Wind power sound backlash is overblown

It is ironic that your article proudly displays a dysfunctional turbine, the famous CNE turbine, that is according to one investor, "orphaned and dying, and ready to be decommissioned." This turbine has cost the taxpayers we don't know what to build and maintain, has lost an equal amount from unsuspecting investors, has never produced meaningful electricity, has had numerous and outrageous technical problems with gear boxes, and only THIS year is finally producing a small amount of hydrogen, the least effective source of energy. It is also highly ironic that David Suzuki still touts the benefits of wind power when so much evidence is on the web every day that attests to the fact that you always need back up, lots of it (Denmark now uses 50% more coal than 25 years ago), and yes, people are being forced out of their homes, having landscapes destroyed, and prime agricultural and recreational land subsumed into an extremely corrupt industrial complex. If you follow the trail of investors and developers, there is a DIRECT chain to the Liberal government. Minister Deb Matthews is the sister-in-law of former Premier David Peterson, and former Premier John Turner is on the Board of a Grand Bend wind project. Cozy? You bet. But post election, let's see how that chain of relationships gets explored, maybe even challenged. How do YOU spell Graft? David Suzuki has been touting wind way too long for a scientist of his stature. Something smells, like bad.

Spain has lost 2.2 jobs per so called "green" job and is on its knees economically, largely because of its head long plunge into worthless energy policies. Denmark has the second highest CO2 level in Europe, and you can point to many European experiences that talk about ill health, millions of bird and bat kills, many endangered species. For Suzuki to continue this pablum of platitudes about wind power is really beyond the pale at this point in time. Beyond.

Suzuki's uninformed support for industrial wind turbines does nothing to boost his already already low level of credibility.
This article is simply regurgitating the garbage that we hear on
almost a daily basis from Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid.
Are you really that naive and gullible Mr Suzuki or are you simply incompetent like Duguid and his boss McGuinty?
Seems to me your expertise is in fruit flies - it certainly is not electrical generation or people's health.

Dr. Suzuki has it wrong. Nine peer reviewed articles have been published in a special August, 2011 edition of the scientific journal, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society (BSTS). These articles explore health and social impacts of IWT installations. http://bst.sagepub.com Other peer reviewed articles are available that support the adverse health effects occurring. Ontario MOE documents obtained from a Freedom of Information request states “It appears compliance with the minimum setbacks and the noise study approach currently being used to approve the siting of WTGs will result or likely result in adverse effects contrary to subsection 14(1) of the EPA” A July 2011 Environmental Review Tribunal decision for an IWT project in Ontario confirmed IWTs can harm humans: “This case has successfully shown that the debate should not be simplified to one about whether wind turbines can cause harm to humans. The evidence presented to the Tribunal demonstrates that they can, if facilities are placed too close to residents.” (Emphasis added) There is ample evidence adverse health effects occur with the onset of operations of industrial wind turbines in proximity to humans. As a scientist, it is expected Dr. Suzuki would avail himself of the scientific evidence and stop denying its existence.

So, the Chief Medicine Man, along with David Suzuki (my age), so in his doteage too, are waxing more in eloquence than in common sense and intelligence when they say that those like me are Overblowing the effects of infra-sound from Wind Rigs.

Since November, 2010,I have been living under 20 of them along with friends and neighbors. The look of them is not a problem. I can always turn my back. What I cannot turn my back to are the politico's and quasi-scientists of wind who have forgotten Newton's Law : # 3.

'FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL REACTION'

It took a while last fall to come to terms with what was happening. I began waking 2-3 times a night for no good reason listening to a swishing sound in my head. My humble abode, as to the Wind Rigs, sit atop and alongside a solid basalt mountain range.

In time the sound took me back 65 years to my grandma's first electric wooden washing machine.....from a great distance!

At first, I thought maybe the noise was coming thru the floor and the plumbing....One night I found myself laying on the floor with an ear down to the drain in the shower behind my bedroom door. Wrong assumption! Nothing there!

Eventually it came to me that the noise is coming through the moutain, reverberating it's way into my inner-ear, and me. This went on all winter into spring....Most mornings getting up by 4 AM to escape it.

Where I live, the winds change with the seasons, so since spring, there has been a reprieve for me, but not those on the other side.However, Mother Nature doesn't let me off Scott -free , and points the wind in my direction even in the summer.

On Aug.23/24th. the reverberating mountain came back to me with the same cacophonous din once more entering my head to torment and rage me from the earth' satanic bowels. Doctor and Mr.S., please don't tell me that I am dreaming! My inner-ear is imagining nothing.

I have a question or two to place before you:

Do humans need sleep? If sleep is imterupted several times during the night, and one still has to arise for a day's work, what will happen overtime? Will there be health-effects to continuous loss of sleep? Yes or No?

If we need no sleep, then why not prescribe us all with "Wake-Up-Pills" so we can double our production. I can't imagine the amount the two of you could produce with your wisdom in double-time, 24/7! (Or it's converse, of course!) Think of this, with double the awakened time, you could ballyhoo us twice with your defense of Wind Rigs!

We need out sleep! Without it we shall die before our time! This misinformation spewed before the world as if it were the Word of God,is wrong, and will slowly kill the lot of us who live beneath Wind Rigs anywhere.

As men of science, however imperfect it may be, you owe us better than generalities such as this. Let us all be open to the pursuit of the Truth....

In the meantime, if you want, come and sleep underneath them for a while and see what you will hear.....

David,

You're dead wrong on this one. The empty propoganda about this ridiculously inefficient, expensive, intrusive industry is wearing very thin.

You're going to have to deal with reality. The old talking points don't work anymore.

The wind industry employs the cream of the crop in shysters and opportunist NON-environmentally aware people. Are you one of them?

In Ontario, these wind companies are applying to ignore the Endangered Species Act. Do you applaud this? The hypocrisy is out there for all to see.

Dr Suzuki's comments are inappropriate as a scientist. He is completely uninformed and shows absolutely no willingness to look at this issue more broadly than the trite statements from the Ontario Liberal government, which brings up another problem: how can a person who portrays himself as a) a scientist b) an environmentalist and c) head of a foundation which accepts donations for which charitable donation receipts sre issued, engage in this wholly political exercise?
This is a very dirty business indeed.