In their zeal to replace “dirty,” coal-black energy sources with “green” “renewables,” climate-change doomsayers neglect the health hazards of wind and solar, states Physicians for Civil Defense president Jane Orient, M.D.
The mining of the rare minerals needed for photovoltaic cells and the generators in wind turbines, and the production of the steel and concrete for the towers, are neither clean nor green, she stated. Much of the environmental impact and human cost is exported, as to China and Africa. The U.S. no longer mines rare-earth elements.
By 2050, the amount of solar panel waste in the world, already at 250,000 metric tons at the end of 2016, could reach 78 million metric tons, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). When panels are broken, as by hail, tornadoes, or hurricanes, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments by rainwater over several months.
Wind turbines have been called the “rotors of sickness,” and the German Ministry of Environment has been accused of covering up evidence of harmful levels of infrasound, sound at too low a frequency to be heard. Effects include reducing cardiac muscle strength. Infrasound affects the inner ear and the brain and can cause sleeplessness, emotional reactions, and many other distressing symptoms. It has been investigated for use as a weapon.
Rooftop solar panels have caught fire, and nearly destroyed an apartment complex in Holland, while releasing toxic fumes. Wind turbines have been described as a “perfect incendiary device.”
“Regulators and politicians ignore the devastating environmental impact on the huge land areas needed by wind and solar farms,” Dr. Orient said, “while imposing costly requirements on other energy sources for relatively trivial effects.”
“Energy poverty due to unreliable and unaffordable energy is also a major health threat,” she added. “Carbon-based fuels supply 80 percent of the world’s energy. Why are they not considered ‘green’? The carbon dioxide they release is essential for life and is measurably greening the earth.”
“The dBA metric is, therefore, unsuited for evaluating airborne pressure waves occurring at frequencies below 800 Hz. Health effects that may be developing due to exposures at these lower frequencies cannot be properly studied if the dBA metric is being used to characterize acoustical environments.”
Acoustics and Biological Structures; By Mariana Alves-Pereira, Bruce Rapley, Huub Bakker & Rachel Summers.Submitted: August 7th 2018Reviewed: November 28th 2018Published: January 9th 2019 DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.82761
Abstract
Within the context of noise-induced health effects, the impact of airborne acoustical phenomena on biological tissues, particularly within the lower frequency ranges, is very poorly understood. Although the human body is a viscoelastic-composite material, it is generally modeled as Hooke elastic. This implies that acoustical coupling is considered to be nonexistent at acoustical frequencies outside of the human auditory threshold. Researching the acoustical properties of mammalian tissue raises many problems. When tissue samples are investigated as to their pure mechanical properties, stimuli are not usually in the form of airborne pressure waves. Moreover, since the response of biological tissue is dependent on frequency, amplitude, and time profile, precision laboratory equipment and relevant physiological endpoints are mandatory requirements that are oftentimes difficult to achieve. Drawing upon the viscoelastic nature of biological tissue and the tensegrity model of cellular architecture, this chapter will visit what is known to date on the biological response to a variety of different acoustic stimuli at very low frequencies.
Keywords
infrasound
low frequency noise
health
cellular biology
tissue morphology
Open access. Each download brings research to wider audience.
Infrasound occurs where large masses are in motion. This happens in nature – with avalanches and earthquakes, for instance. But infrasound also arises through technology and industry. It’s caused by large machines and blasting. Even wind turbines …
Hi Sylvia,
My name is Ruby Mekker. I am not one of your constituents but today I read a letter written by one of your constituents, Barb Ashbee in 2009. It is attached and I encourage you to read it.
The very sad outcome is that nothing has changed since 2009.
Sylvia, the PC Party of Ontario repealed the Green Energy Act Dec 3, 2018 and the same day introduced ERO 013-4265 (as well as two others). This proposed regulation will grandfather ALL “in-process” and “existing” wind projects under the old Green Energy Act. This is NOT what the PC Party promised the people of Ontario. What is described in Barb’s letter is still occurring in YOUR riding; nothing has been done to help these people. Approving ERO 013-4265 will condemn these people to the “hell” they have been living as described in 2009. When did democracy die in Ontario? We believed the new majority PC Party would keep their promises still posted on their web site. To date any actions of the PC Party towards people living with industrial wind turbines have been nonexistent.
Yes, we acknowledge the PC party did cancel many “green” projects but chose not to cancel the pre construction Nation Rise Wind project in North Stormont (only 1 of 2 LRPI projects not cancelled even though this project had its key milestones approved by IESO hours before the writ was dropped). Presently, we the constituents are demonstrating to Ministers Rickford and Phillips how and why this project must be cancelled. If allowed to proceed the majority PC Government of Ontario will have allowed another part of Ontario to be put in jeopardy; Nation Rise Wind project is located on recognized highly vulnerable aquifers, the West Quebec Seismic Fault, vibration sensitive Leda clay; all of which the proponent did not report to the Ministry of Environment. Need I go on….
Sylvia it is time that like Tod Smith, you, Lisa Thompson, Monte, Bill Walker, Sam Oosterhoff, Rick Nicholls, Randy Hilliard, Toby Barrett do what you asked the Liberals to do in Lisa’s 2012 Private Member’s Bil, in Sam Oosterhoff’s 2017 Private Member’s Bill AND in the 2018 campaign; stand up for YOUR constituents; do your fiduciary duty; DO NOT allow ERO 013-4265, address the issues. As Monte so eloquently said in 2012,”I believe in democracy. I believe in giving a voice to rural Ontario.” Monte, too, has let his constituents down.
Ruby and Joe Mekker
Former residents of Smithville, Ontario
Rural residents ignored
Open Letter – Barb Ashbee, November 2009
No one asked for this. Nobody looked to have their life and homes exposed in the news, trying to explain how the most promising form of renewable energy was causing such destruction of their family.
Barb Ashbee
Sleep deprivation, headaches, migraines, heart palpitations, tinnitus, pressure in the ears, sores that won’t heal, dangerously high blood pressure and the list goes on. This was not the plan that any of these quiet and unassuming rural families had in mind, but this is what they got. And countless months later it continues. Nobody wanted to get sick; nobody wanted to be forced to leave their home, the place they raised their children, the place they intended to live out their retirement. Not one of them asked for this. In almost all cases, these symptoms were non-existent before the start up of the wind farm.
Ashbee home vacated
And when it was discovered these wonderful, planet saving industrial machines were actually hurting them and their family, not one of them would anticipate there would be no help for them.
As they read in the papers how our government was running to help other citizens who found themselves in all manner of troubling circumstances through no fault of their own, there they sat, waiting, ignored and ridiculed for admitting they needed help against the giant industry that the government had hyper-promoted in their ambitious scheme to ’save the planet’.
Who are these people, the green supporters cry out? NIMBY’S! They’re trying to stop our efforts to help the world! NIMBY’S! They don’t like change! They don’t want them in their backyard! Sorry, but nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, the vast majority welcomed wind farms as much as anyone. Some even boasted how proud they would be to participate at such close hand, to be able to help make a difference, to assist in providing clean, renewable energy.
But when the troubles started, the government looked the other way. When the troubles started, the government ran the other way, fingers in ears, la la la. There was no time for anyone or anything to stop this magnificent much needed multi-million, make that billion, dollar program and so they chose to ignore and abandon those who asked for help. They simply did not respond. As a matter of fact, some of the residents were subjected to blatant derision from their MPP. The people asked their local town council for help. They asked the Ministry of the Environment for help. They asked the Public Health Unit for help. They asked the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure for help. They even asked the Premier of Ontario directly for help. Nothing happened. No one responded. No sir, what they got from the Premier of Ontario was a loud and strong message that he was not going to let any NIMBY’s slow down his cause.
Thrown into the already brewing mess was the Green Energy Act. Sounding like a wonderful piece of legislation that would help this province and in turn, the country achieve the desired energy saving goals, it turned out to be a complete removal of rights for Ontarians; the complete dismantling of democracy in one piece of legislation. What most people didn’t know or pay attention to, was what the Premier and his two Ministers were trying to push through at lightning speed would affect everyone, not just the rural residents. And oh, how it does!
And so the letters flowed and the meetings started; ministry workshop meetings, presentations at the legislature’s standing committee hearings, public input at the local government held meetings, written submissions to the Green Energy Act Registry. Thousands of letters, documents and studies by a bevy of very astute and credible professional engineers, doctors, health professionals, lawyers, electrical engineers, professors, all manner of Ontarians with and without degrees, from all walks of life and, of course, the residents who were already being affected, already sick and getting sicker by the terribly close proximity of the wind turbines and electrical groundwork. All of these people at a grassroots level, taking no money for their time or for their obvious expense of preparing and printing papers and running around the province to government meetings and rural town hall meetings. All of these people doing the research that the government should have done before they started down this road, showing what a miserable failure simple lack of planning creates. All of these people trying to inform the government of the very serious issues with the wind farms.
Yet in the space of maybe 45 days or so, since the last submission date to the Green Energy Act Registry, designed for public input and reaping some 1300 submissions alone, this government said they had seen enough. They’d had enough time to look through all of the information submitted; the very complex engineering reports, noise studies, the reams of information on health effects, turbine failure, viability of wind as an energy source and the safe requirements for setbacks that would keep all citizens out of harms way. They repeatedly refused all requests by health professionals requesting the government slow down and conduct a proper independent health study to determine the health effects. They had also heard the victim statements, pleading with the government for help, to please listen to them, warning them to not put anymore people in the position that they found themselves in, through no fault of their own. It all fell on deaf ears.
There was no way that these Ministers were going to slow down. No matter how many people tried to warn them, they were not going to let anyone stop them in their plan to spread their wind turbines far and wide across every rural inch of the province and ringing the Great Lakes shorelines. No sir, they were going full speed ahead.
They took away the rights of all citizens of Ontario. All citizens, not just some. They overruled the professional planners who understand and know the ramifications of setbacks and public space planning so that they have no say in the municipality anymore. They overruled the town councils and Mayors who have no say in their own backyards anymore, the place they know much more intimately than any Minister, or developer.
They overruled everyone and everything. No one has ever seen the likes or speed of a piece of legislation like this before.
They ignore all of the facts brought before them, ignore and abandon the over 100 known victims, some of whom spend their days in restaurants trying to escape the conditions, who sleep in their cars with winter coming, who are billeted in a single room in a motel with children and more on the way, paid for by the wind developer. People with children, the children not knowing or caring about politics or landscape sightlines, but who bang on their ears with their fists asking Mommy to stop the noise, and young children who now complain of headaches. People with a new need for prescription sleeping pills and people who have lost everything. They’ve lost their livestock, their horses, their income, their way of life and the right to live in their own house. Children have had to move away. They live with relatives; they live by the goodness and grace of understanding strangers who offer them a place to stay. But in even larger numbers than these, are the ones trying desperately to stay in their own home, where everything they have is in and around them. Over 100 and growing. And so, at the end of the day what does the government do? They announce the same inadequate setbacks that they had previously spouted way back at the beginning of the year. Nothing had changed. It appears their minds were made up a long time ago. What a waste of taxpayers money.
The whole industry is contaminated with non-disclosure contracts right from the start. When the landowners agree to host, after being assured of all the good things they are doing, they sign contracts. These are variously worded contracts that do not allow them to speak out about anything negative to do with the wind turbines and will entitle the developer to make any amount of noise, vibration or do what they need to on their land and the landowner may not complain. Some are embarrassed at being taken in by the salesmen. They had no idea it would be such an intrusion, but the money sounded sweet. I wonder how many other businesses there are that match the need for non-disclosure clauses being made with ordinary, everday citizens while receiving full government support. Why such secrecy if this is such a noble exercise?
Many landowners with multiple turbines don’t live on their property. These are some of the ones who will say there are no problems and argue strongly to push ahead. Some have rented out their farmhouses cheap. The renters sleep with oscillating fans going all night long by their heads to try to cut out the thumping sound of the wind turbines clearly heard in their bedrooms. Many wear earplugs but they don’t always work.
People ask, why aren’t more people speaking up, why don’t we hear more? Would you speak up knowing that if and when you needed to get out you wouldn’t be able to sell your house? Who would buy it? It’s not an easy position for any of them to be put in, nor do they want to jeopardize the hopes that the developer will help them, or the possible lashback by fervent green supporters in their community who are so careless with their words and judgment. Many are under contract and cannot speak. Some don’t have the courage or the life skills to know who to even contact. This is all new to them; it’s all new to everyone, even our leaders.
So what about Europe people ask? Aren’t they all happy with their wind farms over there? No, they’re not. In fact there are over 360 grass roots coalitions in 19 European countries in exactly the same position as our residents, pleading to be listened to. They are trying to work with their governments on greater setbacks to protect the residents. As industrial wind turbines get bigger and bigger (40 storeys), some countries leaders have listened and have changed their setbacks to 1.5 kms and further. They acknowledge the problems,and they obviously care about the consequences. These symptoms and problems are mirrored all over the world. Next door in the U.S, Australia, Japan…..
No one can believe our government would completely ignore residents like this, especially the residents themselves. Surely there must be something wrong with these people if the government isn’t listening or taking action. Nope, in fact there is nothing wrong with these residents. These are all good people; honest people, the backbone of this country. Something wrong you ask? Perhaps you should be looking to the provincial government and their brazen, no questions asked backing and protection of the wind industry.
$omething i$ very wrong indeed. ~B. Ashbee
“The residents and their backers at Wind Concerns Ontario – a provincial anti-wind farm group – are not ready to give up the fight. Their spokesperson Margaret Benke says they have 30 days to request a review of the decision, and they intend to do so.”
Challenge to stop wind farm in North Stormont fails
FINCH — An attempt by a group of residents from North Stormont to try to quash a wind power project from being constructed in the area ended in failure on Friday, after the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal ruled they had failed to prove windmills would harm human health, local animal and plant life, or the environment.
The Concerned Citizens of North Stormont had appealed a renewable energy approval the Ministry of the Environment had granted to allow the project, Nation Rise Wind Farm GP Ltd., to proceed.
The process to arrive at a decision took many months. Weeks of hearings were held in Finch and Toronto, where the participants brought in dozens of experts to argue both sides about the potential impacts of the wind farm on people and the environment while being cross-examined by lawyers.
Laura and Paul are retiring and we wish them all the best on their new adventures.
Time to Say Goodbye
Well, after 6 years, it’s time to close down QuixotesLastStand. I’ve been an environmentalist crusader since my first walkathon to save the whales, before I was even a teenager. Now, almost 50 years later, it’s time to pass the torch to a younger generation.
With his degree in forestry, Paul has been relentless in his desire to get people to understand the importance and value of keeping and planting MORE trees, to help the environment, rather than cutting them down to put up useless, inefficient and unreliable wind turbines whose destruction to the earth far outweighs any meagre benefit they give.
Paul and I have done what we could to warn of the serious environmental issues surrounding industrial wind turbines and the greedy multinational billion dollar corporations and politicians who get rich off of them.
We, as a whole, can work to help this planet without seniors dying of hypothermia because they can’t pay their electric bill, or by forcing families into energy poverty resulting in some losing their homes.
For now, Paul and I would like to just spend our remaining years, enjoying the fruits of our many years of labour, without the stress of daily combat.
This site will close down in a few weeks. Thank you to all of our thousands of followers over the years. We value your support and wish you well in your continued crusade against the tyranny of New World Order globalist liberals whose sole aim is to rob us of the freedoms and rights we’ve enjoyed for so long and to deprive our children and grandchildren of the good fortunes and first world basic necessities and conveniences we’ve taken for granted.
Should anyone wish to take over Quixotes, please leave a comment below. It is a treasure trove of research articles and important items related to the ecological devastation wrought by these monstrous machines.
Mothers Against Wind Turbines Inc. 