Address for USA demonstration 27 February 2016
“We shall fight the turbines in the seas and the oceans, we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the fields. We shall fight them in the hills and on the mountains. We will never surrender!”
From Christine Metcalfe, Mary Young and Lyndsey Ward
Thank you for inviting us to make a contribution to your wonderful demonstration here today. We are speaking to you from Scotland in the UK and we are united with thousands across the world fighting the same evil. The wind industry. With over 2,200 anti-wind groups we are a powerful voice and governments everywhere need to take notice of us.
Scotland is a country that has been ravaged and abused by its own government and multinational wind developers. A country rich in wildlife and stunning scenery. Home to the most famous Loch Ness, now threatened by 500 monsters in the hills that surround her. A country that has dispersed settlements of rural peoples who are routinely ignored and swept aside in the battle against the wind giants and our own government. People who can only survive on the goodwill of tourists who visit our beautiful country to marvel at our landscapes, seascapes and wildlife. There has been systematic destruction by wind turbines and the monstrous pylon lines that sweep through our glens and mountains to take any power far away to the cities. It is a crime against the environment. It is Ecocide.
There is a glimmer of hope that the majority elected UK government will remove all financial support to the onshore wind industry, saying targets have been met with current deployment and the available money has been used up. If this happens the greedy multinationals may well think twice about speculating if the rewards are not so mouth-watering as to tempt them.
The Scottish Nationalist government is still fighting against this manifesto pledge by the UK government. They fight against us too and speak only for the wind industry to the detriment of Scotland’s own rural citizens.
Pleas from rural communities have gone unheeded and now we are seeing people increasingly looking at fighting the injustice of wind through the courts. An expensive and challenging process.
There are many people worldwide who are making a difference to this war on wind. You should be rightly proud of those in your country, like the legendary Dr Nina Pierpont and other professionals, who have waged an unceasing battle against great odds to alert the public to dangers to health associated with this technology. We are therefore delighted that Dr Sarah Laurie is speaking to you on this subject. Few have suffered more in the way of libellous onslaughts which, happily, most the perpetrators have now been forced to retract.
The Australian Senate Inquiry last year is probably the first serious attempt seen in any country to get at the truth regarding debilitating health impacts seen. Those submissions made are worth careful study as the evidence of harm presented from many quarters is potent indeed.
Not only are there direct health impacts like noise, infrasound and shadow flicker; we have now been alerted to the frightening potential of water pollution. For those who would like a link to find out about wind turbines and associated water contamination please ask Dave and he will pass it on. The link is for the website “www.windsofjustice.org.uk”.
Authorities charged with the safety of drinking water and with wind power developments in their areas should be given a copy of the UK’s ‘Request for Action’ as lodged by our own Susan Crosthwaite. They should be required to look at the correlation of wind farm developments in the upper reaches of river catchments and increased levels of flooding. They should also be required to plot wind farms in the upper reaches of flood risk areas.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is currently reviewing this on behalf of the Scottish Government following pressure from anti wind campaigners.
Water pollution is a very real threat to the health of citizens in the areas affected by wind development and must be taken extremely seriously.
Flooding is another risk as access tracks are hacked into peat land, moors and forestry. We all know water travels down the easiest route and it will follow the man-made channels, as near disasters in Ocotillo and Derrybrien in Ireland proved. Peat is a carbon store and acts like a giant sponge to absorb rainwater. Chop into it and carbon gets released and the access tracks can facilitate a raging torrent threatening homes further down the hillsides.
Air safety is another serious issue.
Freedom of Information requests have been lodged in the UK and there is currently ongoing dialogue with the Civil Aviation Authority about industrial wind turbines. We are asking questions regarding the negative effects of both radar disturbance and turbulence caused by close proximity to airports. Even if a technology eventually evolves to address radar issues, it will not solve the problem of emergency landings with industrial turbines in the flight path. The light aviation world has already voiced concerns regarding anemometer masts being difficult to see until it is almost too late. It would seem there are no regulations to plot them on maps. With the tragedy in Dakota when four people perished after striking a turbine in poor visibility it is high time, with the worldwide tsunami of industrial turbine development, aviation safety was a priority. This too will be found on the windsofjustice.org.uk website.
It is astonishing that the wind industry gets away with doing so little to protect the people and wildlife their developments impact upon and that they are aided and abetted by our own governments. They should be the protectors of citizens and not the pockets of the already wealthy multinationals and complicit landowners.
When situations arise, like the recent multiple whale beachings in Europe, in an area with the highest concentration of wind farms anywhere in the world, we have to know if offshore wind farm construction and operation are damaging these mammals' sonar and causing them to lose their ability to navigate. There appears to be a woeful lack of public education and transparency on the whole wind industry including usable energy produced, environmental, health and financial issues. We have to ask if funding is readily available and maintained for those scientists and doctors who would speak out and tell us what is really happening. We call on all governments who are participating in the drive to install industrial turbines in our landscapes, in our seas and close to our homes to direct immediate and independent investigation on all serious impacts associated with this industry. Those who dare to speak out should be applauded, supported and encouraged to do more.
To end our contribution to this demonstration we felt it appropriate to use an adaptation of some of Winston Churchill’s famous words, taken from one of Scotland's popular anti wind facebook pages 'Wind Energy's Absurd' – the acronym will not be lost on campaigners gathered here today. These powerful words emphasise the passion and determination to protect our homelands from the ravages of wind related industrialisation and its people from the threat of debilitating health impacts affecting them in their own homes.
'We shall fight the turbines in the seas and the oceans, we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the fields. We shall fight them in the hills and on the mountains.
We will never surrender!'
Links:
www.windsofjustice.org.uk/2015/10/air-traffic-safety-issues scroll down for references
and: www.windsofjustice.org.uk/2016/01/re-decision-v9n-concerning-compliance-by-the-united-kingdom which has a whole section on civil aviation.
www.facebook.com/WindEnergysAbsurd
