“Wind Power Horror Serenade” (Denmark)
Apr 26, 2012
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—Peter Skeel Hjorth (Sweden)
This is a true story of an old freedom fighter’s valiant stand against the unjustice of wind power, with music as a weapon.
On April 9th, 1940 Denmark was occupied by German troops. In the first years of occupation there was no resistance. Then a small group of youngsters in a high school in Aalborg, Northern Jutland, started a different kind of sabotage and began to steal weapons from the Germans. Their activities had no real results, but the youths became known as the Churchill Club.
After a year or so the members were arrested and imprisoned for long time.
Knud Pedersen was one of them. Today he is 86 years old and one of the last surviving freedom fighters from the time of German Occupation (1940-1945).
After he was finally freed, for decades Knud Pedersen and his wife Bodil have had a house in the forests of Southern Sweden. In 2009 their paradise was threatened by a wind project in the forest around their home. That made Knud start his resistance fight against this injustice against humans. His contribution to our common resistance is a musical composition called “Wind Power Horror Serenade,” which was played in the middle of Copenhagen on December 9th 2011.
Comment by Pat Rogers on 04/26/2012 at 8:53 pm
Powerful art that conveyed the message. Stop building such torture machines!
Comment by Simon on 04/28/2012 at 5:58 am
Having lived in Denmark for several years as an expat, I know that it takes a LOT before Danes protest against something that is generally viewed as “good” for their country. The Danish society is consensus-driven and trust-based. Danes see themselves as a “tribe,” rather than as a multi-faceted society where different opinions and views co-exist and conflicts are therefore inevitable.
If some Danes take to drastic (and creative) measures like putting on a show about the horrors of wind power, you can be sure that they have been pushed to the limit.
When Danes say “enough is enough,” the mean it.
Danes are tough people and they are not easily fooled, either. They know a scam when they see one. When Danes are taking to the streets to protest against a stupid idea, you had better pay attention, as they are usually right. Faux EURO currency? Nope, the Danes were smart and stuck with their Kroners. Investment Bubble? The Danes have resisted the temptation of quick profits and now have a low 5% unemployment rate. Compare this with 25% in Spain, where low interest rates and tax breaks resulted in impressive growth figures for a few years but not much else.
Talking of Spain, the EU paid for some wind “parks” there to “develop” the country. When funding ran out, the local governments couldn’t afford the maintenance any more and the turbines are now starting to fall apart. So much for that “cheap” energy source myth.
Comment by Simon on 04/30/2012 at 4:29 am
Addendum: So why did those smart Danes accept that so many wind parks were built in the first place, you might ask.
There are several reason, all linked to the way the Danish society works: Danes do (did) trust their government – they truly belive that decisions taken by the administration in Copenhagen are in their best interest and usually, they are (were) right. This fits with the Corruption Perception Index, according to which Denmark and New Zealand are the countries in which corruption is least likely to happen.
At the same time, Danes are incredibly loyal to Danish brands and companies, again leading international rankings (there used to be an agency in NYC that published those figures annually – might have been Roper/GfK). This behaviour is based on the traditional belief that “Danes don’t betray Danes” – a cornerstone of the Danish society.
Now there is Vestas Wind Systems A/S, based in Randers, DK – the world’s biggest manufacturer of IWTs. Surely, they would not build something that’s bad for people. Especially, as DELTA Dansk Elektronik comfirmed in their study EFP-06 that IWTs don’t emit any low frequency noise worth mentioning (strange that they withheld acoustic data recorded IN homes near wind parks from independent scientists, though…)
Can you see the conflict? Opposing Vestas and the government in their plans to install IWTs has been “un-Danish” in the past. Even if you had concerns, you didn’t speak up. If it comes from Denmark, it is good for us Danes, was the common belief. That’s why wind developers met almost no resistance in the past.
Obviously, this is changing right now! Denmark is already suffering from wide-spread low frequency “noise pullution” becaused of a de-centralized system of “micro power stations”. It is so bad in some areas, that DK was the first country to form a society against ILFN pollution, called the “Infralydens Fjender” (enemies of the infrasound).
So when the Danes realized that IWTs also emit infrasound at high levels, they took action (at least the ones who were fed up with being brain-washed by Vestas and the government).