Liberal corruption and incompetence.

Wind Weasels Deny the Problems, Instead of trying to Correct Them…

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Got Wind Turbine Syndrome? This Harvard Medical School Professor believes you!

Jun 27, 2014

doctor

Editor’s note:  You’ve heard of the Harvard Medical School, correct? And I’ll bet you’re aware it’s one of the finest medical schools in the world, right?   Harvard Medical School has a number of world-class institutes and centers.  One being the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI).

Put it this way. Let’s say you are a Saudi Arabian prince, or a head of state (president, prime minister) of a foreign country. Or Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. You’re someone in this stratum of society, in other words, and your doctor says you have an inner ear disorder, something affecting your utricle or saccule or semicircular canals, or your cochlea.  Because you don’t want to mess around with medical mediocrity, you have your physician make an appointment for you at Massachusetts Eye & Ear.

You fly to Boston and meet with a specialist at MEEI.  The specialist is likely to be a physician doing a fellowship in neuro-otology.  (He’s called a “Fellow in Neuro-otology.”)  Or perhaps it’s one of the senior, attending physicians — that is, one of the full-time faculty.

The doc does a bunch of tests, but he’s still mystified about what’s going on. He needs to consult with some colleagues.  If he’s really stumped (or “she,” if the doc’s a woman), he asks the director of the Clinical Balance & Vestibular Center for a consult. (Think of going to the Vatican and being seen by one of the archbishops or cardinals about a spiritual problem. If the cardinal can’t help you — and if you’re really lucky — the cardinal may ask the pope for a consultation.)

When the Medical Director of Mass. Eye & Ear’s Clinical Balance & Vestibular Center comes on board, you can safely assume you are seeing the ultimate authority on balance and vestibular disorders — in the world. The pope.  Or at least, you’re seeing one of the half-dozen best qualified and knowledgeable and trained and recognized specialists in the world.

Follow me so far?

When Dr. Stephen Rauch says the following, it’s worth paying attention to.   (Incidentally, Dr. Rauch has read Dr. Pierpont’s  book, “Wind Turbine Syndrome.” Dr. Rauch met with Dr. Pierpont in Cambridge, Mass., several years ago.)

Dr. Steven Rauch, an otologist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and a professor at Harvard Medical School, believes WTS is real. Patients who have come to him to discuss WTS suffer from a “very consistent” collection of symptoms, he says. Rauch compares WTS to migraines, adding that people who suffer from migraines are among the most susceptible to turbines. There’s no existing test for either condition but “Nobody questions whether or not migraine is real.”

“The patients deserve the benefit of the doubt,” Rauch says. “It’s clear from the documents that come out of the industry that they’re trying very hard to suppress the notion of WTS and they’ve done it in a way that [involves] a lot of blaming the victim.”

When the Medical Director of Harvard’s Clinical Balance & Vestibular Center says the above, and says this, the question becomes: “Why are we still discussing the veracity of Wind Turbine Syndrome in these pages, and in the media, and with wind developers, and with wind turbine manufacturers, and with politicians — with anyone, for that matter?”

Why are we even considering ludicrous theories like the “nocebo effect” advanced by Australian sociologist Simon Chapman, whose scholarly speciality is “tobacco industry advertising”?  (I’m serious.)  Why are we listening to British physicist Geoff Leventhall(whose physics Dr. Pierpont has had to correct on at least one occasion), who for years has been a paid consultant to wind energy companies and has absolutely no clinical credentials, who for years maintained that wind turbines produce negligible infrasound, and for years argued that “if you can’t hear something audibly, it can’t affect you negatively” — why are we still paying attention to this irrelevant man?

Who gives a goddam whether Geoff Leventhall or Simon Chapman think Wind Turbine Syndrome is real or not?  (Am I missing something in this discussion?)

In addition to Dr. Rauch, there is Dr. Alec Salt, worldclass neuro-physiologist at theWashington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, where he is head of theCochlear Fluids Research Laboratory.  Dr. Salt specializes in inner ear disorders. He’s been doing this for decades, publishing in major clinical journals.  Dr. Salt is the one who demolished Leventhall’s silly thesis that “if you can’t hear it, it can’t hurt you.” (Leventhall was not the originator of that stupid idea; he’s just parroted it for decades and, like a wind-up toy, refuses to stop.)

Geoff 600

Between Harvard’s Dr. Rauch and  Washington University’s Dr. Salt, and Dr. Pierpont’s meticulous, peer-reviewed research (M.D. from the Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Medicine, Ph.D. from Princeton in Population Biology), there really need be no further discussion about the legitimacy of WTS.  Yes, the neuropathology of WTS needs further elucidation, but there is absolutely no question whether the illness is real. Anyone who denies it is simply playing games — and the moon (don’t you know?) is made of Swiss cheese and the Easter Bunny, folks, is honest-to-god real.

Read on. The author of the following article, Alex Halperin, requested an interview with Dr. Pierpont before writing the article. She declined. (At this point, she prefers that specialists like Dr. Rauch speak to the issue.)

Rauch

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“Big Wind Is Better Than Big Oil, But Just as Bad at P.R.”

— Alex Halperin, The New Republic (6/15/14)

Nancy Shea didn’t learn about the wind farm until after she moved to northwest Massachusetts to enjoy a quiet country life. The news didn’t bother her. Shea, who describes herself as “green” and “crunchy,” favors clean and renewable energy. But just days after the 19-turbine project went online Shea sensed something wrong. She “felt kind of queasy,” one day in the kitchen. Later she woke up feeling like she had bed spins.

Shea’s husband did some research and learned about wind turbine syndrome (WTS), a condition said to be caused by “infrasound,” an inaudible low-frequency sound produced by the turbines. Sufferers complain about symptoms like insomnia, vertigo, headaches and disorientation. “It’s a hard to describe sensation, you just want to crawl out of your skin,” Shea says.

A few nights later, the couple could hear the turbines spinning—the closest is 2,200 feet away. It sounded, Shea says, like a jet repeatedly flying over their cabin. Neither of them could sleep and they drove through a snowstorm to another property they have several miles away. Shea felt better immediately. Similar symptoms have been reported worldwide by people who live near wind turbines. But America’s wind industry says their condition is psychological.

There’s a great deal to like about wind power. It’s a domestic, renewable power source that doesn’t produce greenhouse gasses. It doesn’t require digging anything out of the ground and, unlike nuclear energy, doesn’t create any risk of catastrophic accidents. According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), more than 70 percent of the public view wind energy favorably. Following President Obama’s recent push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there’s every reason to believe that these giant pinwheels will become more familiar sights on the American landscape. (The towers alone are hundreds of feet high.)

Clean energy, however, is not the same thing as flawless energy. Producing power on a large scale involves processes and infrastructure which disrupt ecosystems and have other unintended consequences. Dams, for example, remain the most important source of renewable power in this country and environmentalists hate them.

Wind farms have raised objections for ruining views and being noisy. But the fight over WTS presents a more difficult challenge for the industry. And while wind power advocates like to think of it as a forward looking and pragmatic fix for America’s energy needs, when it comes to managing this mysterious phenomenon, they’re foolishly borrowing from the bad old energy playbook.

Earlier this year, two physiologists at Washington University in St. Louis published a paper in the journal Acoustics Today detailing several mechanisms by which infrasound from wind turbines could have detrimental effects. One, for example, is “excitation” of nerve fibers in the inner ear that are related to tinnitus and “aural fullness.” The article concludes that more study of infrasound is needed and pointedly states:

If, in time, the symptoms of those living near the turbines 
are demonstrated to have a physiological basis, it will become apparent that the years of assertions from the wind industry’s acousticians that “what you can’t hear can’t affect you”… was a great injustice.

Last year the same journal published an article by an England-based acoustician named Geoff Leventhall who argues that wind turbines don’t produce infrasound at sufficient levels to cause health problems. When I called Leventhall, whose clients have included wind power developers, he said he doesn’t believe WTS exists. Leventhall doesn’t dispute that infrasound can distress people. His disagreement with the Washington University scientists, grossly simplified, is in how the infrasound produced by wind turbines should be measured.

In written responses to questions, AWEA says that waves on the seashore, a child’s swing, a car and even a human heartbeat expose people to higher levels of infrasound than wind turbines do. AWEA relied heavily on Leventhall’s work and calls him “the most cited and referenced acoustician regarding wind energy in the world.” The organization cited two studies, one from Australia, one from New Zealand, which suggest that WTS results from a “nocebo” effect, essentially that if people are told wind turbines make them sick, they will feel sick around wind turbines. Leventhall endorses this view.

In an email, one AWEA manager wrote that “Independent, credible studies from around the world have consistently found that sound from wind farms has no direct impact on human physical health.” AWEA also cites a 2012 report prepared for two Massachusetts state agencies by an independent panel which found no evidence of the existence of WTS. (Activists who oppose situating turbines near homes have numerous objections to the report.)

Anyone who has ever played the NIMBY game knows the power of a scientific imprimatur. But the two sides are wielding their science to achieve asymmetrical goals. In the Washington University paper, Alec Salt and Jeffrey Lichtenhan write:

Whether it is a chemical industry blamed for contaminating groundwater with cancer-causing dioxin, the tobacco industry accused of contributing to lung cancer, or athletes of the National Football League (NFL) putatively being susceptible to brain damage, it can be extremely difficult to establish the truth when some have an agenda to protect the status quo.

In these cases, industry’s primary goal isn’t to be right on the merits, though that would be nice, but to continue operating. As long as it’s planting turbines, the wind industry is winning. But as long as it’s simply dismissing WTS, the industry is putting itself at risk of losing its sympathetic, clean image.

Dr. Steven Rauch, an otologist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and a professor at Harvard Medical School, believes WTS is real. Patients who have come to him to discuss WTS suffer from a “very consistent” collection of symptoms, he says. Rauch compares WTS to migraines, adding that people who suffer from migraines are among the most susceptible to turbines. There’s no existing test for either condition but “Nobody questions whether or not migraine is real.”

“The patients deserve the benefit of the doubt,” Rauch says. “It’s clear from the documents that come out of the industry that they’re trying very hard to suppress the notion of WTS and they’ve done it in a way that [involves] a lot of blaming the victim.”

In fact, the inconstant nature of symptoms can compound WTS. Even when someone doesn’t feel the effects, they’re always conscious of wind speed and direction as they try to sense when their symptoms might return. (Turbines produce infrasound independently of audible noise.)

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick aims to increase the state’s wind energy capacity to 2000 megawatts by 2020, a total equal to roughly 15 percent of the state’s current electricity production. In a densely populated state that means more people are inevitably going to feel affected by WTS, even if it doesn’t exist.

As wind power has become more prominent, so have complaints. Scores of residents of Herkimer County, N.Y. are suing the Spanish wind power company Iberdrola over a wind farm. A judge has ordered that two wind turbines in Falmouth, Mass. can only be operated 12 hours a day and not on Sundays.

The wind industry might take a lesson from Nancy Shea: People are generally reasonable, maybe more reasonable than they should be. Shea refuses to spend any more nights in the house she and her husband bought. She calls it a “dead asset.” Nonetheless, she still considers herself pro-wind.

In the annals of corporate public relations debacles, WTS is a relatively minor one, at least for now. It would be self-defeating if the industry squanders this promising moment by failing to candidly address WTS concerns. Not doing so invites further attacks from Fox News and National Review and other conservative groups looking for an excuse to bash clean energy.

The best advice might come from the Salt and Lichtenhan article. Big Wind, it argues, should “acknowledge the problem and work to eliminate it.”

Rauch-c-516x226

 

Faux-green Eco-fanatics are bad for our Environment, and everything in it!

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Never-Ending Green Disasters.

Newton’s 3rd law of motion, if applied to bureaucracy, would state: “Whenever politicians attempt to force change on a market, the long-big-govtterm results will be equal and opposite to those intended”.

This law explains the never-ending Green energy policy disasters.

Greens have long pretended to be guardians of wild natural places, but their legislative promotion of ethanol biofuel has resulted in massive clearance of tropical forests for palm oil, sugar cane and soy beans.  Their policies have also managed to covert cheap food into expensive motor fuel and degraded land devoted to bush, pastures or crops into mono-cultures of corn for bio-fuel. This has wasted water, increased world hunger and corrupted the political process for zero climate benefits.

Greens also pretend to be protectors of wildlife and habitat but their force-feeding of wind power has uglified wild places and disturbed peaceful neighbourhoods with noisy windmills and networks of access roads and transmission lines. These whirling bird-choppers kill thousands of raptors and bats without attracting the penalties that would be applied heavily to any other energy producers – all this damage to produce trivial amounts of intermittent, expensive and blackout-prone electricity supplies.

Greens have long waged a vicious war on coal, but their parallel war on nuclear power and the predictably intermittent performance of wind/solar energy has forced power generators to turn to hydro-carbon gases to backup green power. But Greens have also made war on shale-gas fracking – this has left countries like Germany with no option but to return to reliable economical coal, or increase their usage of Russian gas and French nuclear power. Their war on coal has lifted world coal usage to a 44 year high.

Greens also say they support renewable energy, but they oppose any expansion of hydro-power, the best renewable energy option. For example, they scuppered the Gordon-below-Franklin hydro-electric project, which would have given Tasmania everlasting cheap green electricity. But they never mention their awkward secret – the Basslink under-sea cable goes to Loy Yang power station in Victoria and allows Tasmania to import coal-powered electricity from the mainland.

Robbie Burns warned us over 200 years ago:

“The best laid schemes of Mice and Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!”

Climate Alarmists Try to Push Their “Religion”, on the Rest of Us! Just Say NO!

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CO2 GOOD; CLIMATE CHANGE BUNK;

GREENS ARE RAGING EXTREMISTS,

SAYS GREENPEACE CO-FOUNDER

by  19 Jun 2014

“Climate change” is a theory for which there is “no scientific proof at all” says the co-founder of Greenpeace. And the green movement has become a “combination of extreme political ideology and religious fundamentalism rolled into one.”

Patrick Moore, a Canadian environmentalist who helped found Greenpeace in the Seventies but subsequently left in protest at its increasingly extreme, anti-scientific, anti-capitalist stance, argues that the green position on climate change fails the most basic principles of the scientific method.

“The certainty among many scientists that humans are the main cause of climate change, including global warming, is not based on the replication of observable events. It is based on just two things, the theoretical effect of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, predominantly carbon dioxide, and the predictions of computer models using those theoretical calculations. There is no scientific “proof” at all.”

Moore goes on to list some key facts about “climate change” which are ignored by true believers.

1. The concentration of CO2 in the global atmosphere is lower today, even including human emissions, than it has been during most of the existence of life on Earth.

2. The global climate has been much warmer than it is today during most of the existence of life on Earth. Today we are in an interglacial period of the Pleistocene Ice Age that began 2.5 million years ago and has not ended.

3. There was an Ice Age 450 million years ago when CO2 was about 10 times higher than it is today.

4. Humans evolved in the tropics near the equator. We are a tropical species and can only survive in colder climates due to fire, clothing and shelter.

5. CO2 is the most important food for all life on earth. All green plants use CO2 to produce the sugars that provide energy for their growth and our growth. Without CO2 in the atmosphere carbon-based life could never have evolved.

6. The optimum CO2 level for most plants is about 1600 parts per million, four times higher than the level today. This is why greenhouse growers purposely inject the CO2-rich exhaust from their gas and wood-fired heaters into the greenhouse, resulting in a 40-80 per cent increase in growth.

7. If human emissions of CO2 do end up causing significant warming (which is not certain) it may be possible to grow food crops in northern Canada and Russia, vast areas that are now too cold for agriculture.

8. Whether increased CO2 levels cause significant warming or not, the increased CO2 levels themselves will result in considerable increases in the growth rate of plants, including our food crops and forests.

9. There has been no further global warming for nearly 18 years during which time about 25 per cent of all the CO2 ever emitted by humans has been added to the atmosphere. How long will it remain flat and will it next go up or back down? Now we are out of the realm of facts and back into the game of predictions.

Moore makes his remarks in the foreword to a new book by bestselling Australian geologist Dr Ian Plimer called Not For Greens. The book describes the various, complex industrial processes which go into the making of just a single teaspoon, starting with the mining of various metals.

If Greenpeace’s membership remained true to their principles they would have to eat with their bare hands because, as Moore notes, they are opposed to mining in all its forms.

“If you ask them for the name of any mine that is operating in an environmentally acceptable standard you will draw a blank. They have become so cornered by their own extremism that they must deny their daily use of cell phones, computers, bicycles, rapid transit, and yes, the simple teaspoon.

When it comes to Wind Turbines….there is NO democracy!!

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Windfarms and local democracy

April 2, 2014

Scotland Against Spin windfarm image Apr 2014 approved for reproduction

By LINDA HOLT

Scottish wind policy has been on a collision course with local democracy for a long time. The Scottish Government has promoted wind energy via target-led, developer-led planning policies instead of a plan-led system with clear restrictions on development, which is what planning is supposed to be about.

Instead there are so many holes in wind planning policy at national level (and often due to expressed or feared central government insistence at local authority level) that to call it a sieve would be to pay it a compliment.

Everything has to be considered on a case-by-case basis and every wind developer argues that his guideline-busting, spatial-plan-busting proposal is a special case, given the overriding nature of the Government’s 2020 renewables targets. Local authorities and reporters are inclined to agree often enough to make repeated punts at several hundred thousand pounds a shot worthwhile.

Scottish Governments have brazenly politicized the consenting process by appropriating the Electricity Act of 1989 to bypass (what remains of) the democratic planning process. The Act allows ministers to consent windfarms over 50 MW (and their extensions) ‘in the national interest’.

It was meant to ensure that NIMBY problems would not stop major power stations, which the country clearly needed, from going ahead. But a 50MW wind farm does not produce anything like the energy of a nuclear power station or even a small gas-fired power station.

In fact while the latter can produce its nameplate capacity or very close to it, no windfarm on earth produces its nameplate capacity for any length of time. Average annual output is very rarely even the 30% of nameplate capacity developers routinely claim and usually closer to 20%. In other words, applying the 1989 Acts to windfarms whose actual capacity is under 50MW is a democratic cheat to get more windfarms built.

The Scottish Government knows people aren’t happy. As with other troubling aspects of wind development, it has commissioned a study to pilot an alternative model for democratic engagement: citizens’ juries. SAS sits on the stewarding board, and Graham Lang has been a witness for three different juries in different parts of Scotland.

The leader of the research Oliver Escobar is speaking at a public event shortly in Edinburgh which seeks to ‘reclaim local democracy’.

According to an industry publication ‘the wind industry in Scotland is single-mindedly focused on delivering every last ounce of onshore and offshore capacity before the Renewables Obligation goes dark in three years’ time’. As the pace of wind development hots up as never before, the Scottish Government is sitting on its hands. Commissioning studies, laudable as they are, looks like fiddling while Rome burns.

Meanwhile those directly affected are taking matters into their own hands. Various legal actions against wind farm consents are underway following in the trailblazing footsteps of Aileen Jackson, Christine Metcalfe, Sally Carroll, Donald Trump and Sustainable Shetland.

Communities are also rising up. Recently, SAS were at a public meeting of Dunkeld and Birnam Community Council where voters called their local MSP John Swinney to account over allowing their iconic area to be besieged by 10 new wind farm developments.

Swinney tried to hide behind the ministers’ code of conduct and to pretend we have a clear and robust planning system for wind, but residents who already have Griffin and Calliacher windfarms on their doorsteps were not convinced. As this newsletter goes topress, another unprecedented communities’ meeting has been called to resist wind development in the Angus Glens.

The Scottish Government should be in no doubt that community councils the length and breadth of Scotland will be following Dumfries & Galloway’s lead. The cries of ‘Enough isenough!’ and ‘We can’t cope’ are growing. Paid employees in the Scottish Government, local authorities, SNH, SEPA and other official agencies cannot say so publicly but we know many agree.

LINDA HOLT is press officer for Scotland Against Spin

Noise Makes People Fat! Where are the Earplugs? LOL!

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Noise makes you Fat!

Posted on 27/06/2014

planes over londonForget the sugar folks. Three in my tea please! A recent study has come out with the conclusion that Noise makes you fat. There is nearly a centimetre increase for every ten-decibel rise in the noise levels. Is that why the most obese people live in cities? And I thought it was Big Macs and daytime television! Seriously though this study from Imperial College, London, does raise serious concerns, not lost on those suffering noise ‘pollution’ from wind turbines. Although the target of this study is urban, there is a fundamental difference in that the background noise from wind turbines issues is usually very low. That suggests that the often lower figures from  wind farms are as debilitating as those higher, 50-60 decibels, experienced in cities and around airports. There was another radio program recently that identified the fact that neurones are the bodies receptors to noise. In many circumstances they can blanket the noise after a short while as the body adapts to it’s environment. Walk into a noisy room and you can’t here what anyone is saying but after a few minutes we adapt and can hold a conversation. This adaption though can increase our stress levels and tire us more quickly. Just because we adapt to the noise does not mean it is not affecting our bodies. The School of Public Health at Imperial College London found that being exposed to higher levels of aircraft noise around Heathrow raised the risk of admission to hospital for heart disease by 20 percent, and yet people think they have learnt to live with it. We have variances with families with one partner badly affected and the other oblivious to any noise. What we should be asking is, are the impacts on health the same or different. We might find the answer is disturbing. So far the BMA, which has just moved it’s investments from fossil fuel to renewables, and the Government have chosen not to properly fund research into these issues. As well as the more obvious noise we have to address those low frequency, low level infrasound which has been known for years can have serious impacts on the human body. That is why they were used as a form of torture. What is unsettling is that noise pollution can affect you without you even consciously hearing it. Changes in noise, change of wind direction, a turbine starting may not wake us but our natural instincts, back from Stone Age man, causes the heart rate to increase, the blood to thicken and induces stress. Our fight or flight reaction to danger. I think a noticeable question on why you can live with a baby crying; most women would tell you even that has limits; the loud music of a disco or the health debilitating issue of wind farms can be identified as “nuisance noise” – you don’t seek it out or enjoy it. Now the question you all want answered. Can I blame the wind turbine noise on my expanding waistline? Last month, scientists from Karolinska University found an even more dramatic effect from plane noise. After tracking more than 5 000 people for ten years, they reported that the waistlines of those most exposed to plane noise increased on average by 6cm. Well over the last ten years it would be difficult to blame that on the noise but what is a fact is that stress induces comfort eating. A piece of chocolate makes you feel better ( a bar makes you feel sick!). So on that report I would suggest a certain caution. But hey, if the excuse works for you! What is pretty obvious though is that noise that causes sleep deprivation, also causes health issues. The decibel levels linked to health problems such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes and risk of hypertension don’t seem too high but do affect heart rate and stress, especially when intermittent, as experienced from Turbines.  Many turbine related health issues are stress related and dismissed by the industry as psychosomatic.  What we never chose was to have wind farms foisted upon us so the issue of “nuisance noise” is exceedingly relevant.

At this time the health implications of noise, be they psychosomatic or not, are not adequately addressed in planning. The industry statement that no proof of health issues exists is patently inaccurate and out of date. The first report on health implication goes back to a US study in 1987 and various peer reviewed studies have been released since them. Why do the politicians, councillors, planners and many in the Medial profession adopt such an ostrich like demeanour.  One day this may well bite them on the backside with numerous class actions for literally billions of pounds in damages because they never followed the precautionary principle! Perhaps one day soon those no win no fee adverts on TV will be all about “Are you affected by a Wind Farm?” Phone us and collect £zillions.

Wind Turbine Protesters in the UK, Were Able to Stop the Project! Yaaayyyyy!!

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DEVELOPER DROPS WINDFARM PLANS AFTER PROTEST CAMPAIGN

By Jenny Barwise

Last updated at 14:16, Thursday, 26 June 2014

People power has triumphed for hundreds of objectors against a windfarm development, as the company behind the scheme pulled its appeal at the eleventh hour.

Weddicar photo

Weddicar site

Plans for the £17 million Weddicar Rigg windfarm, near Whitehaven, were revealed three years ago.

Since then a fierce battle has raged between protesters and the developers, Banks Renewables.

Six hundred people lodged objections against the scheme, earmarked for land between Moresby Parks and Frizington, and it looked as though they had won as Copeland councillors threw the plans out on the grounds of negative visual impact.

The company lodged an appeal but after a six-day inquiry, the Secretary of State upheld Copeland’s decision.

Banks Renewables carried on its fight saying it would take the case to the High Court in London to appeal the grounds of the process, and a date was set for a hearing this month.

The Durham-based company has now made a U-turn and has withdrawn its challenge with “immediate effect”.

Phil Dyke, development director at Banks Renewables, said he still believed there was a “strong case” to put before the High Court, but that in the present political climate was “unlikely” to get a satisfactory outcome for the project as a whole.

The news has been welcomed by those who resisted the development.

Moresby councillor Geoff Blackwell, said he was pleased that Banks have “at last accepted” that the earmarked land was not the “right location”.

“I would like to thank all those people who had taken the time to respond in writing to the planning department and turn up at the planning panel and planning inquiry to put their views forward,” added Mr Blackwell.

“I feel that the right decision has at last been accepted.”

David Colborn, chair of Friends of Rural Cumbria’s Environment, said: “The voice of local people has for too long been ignored by the developers of both windfarms and single turbines.

“They have a history of riding roughshod over local opinion and have attempted to justify their schemes with the promise of ‘community funds’.

“The reality is that no amount of money can compensate for the misery that is caused to people living near turbines, let alone the devaluation of their properties.”

Mr Dyke said that Banks Renewables would look at ways in the future to bring the “very well-designed” and “sensibly-located” scheme forward again.

First published at 14:13, Thursday, 26 June 2014
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co

We are Wasting Precious Time and Money on Faux-Green Renewables!

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June 27, 2014

Photovoltaic Energy Is Not Renewable Energy

By David Archibald

Photovoltaic (PV) power is created from a burst of coal-sourced energy priced at 4 cents/kWh, which you get back as an intermittent and declining dribble over the following 20 years at 15 cents/kWh.  The numbers vary with location, but the basic relationship remains the same – at best, the energy produced by PV panels is at least four times the cost of the power consumed in making them.

That is one thing.  The main thing is that over their lifetimes, PV panels now produce slightly more energy than what it took to make them.

So a civilization that relies upon PV power is just getting its energy back, but at four times the cost.  If PV power were used only to make PV panels, and even assuming no energy losses in the process, then PV power at 15 cents/kWh would produce panels that made power at 60 cents per kWh, and so on to infinity.  So there is nothing renewable about PV power.

There are some applications in PV power is very useful, such as pumping irrigation water, in which the requirement is too small to justify a diesel pump or the cost of extending grid power to the site.  In fact, PV power is well under the cost of power from diesel – you just can’t access it at a time of your choosing.  It also has a role where high-priced grid power and reticulation costs make it competitive.  But it can’t pretend to be renewable or sustainable.  Apart from those niche applications, it bleeds energy and treasure from our civilisation.

The economics of wind power might be a net positive, but a wind-powered economy would have a standard of living similar to that of 17th-century Holland.  One rule of thumb is that each megawatt of wind power used in the grid requires half a megawatt of gas turbine backup.  That is why some of the major oil companies have been so much in favor of renewable energy.  It tricks us into burning a higher-cost fossil fuel.

Making cheap energy from a process requires that the energy produced from that process be at least five times the amount of energy that went into making it.  Anything less than that, and civilization will go backward very rapidly.  Instead of mandating renewable energy and installing PV panels, we should be concentrating on developing the technology that will sustain civilization in the post-fossil fuel eternity.

In that regard, we have a choice: either plutonium breeder reactors or thorium breeder reactors.  We should make the choice and get on with it.

David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).

We’ve all Had to Deal With These Kind of People, from Time to Time!

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Fifteen Things You Probably Do Not Know about Psychopaths

By James G. Long

Have you ever worked for someone who you seriously thought might be crazy?  About half of all workers have such an experience within a lifetime.  The other half misses out on one of life’s most perplexing and educational opportunities.

The subject is psychopathy.  Knowledge and understanding of psychopathy is now advancing, and at an accelerating rate, after a decades-long period of no growth and slow growth.  Good thing!  Psychopathy is the very worst mental disorder; psychopathy and related conditions have cost millions of lives lost and trillions of dollars wasted, though it is still very poorly understood by most people.  I am now speaking not as a medical or psychological professional, but as a professional project engineering manager who has been faced with numerous severe personnel and management problems not addressed in engineering or business school.

Psychopathy is without a doubt the most destructive, the most deadly, and the least comprehensible of mental disorders.  So, to promote understanding of psychopathy, the following points are offered:

  1. Briefly – A psychopath is a person with a very nasty personality who builds a more attractive and very fake personality to cover his frauds, transgressions, and, sometimes, murders.  A representative sample of people psychologically assessed as psychopaths includes Casey Anthony, who allegedly killed her daughter; John Wayne Gacy, who murdered and sodomized thirty-three young men and who was executed; and Jeff Skilling, who was CEO of Enron when it was destroyed in the largest corporate fraud case in history, and who is now in prison.  Andrew Lobaczewski was a psychologist in Poland during the Cold War who identified Stalin as a psychopath.
  1. Rational – Psychopaths are quite rational.  Psychopaths’ minds work no better and no worse than yours, except that psychopaths have a big void where most people have a conscience and moral values.  In a family setting, a psychopath typically abuses the spouse and children and is respected and is even well thought of by outsiders.  In a working environment, psychopaths choose their victims from lower-ranking individuals and take care to act properly around higher-ranking individuals.  In national and international relations, psychopaths create and exploit divisions based on ethnic, religious, national, or class differences.\

    On first being exposed to a psychopath, a person may be quite favorably impressed.Odd things then begin to happen.Subordinates soon observe incomprehensible behaviors, including pathological dishonesty, and begin to think that the psychopath is “crazy” – or, more technically, he is psychotic.But a psychopath is not psychotic.Psychopathy is a personality disorder, and psychopaths at their worst may start wars or create worldwide financial disasters.Psychopaths are substantially or totally devoid of human feelings: no sympathy, no empathy, no guilt, no remorse, no conscience, and no sense of humor.

    Psychopaths are quite predatory.Not only are psychopaths without human feelings, but they are, deep down, contemptuous of all with whom they deal: superiors, subordinates, supporters, opponents, associates, and family alike.Psychopaths genuinely think that they are better and smarter than everyone else, an impression that psychopath enablers fully endorse (think Chris Matthews or the German General Staff during WWII).

  1. Mental Disorders – The primary indicators for psychopathy are anti-social personality disorder and malignant narcissism personality disorder, plus tendencies toward criminal behaviors and an inability to establish mature sexual relationships.  These mental disorders are recognized in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), though the DSM and the criteria for these mental disorders have been through many revisions as knowledge develops and fashions change.
  1. Measurement – Formal measurement of psychopathy is performed by a trained professional using Dr. Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Check List – Revised (PCL-R), consisting of twenty-one items such as pathological dishonesty, parasitic lifestyle, and irresponsibility.  Not all of the items are required to assess a psychopathic condition.  Neurological exams may be used to confirm damage or defect in the brain.  Electroencephalograms (EEGs), functional Magnetic Resonant Imaging (fMRI), and Computerized Axial Tomography scans (CAT scans) are highly effective in confirming neurological abnormalities; Dr. Hare has done much original research in this area to confirm diagnoses of psychopathy.  On a macro scale, psychopaths are inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt, much like the Soviet Union.  Psychopathy is thought to be incurable at this time.
  1. Control – Psychopaths want to control you – physically, emotionally, sexually, financially, and politically.  Psychopaths want to control your soft drinks, your ability to defend yourself, your health care, and your life.
  1. Occurrence – Psychopaths are thought to be about one percent of the population.  Dr. Hare has noted that the occurrence of corporate psychopaths ranges up to four percent of corporate executives; psychopaths with the proper schooling and qualifications are attracted to positions of wealth and power, and they manipulate themselves into positions of responsibility and authority.
  1. Masks – There are few overt characteristics to distinguish a psychopath from the general population, within which the psychopath can easily blend.  Dr. Cleckley’s 1941 book, which first described clinical psychopathy, was entitled The Mask of Sanity.  The “mask” to which Dr. Cleckley referred takes different forms.  Ted Bundy wore fake bandages and fake arm and leg casts to attract sympathetic young women, whom he subsequently murdered.  Corporate psychopaths typically collect and ostentatiously display degrees, certifications, and awards as proof of their abilities while committing their often subtle frauds.  Jeff Skilling at Enron in particular had a rock-solid resume, including an MBA from Harvard and a partnership in McKinsey and Company, a premier business consultancy company.  Skilling is now in prison for the greatest case of corporate fraud in history, with thousands of careers disrupted and billions of dollars of corporate value lost.
  1. Causes – Neurological defect or injury is often associated with psychopathy, though some cases have no known causative factors.  Cases have been reported of identical twins, one psychopathic, the other not.  Stalin, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein exhibited traits common to psychopaths, and each had been subject to abusive or neglectful parenting, possibly resulting in psychological damage.  There is another possible factor relating to an outsider status.  Napoleon was not French, but Corsican.  Lenin was not Russian, but Kalmyk and Turkic.  Stalin was not Russian, but Georgian.  And Hitler was not German, but Austrian.
  1. Flavors – By far, most psychopaths operate on a family and community level, destroying family relationships, committing crimes and misdemeanors, and rotating in and out of mental hospitals, jails, and prisons, and then back into the community.  But many psychopaths tend to come in other distinct flavors depending on their personalities.  Serial-murder psychopaths and corporate psychopaths were previously mentioned.  Other flavors include military, religious, financial, and political psychopaths.  Dr. Clive Boddy made a convincing argument that the 2008 financial meltdown was the product of financial and political psychopaths.

    The rarest of psychopathic types is the intellectual psychopath.Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, and Cloward-Piven come to mind.   Both Marx and Alinsky displayed psychopathic traits and inspired other psychopaths to infiltrate and sometimes forcibly seize governments, followed by characteristic psychopathic inefficiency, incompetence, and corruption in the administration of the state.

  1. Psychopath Enablers and Supporters – Family and local psychopath enablers are well-identified and can be researched on the internet.  Political psychopath enablers were institutionalized by Antonio Gramsci in his concept of “Corporate Communism,” wherein Marxists were to infiltrate and take over cultural institutions: academia, media, legal, courts, and political parties.
  1. Creativity – Creative psychopaths are often audacious and leave people surprised and off balance, as when Hitler invaded the Sudetenland or when Putin invaded Crimea.  Corporate psychopaths are often credited with being creative even as their organizations suffer massive personnel turnover and financial loss.
  1. Tough Reputation – Beyond the items on Dr. Hare’s PCL-R, psychopaths cultivate a reputation for toughness, but that does not mean that they get good results.  In reality, they are just very nasty personalities who abuse subordinates and may commit crimes.  Rahm Emanuel (now failing as mayor of Chicago) and Rod Blagojevich (now in prison) fall in this category.
  1. Recognizing Psychopathy – Many psychologists have different interpretations of conditions similar to psychopathy.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are virtually the only institutions that unequivocally accept and utilize Dr. Hare’s findings on psychopathy in solving crimes and profiling criminals and criminal psychopaths.  The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) specifically recognizes the “bully boss” but ignores the “psychopathic boss.”  By whatever label, the two designations are indistinguishable for personnel turnover, financial losses, and criminal behaviors.
  1. Failure – In practical terms, psychopaths always fail, and psychopathic failure creates misery for families, communities, and nations.  Political psychopaths and their systems fail in the manner that the Soviet Union failed, leaving massive social and economic costs for their supporters and for their opponents.  This is exactly what one might expect from the world’s most severe mental disorder.  Long-running psychopathic systems such as militant Islam and Marxism typically endure periods of success alternating with failure, during which massive social and economic losses are endured by everyone, supporters and opponents alike.
  1. Ending Psychopathic Expression – Dr. Hare and associates are increasingly capable of identifying a psychopath at an early age.  Many conditions are medically or legally sanctioned (eyeglasses may be required for a driver’s license), and psychopathy should be in this category, with psychopaths limited in their opportunities to control others.  The Tyee had a novel but quite workable approach to corporate psychopathy: require all corporate executives to have performance insurance, with denial of insurance to those who cannot pass a psychopathy screening exam.  Internationally, the best strategy appears to be to contain psychopathic states and let them die of their own corruption, as the Soviet Union did.

Psychopathy is a common and extremely destructive mental disorder that afflicts not only the psychopath, but whole communities, nations, and the world.  We now have the tools to identify and mitigate psychopathy, if we can develop the will to do so.

James G. Long has been an army captain, a professional engineer, an author, and a blogger, with a lifelong interest in organizational management problems.  

Aussies to Scrap the Carbon Tax, next it’s the Renewable Energy Targets!

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PM’s Top Advisor – Maurice Newman – Hammers Palmer’s “Inconsistent” RET Plan

June 27, 2014 by  2 Comments

the_sting_3_newman_redford

As the dust settles on the Palmer/Gore circus of the bizarre, it’s now evident that the PUP’s leader has pulled one the greatest confidence tricks since Paul Newman and Robert Redford joined forces in “The Sting”. As the hard-green-left stared in awe at their grand warming alarmist, Palmer slipped through the net unnoticed.

It was a good 24 hours before the green-lefty press (Fairfax/ABC) and the Greens worked out that they’d been had. The play was a good ol’ fashioned “swithcheroo”. Clive put forward an ETS with the impression – sucked up by the Greens and their acolytes – that this was a die-in-a-ditch condition for supporting the Coalition’s plan to abolish the carbon tax. So far, so “green”.

But – as with most politics – the Devil’s in the detail. With the price for a tonne of CO2 under Clive’s ETS set at zero until all of Australia’s major trading partners also sign up to an international ETS, there will be NO price placed on CO2 at all: not now; not ever. Good one, Clive. To the horror of the Greens, it soon became clear that even that “policy” was a rubbery as Clive’s ample figure.

By lunchtime on Thursday, big Clive had dropped his demand to have his ETS replace the “carbon” tax, when repealed. The “carbon” tax will hit the legislative scrapheap within weeks – without a whimper; to be replaced by nothing: the “Sting”, complete.

There is, however, the small matter of the mandatory RET – which – as covered in detail in our last post – Palmer seems keen to support – at least for the moment.

The mandatory RET will see power prices double again between now and 2020, when the target hits the full annual 41,000 GWh target. The risk to the economy is something we’ve been banging on about for some time now. And it’s a matter not lost on the PM, Tony Abbott’s top business advisor, Maurice Newman – among others.

Here’s The Australian on the risk to real businesses in maintaining the mandatory RET.

Palmer’s RET policy ‘too costly for businesses’
The Australian
Annabel Hepworth
27 June 2014

THE head of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council has warned the Palmer United Party’s plan to retain key climate-change policies is at odds with getting electricity prices down and boosting industry competitiveness.

In the wake of Clive Palmer’s move to back the repeal of Labor’s carbon price, Maurice Newman said the carbon tax repeal should lower costs on businesses and households. “But it’s only part of the story,” he said, arguing that “we need to go a lot, lot further”.

He criticised the plan to oppose any changes to the renewable energy target before 2016 and to block the government’s plans to scrap Labor’s $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Climate Change Authority.

“Mr Palmer seems to want to hang on to them, which seems totally inconsistent with this idea of bringing down the price of energy,” Mr Newman said.

Australia needed to reduce its energy prices. “Australia is getting less and less competitive … We’ve got a very high wage structure and we’ve got very high energy costs.”

Other leading business figures lined up to back the warning on the RET, which is being reviewed by an expert panel headed by businessman Dick Warburton.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Kate Carnell said it was “enormously expensive”.

EnergyAustralia chairman Graham Bradley said it was “a very good thing” the carbon tax was likely to go swiftly, but that the RET should be changed to a “real” 20 per cent.

Executives at EnergyAustralia, which owns the Yallourn brown coal power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, estimated that ­delivering the required investment in renewables to meet the target would require a fivefold increase on past investment.

“We don’t believe this is achievable without driving up the cost of renewable energy,” group executive manager of strategy and corporate affairs Clare Savage said.

Mr Palmer’s single condition for his support for the carbon tax repeal is a legal requirement that power companies pass savings from scrapping the tax to households. This would go beyond government plans to give the competition watchdog extra monitoring arrangements in the carbon tax repeal.

Energy Supply Association chief executive Matthew Warren said: “It is not clear to us what other head of power the commonwealth could use, as regulating energy prices is a matter for state governments,” Mr Warren said.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox raised concerns most businesses had been unable to pass carbon costs to their customers.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission should “not expect reductions in prices for those goods and services that never rose in the first place”.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said he was confident that when the carbon tax repeal passed the savings would be passed on.
The Australian

A while back, Maurice Newman identified the mandatory RET as the Elephant in the room – tagging it as being responsible for the demise of motor manufacturer, Ford and lots of other energy intensive businesses (see our posts here and here and here).

The mandatory RET must go. As retiring Queensland Senator, Ron Boswell put it: “We can have a carbon price and renewable energy targets or viable manufacturing. We can’t have both” (see our post here).

maurice-newman

 

Excellent Open Letter to B.M.A., by Christine Metcalfe.

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Open letter to President of BMA

Credit:  Christine Metcalfe, 21.06.14. ~~

 

Dear Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran,

Although a very short time has elapsed since receipt of the last BMA reply on behalf of Mr. Bourne, it has been spent in serious thought and deep discussion with colleagues. Revisiting all reports and past research has made it possible here to give only a ‘tip of the iceberg/snapshot’ overview of these rapidly burgeoning problems. Please be aware that this final request is therefore made not only on behalf of the rising numbers of people suffering harm, but the many destined to join them should nothing be done to avert this. Health professionals, technical expects, engineers and others strive to have the implications of their valid findings fully understood by more of their peers and most importantly, the public.

This is why the decision was made to write to you as President of the BMA, to ensure your organisation’s attention is focused on an increasingly important health subject – namely the adverse health effects from exposure to operating wind turbines. I am referring specifically to wind turbine noise which includes infrasound and low frequency noise, which are not currently measured by the current noise pollution guidelines and regulations in the UK, (ETSU 97) despite wind industry knowledge since the 1980’s resulting from the NASA/Kelley research in the USA that wind turbine impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise directly caused a range of “annoyance” symptoms including sleep disturbance.

Responses received from your organisation’s Public Affairs Officer, reportedly from your CEO, appear to be using various pretexts to avoid both addressing this issue, and answering my specific questions. It will hopefully be understood that no offence to staff who have replied as instructed, is intended. With respect, it remains the case that, to my knowledge, neither your CEO nor your public affairs officer have medical degrees, and therefore are not bound by the medical codes of ethics which include the proviso to “first do no harm”.

The current widespread practice in the UK of continuing to ignore this issue is doing immense harm to the health of an increasing number of rural residents. Urban areas will become involved if current separation distances (only advised)remain and developments are installed near larger populations.

Despite the fact that no motions are currently on the table for your ARM, deliberately ignoring the issues I am raising demonstrates an alarming attempt by your organisation’s paid employees to evade a responsibility incumbent upon your organisation’s stated remit to inform members. It is clear that the BMA have a duty midway between resistance to political agendas which could interfere with their remit, and the clear requirements set out in their constitution.

No organisation with total inflexibility within rules when an obvious need for relaxation arises, can avoid working against the best interests of its members and ultimately in this case, the public they serve. So to avoid the BMA becoming part of the problem instead of actively participating in finding a solution, it is hoped that a route will be found to allow this subject to be raised at the coming meeting.

Given that your particular field of speciality is Obstetrics & Gynaecology, the reported effects from wind turbine noise of severe physiological stress and sleep deprivation should be of concern, as the consequences of both severe chronic stress and severe chronic sleep deprivation are well known to adversely affect both human fertility, and the health of women and babies during pregnancy and therefore foetal birth and health outcomes.

The recent report of miscarriages, stillbirths and birth deformities in mink in Denmark correlating directly with the start up of operation of four large VESTAS V 112 wind turbines in close proximity, provides clear evidence of adverse animal health impacts from wind turbine noise which have direct relevance for human populations. This information was included in material previously forwarded to the BMA and adds weight to the warnings given relating to human groups’ vulnerability from being forced to live in proximity to wind turbines.

In addition there are reports of disturbed fertility and menstrual cycles in women living near wind turbines in Denmark, Canada and Australia from both residents and health professionals.

Just some of the health professionals, including particularly medical practitioners, and acoustic experts and researchers who have firsthand knowledge of the severity of the reported health problems who are calling for urgent multidisciplinary research in this area include:

Professor Bob McMurtry, Dr Roy Jeffery, Associate Professor Jeff Aramini, Carmen Krogh and Mr William Palmer from Canada; Dr Alan Watts, Dr Wayne Spring, Dr David Iser, Dr Gary Hopkins, Dr Andja Mitric Andjic, Dr Sarah Laurie, Mr Les Huson, Mr Steven Cooper, Emeritus Professor Colin Hansen and Dr Bob Thorne from Australia; and Associate Professor Rick James, Mr Rob Rand, Mr Stephen Ambrose, Emeritus Professor Jerry Punch, Dr Jay Tibbetts, Dr Sandy Reider, Dr Nina Pierpont, Dr David Lawrence, Dr Paul Schomer, Mr George Hessler, and Dr Bruce Walker from the USA. There are others from Europe who are also becoming increasingly vocal on this issue as wind turbines increase in size and are being placed close to larger human populations.

I therefore ask that the UK BMA publicly resolve to support multidisciplinary independent research, such as the government in Australia has committed to do, and which other jurisdictions have commenced and which in some instances have completed, confirming wind turbine noise associated sleep deprivation, and inner ear problems, including the Ministry for the Environment in Ontario. These are issues which have been shamefully ignored by many UK authorities and medical practitioners to date.

As your Constitution confirms, human rights issues are a BMA concern, this being so, I refer you to pages 22–26 of the document “Leave no Marks” by the Physicians for Human Rights, where the clinical consequences and the legal precedents relating to torture from sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment from noise and light are clearly elucidated. Torture is clearly a human rights issue, so too sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment. This is precisely what many rural residents living near wind turbines in the UK are experiencing and have been reporting since Dr Amanda Harry’s survey, conducted in 2003.

I refer you specifically to Part 1 and Article 1 of the UN Convention against torture …

Article 1.

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

So, it could be successfully argued that a form of torture is being intentionally inflicted, because public officials have been told about it repeatedly and yet they are doing absolutely nothing to address the situation or prevent the known and established harm to human health. Should the defence be that this is not intentional, then it is at the very least gross negligence and dereliction of their statutory duty of care, or perhaps “wilful blindness”.

This distressing situation has resulted from the failure of many government public officials including those working in the respective government departments, e.g. DEFRA, DECC, local health environmental health officers, and medical practitioners working for the NHS to deal properly with this issue, despite being made well aware of the severity of the health problems, and the chronic sleep deprivation from wind turbine noise. Despite its resultant serious, known and predictable adverse health effects, these public officials have done nothing to address the root cause of the problems – wind turbine noise pollution – or to stop the cause of the sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation alone is itself acknowledged to be a form of torture and is described as such by the rural residents who are so badly affected.

The Adverse Health Impacts from IWT’s attachment included in past exchanges included direct reports from those citizens affected and this is again included for your attention. The Davis case is referenced. That made it clear that noise nuisance was occurring for that UK family, and the fact that the developer settled rather than having the case heard to completion in the UK High Court confirms that view. Unfortunately the Davis family are unable to speak of their experiences – they have been silenced with a broad non disclosure clause. Use of such clauses has been reported in the UK, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and Australia and indicates the wind industry has much to hide.

The BMJ editorial in 2012 (over 2 years ago) raised wind turbine noise related sleep disturbance as an issue requiring attention. It is an entirely reasonable request that the BMA itself addresses the issue via its most senior officer bearers, and does not choose to continue to ignore it.

To add further to the ground base of information possibly not yet seen I have attached the Salt and Lichtenhan article describing how wind turbine noise affects people. The advice to acousticians extract below (my emphasis) is particularly relevant.

The primary role of acousticians should be to protect and serve society from negative influences of noise exposure. In the case of wind turbine noise, it appears that many have been failing in that role. For years, they have sheltered behind the mantra, now shown to be false, that has been presented repeatedly in many forms such as: “What you can’t hear, can’t affect you.”; “If you cannot hear a sound you cannot perceive it in other ways and it does not affect you.”; “Infrasound from wind turbines is below the audible threshold and of no consequence.”; “Infrasound is negligible from this type of turbine.”; “I can state categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.” All of these statements assume that hearing, derived from low-frequency-insensitive IHC responses, is the only mechanism by which low frequency sound can affect the body.We know this assumption is false and blame its origin on a lack of detailed understanding of the physiology of the ear.

The WHO 2009 Night Noise Guidelines for Europe about the effects of chronic severe sleep disturbance are a particularly important and relevant source of information, e.g.

2.1.2 DEFINITIONS OF DISTURBED SLEEP.

Sleep disorders are described and classified in the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD) (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2005).

When sleep is permanently disturbed and becomes a sleep disorder, it is classified in the ICSD 2005 as “environmental sleep disorder”. Environmental sleep disorder (of which noise-induced sleep disturbance is an example) is a sleep disturbance due to a disturbing environmental factor that causes a complaint of either insomnia or daytime fatigue and somnolence. Secondary deficits may result, including deficits in concentration, attention and cognitive performance, reduced vigilance, daytime fatigue, malaise, depressed mood and irritability.

The attached letter to the AMA from Bruce Rapley BSc, MPhil, PhD, Principal Consultant, Acoustics and Human Health, relates audibility and infrasound effects from turbines and clearly summarises the known science and the consequences of ignoring what is known.

I am asking you personally to consider that by their example, those members of the United Kingdom medical fraternity who have acted according to their Hippocratic oaths – to name but a few, Dr Bridgit Osborne, Dr Amanda Harry, Dr Christopher Hanning, Mr A Farboud, Mr R Crunkhorn and Mr A Trinidade, together with Professor Alun Evans and Dr Colette Bonner from Ireland, have blazed a trail of which the UK Medical Profession can be rightly proud.

However, there is now an ethical responsibility for the current BMA office bearers to support much broader discussion of the subject regardless of current and past government policy, in order to prevent further “irreparable harm to physical and psychological health” as described in theFalmouth USA case where in December 2013 Justice Muse ordered an immediate injunction for wind turbines to be turned off at night, so people whose health had already been badly damaged on the basis of evidence presented to him, could sleep.

There is also an urgent need for the BMA to openly support multidisciplinary research together with the development and enforcement of health protective wind turbine noise pollution regulations and planning regulations in the UK. The current planning regulations and wind turbine noise guidelines in the UK are operating as a “licence to harm” UK rural residents. I am sure you will agree that this is unacceptable.

Finally, I am again presenting below for your attention and response, the questions which I request that your organisation answers.

Apologies are due for the length of this letter, but the importance and breadth of the subject matter defied my best attempts to reduce contents.

With thanks for your kind attention.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. V.C.K. Metcalfe.

Questions.

1. Do you accept the evidence that sleep deprivation from wind turbine noise is occurring, and that sleep deprivation is extremely serious and health damaging? You will have presumably have seen Prof Alun Evan’s recent review and also the Arra and Lynn review, by two public health physicians in Canada which supported the concerns expressed in 2012 about wind turbine noise by Dr Chris Hanning and Professor Alun Evans published in the BMJ – your own journal.

2. Would you support turning wind turbines off at night if there are noise complaints, so that people can sleep?

3. Would you support conducting urgent multidisciplinary research involving full spectrum acoustic monitoring inside homes, and concurrent physiological monitoring of EEG, heart rate, blood pressure and sequential cortisol in those people who are reporting adverse health effects?

4. Has the BMA or any of its members ever received any money or gifts, either directly or indirectly from the wind industry? There are reports that some surgeries have been refurbished via “community grants” from wind developers.

5. As has been previously requested, what is your complaints procedure?

[Click here to read follow-up letter.]