequent among employees, and female workers complained of unusual bleeding and problems with their menstrual cycles.

The employers were worried that more serious illnesses may have followed after five employees resigned. The owner, Boye Jensen, closed the business for fear of being held liable should a child be born with deformities. The World Council for Nature (WCFN) is calling attention to the fact that, as occurred for tobacco, asbestos, thalidomide etc, governments are siding with private financial interests in ignoring or denying the existence of what they see as obvious health problems linked to wind turbines.

They went on to say: “In Denmark as elsewhere in the world, many rural families are suffering, particularly since the manufacture of the mega turbines, which emit more infrasound as they grow bigger. This may explain why the complaints are growing. How much longer can this suffering be ignored, or even denied by health authorities? Some countries, including Canada and Australia, have commissioned studies into the matter of noise emitted by windfarms. But the studies’ scope and methodology doom them to failure, perhaps intentionally”. Such is the concern of the potential damage caused by these turbines that the WCFN have called for an epidemiological study, and the measurement of low frequency sound (including infrasound down to 0.1 Hz), inside the homes of windfarm victims.

They suggest that as a precaution, no mega turbines should be erected less than 10 km from habitations until these studies are completed, published and analyzed. They finished by saying: “There is indeed compelling evidence that infrasound travels much farther than other noise, and tortures sensitive people in their homes at distances of 10 km and more. Shorter distances could be temporarily set for smaller turbines, in proportion with their generating capacity”. Pembrokeshire residents, many of whom may be living near to these turbines, will be hoping that this concern proves to be a false alarm.

High Court in Denmark Awards Damages to Victims, for Noise, and Property Devaluation!

September 2, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Environment & Climate Change – Denmark

High Court rules on compensation for noise from wind turbines

September 01 2014

Background

Depending on their location, wind turbines can cause noise, visual interference and light reflections.

These issues are governed by public and private law, including neighbour law. The main rules regarding noise from wind turbines can be found in Executive Order 1284 of December 15 2011 on wind turbine noise, issued pursuant to the Environmental Protection Act. To some extent, the order safeguards neighbours from noise inconvenience by establishing maximum noise levels from wind turbines in outdoor areas. The noise limit varies depending on the surroundings.

Wind turbines may also cause visual interference which may negatively affect the value of surrounding properties. Thus, the location of wind turbines on land has proved a difficult political issue for years. Every municipality supports the idea of more wind turbines – just not within its own borders.

In order to promote local support for wind energy projects, the Parliament passed the Promoting Renewable Energy Act, which establishes a compensation scheme for neighbours of wind turbines. Under the scheme, those who build one or more wind turbines are obliged to compensate their neighbours for any reduction in property value that the wind turbines may cause, regardless of whether the wind turbines accord with the necessary permits.

The compensation scheme departs from the court-based neighbour law in that it does not operate with a tolerance limit which the neighbour must prove has been exceeded.

The starting point is that the issue of compensation must be settled before the wind turbines are built. However, the Promoting Renewable Energy Act does allow neighbours to claim compensation in certain circumstances thereafter. The competent authority to deal with claims for compensation is the assessment authority set up by the act.

Compensation granted to neighbours under the act has been relatively low so far.

Facts

In a recent case before the High Court for Western Denmark the plaintiffs had been awarded Dkr250,000 in compensation for the erection of eight wind turbines by the assessment authority. They brought the matter before the courts seeking higher compensation.

Before the erection of the wind turbines, an environmental study had concluded that the noise level at their property would amount to 38.8 decibels at wind speeds of 12 knots and 40.9 decibels at wind speeds of 16 knots.

Before the city court, a court-appointed expert stated that the reduction in the value of the property amounted to between Dkr600,000 and Dkr800,000. The city court also arranged a visit to the property.

Where the assessment authority found that the plaintiffs’ property would be subject to limited noise pollution, the city court found the level to be more significant. The court further ruled that the plaintiffs had documented their loss of value at Dkr600,000 and thus awarded them an additional Dkr350,000.

Finally, the court held that the plaintiffs had suffered no other economic loss covered by the Promoting Renewable Energy Act. In particular, the court held that the fact that the wind turbines had been erected with all necessary permits prevented the plaintiffs from claiming compensation under neighbour rules.

The High Court for Western Denmark upheld the city court’s judgment, but fixed the compensation at Dkr500,000 because, among other things, there were certain deficiencies in the masonry of the house. However, the court also considered the findings of the court-appointed expert witness who had seen the plaintiffs’ house after the erection of the wind turbines – which the assessment authority had not done – as well as the city court’s own observation of the property. Finally, the court ruled that the Promoting Renewable Energy Act does not restrict the courts’ competence to review decisions from the assessment authority.

Comment

The judgment is significant as it granted compensation after the erection of the wind turbines. This is contrary to the main rule in the Promoting Renewable Energy Act; however,both the city court and the high court found sufficient legal authority under the act to admit the claim after the erection of the wind turbines.

Moreover, both courts paid considerable attention to the evaluation of the court-appointed expert. While this is quite normal in Danish case law, it is unusual in cases where an authority such as the assessment authority has previously dealt with the matter.

Finally, the high court paid attention to the city court’s own observations of the property. It is quite unusual to see such a reference to the observations of a lower court in a higher court’s grounds of judgment.

The judgment gives cause for optimism to those who intend to challenge decisions of the assessment authority under the Promoting Renewable Energy Act. From a procedural point of view, it seems to be important for the court to see the property at issue to form its own opinion of the level of noise pollution caused by wind turbines.

For further information on this topic please contact Søren Stenderup Jensen at Plesner by telephone (+45 33 12 11 33), fax (+45 33 12 00 14) or email (ssj@plesner.com). The Plesner website can be accessed at www.plesner.com.

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Wind weasels try to Deny the Negative Health Effects from Wind Turbines….No Surprise!

September 1, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind turbines make people ill: fact not fiction

Author: Kenny, Pamela

Would I say this?:

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world live near and work at operating wind turbines without health effects. Wind energy enjoys considerable public support, but wind energy detractors have publicized their concerns that the sounds emitted from wind turbines cause adverse health effects. These allegations of health-related impacts are not supported by science. Studies show no evidence for direct human health effects from wind turbines.

It is certainly not me talking.

It is the claim of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the national trade association for the U.S. wind industry. Wind power developers and their lobby groups around the world are shouting the same message – that the noise and vibration (infrasound, sound pressure, and low frequency noise) produced by large-scale wind turbines produce no direct health effects.

In reality, their claim is a lie. There is an ocean of documented evidence to support the assertions of anti-wind campaigners that the noise and vibration from wind turbines causes a range of health problems in significant numbers of people. If you search for just a couple of hours online, you can find personal stories by the thousand, and also numerous highly technical research papers by eminent medics and scientists detailing, amongst others, these symptoms:

Chronic sleep deprivation
Sleep disturbance
Increased blood pressure
Increased blood sugar (dangerous for diabetics)
Poor concentration and memory
Depression
Headaches and migraines
Dizziness, unsteadiness, ear pain and vertigo
Vibration in the body, particularly the chest
Nausea/“seasickness”
Tinnitus
Sensations of pressure or fullness in the ear
Stress
Panic
Annoyance, anger and aggression
Increase in agitation by those with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and ADD/ADHD

Some of these symptoms can be attributed to sleep deprivation. It is increasingly clear from peer- reviewed medical papers that night noise interrupting sleep has an adverse effect on both cardiovascular health and stress levels. Interrupted sleep can also have serious effects on daytime concentration leading, potentially, to increased risk of industrial accidents and road traffic collisions. As these problems are likely to occur at locations remote from the cause of the interrupted sleep they are difficult to attribute to their actual cause. Dr. Christopher Hanning, a now-retired Consultant in Sleep Disorders Medicine to the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, writes:

In the short term … deprivation of sleep results in daytime fatigue and sleepiness, poor concentration and memory function. Accident risks increase. In the longer term, sleep deprivation is linked to depression, weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.[1]

I do not pretend to be an expert in the effects of noise, but I do know that in over 30 years as a GP I have seen countless patients presenting with the effects of insomnia, and shift workers in particular suffer far more than the general population with the effects of disturbed sleep. What I find astonishing is that the noise regulations for the wind industry permit MORE noise to be generated by the turbines at night than during the day. This is completely contrary to noise pollution legislation, World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines – and common sense.

Other symptoms listed above are likely to be a response to exposure to infrasound (sound with a frequency of less than 20 Hz) and low frequency noise (sound with a frequency of less than 200 Hz) produced by the turbines. Both low frequency noise and infrasound occur naturally in the environment (for instance, from household appliances and machinery in the case of low frequency noise, and ocean waves in the case of infrasound). In periods when the wind is blustery, large wind turbines generate both very low frequency sounds and infrasound which can travel much greater distances than audible sound. These sounds are not audible to the human ear, but our brains certainly detect them and some susceptible people suffer some of the unpleasant symptoms I have listed, such as tinnitus, ear pain and vertigo. If you feel up to reading some technical, but very interesting, research on this subject, take a look at “Wind-Turbine Noise. What Audiologists Should Know” by Punch, James and Pabst, published in the American publication Audiology Today in 2010.[2]

Other reasons why people experience health impacts from wind turbines include the swishing or thumping of the blades, which is highly annoying as the frequency and loudness varies with changes in wind speed and local atmospheric conditions. This is not at all like the sound of a passing train, aeroplane or tractor which moves on rapidly to be replaced by less intrusive background sounds. The noise of wind turbines has been likened to a “passing train that never passes” which may explain why it is prone to cause sleep disruption.

Some of those with heightened sensitivity to specific repetitive stimuli, such as those with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD), can be seriously affected by the noise. Consultant clinical psychologist Dr. Susan Stebbings, from the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Trust, said more research was needed into wind turbine noise and these disorders:

Because it is clear from our clinical knowledge of the condition of autism that the sensory difficulties individuals can have are possibly going to be impacted on by the presence of such large sensory objects in their environment.[3]

Indeed, there is at least one case on record of a wind farm application being turned down because of the proven impact on children with autism.[4]

Then there is shadow flicker or strobing which occurs when the rotating blades periodically cast shadows through the windows of properties. This can be truly unpleasant to live with and can trigger migraine and – much more rarely – epileptic fits in those suffering from photosensitive epilepsy.[5] At night, the red warning lights on the tops of some turbines can cause blade glint and strobing effects, so it is not just a daytime phenomenon.

Then there is the effect of stress. If you live in a tranquil rural area like ours, where the daytime and night time noise levels are almost always very low, you may well suffer varying levels of stress from the imposition of industrial-scale wind turbines into the landscape. The stress can occur long before the turbines are erected: during the planning process; during the noise and disruption of the construction; when you see the turbines for the first time and cannot believe the scale of them; and, then, during their operation when your sleep is disrupted and other physical and mental symptoms present themselves.

The effects of wind turbine noise have been known for several years now. In February 2007, a Plymouth GP, Dr. Amanda Harry, published a report “Wind Turbines, Noise and Health”.[6] The report documents her contacts with 39 people living between 300 metres and 2 kilometres from the nearest turbine of a wind farm. She discovered symptoms such as those I have outlined experienced by people living up to 1.6 kilometres from the wind farms.

The wind industry has repeatedly tried to discredit Dr. Harry’s report, and another – published in 2009 – by a leading American Pediatrician Dr. Nina Pierpont, who coined the phrase “Wind Turbine Syndrome” to cover the range of health problems she investigated over five years in the US, the UK, Italy, Ireland and Canada.[7] The global wind industry also spends vast sums attempting to discredit scientifically sound research studies, and the papers of experts in the physiology of the ear that prove infrasound can have adverse effects despite it not being audible.

It is true that both Dr. Harry’s and Dr. Pierpont’s research is largely anecdotal and does not reach the high standards needed for statistical validity. However, that also applied to reports on the association between lung cancer and smoking, and asbestos and asbestosis, in the early days.

We have now reached the stage in the debate when there can be no reasonable doubt that industrial wind turbines – whether singly or in wind farms – generate sufficient noise to disturb the sleep and impair the health of those living nearby.[8] In fact, our own Government has long been fully aware of the problems, as demonstrated in a 2008 Economic Affairs Committee Memorandum by Mr Peter Hadden, which concludes that:

onshore wind turbines built within 2km of homes offer no benefits and should not be part of a plan to provide the UK with a viable, secure, predictable supply of electricity. Indeed, onshore wind turbines ensure an unpredictable energy supply, by the very nature of the wind, with a long list of adverse impacts that diminish their supposed usefulness. Other renewables, such as solar and hydropower, offer more options and more predictability, especially combined with the still necessary (and technologically advancing) conventional sources of energy.[9]

I find it unbelievable that the wind industry is permitted to inflict health nuisance such as sleep disturbance, stress, and headaches on our communities – let alone more serious health issues such as depression, and heart and diabetes problems. To suggest, as the wind industry does, that there is “no problem” when faced with the huge body of evidence from around the world is perverse.

What sums up this entire problem for me is the quote below. It is by Dr. Noel Kerin of the Occupational and Environmental Medical Association of Canada. He was attending the First International Symposium on Adverse Health Effects and Industrial Wind Turbines, held in Canada in October 2010. He was shocked by the overwhelming evidence on the harmful effects of wind turbines:

First we had tobacco, then asbestos, and urea formaldehyde, and now wind turbines. Don’t we ever learn? Our public health system should be screaming the precautionary principle. The very people who are sworn to protect us have abandoned the public.[10]

My extensive reading into the harmful effects of wind turbines leaves me in no doubt that, to protect our community, we need to oppose the erection of three 125 metre turbines on Berry Fen.* Quite aside from the damage to our beautiful landscape, our tranquillity, our tourism industry, and wildlife, this wind farm would have serious implications for the health of many who live and work here for the entire 25-year life of the wind farm, and well beyond.

Pamela Kenny, MB BS, MRCS LRCP, FIMC RCSEd

Dr. Pamela Kenny was a founder of the current Haddenham and Stretham GP surgeries in 1986. She retired from practice there in 2006, but continued to work in Cottenham and St Ives and is a Trustee of the emergency medical service MAGPAS. Dr. Kenny has always had an interest in how lifestyle factors affect patient’s health, and continues to do so in the interests of the community. She has immense sympathy with anyone who might be affected by any form of flicker as she has always suffered from flicker-induced migraine. She also has the kind of hearing that is super-sensitive to both high and very low sound.

[1] http://docs.wind-watch.org/Hanning-sleep-disturbance-wind-turbine-noise.pdf

[2] http://docs.wind-watch.org/AudiologyToday-WindTurbineNoise.pdf

[3] www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-19374360

[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/8646326.stm

[5] doi: 10.1111/j.1528-1167.2008.01563.x

[6] http://docs.wind-watch.org/wtnoise_health_2007_a_harry.pdf

[7] www.windturbinesyndrome.com/wind-turbine-syndrome/

[8] www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2012;volume=14;issue=60;spage=237;epage=243;aulast=Nissenbaum

[9] www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/195/195we34.htm

[10] www.windvigilance.com/international-symposium/wind-turbines-linked-to-sick-building-syndrome

*There is still time to object to the planning application [the deadline has been extended to 3rd September 2014]. You do not have to write a long letter – just a couple of points outlining why you object – and every single person in your household should write individually as the number of objections will make a difference. Whichever method you choose, please include your name and full postal address, and the Planning Application Number 14/00728/ESF:

Send your objection by email to plservices@eastcambs.gov.uk
Or write to: Mrs Penny Mills, Planning Officer, East Cambs District Council, The Grange, Nutholt Lane, Ely, CB7 4EE
Or drop off to the following addresses: Simon Monk, Dunelm House, 4d The Borough, Aldreth; and Ian Munford, 4 Orchard Way, Haddenham.

Download original document: “Wind Turbines Make People Ill: Fact Not Fiction”

The Wind Turbine Scam is Destroying Our Economies, as Well as Our Communities!

August 31, 2014 / 1957chev / 3 Comments

Professor Ross McKitrick: Wind turbines don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.

August 31, 2014 by stopthesethings

As STT followers are acutely aware, wind power is an economic and environmental fraud. Because wind power can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – and, therefore, never “on-demand” – it will never be a substitute for those generation sources which are – ie hydro, nuclear, gas and coal (see our posts here and here and here and hereand here and here and here and here).

Were it not for government mandates – backed by a constant and colossal stream of subsidies (see our post here) – wind power generators would never dispatch a single spark to the grid, as they would never find a customer that would accept power delivered 30% of the time (at best) on terms where the vendor can never tell customers just when that power might be delivered – if at all (see our post here).

Ultimately, it’ll be the inherently flawed economics of wind power that will bring the greatest rort of all time to an end. The policies that created the wind industry are simply unsustainable and, inevitably, will either fail or be scrapped.

The Canadians are reeling under the ludicrous wind power policies of a hard-green-left Liberal government, clearly intent on committing economic suicide. Power prices – driven by exorbitant guaranteed rates to wind power outfits – have rocketed – tripling in less than a decade, driving energy intensive businesses – like manufacturing – out of business or offshore – stifling business investment – killing off or threatening thousands of sustainable (unsubsidised) jobs across Canada and otherwise creating economic chaos (see our post here).

The scale and scope of Canada’s wind power disaster hasn’t been lost on top energy market economists, like Ontario’s Professor Ross McKitrickfrom the University of Guelph.

Ross was interviewed for the brilliant Sun News documentary ‘Down Wind’ by presenter, Rebecca Thompson, which has been extracted in the video below. The transcript appears below.

****

Downwind – Ross McKitrick – Uni of Guelph

Rebecca Thompson: First we turn to Professor Ross McKitrick, an economist. He recently published a very scathing review of how economically unsound the Ontario Liberal government’s Green Energy Act is.

Professor Ross McKitrick: Well the important thing to understand about wind turbines is that they don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.

Rebecca Thompson: We went to see McKitrick at the University of Guelph.

Professor Ross McKitrick: All the arguments that they’ve put forward for the Green Energy Act they really turned out to be phoney once we looked at them closely. They said that it would improve the economy, reduce air pollution emissions and it would replace coal fired power. And the problem is with the first one, it is not going to improve the economy because of what you are doing is replacing power that costs 3 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour to generate, and you’re replacing it with power that costs at least 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour to generate. So you’re raising the cost of doing business, it will drive down the rate of return in manufacturing and mining and that has to translate into job losses and reduced investment and shrinking the economy.

Rebecca Thompson: So you’ve pointed out that wind energy in fact, isn’t in the public interest in the short term but will it be in the long term?

Professor Ross McKitrick: Nobody was building wind turbines in Ontario until the government started throwing money at it. It is not a profitable source of electricity, it’s not cost-effective. Wind turbines can’t compete on the wholesale market without a lot of government support.

Rebecca Thompson: The system used to fund wind energy in many places around the world is called a Feed-In-Tariff (FIT).

Professor Ross McKitrick: And that means if you build a bank of wind turbines somewhere, and you get the contract that everyone is looking for you get a guarantee of 20 years being paid 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity that’s generated while the wholesale rate in Ontario is typically between 2 – 4 cents per kilowatt hour.

Rebecca Thompson: The Ontario government piggybacked off what is a European idea of a feed in tariff policy where the prices are locked in for 20 year contracts. And here’s another head scratcher …

Professor Ross McKitrick: The other provision of the contracts is that the system has to buy the power from you whenever you produce it. So the standard power plants, nuclear plants and hydro plants and so forth – there is no guarantee for them to buy their power, they have to compete on a wholesale market they have to price their product, in this case electricity, so that the system operator will buy it. With wind turbines, if the blades are running, the system operator has to buy it. Now they have adjusted that slightly in the last year because of this problem of the system operator being forced to buy tons and tons of power when it doesn’t need it, at 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour and sell it on the export market at one or two cents per kilowatt-hour – it was costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the system operator to do that. So the province now allows the system operator to reject some of the power that the wind turbines produce and instead the province will pay the wind turbine owners a benefit for what they call ‘deemed production’. So it’s really just transferred that same costs on to the taxpayer now.

Rebecca Thompson: The bottom line is pretty good for the wind energy sector.

Professor Ross McKitrick: They get a 20 year contract to sell wind power at far above market rates and it doesn’t matter that they are generating power at times when the province absolutely doesn’t need it, and we can’t use it, and we just have to try to find some neighbouring jurisdiction to buy it from us. We used to have a few large power plants in Ontario and we had our grid that was optimised to source electricity from a few large central locations. We’re now shutting down the large central locations and replacing them with this proliferation of tiny little unreliable wind farms and you have to build a whole new grid to accommodate that. So that’s again an extra cost to get something that we already had.

Rebecca Thompson: What’s more is that the Green Energy Act hasn’t even come close to creating the number of jobs the Liberals claimed it would.

Professor Ross McKitrick: It turned out that the province had claimed that there were going to be 50,000 new jobs created from the Green Energy Act. When the Auditor General asks them to back that up because it doesn’t really make sense that this would create any jobs – what they admitted was they were really talking about were temporary construction jobs – as you put up wind turbines you need some workers in to do that. But then once the wind turbines are built, then those jobs disappear and there are no ongoing jobs. In economics, it’s an old fallacy, what’s called the broken window fallacy. If you go around breaking shopkeeper’s windows, since they have to hire repair people to fix the windows then you’ve somehow improved the economy. But, you haven’t. All you have done is increase the cost of having what you had before – which was windows in stores.

Rebecca Thompson: If the new shift to green power is so inefficient why hasn’t anyone working in the system spoken out?

Professor Ross McKitrick: There are a couple of reasons. The power workers union has spent money on advertisements. They did try to fight against the closing of Lambton and Nanticoke – they understood that this was a bad deal for the workers in the province. But they did want they could. But it’s hard to be up against a government that is pushing so much propaganda on coal. There were people certainly in the power generating sector that understood that the government’s numbers weren’t correct and didn’t add up. But, they were effectively muzzled.

Rebecca Thompson: McKitrick speaks to people all the time about the changes in the system.

Professor Ross McKitrick: I do find people working in the power sector, they know that this is a crazy system. These wind farms are displacing hydro electricity which is just a waste on every level because we have the hydroelectric facilities, they don’t generate any air pollution emissions. They give us reliable, predictable baseload power. And now we run wind turbines and let those hydro-facilities sit idle. So people who work in the sector, they can see what’s going on and they know that this is a waste. But, for understandable reasons they’re not about to make a big noise about it because they could lose their jobs if they do.

Rebecca Thompson: Whether any government would actually be able to get out of existing contracts is debatable. Ross McKitrick says it’s possible.

Professor Ross McKitrick: One option might be to buy out some of the wind turbine companies and take those wind turbines off the grid, or only use their power when they’re competitive. In Europe, what governments have started to do though is put on special new taxes on renewable sources, solar and wind, to try and recover some of these costs. Alternatively, the government may look to try and tear up the contracts and accept the legal liability that goes with it, but it’s not going to be easy.
Sun News: Down Wind

Down Wind, which runs for 96 minutes, can be purchased as a file and downloaded or as a DVD for those in the US and Canada (here’s the link). For those outside the US and Canada the file can be purchased and downloaded (using this link). If you’re in there fighting the great wind power fraud, Down Wind is essential viewing.

For a detailed synopsis of Down Wind – see our post here.

Industrial Wind Turbines….Not the First Time, that Sound Has Been Used As a Weapon!

August 31, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

A History of Using Sound as a Weapon

Written by
JOE ZADEH
July 30, 2014

Last week, a collaborative research project known as AUDiNT (short for Audio Intelligence) released Martial Hauntology,a box set of vinyl and literature that explores the darker history of sound. It’s a journey into the lesser known realms of sonic weaponry.

The project is the latest in-depth study from Glaswegian electronic artist Steve Goodman (perhaps best know as Hyperdub label owner Kode9) and Manchester University research fellow Toby Heys. Heys describes AUDiNT as a “research cell investigating how ultrasonic, sonic and infrasonic frequencies are used to demarcate territory in the soundscape and the ways in which their martial and civil deployments modulate psychological, physiological and architectural states.”

The incorporation of sound into warfare may sound like a modern tactic, but the first reports have their roots in history. Back in 1944, as World War II slipped through Germany’s fingertips, it was rumoured that Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer had set up research to explore his own theories of sonic warfare, with the intention of creating tools of death. An episode of the History Channel’s Weird Weapons claimed that his device, dubbed an acoustic cannon, was intended to work by igniting a mixture of methane and oxygen in a resonant chamber, and could create a series of over 1,000 explosions per second.

This sent out a deafening and focused beam of sound which was magnified by huge parabolic reflector dishes. The idea, apparently, was that by repeatedly compressing and releasing particular organs in the human body, the cannon could potentially kill someone standing within a 100-yard radius in around thirty seconds. Fortunately, the weapon was never actually used in battle.

The actual volume of sound frequency isn’t the only way sound has been used in war. In his 2009 book Sonic Warfare, a key body of research in the understanding of contemporary sonic thought, Goodman included a chapter titled “Project Jericho,” which explored the US PSYOPS campaigns during the Vietnam War.

Goodman described a particular campaign known as Operation Wandering Soul. The Curdler, a helicopter-mounted sonic device, produced the “voodoo effects of Wandering Soul, in which haunting sounds said to represent the souls of the dead were played in order to perturb the superstitious snipers, who, while recognizing the artificial source of the wailing noises, could not help but dread what they were hearing was a premonition of their own postdeath dislocated soul.”

It was these operations, Goodman wrote, that directly inspired the famous scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, in which a fleet of helicopters fly towards their target whilst blasting Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

And while Wagner might not exactly be a torturous sound, the use of popular music for non-lethal weaponry goes further than Apocalypse Now. In 2003, the BBC reported that US interrogators were using songs by Metallica, Skinny Puppy and, erm, Barney the Dinosaur, in a bid to break the will of Iraqi prisoners of war. As Sergeant Mark Hadsell told Newsweek at the time, “These people haven’t heard heavy metal. They can’t take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That’s when we come in and talk to them.”

All this kicked off a bizarre discussion about whether music used during torture meant royalties were owed to the artists. Skinny Puppy jumped on this and filed a sizeable $666,000 royalties bill claim against the American defence department.

Jump forward to June 13, 2005, when the late Israeli president Ariel Sharon had just agreed to the disengagement from Gaza. That involved the displacement of settlers from the West Bank area, and stories soon started filtering in that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was trying out a new weapon on the streets. “The knees buckle, the brain aches, the stomach turns, and suddenly nobody feels like protesting anymore” reported the Toronto Star’s Middle East Bureau.

“An Associated Press photographer at the scene said that even after he covered his ears, he continued to hear the sound ringing in the back of his head,” wrote Amy Teibel for the Associated Press. This special vehicle-mounted weapon was an LRAD (long range acoustic device). They’re mostly used at sea as a defence against pirates, and can fire beams of up to 150-decibel alarm sounds at crowds.

Its victims on the streets knew it by another name: “The Scream.”

An LRAD on a ship. Image: Wikimedia Commons/Tucker M. Yates
Other sonic tactics against Palestinians were also reported, like jets breaking the sound barrier at low altitudes over settlements to cause what The Guardian described as “sound bombs.”

And sonic weapons weren’t limited to that part of the world, either. In 2004, the American Technology Corporation landed a nearly $5 million deal to supply LRADs to US troops in Iraq.

By 2011 and 2012, the use of LRADs began domestically in the US, when the government issued devices to various police forces, with their most publicised use coming during the Occupy Wall Street and G20 protests. Only seven months ago, the American-based LRAD Corporation also struck a $4 million deal with “a Middle Eastern country” for their most powerful hailing device yet: the LRAD 2000X, which gazumps previous models by beaming sound over 3,500 metres.

Despite domestic use elsewhere, the UK is yet to use an LRAD on its own civilians for crowd dispersal. How it feels about the accelerating industry, however, is confusing. When London mayor and water cannon enthusiast Boris Johnson was asked about LRADs in March, he denied knowing of their existence, responding, “Is this some sort of April fool?” Another politician pointed out that the devices were installed on the Thames during the 2012 Olympics.

In fact, London is home to one of the only non-military or police owners of LRADs in the world: Anschutz Entertainment Group, or as you probably know it, The O2. It was once left outside the venue and unattended, where it was photographed by a worried Twitter user (the O2 insisted it couldn’t have been misused).

The increased use of sonic weapons by armies and police forces around the world, and the growing stock market value of LRAD Corporation, reveal a continuing fascination with utilizing sound as a weapon, and the release of ever more in-depth studies like Martial Hauntology offers an insight into how sonic warfare is entering an age of global amplification.

“Professional” Windweasel, Mike Barnard, Tries to Defend Harm Caused by Wind Turbines

August 30, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Bullying a windfarm victim

In an article of August 22, 2014 by Lindsay Abrams, trying to discredit the claims of wind farm victims, we read: “Since 1998, 49 lawsuits in five countries have alleged that the clean energy source [wind farms] is making people sick. But according to new research published by the Energy and Policy Institute, the courts have shut those claims down in all cases but one.” http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/29416340-452/wind-turbines-dont-make-people-sick.html

– I say: we could find similarly meaningless statistics if we went back in time, when the courts were absolving the Tobacco Industry.

– Most courts, like governments, have swallowed the windfarm scam hook, line and sinker. This recent judgment, evidencing a strong pro-wind bias, says it all:http://www.epaw.org/media.php?lang=en&article=pr48

– Court decisions can’t be held as the gold standard of truth and fairness. All the more in a society obsessed with political correctness, where certain ideas are arbitrarily declared “consensual”, and turned into dogmas which become ipso facto more important than the facts. Don’t we know that progress in science is almost always achieved by rejecting the “consensus”? And so it is with infrasound emitted by wind turbines: the dogma saying these emissions are benign is about to be blown apart, and this is what sparks desperate attempts at bullying and discrediting windfarm victims and the health professionals who support them.

The article proceeds to say: “The name “wind turbine syndrome” was coined by Nina Pierpont, a pediatrician who also happens to be an anti-wind activist”.

– This is the pot calling the kettle black. Mike Barnard, cited as a reference, is one of the world’s best known activists of the windfarm scam. He is in fact a professional activist, making a living from it, and receiving all kinds of help from the industry.

Mike Barnard

– Barnard, as quoted by the author of the article, criticizes people who “have declared themselves as experts”, forgetting that this includes himself. Indeed, he has no qualifications for doing what he does, yet he calls himself the “lead researcher” in the “new study” that is calling thousands of windfarm victims “liers”. The man does not know the meaning of the words “consistency” and “intellectual honesty”. He is the typical odious bully, and so appears to be Lindsay Abrams, who quotes him while adding a layer of smear of his own brew.

– Dr Nina Pierpont, on the other hand, is a courageous pediatrician who conducted field research years ago, paid with her own money, in which she found that wind farm neighbors who were complaining of sleep disruption, headaches, nauseas etc. had very consistent symptoms, which prompted her to coin a new ailment: the Wind Turbime Syndrome. She published a book on her findings, and is giving evidence in court around the world: does that make her an activist?

Dr Nina Pierpont

The propaganda piece continues: “But a review of 60 peer-reviewed articles published earlier this summer in the journal Frontiers of Public Health found only that audible noise from turbines can be annoying to some people — electromagnetic fields, low-frequency noise, infrasound and “shadow flicker” all were deemed unlikely to be affecting human health.”

– How could all these articles pretend that infrasound is “unlikely” to affect people, when we know that the military and the police have developed weapons using infrasound for debilitating enemy troops or unruly crowds? The technology is not mature yet, as a way must be found to spare friendly troops. But more devices are being patented all the time:http://www.schizophonia.com/archives/index.htm (click article: “Deadly Silence”)

– And what about the Vibro Acoustic Disease, a long-known ailment which affects people exposed to machines that produce infrasound? http://wcfn.org/2014/07/15/open-letter-to-the-danish-government/

– Then ask yourselves: if infrasound were harmless, would the wind industry and governments that promote it systematically refuse to conduct research into infrasound emitted by wind turbines? And this at the risk of being sued one day for gross negligence?
I can smell a rat, can’t you?

Finally, the author of the article resorts to personal attack: “When Dr. Pierpont attempts to appear in court as an expert witness, she is rejected outright along with her 294-page vanity press book, as happened in a tribunal related to the Adelaide wind farm in Ontario.”

– She did not “attempt to appear in Court”. Her testimony was called by windfarm victims but, abusively, the judge refused to hear their expert witness. What does that tell you about the independence of justice in Ontario, a Canadian Province thoroughly corrupted by the windfarm scam?
In other countries, she was allowed to testify, and her interventions have been very helpful, whatever the outcome.

– “rejected outright along with her 294-page vanity press book” says Lindsay Abrams.
– I say: while pro-wind litterature flourishes thanks to billions of dollars of public money spent to inundate the world with it, independent researchers must finance their own publications. Does that make these less valuable?
But Abrams could not resist bullying Dr Pierpont on this score, thereby bringing discredit upon himself.

Wind Industry Denies Health Problems Cause by Wind Turbines, to Avoid Being Held Accountable!

August 30, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Sunday Express 24th August, 2014

I’m abandoning my home over wind turbine illness

Credit: Paula Murray

A Pensioner is abandoning her Scottish dream home after more than a quarter of a century because wind turbines are making her life a “living hell”.

Kay Siddell, 69, and her husband John, 64, moved to their rural retreat at Old Dailly, near Girvan, Ayrshire, in 1988 to enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside.

They saved for years to renovate their home, but after a 53 turbine wind farm, Hadyard Hill, was built, the pair put everything on hold.

For the past eight years they have tried to come to terms with the noise and visual impact, but now, with Mrs Siddell’s health failing and further turbines planned, they have finally decided to move away.

Remarkably, Mrs Siddell and her retired Army sergeant spouse plan to abandon the steading and a sizeable parcel of land in a bid to prevent any more wind farms being built.

The pensioner said: “The turbines are forcing us out. We don’t want to sell our property – which comes with 10 acres of land – because we object to wind farms and want to make sure the operators cannot buy this land for more turbines.

“So rather than trying to sell our home we are just abandoning it in a bid to make sure at least that small area remains turbine free.”

The mother – of – one said there was an application to extend Hadyard Hill by another 55 turbines and planning permission to construct another 20 within the vicinity of their property.

She said: “That would bring the number to well over 100.

“We already have the TV and radio on at all times to try and block out the noise. There’s the obvious noise you hear and the flicker which comes in, especially in the winter because of the low sun, and that’s terribly disturbing.

“Then there’s the noise you can’t hear which is infrasound.

“Within two weeks of the turbines being switched on in 2006 our cats refused to go out and eat or drink – eventually we had to put them down. I think it was because of the sensation or noise they got from the wind farm which we couldn’t feel or hear.”

Mrs Siddell, who used to work for the Ministry of Defence, is adamant the turbines are damaging her health – adding to the growing number of cases since the issue was first exposed by the Scottish Sunday Express.

She is even willing to have a biopsy to prove her internal organs have been damaged by low-frequency noise.

She said” “Air stewards and people working on ships develop a hardening in their internal organs related to the vibration brought on by infrasound.

“I would like to have a biopsy to test if I have any signs of this vibroacoustic disease. If the evidence is there the only reason it would be there is the wind farm, as I’ve never worked on board planes and I am no cruise goer.

What’s magical with this marker is that it could not be anything but infrasound damage.

“It could explain my stress levels which are causing other physiological problems.”

Using the money they saved for the planned renovation, the Siddells are now packing up their belongings and moving to England to be near their son.

The first removal load was due to leave their home last week, and the rest will follow soon.

Mrs Siddell said: “We were here long before any turbines went up. We always knew that because of our remote location, the day would come we would have to move out. However the day came much sooner than we expected because of the wind farm.”

Wind farm operators and trade groups insist there are no proven links between turbines and ill health.

Credit: Paula Murray, Sunday Express, Scotland

Denmark High Court Rules on Compensation for Noise from Wind Turbines!

August 30, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

DENMARK: HIGH COURT RULES ON COMPENSATION FOR NOISE FROM WIND TURBINES

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