Strange report
In spite of the above statements by Cooper, Graham Lloyd in The Australian, the anonymous author of Stop These Things, the self-styled 'Waubra Foundation' and radio shock jock Alan Jones have all tried to link wind turbines to ill health based on Cooper's report.
|
To a layman like me Cooper's report seems highly technical but also inconsequential; it is very hard to see exactly what he believes his research has demonstrated. If I was asked to characterise it with one word I would probably choose 'vague'. (It needs to be mentioned that Mr Cooper has a long history of trying to link wind turbines with ill-health.)
Before and after Cooper's study the fact is that no one has identified a credible mechanism by which wind turbines could make people ill.
Cooper wrote about 'sensations' perceived by the subjects, but he didn't link these sensations to any particular sort of sound, infrasound or anything else coming from the turbines.
Of particular interest, it seems that about half of the 'sensations' were reported when the wind turbines were not working.
For more on Cooper's report I refer readers to a piece written by Jacqui Hoepner and Will J Grant and published in The Conversation on 2015/01/22. It was titled "Wind turbine studies: how to sort the good, the bad, and the ugly".
Claims made by Graham Lloyd regarding Cooper's report were deconstructed on Media Watch, 2015/02/16.
The lack of specificity in Cooper's connecting of whatever was coming from the wind turbines to the subject's sensations rather brought to mind a satirical page I wrote some time ago: Diabolical wind turbine rays.
|
|
Absurd statements
Waterloo Wind Farm
|
|---|
|
This wind farm is three kilometres from the township of Waterloo.
I've slept beneath two of the turbines on different nights; good night's sleep both times.
I've failed to definitely hear the turbines from the township on about ten visits; once I thought I may have heard them but there was too much noise from nearby birds to be sure.
|
Several statements Mr Cooper was reported to have made were quiet wrong to the point of being absurd. He was reported to have said that "audible and non-audible noise from wind farms could cause headaches, aching chests and legs, nausea, irritability and disorientation among nearby residents".
Mr Cooper's statements were reported, uncritically, in two of the local newspapers, the Northern Argus and the Flinders News.
|
Apparently in response to the articles Mr Cooper had a letter published in both newspapers on 2018/11/14 claiming that he had not said that wind turbines could cause headaches, aching chests and legs, nausea, irritability and disorientation.
However, in the same letters Mr Cooper continued to misrepresent the facts, ascribing findings to a World Health Organisation report that were not present in that report; see below. |
Wind turbines do not cause ill-health
Teresa Simonetti, Sydney Medical School with Professor Simon Chapman, School of Public Health University of Sydney have listed at least 236 symptoms that have been blamed on wind turbines.Dr Fiona Crichton has conducted research that indicated the expectations can produce symptoms when people have been told that they have been subjected to non-audible noise that may harm them. Professor (now Professor Emeritus) Simon Chapman with Fiona Crichton have written a book titled "Wind turbine syndrome : a communicated disease" which is available from the University of Sydney's Web site.
Ill health blamed on wind turbines is a fiction; I have written at some length on the matter
elsewhere on this site.
"Wind Turbine Syndrome" is a delusion that ran its course from about 2010 to 2014; very few people believe it any more.
The delusion is largely to be blamed on
lazy, unthinking, irresponsible and sensation-seeking journalists.
Wind turbines do not cause people to abandon their homes
|
Waterloo is a very small town about three kilometres from the nearest turbines of the Waterloo Wind Farm. Many, perhaps most, towns the size of Waterloo or even considerably bigger are suffering from loss of residents; people just don't want to live in very small towns that lack services. I have visited Waterloo about ten times trying to hear the turbines from there; not once have I definitely heard them from the township.
One chapter in the book by Chapman and Crichton mentioned above showed that there is no convincing evidence that anyone has abandoned their home due to wind turbines in Australia. I have written about the claim on another page on this site.
I have not heard of any other town in Australia that anyone, however imaginative, has claimed to 'become a ghost town' due to a nearby wind farm.
It is nothing short of disgusting for a man in Mr Cooper's position, who passes himself off as an expert, to be so careless with the truth.
I have written elsewhere that for a person in a position of power to knowingly lie in order to slow the transition to renewable energy is a terrible crime; the consequences of climate change will be very severe and will impact all future generations. Perhaps Mr Cooper believes what he says, as absurd as his statements may be.