January 2, 2022
In an editorial in the current edition of Environmental Disease journal, Dr Alun Evans, prominent physician and cardiologist, says it is past time for governments to act to protect the health of those forced to live near wind turbines.
He compares the developers of wind turbines to the manufacturers and marketers of tobacco who, decades ago, claimed there were no health impacts from smoking cigarettes, even while the industry knew there was.
He cites a letter written the turbine manufacturers Vestas with a query as to why the turbines cannot be made more safe:
In 2011, a letter written by the CEO of the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas, to the Danish Environment Minister, which was leaked and translated, asked why it was:[15]
…that Vestas does not just make changes to the wind turbines so that they make less noise? The simple answer is that at the moment it is simply not possible to do so, and it requires time and resources because presently we are at the forefront of what is technically possible for our large wind turbines, and they are the most efficient of all.
It seems that, in common with the tobacco industry, the wind industry was well aware that its products were inimical to health. The introduction of larger turbines is also problematic because the larger the turbines, the more noise they produce.[16]
Evans’ editorial refers to a paper published recently by a group of Ontario-based authors including Dr. Robert McMurtry, which states that the well known public health criteria developed by Dr Austin Bradford Hill ought to be applied to the study of wind turbine noise impacts. Instead, he says, governments continue to look for a simple cause and effect relationship.
Doing that means governments are abdicating their responsibility to citizens.
“We still have a long way to go to adequately protect people’s health from the impact of wind farm noise,” he concludes.
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1 Comments
Sandra buker
Entering Cape Breton Island, well known and applauded destination tourism site, one looks to the right and sees an up and coming industrial energy complex being operated by multinational companies exploring so called green energy now taking advantage no doubt of nova scotias willingness to pay foreign companies to help reduce our carbon footprint. Years ago it was Chinese investment and now it is German. I wish I could copy all of the reports from Germany regarding their dismay with wind but I cannot. We should look to this site from Ontario for starters I guess. We have an entire tourist route and it’s continued success at stake extending north from the entry to our cape breton national park. A proposed wind farm along the backside of the ridge is in the early stages approaching the initial hearing to be chosen to receive gov. Land and money and 25 year contract to produce power for Nova Scotia multinational Emera. All of the noise data, the health data, etc. Will be used to offset this proposal and if it fails it won’t go to environmental assessment, the next stage. We are part of a 25year experiment that doesn’t seem to want to use previous data so we have to continually protest and try to protect these lands., and our well being. It seems to have fallen upon us to find all the data that has already been compiled and present it to our government to protect ourselves from the use of our land to harm ourselves etc etc. What is wrong with this picture. Then will it be solar and green hydrogen . Is every open space up for grabs? If provincial policies are not strong enough to protect us then perhaps it has to be a federal solution. Like it or not- this is the issue and very few people seem to understand what is at stake for our children. We can have green energy without harming anyone. Why not try? Sandra buker. Cape Breton island