Talk:Wind turbine syndrome

Why is "small number" linked to power? I expected anecdotal evidence or some such article. ħuman 18:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I got confused with statistical power. ^narchist 19:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Darn, I was hoping you had some really weird reason to do it. ħuman 20:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Pierpont's Credentials

Anyone mind digging up what credentials she has? I only find fragments like "MD in Pediatrics", "researcher at John Hopkins",, and I have no clue what field her PhD is in. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 18:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Here. Behavioural ecology, of birds it appears. Got a few papers out of it, including a well cited review article. The MD and pediatrics qualifications only came in the early 1990s from Johns Hopkins. ^narchist 19:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I am a former patient of Pierpont's as a child. All she wanted to do was experiment with what antidepressant drugs she wanted to change me to monthly, really. She's a quack. 76.78.203.21 (talk) 15:54, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The real problem

Is that wind turbines are too pricey for the common man. It will take him decades to recoup the cost of putting one up. Talsley (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

So put them up for him. reduce the demand for state electricty, and there is an advantage. oh, right, that's icky socialism...GodotGrow a vagina 22:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

There's plenty of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Colorado that the Dems won't let us at. Talsley (talk) 23:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

And what about the birds which fly into the turbines? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:16, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Less common than you think, primarily in that one windfarm in California, and far fewer bird deaths than what coal plants would do. Funny how the people bringing up bird strikes will never also bring up all the fish killed by the water uptakes from coal and nuclear plants. CorruptUser (talk) 17:23, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The point with birds is raised on occasion (but not the fish). 'Whatever the figures' they should be minimized as far as possible. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

It's already mentioned in the article on wind power. Why bring it up here? This article is dedicated to "wind turbine syndrome", it'd be like complaining that our article on Electromagnetic Sensitivity doesn't mention anything about the electric chair. CorruptUser (talk) 17:37, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Cities: Skylines

Completely off topic, but every time I'm hunting for a place to put wind generators in Cities: Skylines that won't "noise pollute" houses, I think about this article. Even virtual people NIMBY things. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 20:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Wind turbines are giant machines forced into quiet rural areas. How could they NOT have impacts?

If RationalWiki is truly rational it shouldn't make excuses for the obvious detrimental effects of gigantic machines in rural areas that used to have low ambient noise. Infrasound is probably the main component driving "wind turbine syndrome" (just call it noise pollution) and has similar effects to nausea/anger-inducing intrusions from subwoofers that ruin the quality of life in many communities. Turn on an ordinary house fan and you can hear a low-frequency component in most cases. How could that not be a problem with spinning fans that tower over 400 feet?! To dismiss all the evidence of infrasound from wind turbines and presume that residents in their midst are liars is anything but rational.

Industry pamphlets constantly compare wind turbine noise to the sound of a "refrigerator" and ignore its frequency spectrum and pulsating nature. People don't generally sleep in the same room with refrigerators or live in scenarios where their homes are surrounded by refrigerators. It's an example of how dishonest the wind industry is. They know they're disrupting rural life but wind power subsidies are too tempting and they won't give straight answers about its negative impacts. They have lawyered-up and become as dishonest as frackers, loggers and coal miners. Same old platitudes about how we must constantly sacrifice natural aesthetics for "the greater good" (and industry paychecks). Workers on the ground installing wind turbines could easily get along in other industries that constantly disrupt the land and sea. It's all industrial blight and you can't play favorites with wind power just because it doesn't emit fumes during use (it certainly does during construction). It's an industry as full of greenwashing and spin as any other, especially as it keeps expanding into pristine areas like Vermont's mountains, to name just one example. Wind power follows the same growthist model as most corporate endeavors, constantly eating away at nature while touting environmental mission statements that are basically lies.

The visual blight alone of such large machines (250,000 around the world and 50,000 in the U.S. so far) should seriously hurt their "green" credentials. Who decided that landscapes no longer matter? They are the biggest industrial intrusions on scenery this century; worse than fracking in terms of wide distribution and vertical visibility (water is a separate issue). Their power output will always be intermittent and fall short of industry claims, while requiring 24/7 backup from fossil fuel plants. Indeed, wind turbines could never be manufactured or installed (along with access roads and clear-cuts) in the absence of fossil fuels. They barely reduce CO2 emissions and are only symbolic of true progress. This site should take a serious look at its automatic support of these hugely intrusive machines. I respect most of the other articles here.

Contact this author at kj04170-windruse@yahoo.com if you're prone to deleting anti wind turbine comments, as sites like CleanTechnica do. The mental blindness surrounding such large structures is similar to global warming denial, and relatively worse, coming from supposed environmentalists. Wind turbines were once fairly benign in small numbers but they've grown too big and widespread to deserve a green label. Rooftop solar panels help reduce the total human footprint (carbon isn't everything) and should get the bulk of subsidy money.

Related articles:

https://www.google.com/search?q=wind+turbines+infrasound https://www.google.com/search?q=wind+turbines+backlash http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/9847324/Wind-farms-could-become-monuments-of-a-failed-civilisation-top-environmentalist-claims.html (a top environmentalist dislikes them, among many others)

Do you have any citations for your claims? FuzzyCatPotato of the Rhodomontade Rabbits (talk/stalk) 00:51, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

The wind industry and its supporters are just as obtuse as climate deniers. Why does one need citations for something so obvious? It's like asking for documents to prove that coal mining ruins mountaintops. Photos are widely and freely available. Those links lead to all sorts of articles (click a few). The mental blindness and political-correctness surrounding such absurdly large machines is the whole reason I posted this! They are only "green" in theory and there are just too many of them now. Explain how this scourge hasn't ruined countless vistas, or why you don't care: http://preview.tinyurl.com/turbinesmountain

Anyone who can explain why "environmentalists" are OK with that damage is welcome to email kj04170-windruse@yahoo.com.

You do realize that windfarms built on farmland are by definition NOT IN WILDERNESS, right? CorruptUser (talk) 04:04, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Since you don't like things ruining landscape views, I assume you support nuclear power, right? Power sources don't get much more compact than that! --Ymir (talk) 04:22, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

The historic perspective

Remember - there were probably people making the exact same complaints about windmills and watermills in previous centuries (and also complaining about any building taller than 'your average hut' polluting the horizon). Anna Livia (talk) 08:51, 29 May 2018 (UTC)