Wind turbine syndrome: a communicated disease. Paper presented to Royal Society NSW forum "The future of rationality in a post-truth world" Nov 29, 2017. Government House, Sydney

Abstract

This is a paper delivered to a forum organised by the Royal Society of NSW (in conjunction with the four academies) titled "The future of rationality in a post-truth world." The world faces an existential threat from climate change and the transition to clean, renewable energy is front and centre of global hopes for avoiding some of the worst forecasts. Today, Australia has no peak national body or commission for climate change. Yet thanks to the efforts of four cross bench politicians whose votes were courted by an appeasing government, we have a Commissioner for Wind Farms. The National Health and Medical Research Council has no dedicated program of research focussed on climate change, but it has a dedicated research program on wind farm disease. Some 25 reviews published since 2003 have concluded that there is very weak evidence for any direct effects on health of wind turbine exposure, but good evidence of small numbers in some exposed communities being “worried sick”. My presentation will discuss psychogenic illness and wind farms and the effort of their opponents to spread scientific claptrap. These efforts have seen 3 Senate and 2 state parliamentary enquiries in 5 years to what is a non-disease and retarded Australia’s embrace of wind energy while many nations have greatly accelerated their roll-out.