NA-PAW February 27, 2016 Falmouth, MA

February 27, 2016

SICK AND TIRED PROTEST
FALMOUTH, MASS

Greetings from the North American Platform Against Wind Power. Millions of people around the world join you today in spirit and voicing their support for your protest, and in solidarity with your objectives. Thank you very much for this opportunity to address you via the organizers, Dave Moriarty, Frank Haggarty, and Marsh Rosenthal, and so many more, although we had wished very much to be with you in person.

We are very aware of the Falmouth history: We have sadly watched it unfold, as it does, regrettably, around the world in various formats, and with regularity, with the same sense of incredulity and dismay.

Is Falmouth the epicenter of 110db torture? Is Falmouth the epicenter of half-loaded truths, selectmen who are reality blind, deaf, and is Falmouth the poster child of the 21 wind turbine communities in Massachusetts who also suffer? Many or most would say, yes.

We know, as one of your residents’ letters said, “Turbines are Stress Generators.” This has been confirmed sadly by your community, and in rich Technicolor by acousticians and observers. When Robert Rand and Stephen Ambrose confirmed in 2011 via studies provided through a private philanthropic grant that the complaints about loss of well-being and hardships were indeed real, the so called Falmouth Study, and when 47 Falmouth residents courageously spoke to the Board of Health in person about declining health that should have been enough for complete decommissioning. What other industry is allowed such a wide berth to profits while completely sacrificing the public good?

As again, a local letter writer mentioned:

“I became ensnared in the foray of Falmouth’s wind turbines I thought that we were a nation of laws. I thought that government was there to protect us. I thought that most people would come to my aid if I was ever in distress.

Now I find that it was all a myth. The Town of Falmouth does not reflect the values of the country I served. “With freedom and justice for all” does not apply to all in Falmouth.”

What we all sadly know around the world, is that governments produce faulty, incomplete and industry favorable reports on turbines and health, neglecting also concrete and irrefutable facts on property loss, on landscape impacts, on devastating and unforgiveable water impacts, on wildlife and bird and bat impacts, and on economic lack of benefits.

Turbines are promoted as green, safe, clean, and free. None of these promotions are true. Not one. There is no free lunch, and despite the best wishes of all of us, which we all heartily have, we cannot really compromise everything we hold dear and near, and pretend that the harm is not irreparable, that the public “good” is not completely compromised, and that there is a net gain to industrial wind. There is ZERO net gain.

We cannot pretend, dear friends of Falmouth. You know this, and the world is fast coming to know this: Wind energy, an oxymoron, rarely produces more than enough to power up 12 teakettles, and the abatement of CO2 has never occurred, despite the fairy land dogma of the industry. CO2 is actually increasing over the life cycles of industrial wind. The fictions of green and clean, are notoriously false.

It was another failure of faith and common sense, in 2012 when the Massachusetts Department of environmental Protection and Mass Dept. of Public Health declared that “There is no evidence for a set of health effects, from exposure to wind turbines[,] that could be characterized as a ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome.’ “ —“Wind Turbine Health Impact Study: Report of Independent Expert Panel”, Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection and Mass. Dept. of Public Health (Jan. 2012), p. ES-7.

Responses from the community of Falmouth were clear and salty: Sue Hobart said, “This is the same as the tobacco industry… kill ‘em and apologize later. I have never had a more hateful day in my life than this one…” OR Neil Andersen responding to his friend, Sue’s, distress: “This distressing feeling (that my dear friend, Sue Hobart, feels all the time, now), is terrible! And, yes, it is very real. Yet our pathetic and cowardly Department of Public Health and Department of Environmental Protection agencies say it ain’t so. Shameful! Political agendas more important than public health. We know the truth. We know the physical harm and distress caused by these turbines. This sham of a health report just makes me dig in deeper and fight harder.”

We are reminding ourselves that as in Falmouth, withholding evidence, and using technology to advance corporate opportunities for the few, is obscene. As children’s author Bruce Coville said, “Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.”

Withholding information: we have seen that in Germany, Denmark, Canada, the US, Australia….the list is interminable. And we are left with bogus health studies, concocted, contrived, using faulty systems and improper or perverse “expert advice.” They have promoted endless lies and misinformation: green dreams of zero carbon, and an end of fossil fuels, created really a WAR on fossil fuels, and told us we would have a cleaner earth, planet saving impacts, and jobs. The impacts of these lies have been deep and numbing: Do these government agencies, federal and state, KNOW the ill effects? It is clear that they do know. Have known for a very long time.

The impacts worldwide are real: your home is worthless, or nearly so, your health is seriously compromised in many instances, sometimes work is affected, your community is fractured in dozens of places, relationships severed; and your wildlife is impacted, landscapes scarred for hundreds of years, contaminated with cement plugs, steel, carbon fibre blades that cannot be recycled, highly toxic rare earth elements in the magnets, and a blight to the earth and skies such as we have never seen before. Producing NET ZERO electricity. Less than one half of one percent worldwide. This is obscene.

The failure of governments to protect, to do cost benefits studies, to consult with real experts, is profound, not only in Falmouth. The failure is complete and beyond recognition. This is a failure we have not seen. It is insidious and cruel, and knows no boundaries of decency.

But the advances in what we know and our PROOF, and our power to impart this to policy makers and enforcers, is also very real also. The Shirley Board of Health’s declaration of the Shirley Wind Project as a Human Health Hazard cannot be undone. Stephen Cooper’s (AU) blind control study is “in the can,” deeply respected, and will serve as template going forward. Every day there are turbine projects that fail to develop, run out of funds, or are pushed back by strong opposition. Brave and wonderful communities communicate around the world: we share our victories, our examples and our knowledge, and those circles are ever widening. There will be no more 20-30 years of “industry growing pains,” and no more acceptance of the words, “annoying,” or “annoyance” to describe what wind turbine victims feel of their torture. We are getting more vocal, more coordinated, and we know the industry is showing cracks.

We will all showcase the failure of Falmouth to protect, to respond to repeated and sincere cries for assistance, and the failure of the State to adequately research and reflect on and STOP wind turbine torture. We will showcase ALL of these world level failures. Make examples of all those who have crushed democracy, and created a world level health pandemic, reduced property values, and God given enjoyment. Come election time, examples will be made.

Dr. Bill Hallstein of Falmouth, specializes in psychiatry and sleep deprivation. He has written an eloquent letter to the local zoning officers, urging them to not issue a permit for the Falmouth turbines which were illegally constructed, and for which a permit is now being solicited.

Here is an excerpt from his letter:

“The sensations are real and disturbing. It is totally clear to me that I could not live within the radius of influence of the turbines, and I have no idea how the neighbors who are in the turbine area can sustain a healthy quality of life. Against the backdrop of what I have learned from personal experience with the effect of the turbines I see the Town of Falmouth trying to crush the residents impacted by the turbines….I am writing because I have witnessed Town of Falmouth officials and members of other boards trivialize symptom reports from people who are stalwart residents of the Town of Falmouth. I have witnessed attempts by town officials and other board members to discredit people whom I believe the wind turbines are hurting. I see no honest way for the ZBA to issue a permit for the Falmouth wind turbines.”

Remember as Bill Hallstein tells us:

“The human nervous system is the most sensitive instrument available to date for evaluating the impact of the Falmouth wind turbines on residents who live close to them. The ONLY experts in the discussion are the people who are sensing the sound, vibrations, pressure waves, etc. emitted by the turbines. There is no one more "expert" than these people. No so called expert has either equipment or information more accurate and sensitive than the affected residents' nervous systems. NO instruments more sensitive than people have been invented!”

The ZBA’s primary intent must be that “there shall be no adverse impacts on the neighborhood.” Good zoning decisions are: “regulatory determinations that eliminate all conflict of interests, and are focused on the primary goal that is consistent with Town Meeting’s bylaw intentions.” (Paraphrase)

We thank you deeply for your compassion and your persistence. We are with you in all our various stages of struggle; pre turbine community stress, present turbine occupations, and the hopefully not too long future road of turbines that must be defeated.

Thank you for the chance to join you today in spirit and in the law that binds us: our fight against tyranny. God bless.

Sherri Lange
CEO North American Platform Against Wind Power
VP Canada, Save the Eagles International
Founding Member, Ontario Wind Action, and Toronto Wind Action
Executive Director, Canada, Great Lakes Wind Truth
416 567 5115
kodaisl@rogers.com
www.na-paw.org