There are very good reasons to believe that the Waubra Foundation's claims
to be an independent and impartial body are false.
An interesting and revealing exposé by Sandi Keane can be read on the
Independent Australia site (as of August
2011).
According to Sandi Keane and other sources:
- Peter Mitchell, Founder and Chair of the Waubra Foundation, helped set
up and fund the Australian Landscape Guardians (ALG) and actively opposed Stockyard Hill Wind Farm.
He has a number of connections to mining interests, including fossil fuels
and uranium;
- Kathy Russell, another director of the WF, is Vice President of the ALG
and was active in opposing the Winchelsea Wind Farm;
- Another director, Tony Hodgson, helped fund the anti Collector Wind Farm
campaign and is involved with the Booroowa Landscape Guardians;
- Another director, Michael Wooldridge, actively opposed the
Bald Hills Wind Farm.
- The address of the Waubra Foundation is PO Box 1136, South Melbourne 3205,
apparently the same as that of the Australian Landscape Guardians and
Peter Mitchell.
- There are no pro-wind-farm members of the Waubra Foundation to balance
the anti wind farm members.
Some of the above was denied by Ms Laurie.
I have not independently tried to see where the truth lies, however no
person who was not strongly anti-wind-power would willingly be
associated with any organisation whose Medical Director (now CEO) produced
statements and demands as outrageous as those made by Ms Laurie.
The Australian Landscape Guardians are a vociferous anti-wind-power group
that seem to take very little other action to protect landscapes; they seem
to be unconcerned about coal mining and coal-seam gas exploitation for
example.
Peter Mitchell said on the ABC's Four Corners of 2011/07/25 "We are trying to bring to people's attention – developers, bureaucrats, government ministers, that wind turbines are dangerous to residents' health.
And that's what I'm on about".
This is far more negative than the neutral statements of the official Foundation objectives.
The article by Sandi Keane says that "Mitchell certainly has interests in the fossil fuel industry.
These include founding Chairman of the Moonie Oil Company Ltd. and Chairman or a Director of related companies including Clyde Petroleum plc, Avalon Energy Inc, North Flinders Mines Ltd, Paringa Mining & Exploration plc (most now delisted on the ASX)."
Of course the fossil fuel industry does not want to see sustainable energy taking over from fossil fuels.
In their turn the ALG are linked to the so-called Australian Environment Foundation (AEF), an off-shoot of the right-wing think tank the pro-nuclear Institute of Public Affairs.
Both the ALG and IPA have climate-change scepticism leanings.
Randall Bell, President of the ALG, has said that "claims the Earth is warming are scientifically unreliable" and that only 1% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was put there by Man.
ABC TV's Media Watch did a segment on the IPA and AEF on 2012/03/19, linking them to another astroturfer, the so-called Australian Climate Science Coalition, which is actually an anti climate-science group.
Significantly, Ian Plimer is a member of the 'Scientific Advisory Panel' of the ACSC.
(Mr Plimer used to be Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, where, I believe, he became something of an embarrassment due to his unscientific stance on climate change.
He left the University to devote himself more fully to his considerable mining interests.)
I believe that the Waubra Foundation have not made public the source of their funding.
Notes on the claims and demands of Sarah Laurie, Medical Director of the Waubra Foundation, are on a separate page.
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A few of the turbines of the Waubra Wind Farm
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The community of Waubra have raised a petition with 316 signatures and have submitted it to the so-called Waubra Foundation demanding the good name of their town back.
(See, on this site, a published letter from a Waubra resident
demanding an apology from the Waubra Foundation, and elsewhere
Indepdent Australia, 2013/09/28).
Cimara Pearce wrote a
piece for the Weekly Times Now on
2013/12/17 in which she reported the the Waubra Foundation (WF) had rejected
calls by over three hundred petitioners for the lobby group to change its
name.
A press release stated:
"To change the name now would halt the momentum achieved by years of work by
a small team of volunteers."
It went on to state rather aragantly:
"The Foundation will not be making further comment on its decision."
So, it seems that the Board of the WF are thumbing their collective noses
at the people of Waubra.
Neil Barrett spent a lot of time finding out how the Waubra locals felt about
the Waubra Wind Farm and sumarised his work in a short
video (no longer available) titled How the Wind Blows.
There were a total of twelve videos; in addition to the twelve-minute summary,
there is an introduction and ten interviews with neighbours and hosting farmers.
Some of the people Neil interviewed also gave their opinions of the Waubra Foundation.
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| The way of the future
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| | Producing electricity from the thin air
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Friends of the Earth media release on 2012/01/24
The FoE had, through a Freedom of Information request directed to
NSW public health authority, NSW Health, obtained documents that cast
considerable doubts over the credibility of the Waubra Foundation (WF).
The media release included notes on the NSW Health
Department's assessment of the WF's claims that wind turbines
cause health problems.
The assessment found that the claims of the WF were of the
'lowest category of scientific evidence', and had major methodological
flaws.
Mike Barnard has written an extensive piece titled
Seven things you must know about the Waubra
Foundation and Sarah Laurie.
His main points:
- They have no relevant expertise and reject independent expertise and
peer reviewed science;
- They misrepresent themselves as well as the work of others;
- They were formed by a coalition of wealthy, NIMBY landowners;
- They are consistently unethical in their operations;
- They are global warming deniers;
- They have close ties to fossil fuel and mining interests opposed to wind
energy;
- They live nowhere near Waubra and the town is outraged at the WF's
use of the town's name.
He provided detailed justifications for his statements.
Climate Spectator, 2012/08/08, published an article titled
Should taxpayers be funding anti-wind farm
legal action?
Among other things, the article made a good case that the Waubra Foundation
was not entitled to 'tax free charity' status.
On 2013/07/06 I sent an objection to the Australian Tax Office against the
Waubra Foundation's tax free status.
Wikipedia definition: "A foundation is a legal categorization of nonprofit
organizations that will typically either donate funds and support to other
organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable
purposes."
The Waubra Foundation is not a foundation in this sense; it consists of a
few people who don't like wind turbines and
Ms Sarah Laurie, who mistakenly
believes that wind turbines make people ill.
It seems that the word 'foundation' has been used simply to try to give
the group more credibility.
Ms Laurie, who calls herself the Medical Director, and more recently the
Chief Executive Officer, of the Waubra Foundation seems to be the
main spokesperson for the group.
Another member of the Waubra 'Foundation' board is
Dr Michael Wooldridge who, according to an article written in the
Australian by John Conroy on 2014/07/28, was at risk of being banned as
a company director for a period of up to ten years for his part in the
collapse of Prime Trust.
In late October 2014 the Waubra Foundation made the bizarre claim that
the sleep deprivation due to wind turbine noise amounted to torture inflicted
by wind turbine operators on neighbours of wind farms.
I have written a satirical
sketch on this elsewhere on this site.
Coincidentally, Health Canada, in November 2014 produced a
Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study:
Summary of Results.
Health Canada found that health and quality of life were
unaffected by nearby wind turbines, some annoyance was found.
With particular regard to the noise and sleep, Health Canada reported that:
"The following were not found to be associated with WTN [wind turbine noise] exposure:
- self-reported sleep (e.g., general disturbance, use of sleep medication,
diagnosed sleep disorders);
- self-reported illnesses (e.g., dizziness, tinnitus, prevalence of
frequent migraines and headaches) and chronic health conditions (e.g., heart
disease, high blood pressure and diabetes); and
- self-reported perceived stress and quality of life.
While some individuals reported some of the health conditions above, the
prevalence was not found to change in relation to WTN levels."
In other words, there was no link found between sleep disorders and actual
levels of wind turbine noise.
Related external pages...
Source Watch on the Waubra 'Foundation':
"The Waubra Foundation is a front or astroturf group created by Peter Mitchell on March 1, 2010 to oppose wind farming in Australia. It was registered with Business Affairs as an incorporated body on that date but later deregistered on July 13, 2011."
Source Watch is a respected organisation that assesses the credibility of Net sites.
Wikipedia says of the Waubra Foundation:
"Claims made by the Waubra Foundation relating to wind turbine syndrome and wind farm syndrome are considered pseudo scientific and are not recognised as actual diseases by any international disease classification system, nor do they appear in any title or abstract in the United States National Library of Medicine's PubMed database. Wind turbine syndrome has been characterized as pseudoscience. Since 2003, 25 reviews have been published of the scientific literature on wind turbines and health. These studies have consistently found no reason to believe that wind turbines are harmful to health."
Related pages on this site...
Wind power and health
Sarah Laurie
Wind energy opposition
Poor journalism has many victims
