Unhealthy Wind?

Up here in the Kendal Hills there has been considerable controversy on the proposed wind farms that may be coming to the area. Apparently there are two companies that are looking at putting about 20 large wind turbines up here. All along our road and sporadically around the surrounding countryside people have signs on their lawns saying "stop the wind turbines" & "health studies before wind turbines".

This is particularly uncomfortable for me and my family as we have a wind turbine on our front lawn. Imagine driving up our road and seeing all these signs and then coming up to our house with a wind turbine on the front lawn... almost makes you think your neighbours don't like you...

Interestingly, it's only the homes that have the signs, none of the farms. I think this is due to the fact that renting out an acre of land to host a wind turbine is a positive move for a farmer.

Personally, I think the whole anti-wind movement is a bunch of BS. Having talked to a few of these proponents, it seems to me they are grasping at any excuse not to have a wind turbine within sight of their home. The real concern seems to be appearance and perceived loss of property value. What bothers me is that they are trying to make it into a health concern and selling this nonsense to their neighbours. We lived in a small village in Germany for 6 months where there were two wind turbines within a kilometer on the village. I don't remember even hearing any noise from them and thought they were rather graceful as far as man made structures go. Certainly nicer than the cell phone towers surrounding our area...

Wind turbines are not perfectly safe but what is? Certainly not coal burning. Just ask any coal miner, person with asthma or a polar bear who is sweating it up. I see the Ontario government has just issued a press release on their recent study on health effects http://news.ontario.ca/ene/en/2011/12/expert-report-confirms-no-direct-health-effects-from-wind-turbines.html Somehow I doubt this will sway the anti-wind folks...

With over a 150,000 large wind turbines installed around the world, you'd think by now they would be considered acceptable. USA and China are the world leaders in installed wind turbines and almost every country is working to add more to their energy mix. Canada is well behind the curve in this and in many efforts to reduce CO2, truly disheartening to us green Canadians.