Wind Rush
(Ontario; 42 min.)
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Abridged (14 min.) version:
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Driving by a wind farm, looking at the rural houses, it's easy to be skeptical about the talk of wind turbines making people sick. We're told that wind turbines are good and green. So how could those people living by them have an issue?
But there is a problem — and it's there because some governments and wind companies didn't do their homework before installing megawatt after megawatt of huge industrial machines. And as a result there are people living among the turbines who are suffering.
In the new documentary film WIND RUSH, produced for CBC Doc Zone by Toronto's 90th Parallel Productions, the battleground for the pro and anti wind forces is southern Ontario. The government there pledged to wean the province off coal fired generation plants and replace them with green wind energy.
But as soon as the turbines went up in places like Wolf Island, Amaranth and Bruce County, people realized they could hear them. Sometimes it was like a whisper, but other times it sounded more like a jet taking off.
And then it got worse.
New turbines started coming in at two and three times the size of the old ones. And they were even louder. It led to chronic sleeplessness for many people living close by — and that can lead to diabetes, depression and heart disease. Others were affected in their inner ears by low-level sounds that set off their equilibrium. Doctors started seeing patient after patient complaining of the same sets of symptoms. And then people started to realize that no one had done any significant human health studies before giving the green light to the turbine farms.
WIND RUSH takes viewers to southwestern Alberta, where wind has been an energy staple for more than twenty years. There is plenty of room for humans and windmills to coexist—a stark contrast to Ontario, where the same prairie technology was installed in a dramatically different landscape. The film then moves to Denmark, a country long considered the poster-child for the wind energy movement. But as WIND RUSH reveals, the relationship between the Danes and turbines has soured.
WIND RUSH talks to people on either side of the turbine divide, and then turns to scientists to try and determine what has gone wrong. In the next several years the turbines will double in size again — bigger, louder and more powerful. But without sufficient research have the people who live among the wind farms been forgotten?
(Maine; 22 min.)
(Lewis Co., N.Y.; 21 min.)
(Meyersdale, Pa.; 26 min.)
Wind Turbine Strobe Lights and Eerie Noises
(Fenner and Wethersfield, N.Y.; 7 min.)
Industrial Wind Energy Information
(compilation from above videos and the "Truth About Industrial Wind Energy" presentations; 39 min.)
Green Madness: The Waste and Destruction Caused by One Industrial Wind Project
(Chautauqua, N.Y.; 28 min.)
The Wind Turbine Battle / Der Kampf um die Windräder
(Germany; 29 min.)
(Rhode Island; 2 videos)
Get Out While You Can! Big Wind Is Coming
(Chautauqua, N.Y.; 32 min.)
Wind Farm Issues — Compilation
(Fife, Scotland; 6 min.)
(1 hr. 32 min.)
(1 hr. 11 min.)
(1 hr. 40 min.)
THE DARK SIDE OF GREEN ENERGIES
(54 min.)
(24 min.)
(Meredith, N.Y.; 1 hr. 23 min.)
(Ontario; 42 min.)
(Ontario; 1 hr. 32 min.)
WINDBAG OF AEOLUS [Ασκός του Αιόλου]
(Greece; 1 hr. 23 min.)
Health Impacts of Industrial Wind – conference, Erie Co., New York
(6 videos)
Nextera Zoning Hearings, Clinton Co., Missouri
(9 topics; 515 videos)
La nueva conquista: Eolicos en Oaxaca
(Mexico; 10 min.)
Infrasound & Low Frequency Noise: Physics, Cells, Health and History
(Waterloo, Ont.; 2 hr. 22 min.)
Infrasound Caused by Wind Turbines / Infraschall – Unerhörter Lärm
(Germany; 28 min.)
Infrasound from Wind Turbines / Infraschall von Windkraftanlagen / Infrasons des éoliennes
(Germany; 10 min.)
Wind Turbine Syndrome, a matter of bad prevention?
(Denmark; 13 min.)
Wind Turbines and Public Health
(Australia; 7 min.)
(Prince Edward Co., Ont.; 13 min.)
(5 videos)
Presentations before the Concerned Citizens of Moore and Argyle Township
(Michigan; 3 videos)
The Falmouth Conference on Human Rights
(Falmouth, Mass.; 5 videos)
Wind Turbine Information Session
(Scituate, Mass.; 2 hr. 10 min.)
Potential Placement of Wind Turbines
(Shelburne, Mass.; 1 hr. 57 min.)
(Dekalb Co., Ill.; 1 hr. 20 min.)
(Hawaii; 4.5 min.)
(Lowell, Vt.; 1.5 min.)
(3.5 min.)
Wind Turbine Construction: Compilation
(6 min.)
(4 videos)
Concrete Pour: Wind Turbine Foundation
(Ireland; 5 min.)
(25 min.)
(Whitelee, Scotland; 3 min.)
(Vermont; 19 videos)
(6 min.)
Living Near a Windfarm: Cape Bridgewater, Victoria
(4 interviews)
Victim Impact Statements: Australia
(13 interviews)
Interviews with Wisconsin Wind Farm Residents
(5 interviews)
(Fond du Lac Co. and Lincoln Township; 1 hr. 49 min.)
(Port Rowan, Ont.; 7.5 min.)
(Barrington, R.I.; 17 min.)
(Shelburne, Ont.; 21 min.)
Amaranth Wind Turbines, Noise and Health: Barbara Ashbee Interview
(Amaranth, Ont.; 17 min.)
Pandora’s Pinwheels: The Reality of Life with Wind Turbines
(Australia and New Zealand; 1 hr. 57 min.)
Wind Turbines: The Test of Time
(7 min.)
Damage to farm fields and drainage tiles
(Iowa; 2 videos)
Wind turbines and their impacts on weather radar
(Illinois; 2 min.)
(Webster Co., Neb.; 9 videos)
Shadow Flicker in Kingston, Massachusetts
(4 videos)
(Dashwood, Huron Co., Ont.; 2 min.)
Wind Turbine Sound – Field Recording
(Denmark; 10 min.)
(Fond du Lac Co., Wis.; 2.5 min.)
Wind Turbine Noise and Shadow Flicker
(Fond du Lac Co., Wis.; 9 min.)
Noise and Strobing at Hoosac Wind
(Mass.; 9 sec.)
(Scituate, Mass.; 7 videos)
(Scituate, Mass.; 7 videos)
(Freedom, Maine; 3 videos)
(The Netherlands; 2 videos)
Foliennes — Éoliennes à tout prix?
(Québec; 7 videos)
The Truth About Industrial Wind Energy
(Kansas; 12 presentations)
Infrasound and Motion Sickness
(Ontario; 18 min.)
Lowell Mountain Soundscape Before and After Wind Turbines
(Vermont; 30 sec.)
Noise of Turbine in Aberdeenshire
(Scotland; 2 min.)
(Wales)
(Belgium; 25 sec.)
Wind Turbine Breaks Up in Storm
(Denmark; 3 videos)
(Rexville, N.Y.; 1 min.)
Wind Turbine Fire — Burning Blades Fly Off
(Portugal; 1 min.)
(Portugal; 4.5 min.)
(Indiana; 2 min.)
(Isselburg, Germany; 2 videos)
(Germany)
(Jhimpir City, Thatta District, Sindh Province; 1 min.)
Washing Wind Turbine from Helicopter
(Spain; 3 min.)
Peat slippage, Meenbog Wind Farm, Donegal
(Ireland; 1.5 min.)
See also: The Politics of Peat, RTE News footage of the bog slides caused by wind facility construction in Derrybrien and other sites in Co. Galway, Ireland, compiled by the Scottish Wind Assessment Project)
(Wales; 3 min.)
(photo collection)
Vulture Fatally Collides With Wind Turbine Blade
(Crete; 30 sec./6 min.)
A Rough Wind: The Impact of Industrial Windmill Facilities on Birds and Other Wildlife
(Pennsylvania; 20 min.)
(Norway; 6.5 min.)
More videos are available in the Documents Library.
Also see more videos at the National Wind Watch You Tube page