In 2015 I submitted evidence to the Senate Wind Turbine Committee, chaired by Senator John Madigan, a long time vocal critic of wind farms. Other critics on the Committee included Senators Xenophon, Back, Day, and Leyonhjelm. It was always going to be a “challenge” to get a good word about wind farms from such a group.
The final report included a six page critical section about my evidence. Here are my responses to the key assertions and allegations, point by point.
2.19 Professor Simon Chapman AO, Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, has been an outspoken critic of those who suffer ill-effects from wind turbines. In both his written and oral submissions, Professor Chapman cited many of his own publications in support for his view that:
"...the phenomenon of people claiming to be adversely affected by exposure to wind turbines is best understood as a communicated disease that exhibits many signs of the classic psychosocial and nocebo phenomenon where negative expectations can translate into symptoms of tension and anxiety."
Response: I am a critic of anti-wind farm activists who make statements about wind farms and health which are highly questionable. I am not a critic of those claiming to suffer from exposure to turbines.
However, some of the latter group have made statements which I have publicly spotlighted. They made the statements after all, I’m just shining light on them. For example, a man who claims to be able to hear turbines at up to 100km away; a couple who say they are affected by wind turbines even when they are turned off; a man whose accounts of his sensitivity to turbines invite many questions; and a man who has stated that his mobile phone went into charge mode in the middle of a paddock near wind turbines.
I have also catalogued and publicised public statements about 244 different diseases and symptoms said to be caused by turbine exposure. These include, in all seriousness, herpes, haemorrhoids, and disoriented echidnas. Look for yourself and be amazed. These public statements deserve serious critical scrutiny, which the Committee declined to apply.
2.20 Several highly qualified and very experienced professionals have challenged this argument. Dr Malcolm Swinbanks, an acoustical engineer based in the United Kingdom, reasoned:
"The argument that adverse health reactions are the result of nocebo effects, i.e. a directly anticipated adverse reaction, completely fails to consider the many cases where communities have initially welcomed the introduction of wind turbines, believing them to represent a clean, benign form of low-cost energy generation. It is only after the wind-turbines are commissioned, that residents start to experience directly the adverse nature of the health problems that they can induce."
Response: What Swinbanks and the Committee omit to say here is that anti-wind farm activists target new wind farm developments and foment anxiety among residents that when the turbines commence operation they will experience a range of harms and annoyances. One of my papers demonstrated that 73 per cent of all Australian complainants live near just six of 51 wind farms, all of which have been targeted by anti wind farm activists.
Some residents living near planned wind farms may well welcome them in the planning stage, but then become anxious after being exposed to anti wind farm propaganda. This can cause nocebo effects in some of those so exposed.
2.21 The committee highlights the fact that Professor Chapman is not a qualified, registered nor experienced medical practitioner, psychiatrist, psychologist, acoustician, audiologist, physicist or engineer. Accordingly:
• he has not medically assessed a single person suffering adverse health impacts from wind turbines
Response: And neither did Dr Nina Pierpont when writing her self-published book Wind Turbine Syndrome. Pierpont interviewed people by phone. And neither has Ms Sarah Laurie, the prominent Australian wind farm opponent who is an unregistered doctor, and who being unregistered, is of course not allowed by law to make diagnoses.
• his research work has been mainly—and perhaps solely—from an academic perspective without field studies
Response: My peer reviewed research has been about the history and pattern of wind farm complaints; a critical examination of the factoid that “over 40 families” in Australia have abandoned their homes; a study of the anxieties expressed by residents living near a planned wind farm in submissions to an enquiry; and a forensic examination of the promotion of the non-disease of “vibroacoustic disease” and its astronomical self-citation pattern by the only research group promoting the existence of this “disease”. My full CV is here.
• his views have been heavily criticised by several independent medical and acoustic experts in the international community
Response: Of all my peer reviewed papers on wind farms and health, only one has attracted any critical correspondence in the journals in which they were published. That anticipated response was by the research group promoting the non-disease of “vibro-acoustic disease”. A pre-print of my most important paper is the most viewed publication in the entire University of Sydney eScholarship Repository (where there are 10,481 reports). It has not seen even one response published in PLoS One where it was published after peer review. It has already been cited 34 times.
• many of his assertions do not withstand fact check analyses
Response: This sweeping statement is not particularised.
2.22 Professor Chapman has made several claims which are contrary to the evidence gathered by this committee. First, he argues that the majority of Australia's wind turbines have never received a single complaint. There are various problems with this statement:
(i) wind turbines located significant distances from residents will not generate complaints
Response: My paper documenting the history and distribution of wind farm complaints in Australia noted all complainants regardless of distances.
The table in the paper showed the estimated number of residents living within 5km of each Australian wind farm. In no case was there any wind farm with no residents living within 5km. 33/51 (64.7 per cent) of Australian wind farms including 18/34 (52.9 per cent) with turbine size >1MW have never been subject to noise or health complaints. These 33 farms have an estimated 21,633 residents within 5km and have operated complaint-free for a cumulative 267 years!
For example, the Glenelg Shire Council informed the Committee the Cape Bridgewater wind farm has 11,000 - 12,000 residents within 5km and only six (from three houses) had ever complained!
(ii) Many residents suffering adverse health effects were not aware of any nexus between their health and the impact of wind turbines in order to make a complaint
Response: Many of the symptoms attributed to wind farms (eg: sleep problems, anxiety, headaches, tinnitus) are very common in all communities, regardless of whether they are near wind farms. Wind farm opponents have tried to coach residents into attributing any such problems to wind farms when often these problems existed before the wind turbines commenced operation.
Revealingly, complainants have generally refused to supply medical histories of their particular health complaints.
(iii) Just because residents do not lodge a formal complaint does not mean they are not suffering adverse health effects
Response: My study counted not just for “formal” complaints, but even mentions of personal negative experiences in 2,394 submissions made to three government inquiries and country media monitoring of any mentions of such complaints.
(iv) Data obtained by Professor Chapman from wind farm operators of the numbers of complaints lodged cannot be relied upon
Response: This ex-cathedra statement is openly hostile to wind farm companies without naming any company that allegedly cannot be relied upon to have accurate records of complainant numbers. The Report does not name any example of a wind farm where there have been more complainants than my study showed.
(v) The use of non-disclosure clauses and 'good neighbour agreements' legally restricts people from making adverse public statements or complaints
Response: This hoary chestnut is easily dismissed by pointing to the few exception-proves-the-rule wind examples of turbine hosts who have ever complained. None of these have been prosecuted for making adverse comments, so if they are gagged, the gag is not on very tightly.
2.23 Second, Professor Chapman has argued that complaints of adverse health effects from wind turbines tend to be limited to Anglophone nations. However, the committee has received written and oral evidence from several sources directly contradicting this view. The German Medical Assembly recently submitted a motion to the executive board of the German Medical Association calling for the German government to provide the necessary funding to research adverse health effects. This would not have happened in the absence of community concern. Moreover, Dr Bruce Rapley has argued that in terms of the limited number—and concentrated nature—of wind farm complaints:
“It is the reporting which is largely at fault. The fact is that people are affected by this, and the numbers are in the thousands. I only have to look at the emails that cross my desk from all over the world. I get bombarded from the UK, Ireland, France, Canada, the United States, Australia, Germany. There are tonnes of these things out there but, because the system does not understand the problem, nor does it have a strategy, many of those complaints go unlisted.”
Response: Unlike Rapley with his vacuous talk of “thousands”, “tonnes” and “bombarded”, I take the trouble to quantify complainant estimates and submit these to peer reviewed journals here and here.
As to the claim that the German Medical Association is representing “community concern”, the information here shows that it was passing on the concerns of just one of its members.
It is beyond belief that the Committee could seriously cite this frankly amateur “study” as evidence of anything other than Ms Green being someone totally immersed in the global anti wind farm network and committed to its objectives. There is not a single piece of data in this submission, purporting to be “findings” of her global investigations. This epitomises the scientific illiteracy of the Committee’s majority report.
The Danish submissions cited are similarly of woeful quality containing bald data free statements like “there are health problems in many places”, and the Johansson submission being simply eight unexplained and convoluted files thrown at the Committee for some purpose left to the reader to discern.
There is also scientific evidence from studies conducted in Scandinavia which illustrate that 'annoyance' and sleep deprivation are reported as issues in residents exposed to wind turbine noise. These are referenced in the NHMRC's literature reviews. See here. See also: NHMRC, Information Paper: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health, 2015.
Response: Again, the Committee fails to understand that sleep problems are common in all communities and simply noting that they also occur in some people living near wind farms tells us nothing.
2.24 Third, Professor Chapman has queried that if turbines are said to have acute, immediate effects on some people, why were there no such reports until recent years given that wind turbines have operated in different parts of the world for over 25 years. Several submissions to the committee have stated that adverse health effects from wind turbines do not necessarily have an acute immediate effect and can take time to manifest.
Response: I have never said that turbines allegedly have only acute effects (ie: adverse effects that rapidly occur once exposure starts), as opposed to chronic effects (ie: effects that manifest only after longer term exposure). But there are prominent wind farm opponents who have made acute effect claims. For example Swinbanks (Submission 189) claimed personal acute effects: “After five hours assisting in performing measurements and analysis, the author felt extremely unwell, and was only too relieved to leave the premises.”; Sarah Laurie told an anti wind farm meeting meeting at Mortlake in Victoria in 2012, “There’s stories of places, and in one house in particular in one location where it’s a seaside location and there were lots of people staying, just about everybody was up on one particular night every five or ten minutes needing to go to the toilet.”
The world’s first wind farm commenced operation in 1981, and the first documented cases of publicity about alleged health impacts were made in the early 2000s in England. So if acute effects are real, then where were all the bodies over the 20 years after 1981?
2.25 Fourth, Professor Chapman contests that people report symptoms from even micro-turbines. The committee heard evidence that once people are sensitised to low frequency infrasound, they can be affected by a range of noise sources, including large fans used in underground coal mines, coal fired power stations, gas fired power stations and even small wind turbines. As acoustician Dr Bob Thorne told the committee:
"Low-frequency noise from large fans is a well-known and well-published issue, and wind turbines are simply large fans on top of a big pole; no more, no less. They have the same sort of physical characteristics; it is just that they have some fairly unique characteristics as well. But annoyance from low-frequency sound especially is very well known."
Response: During my written evidence, I referred to this study. During my oral evidence, I referred to the micro-turbine in Jubilee park, Glebe (Sydney) which is surrounded by houses a few hundred metres away and where for years, thousands of citizens walk, picnic and play sport every week near the turbine.
There are no known complainants in all these exposures. How can that be? In all these many thousands of people who have been exposed, has there not been a single “sensitized” person?
2.26 Fifth, Professor Chapman contends that there are apparently only two known examples anywhere in the world of wind turbine hosts complaining about the turbines on their land. However, there have been several Australian wind turbine hosts who have made submissions to this inquiry complaining of adverse health effects. Paragraphs 2.11–2.12 (above) noted the example of Mr Clive Gare and his wife from Jamestown. Submitters have also directed attention to the international experience. In Texas in 2014, twenty-three hosts sued two wind farm companies despite the fact that they stood to gain more than $50 million between them in revenue. The committee also makes the point that contractual non-disclosure clauses and 'good neighbour' agreements have significantly limited hosts from speaking out. This was a prominent theme of many submissions.
Response: See response to 2.22v above
2.27 Sixth, Professor Chapman claims that there has been no case series or even single case studies of so-called wind turbine syndrome published in any reputable medical journal. But Professor Chapman does not define 'reputable medical journal' nor does he explain why the category of journals is limited to medical (as distinct, for example, from scientific or acoustic). The committee cannot therefore challenge this assertion. However, the committee does note that a decision to publish—or not to publish—an article in a journal is ultimately a business decision of the publisher: it does not necessarily reflect the quality of the article being submitted, nor an acknowledgment of the existence or otherwise of prevailing circumstances. The committee also notes that there exist considerable published and publicly available reports into adverse health effects from wind turbines.
Response: By reputable, I was referring to journals – medical or otherwise – which are indexed. The comments about journal publication being “ultimately a business decision” reveal much about the Committee’s sheer ignorance of editorial practice in reputable scientific journals where there is clear separation of editorial and publishing decision-making.
Junk science journals which are set up to simply make money from authors of otherwise unpublishable works are presumably what the Committee is confusing here. The non-indexed Bulletin of Science Technology and Society where many anti wind farm “research” papers have appeared would appear to be a good example of such a journal. I have discussed this further here.
2.28 The committee also notes that a peer reviewed case series crossover study involving 38 people was published in the form of a book by American paediatrician Dr Nina Pierpont, PhD, MD. Dr Pierpont's Report for Clinicians and the raw case data was submitted by her to a previous Australian Senate inquiry (2011) to which Dr Pierpont also provided oral testimony. Further, at a workshop conducted by the NHMRC in June 2011, acoustical consultant Dr Geoffrey Leventhall stated that the symptoms of 'wind turbine syndrome' (as identified by Dr Pierpont), and what he and other acousticians refer to as 'noise annoyance', were the same. Dr Leventhall has also acknowledged Dr Pierpont's peer reviewed work in identifying susceptibility or risk factors for developing wind turbine syndrome / 'noise annoyance'. Whilst Dr Leventhall is critical of some aspects of Dr Pierpont's research, he does state:
“Pierpont has made one genuine contribution to the science of environmental noise, by showing that a proportion of those affected have underlying medical conditions, which act to increase their susceptibility.”
Response: It is an understatement to note that Leventhall “is critical of some aspects of Dr Pierpont’s research.” Scathing would be too kind a word. Pierpont’s self-published vanity press book has never seen a single paper appear from it in the peer reviewed literature. Dignifying the Pierpont book as a “peer reviewed case series crossover study” is a further example of how ignorant the authors of the Report appear to be about study design and quality.
Here are just a few of the problems with Pierpont’s “study”:
1. She “chose a cluster of the most severely affected and most articulate subjects I could find”. Why choose “articulate subjects" and not randomly selected residents living near wind farms? More fundamentally, why did she not make any attempt to investigate controls (people living near turbines who do not report any illness or symptom they attribute to turbines)?
2. Amazingly, she interviewed them all over the phone, did not medically examine any of her subjects nor access their medical records. So her entire “study” is based on her aggravated informants accounts. Even here she does not describe who among the 10 families she interviewed, nor consider for a moment questions of accuracy about others giving proxy reports about others in their family. This is beyond sloppy.
3. Pierpont provides pages of information on her informants’ claims about their health while living near turbines. She also provides summaries of the prevalence of various health problems in these families prior to the arrival of the turbines. These are revealing. A third of the adults had current or past mental illness and a quarter had pre-existing migraine and/or permanent hearing impairment.
Peer review refers to the process of research journal editors sending manuscripts to knowledgeable reviewers who critique the work. This is often done with blinding of both the author and the reviewers. Reviewers are often asked to declare any competing interests prior to undertaking reviews, such as personal or professional relations with authors, should they recognise the author or where the authors’ identities are not blinded.
Pierpont circulated her manuscript to selected persons prior to publication and then published the flattering comments in the book. This is not remotely what any scientist understands as “peer review”.
2.29 Seventh, Professor Chapman claims that no medical practitioner has come forward with a submission to any committee in Australia about having diagnosed disease caused by a wind farm. Again, Professor Chapman fails to define 'disease'. Nonetheless, both this committee, and inquiries undertaken by two Senate Standing Committees, have received oral and written evidence from medical practitioners contrary to Professor Chapman's claim.
Response: Why then is it that none of these medical practitioners have ever successfully subjected their case reports (if that’s what they were) to peer review in a reputable medical journal? Why is there no recognition by any established illness diagnostic classificatory system of “wind turbine syndrome”?
2.30 Eighth, Professor Chapman claims that there is not a single example of an accredited acoustics, medical or environmental association which has given any credence to direct harmful effects of wind turbines. The committee notes that the semantic distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' effects is not helpful. Dr Leventhall and the NHMRC describe stress, anxiety and sleep deprivation as 'indirect' effects, but these ailments nonetheless affect residents' health.
Response: I note that the Committee does not disagree with me that “there is not a single example of an accredited acoustics, medical or environmental association which has given any credence to direct harmful effects of wind turbines”.
2.31 Finally, Professor Chapman queries why there has never been a complainant that has succeeded in a common-law suit for negligence against a wind farm operator. This statement is simply incorrect. The committee is aware of court judgements against wind farm operators, operators making out of court settlements or withdrawing from proceedings, injunctions or shutdown orders being granted against operators, and properties adjacent to wind turbines being purchased by operators to avoid future conflict. The committee also reiterates its earlier point that contractual non-disclosure clauses have discouraged legal action by victims.
Response: I meant in Australia, which is where the Committee focused its work. This reference shows that since 1998, there have been 49 court cases in 5 nations on wind farm noise. 48 of these were unsuccessful for the plaintiffs.
You can read professor Chapman’s submission to the inquiry here; a transcript of his oral evidence here and his reponses to questions on notice here.
Print
Number 6
Posted Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 19:31
I find this Senate committee "noisy" and "visually ugly". This is sufficient justification for them to be banned under the current government.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. RossC
Posted Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 20:34
Nice one Simon. Your answers will be lost on the commitee though - this bunch of pollies have no respect for technical excellence. Madigan, Back, day and leyonhjelm are idiots, and the content of their nutty little enquiry report and personal 'power-trip' was obvious and totally predictable from the outset. Bit disappointed in xenophon though - expected more of him.
Anyway, luckily their report findings are soooo stupid and ill-informed they are the subject of ridicule. If they'd been more savvy they'd have toned the findings down to something even slightly credible. Instead, all they have produced is raw material for future psychological research.
Savvy - not something this government is known for.
EarnestLee
Posted Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 22:47
Go back to persecuting Smokers.
Typical of the Medical Profession and Acedemia is that detracters must ignorant.
If people want renewables other than putrid Wind Farms give them Tidal and Solar.
Simple really. Put it to a plebiscite. THere is no point to a my expert versus your expert contest.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 23:23
Thanks Simon, how you haven't cracked your skull open by banging your head against the wall I don't know, dealing with the fringe dwellers and lunatics, especially those in power.
The nutter that was still affected when the turbines were off RLMFAO and the dude who had to be 100km away, to not be affected, I'd be cracking up if I wasn't being put out of work by these cretins and compo parasites.
I bet the coal merchants of the right wouldn't want to hear what these residents feel about living right next to their communities turbines, Feldhiem, Germany
This user is a New Matilda supporter. RossC
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 00:04
Earnestlee, if only the good senators could have found some 'experts' to support their unsubstantiated preconceptions, they could have had that 'contest'.
They couldn't. So Simon wins hands down. Thats because he actually IS an expert.
Bill Schutt
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 00:22
Thanks Simon, excellent article. The anti-wind-whingers have certainly learnt from the anti-nukes. Create a massive scare campaign even though background noise and background radioactivity is 1000x greater.
Perhaps we could suggest to the next prime minister that an expert committee be appointed of maybe the 30 top scientists in Australia, maybe measured by the h-index. We could all agree to be bound by their conclusion on climate-change, wind-energy & nuclear-energy.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. halley86
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 00:25
I applaud Professor Chapman's patience. Amazing that in one of the most educated countries of the world (so we are led to believe) so much time and energy is wasted promoting and debunking superstition instead of on productive purposes to create jobs and wealth. Do Australia's miserable politicians want the country to be part of the 21st century AD or BC?
EarnestLee
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 01:32
Typical of the Medical Profession and Acedemia is that detracters must ignorant.
Dx2013
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 03:12
Is he really a professor of public health? Such an indifference and dismissive attitude to a public health issue.
Simon Chapman should have wind turbines installed next to his house before he could declare there is no ill-effects on health by wind turbines. Without first-hand experience, his argument is not credible.
Dx2013
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 03:12
Is he really a professor of public health? Such an indifference and dismissive attitude to a public health issue.
Simon Chapman should have wind turbines installed next to his house before he could declare there is no ill-effects on health by wind turbines. Without first-hand experience, his argument is not credible.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 08:19
@DX
If you've got crazy sensibilities, I suggest you see a doctor for treatment, instead of being allowed to halt the change to clean energy, or maybe it's just your vested interest voice talking. why are these locals happy to live right next to a wind farm?
calyptorhynchus
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 07:57
Dx2013 "Without first-hand experience, his argument is not credible". I must remember that, next time I go and see my doctor I'll reject her diagnosis unless she is suffering the same symptoms as me.
Without first-hand experience, his argument is not credible. - See more at: https://newmatilda.com/2015/08/05/prof-simon-chapman-responds-salem-wind-hunt#sthash.YM1w1Owo.dpuf
Without first-hand experience, his argument is not credible. - See more at: https://newmatilda.com/2015/08/05/prof-simon-chapman-responds-salem-wind-hunt#sthash.YM1w1Owo.dpuf
Without first-hand experience, his argument is not credible. - See more at: https://newmatilda.com/2015/08/05/prof-simon-chapman-responds-salem-wind-hunt#sthash.YM1w1Owo.dpuf
calyptorhynchus
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 07:58
Your text editor is doing crazy things, perhaps it's living within a 100km of a wind farm.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. RossC
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 08:01
EarnestLee..."acedemia"...(sic).
Thats twice now Earnest. Its spelt academia.
tends to support the notion that some detractors are indeed TOTALLY ignorant....
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 08:07
LOL'S calyptorhynchus
Why complain about having your phone charged for free, remotely from a wind farm?
So someone's finally succeeded in transmiting electricity through the air, Tesla was trying to do something similar 100 years ago, quick patent it.
Cracklier
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 09:20
After reading their comments , it is hard to tell whether Earnestlee or Dx2013 actually read the entire story & comprehended it ???
Are they really so concerned with any "heatlh issues" caused by all forms of energy generation in Australia , OR is it really just windfarms & renewables that annoy them so much ?
Would they back an enquiry from the much larger quantity of Australians who complain about the more valid & legitimate health & environmental concerns from those who live around coal mines & the transport arterys around these mines ??
After the anti-halal & windfarm enquiries.....you have to wonder what ideologically-motivated enquiry Phony Tony & his acolytes will want to waste the taxpayers money on next.
DrGideonPolya
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 09:23
Excellent article by Professor Simon Chapman. Some key points:
(1) Credibility. Who is more credible – Professor Simon Chapman AO PhD FASSA Hon FFPH (UK), an extremely eminent, scientifically-trained, science-informed, hugely published, nationally honored Professor of Public Health at a top university or a gaggle of non-scientist MPs belonging to corrupt, anti-science parties (the COALition and Labor aka the Lib-Labs or Liberal-Laborals) that have effective climate change denialist policies through entrenched, world-leading and climate criminal climate change inaction?
(2) Medical authority. According to the NHMRC, Australia’s peak medical research body, (2015): “The NHMRC Statement: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health was released on Wednesday, 11 February 2015. The Statement was prepared on the advice of the Council of NHMRC with consideration of the comprehensive assessment of the evidence on wind farms and human health. It provides advice to the community and to policy makers on this issue. After careful consideration and deliberation, NHMRC concludes that there is currently no consistent evidence that wind farms cause adverse health effects in humans” (see NHMRC, “Wind farms and human health”, 2015: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/wind-farms-and-human-health ).
(3) Climate and pollution deaths. Already each year about 0.5 million people die from climate change, and 7 million die from air pollution (see World Health Organization (WHO), “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution”: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/ ; DARA, “Climate Vulnerability Monitor. A guide to the cold calculus of a hot planet”, 2012, Executive Summary pp2-3: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/ ; DARA report quoted by Reuters, ”100 mln to die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate”, 28 September 2012: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/climate-inaction-idINDEE88P05P20120926 .) . In Australia about 100 people die annually from heat stress and about 10,000 die from carbon burning pollutants, the breakdown being 5,000 (coal burning) , 2,000 (vehicle exhaust) and 3,000 (other burning) (see 2011. Australian carbon burning-related deaths and carbon burning subsidies => minimum Carbon Price of A$555 per tonne carbon (C) or A$150 per tonne CO2-e”, YVCAG: https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/2011-carbon-burning ).
(4) Science-informed moral authority. Jesus Christ-informed, science-informed and indeed scientifically- and specifically chemically-trained Pope Francis in his landmark 2015 Encyclical Letter “Laudato si” shows great moral and technical leadership in:
(1) recognizing the worsening existential threat of a man-made climate change “catastrophe” for the Biosphere, Humanity, the poor and future generations;
(2) recognizing that millions of “premature deaths” (avoidable deaths) already occur each year due to pollution and poverty;
(3) demanding urgent action to start slashing fossil fuel burning and replacing it with renewable energy “in the next few years”;
(4) asserting that the environmental and social costs of pollution must be “fully borne” by those incurring them (i.e. a full Carbon Price);
(5) asserting that a market-based Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) approach may simply become a “ploy” to permit continuing pollution; and
(6) advocating individual and collective action through “boycotts” of those responsible for the worsening climate emergency.
(See Gideon Polya, “Papal encyclical to save Planet”, MWC News, 5 August 2015: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/53364-papal-encyclical-to-save-planet.html)
Sensible science-informed Australians from Catholics to atheists will utterly reject the anti-science, Australian-killing, climate criminal Lib-Labs, vote 1 Green and put the COALition last.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 11:17
That's it exactly, they drop opinion bombs and don't respond to critical examination of them, how can you take them seriously?Probably just scan it for choice words, react, regurgitate and leave, because they can't deal with any real criticism, because they might have to change.
I think it's either that and they just dont like the idea of windfarms, are sucked in by biased media, 'power tripping rebellion, fear of change, or vested interests, or a combination of these.
I don't think they would, it's their opinion and they feel entitled to it.
Just like the senators, in the loaded Senate enquiry.
I think his next enquiry is into sunshine sucking solar panels, stealing sunlight, our days are darker or why children arent allowed to smoke.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. RossC
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 12:39
anti-halal, anti-windfarms....the elected inane few in 'positions of power' choosing to calculatedly misuse their positions in order to advance the various incredible 'opinions' of the vanity-self-published, conflicted, vested, and ignorant, while simultaneously rejecting the dispassionate, credible, independantly peer-reviewed data and analysis provided by widely-acknowledged experts.......its a f*cked-up wormhole of stupidity and bias and irrelevance that our government has disappeared into, and no mistake.
How could any sane, rational person possibly predict what the next inquiry might be into?
Anti-spherical earth? Anti-climate warming? Anti-vaccination?Anti-evolution? Anti-environmental protection? Anti-El Nino? Anti-gravity? Anti-Possums? All of the above?
The whole thing is a total farce. Australia - you truly are standing in it.
Trilobitologist
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 13:45
The comments of this committee of buffoons regarding Simon Chapman's submission to their 'inquiry' betrays their complete inability to grasp even the thinnest sliver of the scientific method, let alone what such terms as 'peer-review' mean. I applaud Simon Chapman for his spending the time away from his research and his students to reply to the stupidity of this committee. I recently read and enjoyed Julian Cribb's article in the Canberra Times asking people to vote for decent people, not party apparatchiks. I would add to this request that we should also vote for people who actually understand reality, rather than those who believe what the fairies tell them to believe. On last Monday's Q&A, Adam Spencer came up with the phrase 'incalculable moron', which I think, suits this bunch of senate buffoons to a T.
Bravo Simon
This user is a New Matilda supporter. musikki
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 14:51
Thanks to NM for publishing this. This was a fruitcake senate enquiry. In my dreams the men in white coats would take the report authors away for a long time. Howls of derisive laughter Bruce.
totaram
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 16:17
As clear and thorough a debunking of this "report" by a bunch of fruitcake senators, as could be desired by someone with the faintest understanding of science and logic.
Howls of derisive laughter is not enough. We should see that nutjobs like these do not enter the senate again in future. Most of them get in on "preference harvesting" which is possible because most voters can't be bothered to vote below the line on a senate ballot. I now vote below the line everytime, after discovering I had unknowingly voted for Steve Fielding, of Family First. It just needs a few minutes extra, and after going to the polling station, standing in line etc. it is nothing at all. I recommend voting below the line to everyone.
Usual Suspect
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 16:24
If you live near a proposed wind factory and are a NIMBY anti-wind farmer developer, clearly you are mad. Or deluded, a dupe, a very foolish person, a climate change denier or a paid hack of the world-wide Murdoch conspiracy. Or at the very least, you have some self-interested and venal motivation.
If you live near the proposed development of anything else, particularly inner city housing, and you are a NIMBY anti-developer, then you are a hero, a little battler, a community lover and an all-round very nice person. You are motivated by love of your fellow man, altruism and probably read NM and/or Crikey. And because your actions are driving up housing prices and making our capital cities unaffordable for all but the wealthy – no doubt you are also incredibly rich.
trendev
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 16:23
EarnestLee says "Typical of the Medical Profession and Acedemia (sic) is that detracters (sic) must be ignorant"
Yes.
Nuff said.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. RossC
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 17:34
....If you live near a proposed wind factory and are a NIMBY anti-wind farmer developer, clearly you......
....need to come up with some rational, sensible criteria on which to base your objections, and not discredit the very concept of your opposition by relying on ridiculous, easily disproved and irrational claims such as: "infra-sound from wind turbines is dangerous.....in a way that indistinguishable levels of infrasound emanating from: farm machinery, passing trucks, ocean waves, trains, planes, automobiles, coal and gas-fired power stations, trees blowing in the wind, indeed strong wind passing any other upstanding object, cities, towns, air-conditioners, and even animals running around......demonstrably isnt".
Is that too much to ask? Really?
This user is a New Matilda supporter. Tokujiro
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 17:45
Frightening - the level of incompetency and ignorance among Senators of the right! Shouldn't there be some measure of comon-sense applied before persons can stand for public office?
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 18:48
@ Usual Suspect
What's a wind factory, Does that make the wind for wind farms?
How near is NEAR, 5km's?
You also left off the list;-
Locals that don't like them, primarily because they aren't getting paid.
Change adverse, country conservatives, who'd rather use coal.
Rabid anti-progressives
Rebels without a real cause, "I'm opposed to them, so there"
Numpties who just jump on someone's bandwagon.
Avid readers of news that's printed on paper.
.
Not in my book, you're in the same basket as the anti-wind.
BevJ
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 18:36
To misquote Adam Spencer - the fruitcake rwnj senators - what incalculable morons.
RonaldR
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 20:21
He has not touched the main point windfarms are inefficient and a very expencive form of power generation. we need electricity for industry and at a price indrusty can afford and that the whole population can afford. on the Flux Density Scale wind /solar are at bottom but above Batteries, then just above wind farms is Fossil fueled then Hydro then a big gap up to clean, safe, economical Nuclear Power
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 22:21
@RR
His job is public health, not energy.
When you're talking renewable energy conversion efficiency, you're comparing wind 'apple' with nuclear 'orange' and coal 'lemon'.
The wind turbines are built to the best possible conversion efficiency and installed in the best possible positions, to attain the best possible output from A FREE RENEWABLE SOURCE.
Everyone knows that nothing can beat nuclear for the energy produced by splitting atoms, why repeat the same info, because we all know the inherent risks, need to be weighed up.
So each energy source, must be weighed up against its pro's and con's for its triple bottom line and life cycle costs.
So when you mention efficiency do you really know what you're talking about?
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Friday, August 7, 2015 - 01:33
Bill, agreed, but the committee scientists must be elected by their peers.
trilobytoligist: complete inability to grasp even the thinnest sliver of the scientific method, let alone what such terms as 'peer-review' mean. IKR! I get the feeling most people think scientific opinions are 'only' opinions. We forget science was invented to manage human failings. If climate science is 'crap', so is electromagnetism.
Upshot: Your TV can't work, cause Mr Rabbit's opinion is as valid as Stephen Hawking's. Take up reading.
marg1
Posted Friday, August 7, 2015 - 13:32
Thanks Simon - it's scary to see such ignoramuses in parliament and the influence they have.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. aussiegreg
Posted Friday, August 7, 2015 - 15:15
Well done, Simon. Keep up the thankless battle for evidence-based public policy – future generations will thank you for it even if the current crop of pollies are a Luddite lot.
O. Puhleez
Posted Saturday, August 8, 2015 - 11:25
It would be all right if these pathetic troglodyte senators were simply part of some campaign to have the Earth declared the centre of the Universe, or flat, or created 5,000 years ago, or some similar antiscientific drivel with a fairly transparent other agenda.
I am disappointed that Xenophon appears to endorse the investigations of this analogue of the French (1789) Committee of Public Safety, as he has an otherwise excellent crap detector. But I am not at all surprised that the two-faced Senator Back is involved in it. He is, after all, fresh from proposing an Orwellian 'animal protection bill' that is about everything but animal protection.
It is a response to the dramatic ABC Four Corners expose of the greyhound racing industry:
It would not surprise me if one or more members of this committee so concerned with the alleged public health dangers involved in wind farms turn out to be more concerned about the wind farms' effect on the health of public expenditure on coal-fired power generation.
That's the way this sort of hidden agenda political process works.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Saturday, August 8, 2015 - 16:12
OP just stick an 'anti' on the front of ANY label associated with the Libs, especially their name. It's kind of like wearing glasses; they lie so consistently and reflexively, it's the only prescription to see the true picture. Almost too easy.
Abbott is no Howard, thank goodness. Inept and knowing nothing of value to anyone. The entire font bench is threatening to disappear in a puff of incompetence. It would be hilarious if we didn't all have to wear the consequences.
Ken Fabos
Posted Sunday, August 9, 2015 - 11:02
How strong is the correlation between rejection of climate science and people claiming to have wind turbine illnesses? I wouldn't expect 100% - someone who believes they can get get herpes from wind turbines could believe anything about climate change - but I'd be surprised if there was no correlation.
BTW, thank you Pr Chapman for a well written, well reasoned response to the unreasonable.
Andrew Dumas
Posted Sunday, August 9, 2015 - 19:47
Onya Dx and earnestlee, keep on pushing the LNP line! And dont forget your daily mantra; 'its all Labor's fault'.
The flat earth society is wondering why they havent heard from you two lately.
O. Puhleez
Posted Monday, August 10, 2015 - 00:08
MQ:
Yes. I am waiting with bated breath for Greg Hunt to announce that his DIRECT INACTON program has removed its first molecule of GHG from the Earth's atmosphere; though in the calculus of this mob, it would probably be proved by showing that the first tranche of taxpayer dollars had been transferred into the account of some huge fossil carbon-burning operation.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. aussiegreg
Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - 10:46
@O. Puhleez
Actually, the so-called Direct Action policy, in the form of its centrepiece Emissions Reduction Fund, has already taken many fantasticadrillions of CO2 molecules out of the atmosphere, locking them up in vegetation and in soil carbon.
Attacking the positive and desirable things the Coalition is doing to reduce the danger from man-made climate change may be an enjoyable bloodsport, but it is completely counter-productive for the planet. Not only does it take up time and space better devoted to advocating for the things the government is not doing, like putting a price on carbon, but it also adds to the legacy, going back way before the Greens defeated the bi-partisan ETS in the Senate and in the process gave us a Liberal party led by Tony Abbott rather than Malcolm Turnbull, of the Left sacrificing the environment in favour of taking a swing at the hated Conservatives.
The planet is in desperate need of people who can suspend their ideological hatreds long enough to see a common way through – it won't find many of them on these boards.
O. Puhleez
Posted Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - 14:14
ag:
I am not a member of the Greens or any other political party, and am a swinging voter. My wife and I are primary producers, and run an agricultural enterprise that at the moment is hauling CO2 down out of the atmosphere by the train load and sequestering it in the tissues of trees and ralidly growing pasture plants. I think that Direct Action is bullshit, and have not seen a sinlgle cent, nor been offered one, by Hunt, Abbott or anyone else.
I assume that the Direct Action club are either (1) A mob of COALition insiders, who have a growing fondness for passing buckets of taxpayer money round their insiders' circle and transferring it to their own pockets, OR (2) a circle of pixies at the bottom of Abbott's garden, OR (3) a mixture of (1) and (2).
Emissions trading is eminently rortable, and will inevitably become yet another smokescreen for corruption. The only practical and fair method for tackiling GHG emissions is carbon taxation, which Rudd timidly introduced, and Tony 'climate science is crap' Abbott takes no end of delight in reminding us all every second day that he decisively abolished, thereby transferring the cost (x a delay factor) to generations of Australians to come.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. aussiegreg
Posted Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - 23:19
@O.Puhleez
Nice to meet a fellow farmer, even if I went broke moving up the value-added chain! Now if I had just had the option of tendering -- sorry, reverse auctioning -- under the Emissions Reduction Fund . . .
I am a bit of a fence-sitter when it comes to Carbon taxes versus emissions trading schemes -- I think the most important thing about a carbon price is that there should be one.
I effectively included a carbon tax as part of the Pollution Charge I recommended in my 1982 submission to the Campbell Inquiry, but at the time the only ETS in the world I knew about was a fledgling one for sulphur content in fossil fuels, part of an international effort to end acid rain deforestation in northern Europe and North America, and something I advocated rolling up in my one Pollution Charge.
The advantage of an ETS is that you know the total amount of your emissions -- it's the "cap" in "cap-and-trade". What you don't know is the carbon price -- that is set by the "trade" part, by what polluters are prepared to pay to pollute rather than reduce emmissions or abate with carbon farming or whatever.
With a tax the opposite is true: you know the price because it's the level of the tax, but you don't know the amount of your emissions which will be the result of polluters choosing how much tax they will bear before changing their operation, or how many of their customers change to a lower-emissions source of electricity (or whatever) because it now has a lower relative price because it doesn't carry as much of a tax burden.
I agree that the European ETS has been "gamed", but I'm pretty sure the Californian one has not, so this may be a matter of design or of a culture with a lower tolerance for corruption.
Either way we may have a better experience under a Shorten ETS after Tony loses the next election.
O. Puhleez
Posted Thursday, August 13, 2015 - 17:36
ag:
A general principle is that governments can reduce some activity (eg smoking) by taxing it, and the harder the tax the better the reduction, outside of course of blackmarketerring.
Such taxes, of course, work best at choke points in the supply chain. So a tax on petroleum fuel would be applied at the port or refinery, not at the multitude of bowsers. Domestically mined coal would I imagine be about the easiest target for the taxation commissioner.
VERY IMPORTANT: The money so raised should finance the building of a carbon-free alternative. For transport, this would be research and development of whole-plant (cellulosic) biofuels, not the present wasteful grain alcohol based ones. For electric power (the biggest emitter) R&D into renewables. As far as I can determine, this is where the Gillard Government lost the plot completely.