Heartland Farmers; Yorke Peninsula

Aerial spraying of a cereal crop in Mid North South Australia
Heartland Farmers would have us believe that a pilot who can fly safely like this, avoiding Stobie poles, trees, aerials and SWER lines stretching hundreds of metres between poles and only a few millimetres thick, cannot safely go within 3km of a big, conspicuous, wind turbine. Pull the other leg! (More on aerial agriculture below.) At the end of 2012 there was 274GW of installed wind capacity world-wide; the equivalent of about 100 000 modern turbines. So far as I have been able to find out there has only ever been one collision between an aeroplane and a wind turbine. YouTube has video clips of crop dusting planes flying within a few metres of wind turbines, see here and here.

	Agreement between REpower Australia and Aerotech REpower is the company proposing Ceres, Aerotech is by far the predominant aerial agriculture contractor on Yorke Peninsula. The agreement announced today (2013/07/27), by which Aerotech planes will spray very close to the wind turbines, has a huge impact on the arguments the Heartland Farmers have been using to try to stop the Ceres wind farm.
	Information sources Note that Heartland Farmers reference articles in places like the popular press (especially the Murdoch press, which is biased against renewabe energy) to justify their statements. Heartland Farmers do not reference papers from respectable peer-reviewed journals.
	Confusion over identity I have been confused over the identity of the people involved with the Heartland Farmers; how can one know who is who when they have not used their real names – until 2013/04/01. For a time the person who hides behind the name The Callous Wind was writing under the Heartland Farmers name. In a comment on Ceres wind farm – the debate Naomi Bittner stated that she is the person behind the HF name. Thank you for your honesty Naomi.

The active core of HF seems to consist of only two or three people. The group managed to get about ten people to go to Parliament House for a demonstration on 2013/03/14 and a total of some 200 people have gone to local meetings that the group have organised.

The main objection that HF have to the Ceres wind farm is their claim that wind power is incompatible with agriculture. One need only look at the United States experience to see that wind power and agriculture are highly compatible, the three top US states in agricultural production are also the three top states in installed wind power.

HF say "There are many areas of South Australia which are suitable for wind turbines and are not suitable for agriculture." Like so much of what they say, there is a grain of truth in this, but they conveniently ignore the fact that these areas are more remote and therefore costs increase enormously. For example, building the necessary transmission lines to southern and western Eyre Peninsula (the Green Grid Project) would cost $4.5 billion dollars. (The whole Ceres Project, by comparison, has been costed at $1b.)

People like Heartland Farmers have had some success in getting others to believe the lies spread by the anti-wind power lobby because many just don't know the truth. They might be told by their neighbours that a nearby wind farm will be a disaster and they tend to believe it. I appeal to anyone reading this with an open mind to do a bit of research and find out the facts for yourself. Visit a wind farm; think about it rationally and unemotionally. (Reading Wind Farms, The facts and the fallacies, from The Australia Institute could be a start.)

Magna est veritas et praevalebit:
Truth is great and shall prevail

Comparing Ceres to nearby wind farm projects

Wind turbines are compatible with agriculture

	Turbines on agricultural land in Germany Image credit: Earth-The Operator's Manual
	Wind turbines and houses in the tulip fields of North Holland Photo credit Normann Szkop Note how close the turbine is to the house The original photograph can be seen on Flickr
	Photo credit Normann Szkop Four houses and two turbines close together The original photo can be seen on Flickr

The top photos shows many turbines in agricultural land in Germany, the next two show turbines in highly productive tulip fields in The Netherlands.

One need only look at the US experience to see that agriculture and wind power are very compatible. The top three US states by value of agricultural production are also the top three states by installed wind power.

State	Agricultural production $m	Installed wind power MW
California	31 835	5 549
Texas	16 498	12 212
Iowa	14 653	5 137

The figures for agricultural production above were obtained from Stuff about states, dated 2004 (I was unable to find more recent data), and the figures for wind power were from Wikipedia, dated the end of 2012.

Top Wind Home Index

Iowa is in the heart of the US Corn Belt and is sometime called, at least in the United States, the "Food Capital of the World". It has the highest concentration of wind power, in terms of Watts per unit area, of any US state. In 2012, 24.5% of Iowa's electricity was generated by wind power.

Plainly with temperatures likely to rise by a minimum of 2 degrees this will have an incomparably bigger impact on the productivity of Yorke Peninsula than will the proposed wind farm.

The area of Yorke Peninsula is about 600,000ha. If we suppose that half of this is arable that it 300,000ha. If Ceres is built about 90ha will be lost for grain growing, 0.03%; totally negligible compared to the 12% loss if the temperature rises by the expected 2 degrees minimum.

"In 2012, 670 000 people died across the country because of issues which are related to the exploitation of coal. That is not only a tragedy, it is also expensive. Professor Teng told the South China Morning Post that damaging the people's health and the environment comes at a cost of about 260 yuan (over $40) for each ton produced and used."

Wind turbines in an early morning mist at Jamestown, South Australia

Morwell coal mine fire, February 2014 Image credit 350.org

In Australia we have a choice, clean, green renewable energy, including wind power, or filthy polluting coal mining and fossil fuelled electricity.

Burning coal is one of the main causes of climate change, ocean acidification and air pollution that kills millions each year.

While there are groups like the Heartland Farmers, who are willing to do anything they can to stop renewable energy developments in their area, the people of Morwell and the rest of the coal-mining areas will be stuck with their polluting coal-fired power stations and occasional even more polluting coal mine fires.

It seems that the Heartland Farmers are happy to have incompetently run coal mines with their illness-causing pollution and greenhouse gasses in Australia – so long as they are somewhere else – but they are dead-set against wind turbines near them that will harm no one.

More on the coal mine fire on The Conversation and by Ketan Joshi.

There is no debate

Trolls banned In October 2015, after allowing the Ceres opponent who hides behind the name The Callous Wind two years to provide arguments against the wind farm, I had had enough of his/her abuse, name-calling, in some cases libellous aspersions. She and another who also admitted using a false name (and never wrote anything relevant to Ceres) were banned from the Ceres Debate Facebook page. Should they wish to post under their real names they will be given another chance. I repeat here a challenge to decent people who are opposed to Ceres to post their arguments on the Facebook Debate page. Where are they? What are their valid claims? Why are the principals behind the Heartland Farmers unwilling to take part in a fair, open and reasonable debate?

In an attempt to start an open and intelligent debate I have created the Ceres: the debate page on Facebook. This did not work! With very few exceptions all that was posted by those opposed to the wind farm were attacks on the credibility of those in favour of wind power (not on the evidence they presented), name-calling, and rude remarks (such as "Who would talk to this thing?")

If there are as many people opposed to the Ceres Project as the Heartland Farmers claim, and there are many good reasons for it to not be built, where are those who are willing to stand up and put a cogent, rational and civil argument?

There are some valid wind power problems, but it would seem that the people who oppose the Ceres Project do not think that these are sufficient grounds to support a debate. If so, they are probably correct.

By now the majority of the opposition, or at least those who are reasonably well informed, realise that there is no evidence for:

• the claim that wind farms cause illness;
• the claim that wind farms reduce land values;
• the claim that wind farms and agriculture are incompatible;
• the claim that wind turbines make aerial fire-fighting impossible;
• the claim that large areas of Yorke Peninsula agriculture will be adversely affected by the wind farm.

50MW or 700MW?

"SA's 1203MW of capacity has struggled to produce even 50MW of power during periods of peak demand..."

In fact, as Mr Joshi showed, south eastern Australia's wind farms were generating about 710MW at the time of the peak electricity demand for the week of the recent January heatwave; much of this was coming from SA's wind farms. (There may have been one very short period of high demand during which SA's wind farms were generating around 50MW.) Mr Joshi's post includes a graph showing that the average output of SE Australia's wind farms, which all feed into the same power grid, generated an average of around 800MW for the week of the heatwaves.

The Heartland Farmers have previously made this, or a very similar, claim and Ms Stock repeated it in the Stock Journal on 2014/07/03. Mr Joshi pointed out to them the first time they made the claim that it was false. The fact that Ms Stock has repeated a statement, knowing it to be false or at best, grossly misleading, makes it a lie rather than simply an error made in ignorance.

In the Stock Journal on 2014/07/03 Ms Stock claimed that the lack of generation of wind farms in periods of high demand "means that there needs to be an equal amount of capacity in fast start up peaking power plants". Wrong again. There has been no increase in the peaking power capacity in SA in the last 11 years, during which all the wind farms were built.

Climate science denial

So far as I know:

• Almost every government in the world accepts the reality of anthropogenic climate change (ie. climate change caused by Man, ACC);
• Every scientific institution that has any interest in climate accepts ACC;
• About 98% of climate scientists accept ACC;
• About 99% of articles published in peer-reviewed climate science journals accept ACC;
• Not a single respected university, anywhere in the world, teaches that ACC is not happening.

The Yorke Peninsula Heartland Farmers seem to think they know better.

The Heartland Institute is a climate science denial think tank based in the USA. It seems there is a link between the Heartland Farmers and the Heartland Institute.

	A means to an end? If we accept the reality of anthropogenic climate change, as do the vast majority of climate scientists, we have to accept that we must reduce our use of fossil fuels. We can do so by changing to renewables, like wind power. I ask the question, is Dr Bittner thinking that by denying climate change she can more effectively and convincingly make people believe we don't need wind power?
	An informative page on Climate Change NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) have a page that gives a summary of the evidence for anthropogenic (man made) climate change. It talks about sea level rise, global temperature rise, warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets, declining Arctic ice, glacial retreat, extreme events and ocean acidification.
	Even the Abbott Government accepts ACC Received in a letter from Senator Simon Birmingham, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, "The Australian Government accepts the science of climate change...".

On the Heartland Farmers Facebook page, in a posting dated 2013/09/16, Dr Naomi Bittner repeated a story published by the so-called Environment Editor of The Australian, Graham Lloyd. It was headlined, "We got it wrong on warming, says IPCC".

In fact, as The Australian admitted on 2013/09/23, they had themselves "got it wrong"; there was no error on the IPCC's part; Graham Lloyd had made another blunder. See Media Watch for more details.

The Australian admitted that they had got it wrong. Will we see an apology on the Heartland Farmers Facebook page?

In an email to me on 2013/07/19 TCW said that "I would be fairly safe in saying that the HF group would agree with me" in regard to climate science. A day later I asked her how she felt about the ocean acidification that the burning of fossil fuels is causing. Basically she said that she had not known about it previous to my question, but now she doubts that it is of any significance.

On 2013/07/19 I asked Naomi Bittner, who seems to be the main spokesperson for the HF, whether she accepts the fact of anthropogenic climate change and how the group in general stand on the point. By 2013/09/02 I had not received a reply.

Full page advertisment

• Little land will be taken out of production (HF say "we cannot afford to lose thousands of hectares of Australia's most valuable food crops"). In the case of Macarthur Wind Farm (140 turbines) 54ha are taken up by roads and 8ha by hardstands; a total of 62ha. Scaling this up for the 199 turbines of Ceres gives 89ha. (HF claim that 60 000ha of farmland will be impacted. The total area of Yorke Peninsula is approximately 600 000ha.)
• The claimed impact on aerial agriculture is one of HF's main arguments against the Ceres Project. I asked the person who hides behind the annonymity of the name 'The Callous Wind' and who is a strong supporter for the HF whether they had ever asked why it was that their aerial agriculture contractors could not go closer than 500m when flying parallel to a line of turbines. She replied with "it is not for us to question how Aerotech Australia run their business". So, it seems that the HF would prefer to deny Yorke Peninsula a billion dollar project that will bring more than three million dollars a year to their neighbours and the local economy, than to pose a question to Aerotech Australia. (I did contact Aerotech and asked for clarification; see elsewhere on this page.)
• There may be some increases in costs, but these will be slight for only a few Yorke Peninsula farmers and nil for most. HF have not explained what, apart from limitations to aerial farming, would increase their costs.
• There will be no 'health and safety' costs to the wider community.
• The Ceres project will have an entirely negligible impact on the cost of "food items like bread".
• The Ceres project will not significantly "jeopardise crop yields"; how could it? (There will be tiny losses due to vehicle tyre tracks if spraying is done on-ground rather than aerially – see the photo elsewhere on this page.)

• Roads will make some paddocks on hosting farms smaller, having an impact on the use of farm machinery;
• Fire-bombing aircraft movement will be somewhat restricted in the near vicinity of the turbines; this will be greatly dependent on the visibility at the time. On the other hand, the roads will act as fire-breaks and will provide better access for fire-fighters (the CFS have pointed out that fire-bombing aircraft to not put out fires, ground crews do that; aircraft assist);
• There will be some places where aerial agricultural operations will not be possible; ground based spraying etcetera will have to be used in some cases – I believe that on-ground spraying can be cheaper than aerial;

By the way, the wind turbines will probably reduce the number of fires started by lightning; they conduct the lightning safely to earth.

The public faces of the HF, the people you see in photos in the local newspaper, are those of Naomi Bittner and Tania Stock.

On the Internet, Naomi Bittner is busy with their Net page and the HF Facebook page (from which I am banned), but Tania Stock is nowhere to be found.

Neither Ms Bittner nor Ms Stock are willing to engage in an open debate on the pros and cons of the project, supported by evidence, using their own names. In fact there is not one member of the HF, or any other person opposed to the Ceres Project, who is willing to take part in an open and honest debate. An economist, Roger Sexton, has made public calculations about the project that were in error by a factor of 60 000, but he has refused to discuss anything.

Crude attempts at public debate have been made by one or more people hiding behind a false name: 'The Callous Wind'. It seems that this false identity may be used by Ms Stock and Ms Bittner when they want to make statements that they are not willing to put their names to. They have never denied using the false name.

Ms Bittner indulged in a very short debate on Facebook over a period of a couple of hours on a single occasion.

On 2013/07/23 I received the following in an email from a person calling herself The Callous Wind (TCW); it shows an interesting mix of good education in the use of language (such as that expected of a veterinarian, Ms Bittner for example) and appalling ignorance or massive bias in regard to renewable energy:

"After reviewing all of the facts put forward by various parties, I have come to the conclusion, that 199 Turbines on Yorke Peninsula, are going to have absolutely no effect whatsoever in abating climate change or ocean acidification."

As noted elsewhere on this page, the HF seem generally to deny climate science and TCW herself thinks that ocean acidification is nothing to worry about.

Google Earth image of the same area

Even now farmers have to take care how they look after this land. If groups like Heartland Farmers get their way and stop the world from taking serious action on climate change it is quite possible that much of Yorke Peninsula will revert to drifting sand.

Heartland Farmers seem not to care about this! Infographic credit: Get Up

Climate change will greatly and adversely impact grain yields, grain growers, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, Australia, and the World, but Heartland Farmers don't show any signs of caring about that.

HF claim to be concerned about fire danger. The higher temperatures and stronger winds that come with climate change will greatly increase fire danger.

If the Ceres Project wind farm is built it will be a big step in the battle to reduce Australia's contribution to climate change. The Garnaut report showed that Australia's CO₂ emissions were 28 tonnes per person in 2006, compared to less than seven tonnes per person for the world average. Australia, and all Australians, have an ethical responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The small group behind HF are trying to stop a renewable energy development that will abate the CO₂ emissions of 70 000 Australians for 25 years – because they will suffer some inconvenience and possible minor loss of profits. Can you imagine anything more selfish than that?

HF apparently don't care that, if they are successful in stopping the Ceres Project, they will be responsible for damaging the world in which their grand-children will have to live. They make a big thing of being "fourth and fifth generation farmers", yet their action will damage farming world-wide in future years.

They should be proudly supporting the wind farm and thereby being involved in saving the world from the damage that climate change and ocean acidification will bring, instead they choose to be selfish, short-sighted and self-defeating in the long-term.

"I thought perhaps this bloke could be added to these pages, he doesn't get it at all. I am a member of the Heartland Farmers Group, who are opposing the Ceres Wind Turbine Project. He has decided to denigrate very good people, fourth and fifth generation farmers, who suddenly find themselves in the middle of an industrial electricity generating complex, which will severely impede their farming operations, not to mention the hundreds of seaside property owners who are finding that the value of their properties will drop. Two sales have fallen through all ready, because of the Wind Turbines."

HF states "If turbines are erected on farms in Central Yorke Peninsula, farm yields will drop considerably at the expense of energy production."

They do not justify this statement apart from mentioning tyre-track damage, which would lead to slight decreases in yield. (See NSW Farmers guide to wind farms and the photo below.)

High-clearance spray rig Note that this has well over a metre clearance.

HF states "Many crops, such as canola, can only be sprayed by air, as they grow too tall for ground rigs to drive over without doing damage."

While I am far from being an expert on cropping I find this statement very questionable. High clearance spray units can clear crops over a metre tall (I've only measured one unit: 1.3m), taller than most of the canola crops that I can recall seeing. Cereal and legume crops are generally well under this.

A photo of flowering canola being sprayed by a rig such as this can be seen at Anita Anseeuw blogspot.

HF states "Our aerial agriculture providers have informed us that they cannot manoeuvre without restriction within 3 km of the turbine blades so every paddock within the proposed development, and any paddock that is even partially within 3km of a turbine will no longer have aerial applications available as a tool for that farmer." (My emphasis)

Give this claim a bit of thought. Firstly, the second (italics) part of the sentence does not logically follow from the first part, but the implication is that an agricultural aircraft cannot work anywhere within 3km of a turbine! Does this make any sense? 3km is a very long way. Agricultural aircraft work around obstructions all the time: power poles and wires, trees, radio masts; why on earth could they not work within 3km of a highly conspicuous wind turbine? Appendix V of the Ceres Development Application, which discusses aerial spraying is not easy for the non-specialist to understand, but a distance of 50m is mentioned in the case of aircraft flying parallel to a line of turbine towers. Even the largest distanced mentioned is about 1700m, far short of the 3km claimed by HF. So far as I have been able to find out, no aircraft, anywhere in the world, has ever crashed due to a wind turbine.

I have been informed that some aerial operations, such as mouse bating and urea spreading, are best done from relatively high altitudes, so could be carried out above the wind turbines.

	Stop Press 5th March 2013 Oh! Bad luck. It seems that since reading this page about their claims, HF are only promising land price cuts "from 30%". But still, that's a very nice discount for anyone who might want a nice property on Yorke Peninsula!
	Prices of houses sold at Edithburgh since 2004 Data from realestate.com.au Edithburgh is 2.6km from the nearest turbines of the Wattle Point Wind Farm, completed in 2005. No sign of declining property values here. More data on land values near wind farms can be seen elsewhere.

HF state "impacts on property values, diminishing values from 30% – 100%"

This would have to be their most outrageous statement that I have seen so far – property values going down to zero because of wind turbines! In fact it won the prize for the lie of the month for March 2013. There is no convincing evidence that wind farms harm property values in the long term. If property values have fallen in the short term it is because of the rantings and predictions of disaster from people such as the members of Heartland Farmers.

HF claims "danger to farmers working under turbines hosted by neighbours"

They don't say what these dangers might be; nor why these farmers should be under turbines on their neighbour's property.

HF claims "danger to road users; there will be hours of shadow-flicker along our arterial roads each day"

Most of the roads on Yorke Peninsula are lined with remnant native vegetation. Whenever one drives on a sunny day on YP roads while the sun is low one is subject to shadow-flicker. I've not heard that it is a problem.

Do the people who write this stuff have no ethical standards? Is no misrepresentation of the facts, no lie, no exaggeration, too much for them?

The ridiculous exaggerations continue

The greatest distance from which I have ever heard a wind turbine is 2.5km (correction, on 2013/07/07 I managed to just hear some turbines 3.0km away), and then only in near ideal circumstances. Anita Butcher lives in Mount Bryan 3km from the Hallett Hill Wind Farm and was a competitor for Youth of the Year in early 2013. As a part of the selection process competitors gave a speech on a subject of their own choice. Ms Butcher chose wind farms. She said in her speech: "I can honestly say that I have hardly heard a noise coming from the wind turbines."

I ask that the people of Yorke Peninsula who are interested in the facts visit Snowtown and listen for the sound of the turbines from various distances. It is quite possible to get within a few hundred metres of the turbines from several public roads including Shadwells Gap Road and another that branches off the highway about 3.5km north of Snowtown. (The more northerly road probably has the better surface.)

Why not respond directly? If any readers are wondering why I do not respond directly by making a comment on the HF or STT Net sites – I have done so, but my comments were not posted. Aesthetic objections are valid objections On the top of this page I gave a link to valid problems with wind power. Aesthetics is one of the problems I have listed.

The man who writes Stop These Things (STT) went looking for dirt on me. He found that I had lodged an objection to a communications tower to be erected in Crystal Brook by Telstra. As can be seen if one follows the link given in the STT page, what I wrote was:

"I believe the antennas would be better placed outside Crystal Brook, perhaps on top of Cemetery Hill, because that would provide a better coverage of the district and tall towers do not improve the appearance of a town."

And all the while, TCW and the writer of STT hide behind anonymity, giving the impression that they don't have the courage to put their names to their writing.

At the top of the page we see the label "Open group" and beneath this the statement "We will happily add people to the group upon request". I requested to join the group early on 2013/08/19. Two days later I had not been accepted as a member; I had received no response at all. In fact, the page contained no comments from wind power supporters. It seems that the actual membership policy is very different to the stated membership policy. (I saw on 2013/08/29 that the statement about happily adding people on request had been removed.)

"We farmers are not opposed to wind turbine projects"

"Renewables company"

"aww, so sad.
Even the renewables companies acknowledge that Australia doesn't need any more turbines..."

It seems Dr Bittner does not realise that EA is not a renewables company; it is primarily a fossil-fuel company (more than 2100MW) with some renewables (177MW of wind). EA owns and runs one of the largest, most polluting power stations in Australia, Yallourn in Gippsland, Victoria.

Intensity of sound

"umm... words fail me...
vic health state "There is no evidence that sound which is at inaudible levels can have a physiological effect on the human body." NSW health are going to utilise the physiological effects of low frequency sounds to warn us of nearby emergency vehicles..."

Dr Bittner, this is to do with a physical property of sound called intensity. (It is one that wind farm opponents seem to have a lot of trouble with.) The infrasound from wind turbines is at very low intensity (the Vic Health study showed it was not above background levels), while the sound from NSW fire appliances would be hundreds or thousands of times more intense.

The greatest threat to agricultural productivity in Australia is from climate change.

"Arid, unpopulated, inland zones need to be explored first for their suitability for mining and renewable industries. Fertile lands need to be secured to sustain the nation, now and as the population grows. This is even more vital should a changing climate further diminish our lands' productivity. Every acre will count. Protect our state's biggest earner to protect our future"

Science shows that climate change will heavily impact crop yields. For example see "Effects of climate change on global food production under SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios"; Global Environmental Change; by M.L Parrya, C Rosenzweigb, A Iglesiasc, M Livermored, G Fischer; Science Direct.

My impression is that The Callous Wind is female, so I will use 'she' and 'her'. She sometimes claims that there are a number of people who use the TCW name, but if so it would seem strange that not one of them, over a period of six or more years, has been willing to give their true name.

I have found her to be remarkable in a number of ways:

• She has no respect for honesty and the truth;
• She claims to live near the proposed wind farm, but gives no evidence for the claim;
• She uses the word "we" without providing any evidence that she speaks for anybody other than herself;
• She can be shown to be wrong over and over again, but it doesn't concern her; she just goes on to the next dubious claim;
• She has no grasp of the value of sound evidence or critical thinking.
• Her 'evidence' comes from YouTube or Stop These Things, never from respected peer-reviewed sources;
• She seems to have no concern for anything (such as the future of the planet with climate change damage or the huge environmental and health problems caused by the coal industry) other than getting her way;
• She habitually uses insults, name-calling and personal attacks (she has claimed that I am being payed by the Ceres proponents; characteristically without evidence and quite falsely);
• She is happy to make baseless claims (such as the wind farm will 'totally destroy her quality of life' if it is built) without justification or further explanation;
• She refers to people who agree with her (such as Sarah Laurie) as 'nice', yet she herself seems to make a point of being nasty. How can someone who behaves in a consistently nasty way really admire others who she claims to see as being nice? If she sees being nice as a virtue, how can she make a point of being nasty? Or does she really have no concept of 'niceness' or 'nastiness'?

In support of these statements I refer readers to the following notes and Ceres: the debate

TCW Facebook page

Why should climate science deniers be called climate science deniers? One of life's mysteries!

A quote from the About section, February 2015:

"Because we opposed the Ceres wind farm, members of our Community have been called liars, unethical, NIMBY's, climate change deniers, you name it, by certain sections of the pro wind lobby, one in particular."

• liars because they tell lies. (Just one of these is the claim that 60 000ha will be impacted by the wind farm. The actual impact will be a very small fraction of that.)
• unethical because they tell lies in order to oppose a renewable energy development that is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• NIMBYS because they want the wind turbines to be built elsewhere (NIMBY: Not In My Back Yard).
• climate change deniers because they deny climate change science. (The image on the right was published by TCW on her Facebook page.)

Libelous and defamatory statement From Facebook, Ceres page, October 2014

Of course this is quite unethical and not behaviour one would hope for from people who are local government representatives. I wonder if it would give them any protection if it came to a court case?

Everything I have written on my Ramblings pages was true to the best of my knowledge at the time I wrote it, and the very few things that I wrote that were later discovered to not be true have been removed. I have tried to clearly show what is opinion and what is fact. At the top of most of my pages I have a request for anyone to correct me if I have got something wrong.

While members of the HF have many times called me a liar they have very rarely made any specific claims that something I wrote was wrong, and have never supplied convincing evidence in support of such claims.

Ms Nova's graph

The graph on the right was on the Net page of Jo Nova's that TCW referred to.

Ms Nova stated that she obtained the data she used in the graph from the University of Arizona at Huntsville (UAH) who had interpreted it from satellite observations. (There is an interesting examination of this data set on Wikipedia.)

Anyone with any knowledge of science would be aware that several sets of measurements of a complex system, using entirely different methods of data collection, will come up with slightly different results. One would certainly expect satellite temperature data to differ somewhat to data collected by thermometers on the Earth's surface.

What does Jo Nova's graph show us? That, according to satellite data, this last Spring might have been the forth hottest in the last 35 years rather than the hottest. Even using Ms Nova's graph, seven of the hottest springs in the last 35 years have occurred in the last nine years. This seems strong evidence for climate change, rather than against!

I pointed this out to TCW.

Screen shot from the 'Ceres Wind Farm: The Debate' Facebook page

She responded with the first statement on the right.

I pointed out to TCW that, contrary to her claim that "there has been no overall shift in temperature in 18 years", Jo Nova's graph showed a particularly strong warming trend in that period. (I was writing as Ceres wind farm - the debate.)

To this TCW responded that 0.4°C was insignificant. (In fact, Jo Nova's graph, which TCW used to justify her claims, shows a temperature rise of more than 0.4°C in the last 18 years). NASA's Net site showed that temperatures have risen 0.8°C since 1880, so even 0.4°C in the last 35 years would be far from insignificant.

In summary:

1. TCW referred to Jo Nova's page to discredit BoM's statement that the last Spring was the hottest on record. Jo Nova's page did not discredit BoM's statement.
2. Jo Nova's graph contradicted TCW's statement that temperatures had not risen in the last 18 years.
3. TCW's claim that a 0.4°C rise in temperature in 35 years is insignificant is plainly quite false.

TCW: 1000hrs, 2014/12/06

"Worry about it if you want, it is not going to affect you, .8 of a degree in 134 years is hardly catastrophic climate change, that is of course if NASA is telling the truth. We know the IPCC certainly isn't.

The temperature could well drop .8 of a degree over the next 134 years and there is every indication that it might.

But carry on, if it makes you feel good."

"TCW; you are entirely missing the main points. All the evidence (including Jo Nova's graph) is showing that the rate of warming is increasing.

And unlike you, I am not concerned for myself, I am concerned for those who will have to live with the consequences of this disaster."

The Callous Wind on April 26, 2014 at 10:12 pm Well said STT. While we do not condone violence or vandalism, I can see things like that happening here, if construction starts on Ceres, There has already been some pushing and shoving with one of the proponents, neighbours angry at their turbine host neighbours, for not showing them any consideration when signing up for turbines.   Of course it will not significantly impact anybody's quality of life and most of the credible evidence is that property values will not be adversely impacted. You can not treat a Community with contempt, like they did at the meeting you mentioned and then construct an industrial power generating facility, that is going to impact on many people's quality of life, reduce their property values, as well as interfere with their business operations and not expect tensions to rise.   Desparate? Why should anyone be desparate? No one is going to be harmed. Many things in the way of reprisals, have been discussed in jest, already, but in situations like this, desperate people do desperate things.   This is clearly aimed at me. Note that TCW does not use facts, just vague threats and unfounded claims. No TCW, I will not 'take my blog down', I will keep on providing the people of Yorke Peninsula with the facts about wind farms. One particular blogger needs to tread very carefully as well, he continues to antagonise and denigrate members of our Community in his blog, on the internet, he needs to remember that he does not live very far away and he has publicly advertised his address. If I were him, I would take that blog down and move house, because if Ceres goes ahead, it could just come back and bite him in the arse, as they say, 'karma can be a bitch!'   Perhaps TCW should not be so strident in her condemnation of her neighbours, then she might find that she can have a more pleasent relationship with them? When the HF hired lawyers to send threatening letters to turbine hosts it would not have done anything to reduce tension and bad feeling. All caused by the wind industry? I don't think so. I have never in my whole life time, seen anything like this, the stress, the tension, people avoiding each other, Communities divided, all caused by the wind industry. TCW.

If the Ceres Project goes ahead the worst that any of the local people will suffer is:

1. They will see wind turbines;
2. If they live within one or two kilometres they will occasionally hear turbines;
3. If they have neighbouring farms they might be slightly inconvenienced occasionally; they may have to go about aerial spraying adjacent to turbines in a different way.

There was no stress and tension when the Clements Gap Wind Farm was built near my home in Crystal Brook, there was none at Snowtown when either the original wind farm or stage two were built, and, so far as I know, there was none at Edithburgh when Wattle Point Wind Farm was built. If there is local anxiety around Ceres it is due to people like the HF group and TCW stirring up fear with their misinformation campaign.

Emissions intensity on the Australian NEM Graph credit – Professor Mike Sandiford, University of Melbourne; data from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)

She made several more false claims:

1. "Wind energy is proven to be totally inefficient"
   It is hard to know exactly what TCW means by this, but I have shown that there is no meaningful way in which wind turbines can be called inefficient on another page. And after all, a wind turbine such as are to be built at Ceres consumes no fuel yet generates an average of about a megawatt of power; can that be called totally inefficient?
   
   And then wind turbines are currently generating about 26% of South Australia's electricity; can that be called totally inefficient?
   
   People like TCW hear that wind turbines are inefficient, think "that sounds good" and then repeat it ad nausium without bothering to find out whether there is any truth in it.
   
   
2. "and has shown little or no carbon savings to date"
   Look at the graph on the right. It shows emissions intensity (EI) from the four large states in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) and the average for the whole of the NEM, including Tasmania. (Tasmania's EI is off-scale at the bottom of this graph.) It is important to understand that this does not show total emissions, it shows emissions as tonnes of CO₂ emitted per Megawatt-hour of electricity generated.
   
   Note the very large decline in South Australia's EI, far greater than any other state; due almost entirely to South Australia having introduced far more wind power per capita over this period than any other state.
   
   

   	Justification of statements Notice that TCW does not justify her statements. I can sympathise with her on that; finding data and research that justifies one's statements can be a lot of work; I have read and written reams of stuff in order to justify my statements. It's a lot easier just to write something and hope that someone will believe it.
   	Breakthrough On 2013/04/21 TCW suggested some quite reasonable alternative sites for wind farms on the Yes2Renewables Net site. This was, so far as I can remember, the first serious attempt that she has made at discrediting my arguments rather than discrediting me.

3. "A few wind turbines built or not built on Yorke Peninsula is not going to make one iota of difference to climate change"
   TCW, tell the two million or so Australians who have put solar PV panels on their roofs that they are not making one iota of difference to climate change; I think you might get some arguments. And then remember that the Ceres Project will generate as much clean-green electricity as around 500 000 rooftop solar systems and will abate around two million tonnes of greenhouse gasses each year.
   
   
4. "There are plenty of sparsely populated areas in South Australia, not that far from the grid, where wind turbines can be placed."
   Perhaps you should list these on your Net site TCW? I'm sure many in the wind power industry would love to know where they are. I'd love to know! If such sites existed that's where the wind farmers would go.

She finished by claiming that they had odds of 200:1 against me. If that's 200 liars against one person telling the truth, so be it; sounds like a fairly equal contest. In fact, I can't imagine that the 200 would have such low standards as TCW, and I wonder how many of the 200 would still be with TCW if they were to read this page?

"Magna est veritas et praevalebit."

	Wind turbines and houses in the tulip fields of North Holland Photo credit Normann Szkop Note how close the turbine is to the house The original photograph can be seen on Flickr
	Photo credit Normann Szkop Four houses and two turbines close together The original photo can be seen on Flickr

Abandoned homes?

Note how close the homes are to the wind turbines in the photos on the right. Yet people in Europe generally seem quite comfortable with nearby turbines.

Having visited nearly all the wind farms of SA, Victoria and NSW, and having slept under turbines a number of times, I know the sound levels involved. (Evidence from my own ears; I have also taken many readings of sound levels near turbines.)

More money

"It may interest you to know that some of the Heartland Farmers were offered turbines and they refused them, they were thinking of their children and grandchildren. Oh yes, I forgot, you heard they wanted more money, you are right, they did tell the developer he should pay them twice as much per turbine, than what he was offering, because land here is worth twice as much per hectare, than what is in most areas where turbines have been placed."

I wonder how much the land in the photos on the right is worth per hectare? I suspect it would have a far higher price than land on Yorke Peninsula. Note how little land has been taken out of production by the presence of the turbines.

Mr. Clarke,

	Comments by the author, David Clarke I have pointed out the misinformation and lies told by TCW and HF in their selfish fight against the Ceres wind farm.
	TCW and HF have never shown that a single one of my statements is false. They specialise in making sensational statements without supporting arguments or evidence.
	Be assured TCW that I will continue to expose people like you and STT, who make false claims in an attempt to stop the renewable energy projects that we must have if we are to limit the climate change that will damage our planet. Please continue to write abusive nonsense like this; it is showing the world the sort of person you are.
	Intelligent debate would make an interesting change. So far HF and TCW have not shown any reasoned arguments or evidence in support of their claims.
	Why should I want you to stop TCW from "pursuing me across the Internet"? practically everything she writes gives me more evidence of her dishonesty and the foolishness of her 'arguments'.

There are a few things you probably need to know. You chose to stick your nose into our fight against the Ceres Project, you have denigrated very good people including ourselves, across the internet and still doing it, because they dared to oppose your views. Had you not done that, The Callous Wind never would have come into existence.

The Callous Wind was set up to counter your extreme one eyed views and criticism of all and sundry, particularly us. The Callous wind is no one person, it can be anyone.

Let me get one thing absolutely clear, I have told you on numerous occasions [twice] that The Callous Wind is not Tania. Tania would never engage anyone in this manner, so just get it into your thick head that it is not Tania, she has nothing to do with The Callous Wind whatsoever.

I can assure you I am much older than Tania and through the course of my life, I have encountered ignorant little pricks like you, on many occasions.

If you continue to denigrate anyone associated with Heartland Farmers or anyone here on Yorke Peninsula, who is opposed to The Ceres Project, The Callous Wind in conjunction with STT, will continue to pursue you across the Internet. If you are not happy with this arrangement, take the Heartland Farmers page and anything associated with Heartland Farmers off your blog and the Callous Wind not bother you again. If you want to promote The Ceres Project, that is your prerogative.

We are also open to intelligent debate but having intelligent debate with you, does not seem to be an option, it's your way or the highway.

We also assumed from your blog that you are having fun, well The Callous Wind certainly is, so it is up to you Mr. Clarke.

TCW.

	Agreement between REpower Australia and Aerotech The agreement announced on 2013/07/27, by which Aerotech planes will spray very close to the wind turbines, seems to me to suggest that those who control Aerotech have accepted the fact that a wind farm really has very little effect on agricultural aircraft.
	No air crashes due to wind turbines While there are perhaps 200 000 utility scale wind turbines in the world (274 000MW, the equivalent of about 100 000 modern wind turbines), so far as I have been able to find out no aircraft has ever crashed into, or because of, a wind turbine.
	Why aerial agricultural operators don't like wind farms Aerial agricultural operators cannot spray among wind turbines, largely because of the space they need to turn at the end of each run. This means that aerial contractors loose work to on-ground operators when wind farms are built. It is in the self-interest of aerial agricultural contractors to oppose wind farm construction.

Aerial spraying of insecticide and herbicide can only be safely done when there is little or no wind. At other times the spray will drift off-target. When there is little or no wind, wind turbines will not be operating and so will not create turbulence.

Heartland Farmers have claimed on their Net site that "any paddock that is even partially within 3km of a turbine will no longer have aerial applications available as a tool for that farmer." While this statement was a fabrication by HF, it seems to have been based on a claim by Aerotech; a company that provides aerial agricultural services on Yorke Peninsula and elsewhere.

I contacted Aerotech on 2013/04/22 and asked whether they had informed the Heartland Farmers that they were not able to operate any closer to wind turbines than 3km and, if so, how they justified this claim. I received a reply on 2013/04/24 from Aerotech's Managing Director, Sam McCabe. He did not answer my question, but stated:

"At this stage Aerotech does not have a firm policy on operating near wind farms. We have suggested that it may be up to 3km dependent on wind direction."

YouTube has video clips of crop dusting planes flying within a few metres of wind turbines, see here and here. It is done elsewhere, why not on Yorke Peninsula?

First, some examples of things that are not evidence:

• Anecdotes;
• Postings on anti-wind sites such as Stop These Things which show a callous disregard for the truth;
• Statements from disguised anti-wind power and anti-renewables lobby groups such as: the Waubra Foundation, Australian Landscape Guardians, Australian Environment Foundation and the Insitute of Public Affairs.
• Silly statements by HF such as the one about shadow flicker from operating wind turbines being a danger to road users (see under HF Net site on this page);
• Statements by HF about how noisy wind turbines are (I have visited many wind farms for myself, have measured the sound levels from various distances, have listened, and have slept beneath turbines a number of times to experience the sound first hand).

Some examples of valid evidence:

• The NSW Farmers Guide to Wind Farms (what reason would they have for bias one way or the other?);
• The study just today (2013/03/15) released by Professor Simon Chapman and discussed on The Conversation showing that health complaints from wind farms are very much related to scaremongers telling people that if they live near a wind turbine they should be sick;
• The study by psychologist Fiona Crichton and others and published by the American Psychological Association a few days ago (see APA PsycNet) showing that people who are under the impression that they will become ill due to infrasound, and are then told that they are being subjected to infrasound, are likely to experience adverse symptoms;
• The South Australian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report showing that infrasound levels near wind turbines was no higher than elsewhere; January 2013;
• The evidence of my own eyes and ears;
• More generally, material published in respectable peer-reviewed science journals.

No one likes to receive a threating letter of any kind; but perhaps one from a law firm is more unsettling than most. As a self-funded retiree who is trying to expose the lying that people like the Heartland Farmers do in regard to wind farms I am a little worried about litigation myself (see Mr 9-in-1).

In the Ceres case the lawyers are threatening action on noise nuisance and loss of productivity on behalf of neighbours. The lawyers are saying that if the turbines are built the neighbouring farmers will sue them.

This is rather curious considering that Heartland Farmers have admitted that some of those same neighbours would have agreed to have wind turbines on their land if they could have got more money out of the Ceres proponent. The 'loss of income' claim is also highly questionable considering the arguments on this page that any loss of income will be very small.

It should also be mentioned that there are already strict limits in law on noise from wind turbines. If the turbines were within those legal limits, and of course they must be, the neighbours would have no cause for complaint.

This seems to me to be just another unethical move for the HF group who are intent on getting their way, to the disadvantage of almost everyone else. They don't mind how they do it, but they are determined to win and if frightening their neighbours helps them, that's just bad luck for the neighbours.

Counter claims?

Suing me for libel?

Wikipedia, 2013/05/20, stated that the total installed wind power in Iowa was 5137MW in 2012 (at the same time the total for the whole of Australia was about 2600MW) and that Iowa had the greatest wind power capacity per square kilometre for any US state. The area of Iowa is less than two-thirds that of Victoria.

A very high concentration of wind power combines successfully with a highly intensive and productive grain industry in Iowa; why could the same not happen on Yorke Peninsula?

The three US states having the highest agricultural production also have the most wind power, demonstrating again the compatibility of wind power and agriculture.

Since then it seems that I have been up against two or three people. (I said 'up against' rather than 'debating' because there has been no debate; HF have not even attempted to support their lies with evidence.) There are a few more who have been writing ill-informed letters to the Yorke Peninsula Country Times. The other 195 or so people, if they exist, have been very quiet.

I can believe that there are 200 people on Yorke Peninsula who are concerned about the Ceres Project. What I cannot believe is that there would be anything like 200 who would have the low standards of ethics and honesty needed to support the fallacies on the Heartland Farmers Net site or in the full page advertisement.

When some people conduct a campaign as nasty and negative as that of the HF of course it is going to worry a lot of people.

Also see Who are the Heartland Farmers?, on this page.

These reports followed a study of all the available and credible evidence on the subject of wind turbines and health lasting several years. There are, of course, a number of other reviews of the evidence that have come to the same conclusion, and none published by any credible organisation or journal that has come to the contrary conclusion.

The HF supporter who calls herself The Callous Wind chooses to ignore this and quote anecdotes from people who believe that they have been made ill by wind turbines. Researchers have long recognised that anecdotes are the form of evidence having the lowest level of credibility.

Many, probably most, of those people who claim to have adverse health affects from turbines do honestly believe what they say to be true, and they should be treated sympathetically, but all the evidence is that they are suffering from a form of epidemic hysteria.

People can believe many things that are not true; especially when it comes to their health. Millions of people in more primitive societies are convinced that they have been made sick by things like "the evil eye", "pointing the bone", curses, sorcery and witchcraft. If you Google "alien abduction" you will get about 1.7 million hits; this does not prove that people are being abducted by aliens.

I emailed Dr Bittner on 2013/07/29 asking that she substantiate her claim; I received no reply.

The blades of modern wind turbines don't come any closer to the ground than about 30 or 40m. When a farmer (or an aerial spraying contractor) is spraying, using chemicals that will be toxic to adjacent crops, they have to be very careful that as little as possible of the spray drifts anywhere. Most spraying has to be done when there is little or no wind; in which case nearby turbines would not be operating at all. How spray could get up 30 or 40m above the ground to be picked up by a wind turbine and then 'shifted' to another paddock, if the spray operator is doing his job properly, is unimaginable.

"Woolworths not buying sheep from wind farms"

"that Woolworths will not buy sheep for meat, that have been grazing under wind turbines."

Ceres wind farm and CO₂

I have shown that Dr Sexton's calculations were in error by a factor of 60 000!

• How should we live?
• What is the correct course of action in various situations?
• How should we balance our own needs and desires with the sometimes conflicting needs and desires of others?
• Should we tell the truth?

Some people don't like the idea of having wind farms built near them, but, if we are to move away from burning fossil fuels quickly and without excessive expense, some people are going to be inconvenienced. Is the inconvenience to a few people in a part of Yorke Peninsula really too much to ask in return for a wind farm that will generate enough clean electricity to abate two million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year? Especially when one considers that others will be advantaged, and indeed, I would argue that most people on Yorke Peninsula will be advantaged.

Finally, there are ethical ways of conducting a campaign and there are unethical ways. The ethical standards of many anti-wind power organisations are quite low, but I don't know of any that have quite such low standards as the shamelessly lying Heartland Farmers.

Germany set for record in 2014 As reported in RenewEconomy Germany is set for a record installation of on-shore wind power in 2014; possibly as much as 3 500MW – more than in the whole of Australia.

The article's headline was "Government backs eight new renewable energy projects". It continued:

"The UK government has announced that it will financially support eight renewable energy projects that could generate enough electricity to power more than three million homes. Once built, all eight projects, of which five are offshore wind farms and three biomass projects, could add a further 4.5GW of low-carbon electricity to Britain's energy mix (around 4% of capacity), according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)."

Second, The Global Wind Energy Council reported in their Annual Market Update, 2013, that in China,

"... annual installations [of wind power projects] are expected to continue to grow over the next few years. The Chinese government has also set a new ambitious target of 200 GW by 2020 and if the past is any indication, the target will certainly be achieved, and likely exceeded."

It is even more telling to look at the sources that they don't use. They have very little to say about reports from bodies such as the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, The Lancet (probably the most prestigious medical journal in the world), any of the Australian state departments of health, Health Canada, the Australian Medical Association, or anything at all published in respectable peer-reviewed journals.

All of these sources have provided information that has discredited claims made by wind power opposition groups.

While I have no doubt that some honest people are opposed to the project, they are not vocal. They don't take part in the debate on the Facebook page, elsewhere on the Internet, or in the local newspaper.

The very small Heartland Farmers group have admitted that at least one of them was happy to host turbines, but because the amount of money on offer was insuficient they became opponents of the project.

The disregard for the facts that those who are opposing Ceres have is plain to anyone reading this page, the Ceres page and the Facebook page. What is surprising is that they don't seem to mind being shown to be wrong over and over again.

Also see Who are the Heartland Farmers?