Wind farms – another con? 

Tony Abbott’s attack on the ugliness of wind farms, and their effects on the health of some who live near them, marks the first time the Prime Minister and I have been in agreement.

Abbott spoke against wind farms from personal experience after cycling on Rottnest Island.

His comments followed representations by independent Senators John Madigan, Nick Xenophon, Jacqui Lambi and David Leyonhjelm.

They have many stories of people living in a hell caused by the low frequency noise emissions from wind farms.

Abbott’s comments triggered a barrage of letters from city folk living far from wind farms – hypocrites en masse. They wouldn’t tolerate wind farms in national parks or on the windy cliffs of Sydney’s coastline.

One University of Sydney professor, with no medical qualification, has been vocal in his denial of any effects on health caused by wind turbines.

He claimed they are only suffered by jealous, unpaid neighbours.

However, South Australian grazier Clive Gare, with 19 turbines on his property giving a million dollar income across five years, told the Senate inquiry the noise has been unbearable.

He was initially excited about hosting renewable energy, but now believed “towers should not be any closer than 5 kilometres to a dwelling”.

“If we had to buy another property it would not be within a 20km of a wind farm,” he said.

Wind farm company AGL has paid thousands to insulate the Gare property from the noise but hasn’t succeeded.

Another professor from Sydney University, with a medical qualification, associate professor of neuroscience Simon Carlile, urges a proper examination of the effects of low frequency sound waves, and recognition that, like seasickness, they effect some but not all.

For 30 years there has been evidence of a causal link between impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise, and adverse effects on people.

Research by NASA established wind turbines could generate surprisingly high levels of infrasound and low frequency noise.

It is also clear that 10 to 15 per cent of the population is more sensitive to noise, including low frequency noise and infrasound.

Symptoms include chronic sleep deprivation, sinus pressure, tinnitus, and pains in the chest, headaches, nausea, and vertigo.

Germany’s peak medical body asked its national government to halt construction of wind farms until a full study on their health effects was conducted.

The UK government recently announced it would cease subsidies to new wind farms, effective next April.

In 1999 the world was conned into changing their computers for the Y2K bug (which would have made the date 2000 indistinguishable from 1900) that never came.

We were conned by the US munitions industry with Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction”.

We are now being conned by turbine manufacturers claiming to save the planet.

It’s time for solar subsidies to Australian owners to be re-instated, now that battery storage has become viable.

Why are we subsidising overseas owners of ugly and inefficient wind turbines and increasing our power costs when Australia has an over-supply of electricity?

Why, if coal is so bad for the planet, are we still opening coal mines and sending vast quantities to China – isn’t China on the same planet ? We are witnessing hypocrisy on a grand scale.