‘The wind-farm business is bloody well near a pedophile ring. They’re fucking our families and knowingly doing so.’

Waterloo felt like a ghost town: shuttered houses and a dust-blown aura of sinister unease, as in a horror movie when something dreadful has happened to a previously ordinary, happy settlement and at first you’re not sure what. Then you look up on to the horizon and see them, turning slowly in the breeze . . .”

—James Delingpole, The Australian (5/3/12)

One of the great popular misconceptions about climate-change sceptics such as Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, Cardinal George Pell and me is that we’re all Big-Oil-funded, Gaia-ravaging, nature-hating emissaries of Satan. We can’t look at a lovely pristine beach, apparently, without praying for a nice, juicy oil slick to turn up and wipe out all the pelicans and turtles and sea otters.

But this isn’t actually true. I love our beautiful planet at least as much as your $180,000-a-year (for a three-day week) climate commissioner Tim Flannery does. One of my great heroes is Patrick Moore, the Canadian co-founder of Greenpeace with whose sensible, rational approach to environmental issues I agree 100 per cent. Another of my heroes, after an article headlined “Where eagles dare not fly” in The Weekend Australian on April 21, is this newspaper’s environment editor Graham Lloyd.

It took great courage for Lloyd to write up his expose of the tremendous damage being caused by a wind farm to a small community in Waterloo, north of Adelaide. Most newspaper environment editors — from Australia to Britain and the US — tend, unfortunately, to be so ideologically wedded to the supposed virtues of renewable energy they find it all but impossible to criticise it.

Lloyd interviewed a number of victims whose lives had been ruined by the vast, swooshing wind towers looking over their homes. They found sleep almost impossible; they couldn’t concentrate; they had night sweats, headaches, palpitations, heart trouble. Their chickens were laying eggs without yolks; their ewes were giving birth to deformed lambs; their once-active dogs spent their days staring blankly at the wall. The damage, it seems, is caused not so much by the noise you can hear but by what you can’t hear: the infrasonic waves that attack the balance mechanism in the ear and against which not even home insulation can defend you. Its effects can be felt more than 10km away.

Inspired by Lloyd’s article, I went to investigate and was heartbroken by what I found. Until you’ve seen what it can do to people, it’s easy to dismiss wind turbine syndrome as a hypochondriac’s charter or an urban myth. But it’s real all right. Waterloo felt like a ghost town: shuttered houses and a dust-blown aura of sinister unease, as in a horror movie when something dreadful has happened to a previously ordinary, happy settlement and at first you’re not sure what. Then you look up on to the horizon and see them, turning slowly in the breeze . . .

Even more shocking than this, though, were my discoveries about the finance arrangements and behaviour of the wind farm companies. What we have here, I believe, is the biggest and most outrageous public affairs scandal of the 21st century — one in which the Gillard government is implicated and that far exceeds in seriousness and scope of the Slipper or Thomson sideshows.

At the heart of this scandal are the union superannuation funds that are using the wind farm scam as a kind of government-endorsed Ponzi scheme to fill their coffers at public expense. One of the biggest wind farm developers — Pacific Hydro — is owned by the union superfund Members Equity Bank. To meet its carbon reduction quotas, we’re told, Australia needs to build about 10,000 new wind turbines like the ones that have destroyed Waterloo (and dozens of communities like it from NSW to South Australia).

The figures are mind-boggling. Each of those turbines will cost about $3 million, which means $30 billion even before you’ve started building the power lines. And where’s this money coming from? The consumer, of course — mostly via tariffs whacked on to the price of conventional, fossil-fuel energy prices, in the form of payouts called Renewable Energy Certificates.

Note that wind turbines produce very little power. Because wind is intermittent, they operate at between one-fifth and one-third of their capacity, meaning they are erratic, unreliable and have to be fully backed up by conventional “black” (mostly coal-fuelled) power. Where the money is to be made is through the REC subsidy. A 3MW wind turbine that generates (at most) $150,000 worth of electricity a year is eligible for guaranteed subsidies of $500,000 a year. A ridgeline hosting 20 or 30 turbines generates very little power — but an awful lot of free cash for those lucky enough to get their snouts in the trough.

If the unions were merely exploiting government environmental legislation to milk the taxpayer it would be bad enough: but what makes the wind farm scam so scandalous are the public health issues. Why aren’t we more aware of these? Because there have been cover-ups on an epic scale. The owners on whose land the turbines are built are subject to rigorous gagging orders (from law firms such as Julia Gillard’s ex-company, Slater & Gordon); tame experts are paid huge sums to testify that there are no health implications; inquiries are rigged; victims are rehoused and silenced with million-dollar payoffs. The global wind farm industry — a cash cow for everyone from Labor’s unions to the mafia — is so massive it can afford it.

Meanwhile the rest of us lose. Communities are divided, landscapes blighted, birds and bats sliced and diced, property values destroyed, lives ruined to deal with a “problem” — anthropogenic CO₂ causing “global warming” — which most current evidence tells us doesn’t even exist.

As a New South Wales sheep farmer fighting tooth and nail to stop a wind farm development near his beloved home told me the other day in trenchant style: “The wind-farm business is bloody well near a pedophile ring. They’re f . . king our families and knowingly doing so.”

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James Delingpole’s Killing the Earth to Save It (How Environmentalists are Ruining the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Jobs) is out now (Connor Court Publishing).

“The vibration through the wooden floors and intrusive noise inside our house drive me mad sometimes.”  Wind industry says it’s hysteria caused by the “irresponsible” Dr. Laurie.
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“Wind farms fan health fears”

—The Border Watch (5/1/12)

Penetrating migraines, sheer exhaustion due to a lack of sleep, a loss of balance and hypersensitivity to noise are some of the health problems residents in the picturesque hills of Cape Bridgewater are claiming the wind turbines on their doorsteps are causing.

Several households near the 29-turbine development have abandoned or are considering abandoning their homes.

Their message to residents opposing any wind farms, including Allendale East and the Woakwine Ridge, is clear: “You have reason to be worried. The wind turbines will impact on everyone living there and they destroy communities from pre-construction to commencement of operation and thereafter.”

Wind farm developers across Australia have consistently denied claims that wind turbines could cause health problems.

Tired of their claims being ignored and snubbed by wind farm developer Pacific Hydro, the Glenelg Shire Council, the State Planning Department and some members of the public, Cape Bridgewater residents Brian Kermond, Sonia Trist and Melyssa Ware have decided to speak out.

In an interview with The Border Watch, the three residents said their families had suffered enough.

In the lead up to 2008, before the turbines started turning, Mr Kermond was employed full-time in the construction process of the wind farm.

“If we only knew what we do now,” he said.

As soon as the 18 turbines—the closest 1.5km from his home—started spinning, he said life started to change inside his peaceful family stone home.

“From the day the turbines were switched on, our outside dog started scratching frantically on the doors and windows,” Mr Kermond said.

“He never bothered coming into the house, so this seemed strange and out of character.

“He lost muscle tone and seemed stressed and depressed and continually scratched at his ears until they bled.

Several visits to various veterinarians and blood tests were inconclusive until the dog eventually died in Mr Kermond’s arms.

Meanwhile, Mr Kermond and his family started to display unusual symptoms which they had never experienced before—difficulty sleeping, headaches, exhaustion, nausea, heart palpitations, confusion, speech problems, vertigo, pressure inside the ears and a lack of concentration.

By 2009, the symptoms had become so unbearable that the Kermonds made the difficult decision to abandon their beloved family home and move away.

“All we’re asking is that the turbines be switched off so we can move back into our home to resume our family life,” Mr Kermond said.

They were not the only ones who were displaying symptoms.

Ms Ware and Ms Trist and their families were plagued with health issues and are now also seriously considering abandoning their homes.

“The vibration through the wooden floors and intrusive noise inside our house drive me mad sometimes—at times my hearing is so affected that I can’t even bear the sound of ripping paper,” Ms Ware said.

“I’m concerned about long-term health effects and no one is prepared to scientifically or medically review what we’re experiencing here.

“I’m concerned that more turbines will be built close to people, and more people will become sick.

“Government departments, local council and health advisors have not responded to my questions and concerns in a way that reassures me.

“There are no policies in place to deal with complaints or concerns about the wind farm—the whole situation gets buried or ignored.”

Ms Trist lives with the nearest turbine about 620 metres from her home.

“I get so tired of experiencing and relating the problems,” she said.

“The fact is we get poor quality sleep and that creates many more problems—we insist that independent full spectrum noise and vibration surveys and analyses be done inside and outside our homes.”

At a recent forum in Mount Gambier chaired by senators Nick Xenophon and John Madigan, direction and assistance was offered to people dealing with wind turbine issues.

Meanwhile, the Legislative Council has agreed to a Liberal move for a multi-party investigation into the social, health and economic impacts of the burgeoning wind power industry in South Australia.

The Legislative Council Committee will investigate separation distances between wind turbines and homes, the social, health and economic impacts of wind generators and the need for a peer-reviewed, independent academic study into their effects.
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Lane Crockett

Editor’s note:  The following testimony was given by Lane Crockett of Pacific Hydro before the Australia Federal Senate:

In relation to possible health impacts of wind farms, while we recognise some people who are clearly distressed, Pacific Hydro relies on advice from reputable health bodies both in Australia and overseas. The consistent finding is there is no credible or peer reviewed evidence that wind farms can cause direct health problems. But we do take the claims of possible health effects very seriously. To better inform communities and ourselves, we have gone out and measured infrasound emissions from two of our wind farms as well as from other natural sources. The measurements show that the measured levels of infrasound are higher at the beach, they are higher in the city and they are higher near a gas-fired power station than from our wind farms.

Earlier I touched on the relationship that Pacific Hydro has with communities around its wind farms. What we note is a significant change in attitude towards wind farms since claims have been made about health problems. I refer to the statements made by the medical director of the Waubra Foundation, Dr Laurie, that if you live five or up to 10 kilometres from a wind farm you will likely become ill and you should wear a heart monitor. Dr Laurie recently advised the community of Portland that there is a link between early morning high blood pressure, heart attacks and the turbines at wind farms. Since these claims were made, Pacific Hydro has received several calls from worried residents nearby our wind farm asking if they are likely to become ill. We note that in recent community consultations a number of residents showed considerable anxiety about a wind farm being built in their area. The anxiety was so acute that it was difficult to have a rational discussion about the proposed wind farm. In our opinion, Dr Laurie’s actions are irresponsible and create unnecessary fear and anxiety in communities.”

—Calvin Luther Martin, PhD

At least a good many Danes now say this, according to Danish sources not affiliated with the wind industry.  Which is a revelation to those of us in North America and Australia who are constantly reassured by wind turbine salesmen that, “Danes have lived with turbines pin-cushioning their country for years, and they love ’em!”

Bullshit!  Read the following articles.  They are clumsy translations from Danish into English—translated by Google Translate, a fine tool yet far from perfect.  Imperfect, but damn good.  Good enough to understand the point of the article.

The articles are from the website of The (Danish) National Association of Infrasound.  Wow!  I spent hours surfing the site, with Google Translate as my guide.  Impressive!

Turns out Danes are pissed off about infrasound-caused illness, not just from wind turbines but all sorts of industrial and commercial sources!  That’s what the site is all about.  Reading the articles, you realize Wind Turbine Syndrome is endemic in Denmark, though not necessarily triggered by wind turbines; numerous forms of machinery cause the same illness.  (There should be nothing surprising in this, of course—except, somehow, it’s a surprise.)

Although Danes are aware of ILFN Disease—Infrasound/Low Frequency Noise Disease—and mad as hell about it, they don’t seem to know much about the mechanisms whereby infrasound creates disease.  That is, they don’t know much about the pathophysiology of infrasound.  This is where Pierpont’s book comes in.  Pierpont explains at least one mechanism for ILFN Disease:  via the vestibular system of the inner ear.  Dr. Alec Salt at the Washington University School of Medicine has demonstrated a role for the cochlea, as well.

In any case, begin with this article, “Holy Cow Rotary!”

The text beneath the photo translates as follows:  “A low wind noise.  The Environmental Protection Agency has finally realized that the rules on noise from wind turbines don’t always protect the neighbors from annoying low frequency noise.  Yet there is no prospect of a quieter indoors with the new law, which is imminent.  [The sad fact is] the strategic and commercial interests are too large.”  An oblique reference to Vestas, Denmark’s giant wind turbine manufacturer of, now, giant wind turbines.

The text immediately to the right begins with “Hellige roterende køer.”  Google tells me this translates as “Holy Cow Rotary!”  (Hmm.  Even if Google’s slightly off, it’s appropriate, no?)

You can access the article by opening the Nat. Assoc. of Infrasound site and scrolling down till you get to the article circled in black, below.

Here it is in English translation, starting midway through the article.  (Remember, it’s a crappy translation, but you get the gist of what’s going on.)

From house and home

One of the people on your own body really felt what it’s like to live in the middle of it, Ditlev Engel calls a “full-scale laboratory” is Joan Rafn.  She is shocked by the Vestas CEO’s vocabulary. But on the other hand, he’s very accurate, she says.

“It corresponds to what we are experiencing. We will be seen as nothing more than guinea pigs,” she says.

For over half a year she was with her husband and daughter next door to eight of the 3 MW Vestas turbines Ditlev Engel mentions in his letter.  Turbines began to spin in mid-December 2010 in a cluster in a field outside the village Ådum by Tarm in West Jutland.  The nearest is only 553 meters from Joan Rafn’s room.  First August 2011 she gave up and the rest of the family to stay, and they moved away from the area, resignedly an empty, unsold house, as they are now starting to empty, trailerlæs after trailerlæs.

“It is no exaggeration to say that we have been chased from our homes by the windmills.  But eventually we had no other choice.  Even the worst flu cannot describe it, as my daughter and I experienced,” says Joan Rafn to Weekendavisen.

She cited tightness in the ears, “as if eardrums stood and waved constantly,” and general discomfort, which among other things made it impossible to sleep at night.  For several months her daughter had come out of her room to sleep on an old sofa in baggangen [the basement, maybe?] where the low frequency, humming noise seemed less troublesome.

Joan Rafn was deeply affected, as she tells it. She and her husband Michael had expected to remain in the family house until they were old.  Now they only go back to the house to fetch a load of moving goods more, or to open their home to all interested people who want to know what it is like to live adjacent to large wind turbines—an offer over 300 people, so far, have taken advantage of.

According to the Environmental Report, prepared for the Ringkøbing-Skjern prior to approval of the wind turbine cluster near Joan Rafn’s house, all the “noise” regulations are being kept to the letter.

Everything is therefore in perfect order—on paper.  Nevertheless, experience shows that the applicable noise regulations often make it difficult and sometimes downright impossible to live as a neighbor to the new, large wind turbines, as compared with their more humble predecessors.  [The newer models] are veritable rotating stations with enormous strategic and commercial importance.  But as the big wind turbines have been built in the most windy parts of the country, protests have risen over the genes [? impacts?] of living close to turbines.  One of the focal points of complaint is very low frequency noise, which recent research has shown greater and more widespread in large windmills, but notice the noise from wind turbines from 2006 did not take into account.  If the general noise limits are met, then the low frequency noise will never be a problem.  Such was the Environmental Protection Agency’s dogma that was tailor-made for the wind sector’s needs and the political agenda.

Here’s another article, translated from a posting further down the list shown above.

Article in Jyllands Posten, 3 June 2011

“Victims of Environmental Nuisance”

Lars Klottrup, Mosevej 1, Heather Forest, Sheffield

Posted on 03.06.11

Joan Rafn and family gives up the unequal struggle against Bindesbøll turbines at Tarm. 1/8 vacate their house, located just 600 meters from the turbines.

The house from then on will be empty and deserted, as one of the rare “ghost” houses in Denmark.  It would be a shame support at kæmpevindmøllernes altar in the sacred name of the environment.

The family has long lived in the house only on weekdays and weekends spent elsewhere to get some rest and recover.

Every day in the house is dominated by noise around the clock.  The family have not slept much.  Joan Rafn says, “We wonder how a lydfirma that Delta knows what we get sick of.”

The sight will be daytime constantly bombarded with rotating blades.  Reflections [shadow flicker] in windows and glass.  Joan Rafn: “We can not get away from the spinning mills.”

Skyggekastene spring and autumn are pure torture for the family. “This year we had a day with a half hour’s shadow in the house, and they come in from three sides,” said Joan Rafn.

Until now it has been 12 visits to the doctor, hospital and ear specialist.

But 1/8 is the end. So the family will vacate the house, leaving it deserted and empty as a symbol of a rash and inhuman Danish wind turbine policy.  For helbredets sake.

Surely most would agree that it’s terrible that it should come so far?  When will politicians and civil servants awaken out of their wind trance and regain common sense?

And when will the Board of Health realize that its job is not to protect wind turbine industry earnings, but public health?  And get started on in-depth medical examinations of the many families who, as with Joan Rafn and her family, live in the shadow of giant wind turbines.

Until then . . . wind turbines must not be placed closer than 2 km to residences, as international medical science recommends.

And here’s a third, from further down the list.  This one is a little tougher to decipher.

Jyllands-Posten

Møllemonstrene

By Kirsten Nielsen, Free electricity consumers, Enge Toftevej 64, Sakskøbing

Posted on 20.08.08 

“Of course, neighbors of giant wind turbines to be compensated”

The wind industry is sorry again and again that they are now paying compensation to neighbors for the next giant turbines. It’s poison for the mills, they say.  In line with this Auken fired a broadside of the Berlingske Tidende 26/7 at energy bill, and that was probably what you might expect.  Svend Auken, especially harcelerer of damages to neighbors to giant wind turbines were as no surprise. It was not a novelty—but perhaps a little tiring – re-read how skilled Auken even thinks he was as environment minister.

But the wind energy industry is exactly as it has been groomed.  Many politicians have flatly denied that there is a difference between 50 meters and 150 meters or more for wind turbines.

Wind players have rejected the need for strengthening the already too lenient noise and separation distances for wind turbines.

Low frequency noise

One is denying that there are noise problems with the giant turbines.  Measurements recently made by Delta Acoustics have shown that large turbines emit more low frequency noise than smaller turbines, but this problem is sweeping wind industry off with a remark that the triviality can easily be done along the way.  But precisely on this question there is doubt, and it is worrying that you do not have time to wait to take a final decision on the location of the new mega turbines until the ongoing investigation is completed.

Pressed by Wind Industry Association, the Minister for the Environment and the EPA again expressed that there are problems with low frequency noise from large wind turbines, if the other noise requirements are met. Municipalities can safely go ahead with wind power rankings.

Many neighbors next to giant wind turbines seem to include politicians in Thisted did the right thing when they exposed the decision to travel huge mills until the ongoing noise study was completed, and you certainly are aware of how much low-frequency noise that these turbines will emit and not least for what the noise will mean for local residents.

Wind players close their eyes to the giant turbines in the interest of aviation must lysafmærkes of sometimes extremely annoying light.  Some places to which even included light poles that are as high as turbines, and it fails to relate to what the wings enormous shadow will mean for local residents.

The industry’s constant rejection of the problems and its reluctance to listen to the wind turbine neighbors has led to the payment of compensation (emphasis added).

We do not think it will help troubled wind turbine neighbors to receive several thousand dollars, but we hope that claim will have windmill owners to think about it one more time before they make this mill monsters up.

Out to sea with them!

The basis of the current rules for wind turbines stood Auken sometime in his time even godfather, and the code is enough, claiming wind players. [I.e., the wind industry claims the current noise regulations are satisfactory.]  But they are not! [This is clear from] the many protests from the neighbors [living] next to giant turbines.

And remember: These people are not against wind energy.  Most of them live now close to the mills with the problems it brings.  But you do not want to be the neighbor of monster turbines.  Large mills are going out to sea.

The next time a wind developer tells you Danes are happy as clams with wind turbines, you fire back, “Horseshit!”  Which, it turns out, is Danish for “horseshit!”

If you want to sound more urbane, you can of course retort, “Hellige roterende køer!”  “Holy cow rotary!”  But then you will need to translate it.

Stick with “horseshit”; it’s the same in English and Danish.