So, Tony Abbott is going to hold another inquiry into utterly spurious claims about adverse health effects from wind farms. Credulous belief in these effects, or silent acquiescence in claims about them, is now compulsory on the political right, particularly among those who, absurdly, describe themselves as “sceptics” on climate science and, more generally, on scientific evidence about actual health risks from genuine environmental hazards. The extreme example, chosen by the Oz to lay down the party line, is James Delingpole whose denial extends beyond climate change to include rejection of the health effects of passive smoking (based on the bogus and discredited research of tobacco-funded “researchers” Enstrom and Kabat). Despite claiming that there is no risk in inhaling a toxic mixture of dozens of carcinogens, Delingpole has no difficulty in believing that noise levels quieter than those of a public library will cause all manner of health risks, including “night sweats, headaches, palpitations, heart trouble”. [fn1]
It’s easy to multiply examples of this kind (Miranda Devine, Jennifer Marohasy, Christopher Booker). What’s more striking is the silence of those who know this stuff is nonsense, but don’t want to offend their allies and supporters
Andrew Bolt is particularly interesting here. He obviously knows that the claims about health risks are nonsensical, and is careful (AFAICT) to avoid mentioning them, while writing in a way that hints at support. So, we get a favorable link to the Delingpole piece, but the pull quote refers to economics not to health issues. Of course, if the politics were such as to demand support for wind, Bolt would make mincemeat of the nonsense Delingpole is putting forward.
A couple of takeaways from this
1. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single climate denialist anywhere in the world who has the minimal consistency and honesty needed to reject nonsense arguments from their own side, even when they take a form (NIMBY claims about unproven health risks) that they routinely denounce when put forward by misguided environmentalists. That can be extended to the entire political right in Australia – I’m not aware of a single person on the right who has called Abbott out on this nonsense. Active liars like Delingpole, and enablers like Bolt are representative of the entire right, even those who would like to appear rational and reasonable.
2. It’s crucial for the left to reject this kind of argument whenever it appears, even when the proponent takes the correct stance on other issues.
[1] This article earned a rebuke from the Press Council, but that merely perpetuates the notion that Delingpole is a journalist and that the Oz is a newspaper. These 20th century categories have ceased to be applicable – the Oz is better understood as a lunar right blog that, for historical reasons, is printed out on broadsheet paper every day.
John Quiggin 
Good points etc….
But, you have included a link to News Ltd.
Since they never extend that courtesy to anyone, and since doing so actually gives Rupert money and undeserved credibility – I always advocate against it. They simply do not deserve links.
welcome to the global village – this is the new tribalism marshall mcluhan predicted would characterise society in the era of speed of light communications. it will never again be who is right or who is wrong but only whether he or she “is one of ours”. -a.v.
Wind farms and health risks.
I don’t believe it is possible to make a categorical statement, of the form Yes or No in answer to the question: Do wind farms entail health risks. I understand there are two questions being pursued. One is noise (unwanted sound). The other one is recurrent patterns of shades (visual).
I have never looked at the shading aspect. However, I do know that noise as a public health problem is a well developed scientific research program with the 11th International Congress on Noise as a Public Health Problem (ICBEN) taking place in Japan in June this year. This research program examines a wide range of acoustic pollution – neighbourhood, transport, industrial, …, instrumental sound. Some scientists examine the effect of sound on animals. Some of the medical scientists work with economists regarding arriving at monetary estimates of the cost of acoustic pollution (this is where I had contact with ICBEN).
Obviously, if the sound of wind turbines – day and night – at a particular location is no more than the ambient noise of a public library (reading areas I assume), then the likelihood of a person being disturbed is small. Without being disturbed in any way it is difficult to put forward the hypothesis that there would be health effects. A Sydney resident would not be disturbed by a wind turbine in Canberra. But beyond such obvious cases, it gets difficult very quickly (without having to employ psychological hypotheses, such as ‘modifiers’). I learned from acoustics experts that it is not only the sound level, as measured by dB or dBA, but the frequency components of the sound that matter (eg hearing the base only of music played at a party a street away).
It is perhaps not surprising that noise as a public health problem is of greater concern in densely populated geographical regions, such as Western Europe, then in Australia. However, ignoring the findings may not be a good idea when it comes to deciding on locations in Australia. Australia has a choice set for locations that is much larger in geographical dimensions than say Western Europe. It seems to me the precautionary principle could be applied fruitfully in the selection of locations.
In your footnote [1], did you mean to say the Oz is a loony right blog?
Tony could help the budget emergency by abandoning this inquiry. After all, he saved money by disbanding the Climate Commission.
Well, John Brookes, he certainly could do that, but it appears that environmental red tape mustn’t be allowed to get in the way of business, unless it’s a business that gets in the way of coal.
Aren’t we at the point now where we have to accept that what Delingpole and his fellow travelers *are* journalists and what they do *is* journalism? That they are the rule and not the exception?
There’s a time to fight and there’s also a time when the least bad option is a tactical retreat and burning the fields as you go. Journalism is past saving and framing journalism as an ‘important’ or even a ‘useful’ activity reinforces the legitimacy of people like Delingpole.
It’s time to start forcefully making the point that complains about “the media” or “the murdoch press” that they are complaining about work done by journalists. Journalists are a significant part of what is wrong with our country and the largest single obstacle on our long road of recovery.
All that ‘good stuff’ we think we’re defending when we defend ‘journalism’ needs a new name. ‘Blogging’?
d
@Darryl Rosin
Actually, I think it is more productive to distinguish between good and bad journalism. Take politics. The right loves nothing more than having us believe that all politicians are crooked. Then they can say to their followers, “Don’t trust politicians, but you can trust us”. Similarly if Rupert’s henchmen give all journalists a bad name, then everyone starts thinking they can’t trust journalists, and the worth of good journalism drops.
People like Delingpole, Bolt, Albrechtsen etc aren’t journalists. They’re not even hacks.
I think WTS is a physical manifestation of resentment over spoiled views, missing out on cash and perhaps reduced property resale value. I see at Palmer in the Adelaide Hills ‘good neighbour’ payments of $2,000 (p.a.?) are to be offered to adjoining property owners, a precedent which could change the economics. In southern NSW an adjoining property owner is or was suing for 35% loss of resale value. Those who can get their pound of flesh do so others I suggest get WTS. By the way UK PM David Cameron is another who thinks wind farms spoil rural views.
My main objection to wind power is that in most places the cost of cost of CO2 avoided is well above the current official price of $24.15 per tonne. If mixed cycles gas fired generation is the benchmark then wind saves say 0.45 tonnes of CO2 per Mwh of wind generation. But you still have the unproductive fixed costs of the idled gas plant while the wind is blowing, say $50. Divide that extra cost by the CO2 saved $50/.45 to get $111. That’s why the wind build will slow perhaps stop if the RET goes. With high future gas prices wind power may be a net cost saver but the bigger issue then is overall cost.
Perhaps wind opponents don’t formulate the issue in this way but focus on health issues instead. Whether WTS or infrasound is real is not I don’t care for wind farms for two key reasons
1) wind towers and new transmission spoil rural views
2) they are not a cost effective way of reducing emissions.
Some morons in central Vic stopped an NBN fixed wireless tower because reasons. How long before WTS is Wireless Tower Syndrome?
@John Brookes
I’ve heard them called “knob-polishers’ and ‘hagiographers”.
@Hermit
This is just snobbery and really, there are many things that blight my rural landscape but other people seem to like. Not to mention the smell when my neighbours spread their wonderful mulch on their huge and wonderful vege garden and I have to smell it for a week or more depending on the wind direction.
Well, why do these people lie about so many things?
Is it to do with brain structure, or bad childhood, or what?
And they seem capable of doing it barefaced. Not so much as the twitch of a muscle.
I am amused at the way these delicate right-wingers (mostly males) fear “night sweats, headaches, palpitations, heart trouble” from wind farms. Poor dears! Reach for the smelling salts! However, several reactors at Fukushima go near critical, blow containment, melt down, plume radioactive isotopes over land and pour same into the ocean. The region is evacuated, 160,000 people are displaced. The clean up is dangerous and in many ways humanly and technically impossible to execute. And yet these same wind-farm critics are saying, usually; “Nuclear is safe and we need – insert very large number here – more nuclear power reactors all over the world, especially near coasts and along fault lines because that’s where the people are.
Sure, wind farms have dangers and problems and induce certain kinds of pollution (e.g. more mining for rare earths) but these problems are a couple of orders of magnitude less than the problems of fossil fuel power. Also, all other forms of electrical power generation require transmission lines. Transmission lines are not unique to wind power so why selectively raise it as if this is a “new” problem?
As for visual and other forms of pollution, when sea level rise drowns cities I suspect neither that nor the millions of refugees heading inland will be fair to see. Those who think damage and displacement from sea level rise will be incremental are wrong. The main encroachment events will happen during super-storms and the wrecked cities and agricultural deltas will be unrecoverable salt marshes afterwards.
The word you’re looking for is “propagandist”.
@JohnBrookes
My point is that you *can’t* trust journalists. I suggest that less than 1% of journalism in Australia is “good” and the majority of it is actively damaging to our society.
Defending journalism, or trying to keep a “balanced opinion” on “good” and “bad” journalism is like keeping a “balanced opinion” on evolution or climate change.
Anyone who does good work as a journalist needs to stop calling themselves a journalist. Honestly, after the last few years and particularly the federal election, I cannot understand how anyone with a shred of dignity or pride in their work can call themselves a journalist and look people in the eye. The fact there hasn’t been an enormous walk-out from the profession speaks volumes about the people working in it and groupthink in the industry.
d
@Darryl Rosin
That’s my cue to roll out my old “Anguished Shill Wrestles With Inner Hypocrite” quote:
I used my university’s account to access today’s op-ed by the Australian’s opinion editor, Nick Cater, and I’m puzzled as to whether the article is an accurate reflection of the depth and breadth of his ignorance on anything to do with the environment and sustainability, or whether he is feeding the readers their preferred flavour of swill.
Paul,
You forget the most likely answer is both.
The was an exchange between Guy Rundle and Nick Cater, adjudicated by Brendan Oneill, on ABC RN. Both Oneill and Cater came over as pompous twits and made Rundle furious with their fabricated and orchestrated nonsense. I was surprised that RN runs the nonsensical counterfactual Counterpoint program but I guess it serves as a timely reminder at to just how nutty these Very Important People are.
At one stage I did think that Abbott was playing a clever game but his performance at Davos makes me think he is the real deal.
Of course, nothing really spoils rural views quite as badly as a farm.
@21
And trees.
@Megan
Megan, you and your friend Jack are, of course, correct. My ever-so-slightly hyperbolic rantings are a reflection of my personal sense of despair and confusion about What Is To Be Done. The world is a difficult place and quests for purity are by and large Not Good Things and I try to always remember that the likelihood that I am utterly wrong is almost certainly higher than I think it is. We have to put food on our tables, money in the accounts of our mortagees and try and guide children to be better people than we are.
d
@Darryl Rosin
Actually, I agree wholeheartedly with what you wrote @15!
I view people like “Jack” as apologists for the propaganda machine they are a vital component of.
No self-respecting person could work for Murdoch unless they openly admitted to simply being tools of his ideological machine and simply doing it for the money – of course to do so would result in them being shown the door. That’s part of my issue with them, the inbuilt dishonesty.
There’s not a lot of point in linking to the Oz when the article is behind a paywall.
“the Oz is better understood as a lunar right blog”
Indeed I see that both Gerard Henderson and Grace Collier now write for the Oz. I suppose, to paraphrase Roy and HG, too much right wingery is never enough. All the Oz needs to do now is to bring back Stuchbury and they’ll have a complete set.
They’d also need Tom Switzer to complete the set, Uncle Milton.
@David Irving (no relation)
Good point about Switzer. The Fairfax papers also have a young right wing woman from Adelaide (Nicole Flint, I think: I wonder if she is related to you-know-who) but she still has her training wheels on and does not (yet) write in the ad hominem favoured at the Oz.
I think wind turbines are beautiful; my wife and I often stop to admire them on our drives through the country. Not only are they sleek, slender, and aerodynamic, they are a marvel of engineering, and by God they are making electricity while I watch! I wish there were a few in the hills here in St Andrews. I’ve never understood the argument that they are ugly. Have any of these people ever seen a regular windmill? Damn rusty old things are everywhere, and half of them don’t even work.
Well, better a wind farm than a CSG well head anywhere near where you live.
There’s no likelihood of CSG wells being drilled on North Head and none at all of windfarms being built there either; or along the cliffs of Dover Heights, or South Head. If you like ’em so much, aesthetically, campaign for a farm of the monsters right now, right where you live. See how you like your ridge line moving from afar with blades. Better still, see how you like your horizons constructed of towers of immobile wind gens, burnt out, just sitting there, like in Eastern Ca.
Wind farms are a joke.
Good on you Jungey, nice to see someone passionately advocating for the equitable placement of these eminently sensible pieces of technology.
@jungney
Eastern Canada is a big place. Where, specifically, are these dead wind generators?
@Alan
Yes I’d be interested to know too.
john who lives in Eastern Canada near the big lakes.
@jrkrideau
Mind you, don’t be surprised if we learn, as is so often the case, that (1) the claimant remembers reading something about it somewhere or other (2) we don’t hear from the claimant until they make some other claim about something they read somewhere or other maybe, perhaps, whatever.
I understand that Greg Hunt wants the RET + Direct Action but the cabinet is cool on the RET. The wind farm health inquiry could be a pretext for dropping the RET. My view is similar to that in the UK that CO2 reduction is the primary objective not any particular technology and that all low carbon energy providers get a comparable deal, in effect price guarantees.
If the RET goes the new wind build will probably stop. Tas Hydro has said they won’t build the 600 MW King Island project without the RET. Other projects underway including solar farms, wave power and so on may find it difficult to repay even concessional finance without the renewable energy certificate income. Tragic some will say but remember for Australia as a whole it’s tiny compared to coal and gas generation. If the UK approach works maybe it will become the new financing model.
aorta do somethink like this:-
http://www.dailytech.com/Worlds+Largest+Offshore+Wind+Farm++630+MW+175+Turbines++Turns+on+in+the+UK/article31898.htm
And the Jihad on reason spreads;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-29/tony-abbott-steps-up-criticism-of-abc/5224676
@Michael
And the ABC was trying so hard with its expose of union corruption. You just can’t please some people…
“To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single climate denialist anywhere in the world who has the minimal consistency and honesty needed to reject nonsense arguments from their own side”
Ignorance is bliss, btw I have not meet anybody yet who does not believes in climate….
what is really striking about those who do not want to offend their “allies and supporters”is their gullibility in thinking that such people really are their “allies and supporters”.
According to a report today in Crikey, the Government is to appoint Alan Moran to a panel investigating the Renewable Energy Target.
This would be like appointing Oliver Cromwell to a panel investigating Charles I.
You can’t make this stuff up.
yup and there you have it.
“they are making electricity while i watch.”
it’s one of lifes little mysteries that anything ugly and poisonous that makes money for the “exclusives” is a developmental marvel but anything costing them must be extirpated ,preferably in advance.
preferably before any one finds out about it.
too late.
@phoenix
“Ignorance is bliss, btw I have not meet anybody yet who does not believes in climate….”
I let this out of moderation just to point out the kind of moronic snark that passes for debate on the denialist side of the fence.
@Alan
Alan, Eastern California, not Canada. I think the dead farm fields were along the highway between Palm Springs and San Bernadino but am not totally confident of that.
@Uncle Milton It’s seems that we will not be able to avoid our GWB moment. Abetz was this morning banging on about wages explosion, when clearly wages are not keeping up with CPI. I can see a whole heap of cliches being trotted out eg militant unionism/Islam & welfare/nanny state, all coalescing into a great big ball of evil that needs a strong leader and a capable government to stamp out.
So hats the common thread? Is it this evangelical faith stuff?
Buggered up the formatting again. Fiddlesticks.
Re-posting…
@jungney
Presumably you’re talking about the San Gorgonio Pass. How long ago were you there? One of the characteristics of wind turbines is that they are relatively easy to remove, which is precisely what has happened with the obsolete turbines near Palm Springs.
It’s also not reasonable, IMHO, to compare the virtually unregulated Californian wind farm rush of the early 1980s with more recent developments, or the situation in Australia, where quixotic restrictions have been placed on wind farm developments in NSW and Victoria without scientific justification. Wind farms do have genuine drawbacks (intermittency being the big one), but the ‘problem’ of disused wind farms marring the landscape is pretty spurious, really.
Prof Q, could you kindly delete the first, borked version of this comment which is in moderation?
The direction this thread has taken kinda reminds me of this…
Bugger the windfarm noise: what about the leaf blower guy, the garbage collection truck, the street cleaner, and the peak hour traffic? A modern city is much noisier in places than a windmill, and the noise is erratic, not regular. When someone builds a ruddy great big freeway next to your dream retirement home, it is tough t*tties; but when it is a windmill 2km away, everyone is on the case—if they are of a certain political persuasion. How freaky is that?
PS: PM A is on the warpath wrt ABC, if the latest footage I saw is to be taken as true (after all, he didn’t write it down).
@jungney
Do you mean the one turbine which apparently exploded?