There was a recent report from Health Canada that wind turbines prove no harm to health. So sayeth the medical establishment, and could they ever be wrong? A few weeks ago, I was listening to yet-another conversation on the CBC on green energy and the environment, and the interviewee, a rather radical environmentalist, decreed in a shrill voice that these turbines have now been proven to be harmless, period, end of story. One could hear the steely determination, the quasi-religious zeal, in her voice, that would brook no contrary opinion which, by the magisterial authority bestowed on ‘Health Canada’, must be false. Heretic!
Yet, and yet…I was driving over Christmas through the area of Shelbourne, Ontario on a dark, grey and snowy evening, and there through the mist loomed these gigantic, monstrous turbines, swishing their futuristic-looking blades in rhythmical patterns; there were seas of these monstrosities (I suppose I am admitting my bias), stretching across the horizon through the mist, in stark contrast to the rustic, pastoral farmland on which they stood.
Here’s the thing: Even the sight of these turbines gave me the creeps, which, if I had to stare at them day in and out, especially if I had to work on a farm within direct eyesight, would be a ‘harm to my health’, at least the mental variety.
Also, I have a little 7-inch metal fan on my woodstove, which helps circulate the hot air by convection. Even this small guy produces a slight, but audible, hum. Now imagine a turbine which is about 300 times the size, and the constant whishing sound it would make all day, all night, without cessation. That also would get on someone’s nerves. Think back to Chinese water torture, where they would drip a drop of water on the immobile, tied-down victim’s forehead, every couple of seconds or so. Drip, drip, drip…It does not seem like much at first, but eventually, after the thousand-and-first drop, one cannot stand it, and begs, screams, for the faucet be turned off.
One does not need a medical degree to realize the negative ‘health effects’ of these gigantic turbines; just basic common sense and reason will do.
Would you want one of these behemoths in your backyard? The government is threatening to put them on the picturesque hills around my own area, effectively vitiating the view and skyline (the cell-phone towers are bad enough, but at least they are difficult to see from a distance). There is a reason why energy-producing centres, from coal-fired plants to nuclear reactors, are usually put ‘out of sight’, in places where no one lives.
This says nothing of the ineffectiveness of these turbines to produce energy, dependent as they are on variable wind patterns and their relatively low-yield even when the wind doth bloweth, nor their rather limited life-span, before, by sheer entropy, they become ineffective. For just one example of many such sober studies of the economic and thermodynamic downside to wind energy, see today’s piece in the Telegraph.
And, not least, under Dalton McGuinty’s inept leadership, we are now under contract to pay exorbitant fees for so-called ‘green energy ‘ under the 2009 legislative Act of the same name. Ontario went from having some of the most reasonable energy rates in Canada, to the most expensive, and counting. An article in June of last year in the Financial Post outlined that hydro rates tripled under the tutelage of the Liberal government, from a total of 6.5 cents per kWh in 2003 (when Mr. Guinty took power) to 15 cents per kWh in 2014, with the Energy Minister then announcing a further increase of 33% over the next three years, and 45% over five years. We will be warming our hands over candlelight before much longer.
Ponder how much ‘energy’ was used in building these turbines, to keep them going, and to fund the companies (Samsung and others) lining their pockets with the jacked-up electricity fees.
And what happens to these hulks of plastic and steel when they inevitably rust and become useless? Chop them all down and trash them? They would not even make good firewood. We would have to expend even more energy to get rid of these ridiculous monuments to political correctness.
Yes, these Quixotic turbines, against which we, with the original Don, may tilt in vain, are an emotional means to placate the guilt-plagued conscience of modern man, in his attempt to ‘heal the earth’ and placate what strange gods he worships. But it is a truism that as man loses the true faith, he in time loses his reason also (as Aquinas, Chesteron, Belloc and others have written), a principle upon which I will have more to write.
Speaking of reason: Other, more stable and effective, forms of energy make far more sense. So let’s get back to such common-sense science, both in the realm of thermodynamics and health.
January 6, 2015
A blessed Epiphany to all who celebrate on this day!