We have emphasised throughout the book that claims about noise and health problems said to be caused by wind turbines are not distributed in any way that is compatible with a ‘direct causation’ hypothesis. As we have summarised, the overwhelming majority of windfarms around the world do not experience hostility and complaints from their neighbours. Complaints instead tend to concentrate around particular windfarms, in particular states or regions of a small minority of generally Anglophone nations.

Those that do attract complaints often have a history of being targeted by organised anti-windfarm lobby groups who set about trying to spread concern and anxiety among local residents. The central argument of this book has been that for some, concern and anxiety can be contagious, ‘infecting’ others who are exposed to it. Some of those develop symptoms of anxiety and can express these somatically in ways that can be objectively measured and which can be experienced as highly unpleasant. They really are ill.

Many people who worry themselves sick are highly resistant to accepting that this is what is happening to them. They feel it is some sort of character defect to be susceptible in this way and are embarrassed by the idea. They rationalise that the agents concerned (here, wind turbines) must be directly noxious. They become preoccupied with confirming this belief. They link up with others and share evidence, often regardless of its abject quality, that confirms their conviction that the agent really is harmful.

Since first showing an interest in this phenomenon, we have both heard people working in the windfarm industry talk about examples of companies that have brought trouble on themselves. Comments like ‘[X company] took a really arrogant and cavalier attitude toward neighbours of their turbine hosts. It’s no wonder it blew up in their face’, and ‘They broke just about every rule about community engagement there was to break’ are typical. However, these comments referred to a very small number of Australian windfarms. By far the more common remarks were those of utter frustration about the intractability of a small, determined group of objectors.

  When presenting our research to international audiences we have often found a level of incredulity, particularly among Europeans, that windfarms have become contentious on health grounds in Australia. At a renewable energy conference in Sydney, an executive from a German wind-energy company asked ‘What is it about Australia that it gets these complaints? We very rarely see anything like this in Germany.’ We have noted the virtual absence of complaints from most nations that have windfarms, and from most windfarms within the few countries that have seen complaints.

So in this, our final chapter, we consider the implications of findings that ‘wind turbine syndrome’ is a disease spread by communication. We outline practical steps that can be taken by the developers of windfarm projects to minimise the potential for health anxiety to take hold in nearby communities and thereby reduce the likelihood of later nocebo responses. To this end, we set out important components of early community engagement and consultation processes that should improve community satisfaction with developer interactions, increase community acceptance of windfarms, and enhance resistance to the effects of misleading anti-windfarm messages. We specifically look at effective ways to address windfarm health concerns incorporating techniques designed to avoid the backfire effect, a phenomenon commonly seen when refutational information reinforces, rather than corrects, misperceptions.

We also consider procedural justice issues – the fairness of decision-making procedures – which have been shown to influence views about windfarms. Finally, we look at principles of distributive justice and argue that a key strategy to minimise local opposition to windfarms and reduce all concerns, including health anxiety, involves some form of benefit sharing. This involves communities having some significant financial stake in the project, or other benefits of value that accrue to the community as a whole.

​Going forward

One of the most compelling reasons to garner an understanding of factors contributing to health concern and symptom reports attributed to windfarms is that this knowledge can be used to inform appropriate strategies to reduce anxiety and health complaints. We have argued that media facilitated and socially transmitted negative expectations provide a pathway for symptom reporting in windfarm communities. While it is difficult in the age of the internet to prevent exposure to negative health messages and misinformation about windfarms, there are ways to reduce the scope for such exposure to trigger anxiety and nocebo responses.1

As we discussed in Chapter 5, not everyone accessing negative health messages will experience health anxiety and attribute their symptoms to wind turbines. Whether exposure to health misinformation leads to nocebo responses will depend on whether residents are likely to be concerned by and believe the narrative that turbines cause health effects. Evidence suggests people are less likely to be vulnerable to the effects of negative health information about wind turbines if they have already formed positive views of windfarms.2 It is therefore important that strategies are undertaken very early in the windfarm development process that are conducive to creating positive attitudes to the proposed windfarm and which lead to social acceptance of the wind energy project.3 This generally requires that the windfarm developer cultivates a relationship of trust with the community and is seen as adopting fair and consultative processes.4

In particular, public engagement and community consultation undertaken in the planning process have been shown to improve community views about windfarms and increase acceptance and support for proposed windfarm development.5 The emphasis must be on ‘meaningful’ engagement, where there is a two way information flow – such as an opportunity for the developer to share the proposal with the community, and a chance for the public to provide the developer with their vision for the community in which they live.6

A recent study analysed the effect of government-mandated minimum community-engagement requirements, such as the requirement for windfarm developers to hold two public meetings, as a pre-requisite to planning approval.7 It was found that setting minimum engagement requirements could lead to perfunctory, ‘tick the box’ community engagement, where the minimum requirements might be, in effect, treated by the developer as the maximum requirement rather than the starting point, and which did not enable meaningful public participation based on the particular needs and concerns of the community. Such cursory engagement has the potential to lead to lower levels of community support for the windfarm project and more divided communities.8

Meaningful engagement should extend beyond public meetings and also incorporate initiatives involving the early provision of information and education opportunities for community members to be exposed to a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of windfarms, and allow for questions and concerns to be raised and addressed.9 In the 2016 report by the Office of the National Wind Farm Commissioner there are a number of recommended initiatives for windfarm developers to facilitate this aim, including the following:

• Establish a ‘shop front’ in the community town centre that provides project and permit information, a map and model of the project and information about windfarms, and that can address questions or concerns raised by community members
• Provide an informal channel for community members to ask questions and provide feedback about the project, and be able to do so anonymously if required
• Provide opportunities for community members to visit operating windfarms
• Provide a windfarm noise simulator event to explain windfarm noise and experience simulated windfarm noise conditions
• Provide and maintain an up-to-date project website with full transparency on project and permit information
• Provide information sessions about the project and windfarms more generally, at convenient locations within the community, including presentations from key stakeholders, along with regular project newsletters and updates.

​Addressing health concerns and correcting misinformation

Given that anticipatory fear of windfarm health effects is apparent in some communities faced with the prospect of windfarm development, effective processes to address and reduce health concerns may be necessary during community consultation and engagement.10 Addressing health concerns is likely to be more effective early in the consultation process, before concerns have time to develop and strengthen over time.11 Recent research also indicates that resistance to wind energy developments on health grounds has been prompted by perceptions of unfair treatment in relation to those raising health concerns, particularly when concerns were seen to be ignored or pejoratively dismissed as NIMBYism.12 Therefore consultation and engagement processes which answer health concerns respectfully, rather than ignoring them or dismissing them out of hand, is likely to be important to minimise threat perceptions and stress at the community level.13

However, where residents are raising concerns about windfarm health issues based on information accessed via the media, or disseminated by anti-windfarm campaigners, it is important to be aware that reversing beliefs created by misinformation tends to be difficult. According to Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive psychologist with expertise in correcting misinformation, this is because misinformation is ‘sticky’, and often continues to influence people’s thinking even when they are made aware it is wrong, and despite the fact they may accept the information is false.14 Further, attempts to correct misinformation can backfire or create a ‘boomerang effect’ where such corrections create or further entrench erroneous beliefs.15

We often see the backfire phenomenon in studies designed to address misinformation about the side effects and risks of vaccination that proliferate on the internet, such as the discredited and untrue claim that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism.16 In one such study, which assessed effective messages in vaccine promotion using a nationally representative sample of parents in the United States, pro-MMR vaccine messages reduced misperceptions about the vaccine–autism link, but backfired by decreasing the intent to vaccinate in some parents, while some pro-vaccine messages increased beliefs in serious vaccine side-effects.17

In addition, research has shown a backfire effect connected to handouts designed to refute common misperceptions about vaccinations.18 These handouts, often distributed to patient populations, outline misperceptions, such as that the side effects of the influenza vaccine ‘are worse than the flu’, and counter them with opposing information, such as evidence that the side effects of the influenza vaccine are ‘rare and mild’. While individuals given such a flyer were able to correctly identify myths and facts about vaccinations immediately after reading the flyer, within 30 minutes they confused more myths with facts, and reported a lower intention to vaccinate than individuals who had read a flyer that simply presented the facts about vaccination without mentioning the myths.

Therefore, when addressing misinformation about the health effects of windfarms, strategies should be designed to limit the potential for the backfire effect.19 A number of techniques have been identified which may be useful during public engagement and community consultation processes.20

​Corrections should be presented simply and concretely, and repeated

One technique shown to be effective in countering misinformation is to use simple, concrete messages that address misperceptions by reiterating the facts, rather than focusing on misleading information.21 Corrections to misinformation should also be repeated to strengthen their effect and be framed to command attention and stick in the memory.22 In the case of correcting misinformation about infrasound, messages could emphasise the fact that infrasound is a normal component of environmental sound and a natural phenomenon occurring throughout nature, and that levels of windfarm infrasound are the same as those found when walking by a beach.23

​Corrections should be accompanied by coherent alternative explanations for events

It is also important to note that field evidence suggests that answering health concerns with the simple assertion that scientific evidence does not indicate windfarms cause health effects may be regarded with suspicion, is unlikely to allay fears, and may even reinforce misperceptions.24 Applying work by Lewandowsky, this may be explained by the fact that people build mental models to make sense of events that occur in the world.25

In a hypothetical windfarm case, where an individual has been exposed to media misinformation about the health effects of windfarms, such a cognitive model could be depicted in the following way: I have come across accounts that, in 2013, a windfarm became operational in X community. Windfarms emit infrasound, which Dr Pierpont says is dangerous to health. Since 2013 previously healthy residents in X community have reported a number of new health issues, such as headaches, tinnitus, and sleep disturbance. Therefore exposure to windfarm infrasound is responsible for health complaints.

A simple disclaimer that health risks are not posed by exposure to windfarm-generated infrasound (or windfarms in general) leaves an explanatory gap in the ‘event representation’, so that the mental model now lacks logical coherence – it no longer makes sense: Residents were healthy before the windfarm started operating and when the windfarm started operating they became ill.  But the windfarm is not responsible? That seems most unlikely.

To make sense of events, people are then apt to revert to the repudiated information, thereby reinforcing the misperception: Infrasound must be responsible for the reported health effects. This can be avoided if corrections to misinformation are accompanied by coherent alternative explanations to prevent the appearance of causal gaps in the representation of events.26

Experimental evidence discussed in Chapter 5 indicates that an effective method to address the continued influence of misinformation is to provide a cogent alternative explanation for symptom reporting attributed to windfarms; an explanation of the nocebo effect that normalises the nocebo response and eliminates blame.27 In keeping with experimental findings, directly answering residents’ health concerns by explaining that reported symptom complaints are the likely effects of anxiety, negative expectations, and symptom misattribution may be one way to address this explanatory void.

If residents are not convinced by this explanation it may be useful to have a psychologist or medical professional with expertise in the nocebo effect address a community meeting, or for particularly worried individuals to have the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with such an expert. The persuasiveness and plausibility of a message is enhanced when the communicator is seen as independent and credible, with an expertise in the subject at issue.28 Reinforcing this message with information from the National Wind Commissioner showing that health complaints are very rare and the vast majority of windfarms have no complaints at all should helpfully illustrate that the problem does not lie with exposure to windfarms.29

We have noticed that in online debate, windfarm opponents invariably avoid any engagement with the very obvious fact that most windfarms have been complaint-free, often for many years. It is as if this information is too subversive to acknowledge. It may be an example of what some have called a ‘killer fact’.30

​Pre-emptive inoculation messages (‘prebunking’)

Another approach is to provide people with advanced warning that they may be exposed to misleading information in the future and to debunk that information before it is accessed, a technique known colloquially as ‘prebunking’.31 In essence, the intent is to ‘inoculate’ against anticipated forthcoming misinformation through prior exposure to a rebutted version of the future message.32 Evidence indicates that individuals exposed to inoculation messages are more likely to resist misinformation than individuals exposed to messaging that conveys accurate information, but which does not allude to the misinformation.33 Inoculating messages have been shown to be effective to reduce the influence of science misinformation about issues such as climate change34 and genetically modified food, as well as increasing resistance to conspiracy theory propaganda.35

In the case of windfarms, it may certainly be useful during initial community consultation meetings to explain to community members that they may come across misinformation. However, the utility of specifically refuting health misinformation about windfarms to inoculate against the possible negative effects of future misinformation about windfarm health risks has yet to be researched. There may be a risk of backfire effects, particularly in areas where windfarm opponents are not particularly active and there is no specific campaign to disseminate negative health information. Still, given promising indications that this technique is one of the most useful ways to reduce the influence of misinformation,36 pre-emptive ‘inoculation’ may be a particularly effective way to counter the effects of exposure to misinformation in communities where windfarms are proposed, particularly in cases where it is obvious from the outset that anti-windfarm activists are likely to target the project.

​Fair process

Procedural justice issues, such as fairness of process in relation to negotiations with landowners and consultation with neighbours, are integral to achieving acceptance and support for any proposed windfarm development.37 If residents view processes unfavourably and consider interactions with the developer to be unsatisfactory, this can create resentment and hostility, and a susceptibility to negative rhetoric disseminated by anti-windfarm campaigners. A number of steps can be taken to minimise discord and improve perceptions of procedural fairness. In this section we draw on the exemplary 2016 report of the Australian Wind Farm Commissioner38 and also include discussion about noise regulation.

​Fairness of negotiations with potential host landowners

In his 2016 report, the Australian Wind Farm Commissioner identified a number of factors important for developers to consider during negotiations with landowners to improve the overall experience for the landowner.39 Managing landowners’ expectations was highlighted as a key component of the negotiation process.

As we discussed in Chapter 6, sometimes a landowner initially agrees to host wind turbines on an understanding that they will received compensation for a specific number of turbines, and in the latter stages of the process that number is significantly reduced or even eliminated. This eventuality can lead to disappointment, resentment, or a feeling of being cheated. Such a landowner is likely to be further aggrieved if neighbouring properties are receiving an income stream from wind turbines, particularly if these turbines can be seen and/or heard from the disappointed landowner’s property.

It is important to mitigate the potential for landowner disenchantment with the negotiation process and dissatisfaction with the final development by ensuring that they are aware from the outset that they may end up hosting fewer turbines than discussed during preliminary negotiation, and that changes may be made to the proposed windfarm layout. One practical recommendation is for developers to consider offering some level of compensation to all potential host landowners, irrespective of the final allocation of turbines on individual properties.

​Fairness to neighbours

The residents of neighbouring properties are often impacted by the development, construction, and eventual operation of wind turbines. However, they are not always included by developers in the consultation process. A failure to properly consult with neighbours can create feelings of hostility, mistrust and anxiety, making these residents more likely to seek out and believe negative information about windfarms, and more prone to vehemently oppose windfarm development.

A fair consultation processes would provide neighbours with information about the layout and design of the proposed windfarm, and about noise exposure and testing processes. The developer would appoint a contact person, through whom concerned residents could raise questions and concerns and have them answered directly in a timely fashion. As part of the consultation process, agreements may be negotiated to provide compensation for the possible impact of the windfarm, such as changes to visual amenity, or reimbursement for expenses such as visual screening. While these agreements are likely to be confidential, they should not include clauses that could be interpreted as restricting the neighbours’ right to make a complaint.

​ Complaint-handling procedures

Windfarm developers and operators should also have the facility to receive, investigate, and resolve complaints. Residents should be made aware of how to make a complaint. Community resentment can quickly arise and escalate where complaints are left unanswered or are not dealt with expeditiously.

​Noise should be measured in decibels, not metres

In his 2016 report, the Wind Farm Commissioner noted a need for consistent windfarm noise regulations across Australia.40 When standards vary from state to state there is the potential for perceptions of injustice to arise in residents who live in jurisdictions with less stringent requirements, which may also create suspicion that these noise regulations are not sufficiently rigorous to protect health. This raises the question of how standardised noise regulations should be formulated, and about the usefulness of  minimum setback provisions (regulations governing how close turbines can be to other buildings) in setting noise guidelines.

While there is some variability around the world, windfarm noise guidelines are, on average, set at a daytime limit of 40 to 45 dBA and a night-time outdoor limit of 40 dBA.41 This night-time sound limit is based on the World Health Organization’s recommended noise limit of 30 dBA inside bedrooms to prevent sleep disturbance, which, given attenuation of sound as it travels through walls and windows, equates to an outdoor level of 40 dBA.42 Recent analysis has confirmed that the development and enforcement of health-based A-weighted audible noise limits is an effective method of assessing and monitoring noise and protecting the public in relation to exposure to all the components of windfarm sound, including low frequency noise and infrasound exposure.43 The evidence also indicates that regulatory guidelines setting a daytime outdoor limit of 45 dBA, and a night-time limit of 40 dBA, are effective in protecting the health and safety of residents.44

We would argue that decisions about where to locate windfarms should not be based on prescribed minimum setback distances, but should instead be guided by noise standards set out above. We also suggest adopting recommendations set by the New Zealand standard NZS 6808:2010,45 which in special circumstances, for particularly quiet locations, recommend a lower limit during the evening and night-time of 35 dBA or 5 dBA more than the background sound level, whichever is the greater.

Wind-energy companies are always required to include noise studies in their development applications. These model the noise of the entire proposed windfarm and provide a noise contour map showing the projected maximum noise impact at every point in the vicinity of the farm. If the project is ultimately approved, the approval comes with a large set of conditions, one of which is that the project produces a post-construction noise study to determine whether or not the farm is compliant. As with any development, there is a suite of regulatory measures to enforce compliance.

If, at post-construction testing, noise levels are excessive, there are noise-mitigation options. These include reducing turbine power and turning off particular turbines. Such options can seriously negatively affect the economics of the project. It is therefore in the developers’ interests to be conservative during the development phase. It is far preferable to change a prospective turbine location before it is constructed than to be forced to operate a non-compliant turbine in reduced-power mode for its entire life.

The problem inherent in incorporating prescribed minimum setback distances as part of noise regulation is that they are arbitrary, and may be greater or smaller than necessary.46 Therefore, minimum setback distances can needlessly impede or even stymie suitable windfarm development, or fail to properly protect residents. Further, fixed minimum setback requirements may convey the erroneous impression that there is something inherently dangerous or bad about living near wind turbines, creating unnecessary anxiety or hostility. As one expert told us, ‘Noise should be measured in decibels, not metres.’

​Distributive justice

In this section we discuss broader social justice issues and explore some of the most important contextual considerations influencing community acceptance of windfarms. An article by David Roberts, a staff writer for Vox, sets the tone.47 Roberts’ insightful and poignant piece was written in answer to a story about a town meeting held in Woodland, a small town in North Carolina, at which a number of residents voiced their opposition to a proposed solar farm being built in their neighbourhood (there were already three solar farms around the town).

The story, originally published by the local newspaper, had bounced around the internet, reaching 220 sites and attaining viral status, mostly because of reports that a retired science teacher’s stated concern was that solar panels, as well as posing a cancer risk, would prevent photosynthesis in the area, which would harm local vegetation, and because another resident had expressed worries that solar panels would suck up all the energy from the sun. The residents were widely derided online, prompting some social commentators to admonish the ridiculers for their elitism. The story then died down.

In his Vox piece, Roberts looks at the lessons in the story. He paints a picture of a struggling small town of 800 residents, with unemployment well above national and state averages, most residents having only a high-school education or less, and with a disproportionately large population of middle-aged adults, the young adults having left the town. Residents were worried that their town was becoming a ghost town. The promise of the American dream had eluded them and they were faced with grim economic realities, which, for some, led to a conviction that corrupt powers were shaping the country, motivated by secret agendas.

Roberts makes the compelling point that lack of trust breeds conspiracy theories (solar panels will suck all the energy from the sun and new businesses will stay away). Importantly, even for residents who do not buy the conspiracy theories, the appearance of solar panels around their town is a visible and ever-present reminder of social and economic changes that benefit others but not them. Roberts sums it up eloquently:

In answer to residents’ concerns, the town council blocked the proposed solar farm and issued a moratorium on future farms. As Roberts concludes, this decision was not really propelled by cancer fears or by barmy beliefs about photosynthesis – it was an entirely rational response to a request for something valuable that offered nothing of substance in return. The solar farm was an unappealing deal for a community suspicious of modernity and for whom the local economic forecast offered little in the way of hope for improvement.

This story is a familiar one. We can find similar issues arising in the case of windfarms. Distributive justice can be broadly conceptualised as the equitable distribution of outcomes. In the context of renewable energy projects, this generally relates to how benefits are introduced and shared within communities in which renewable energy developments are sited.48 It has been noted that distributive justice issues are of particular relevance in the United Kingdom, where many of the rural and coastal areas in which wind energy developments  are located are comparatively disadvantaged, characterised by aging populations, youth outmigration, higher than average levels of poverty, dependence on low-paid seasonal employment, and geographical isolation.49

One argument put forward is that the distribution of benefits by windfarm developers should not merely be seen as a means to cultivate acceptance of the project, but should also be viewed as a way to redress uneven social and economic consequences that can arise from wind-energy development, particularly when the project is located in areas already suffering from social, environmental, and economic disadvantage.50

Beyond payments to host landowners, wider economic benefits to the community can be slight.51 Further, in the UK, windfarm-related construction and manufacturing jobs have rarely materialised in the rural areas in which windfarms are sited.52 While support for local windfarm development has been found to be predicted by a belief that windfarms will provide economic benefits, this has not been found to reflect individual self-interest, but rather a broader concern about the community as a whole.53 It is the fair distribution of local benefits that appears to matter most (although the overall amount no doubt matters as well).54

There are a number of mechanisms for benefit-sharing:55

1. Local ownership or co-ownership, whereby shares in the windfarm project are granted or offered to the community
2. Community funds, whereby the developer provides funds for community projects
3. Compensation packages
4. Benefits in kind, whereby the developer creates improvements to the community
5. Local employment opportunities
6. Energy-price reduction packages
7. Indirect social benefits, such as eco-tourism.

Overall, local support for wind energy development is improved if benefits offered are viewed as having substantive value and as being appropriate for the community in which they are to be shared.56 On the flip side, perceptions that the benefits proposed are token in nature or generally unfair can stimulate community mistrust in the developer and opposition to the project.57

The extent to which perceptions of distributive justice are affected by different approaches to community benefit strategies has been recently assessed in an important study comparing the views of stakeholders in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia.58 In Ontario, windfarm profits are, in the main, distributed to developers, with the only other benefits allotted to the relatively small number of large-parcel land holders hosting wind turbines under lease agreements (an arrangement known as the technocratic model). By contrast, in Nova Scotia, legislative policy has supported community-owned wind-energy development, ensuring that more benefits stay within the community (the community model).

Results of the study showed that local support for and approval of windfarm planning and construction was three times higher in Nova Scotia. One of the messages from developers was that, in their experience, where landowners holding turbine leases were the only community beneficiaries, this created feelings of envy and resentment in other residents and therefore community discord. Interestingly, residents from Ontario, when introduced to the possibility that windfarms could bring additional financial benefits to the community, viewed these potential benefits with aversion; receiving benefits without addressing the perceived health issues felt ‘toxic’ to people already concerned about health risks. In the same vein, one windfarm supporter recognised that, in Ontario, introducing community benefits could be seen by residents as a bribe or being ‘bought off’. However, as the researchers pointed out, this does not mean that financial benefits should not be channelled to local communities, as the technocratic model adopted in Ontario had increased dissatisfaction with windfarms.

Considering the experience of residents of Nova Scotia, it might have been the case that, if community-based models had been adopted at the initial planning stages, mistrust of developers could have been allayed, envy of host landowners avoided, and the overall perception of windfarms improved. As we have discussed in previous chapters, health concerns about windfarms have proliferated in Ontario. It is relevant that anticipation of economic benefits has been found to influence beliefs about the effects of windfarms, a finding consistent with risk-perception research indicating that when people view something as providing economic benefit, they consider it to be less risky.59

Community-based models, by improving the anticipated economic benefit to the community and enhancing distributive justice outcomes, should reduce perceptions of risk, and so make resident less susceptible to the kind of negative rhetoric about windfarms seen in Ontario. Overall, a key strategy to minimise local opposition to windfarms and reduce anxiety is likely to involve some form of benefit sharing whereby the community has a significant financial stake in the project, or where some other benefits accrue to the community as a whole.

As an interesting aside, more than 75 percent of all survey respondents supported the concept of a program that would lower household electricity bills for residents living close to wind turbines.60 Support for reduced electricity costs was even more resounding in those who opposed their local wind-energy project, with 83.1 percent of this subset of respondents in favour of lower power bills. The study suggests another avenue to improve distributive justice outcomes likely to appeal even to those resistant to the idea of windfarms.

In the Australian context, the National Wind Farm Commissioner has recognised the importance of distributive justice considerations by making the following observations and recommendations:

​The natural history of complaints

We have often been asked by journalists and wind-industry employees about our predictions for the future of windfarm complaints. Our advice usually follows the suggestions we have just described, although these are not guaranteed antidotes to future complaints.

However, there is a final important consideration. As we discussed in the Introduction, the phenomenon of complaints about windfarms is by no means the first time we have seen communities expressing anxiety about new technology, and a minority of those who are anxious somaticising that anxiety in symptoms.

Perhaps the most recent and pertinent comparison here is with mobile phone towers and the phones themselves. The heyday of anxiety about these was in the mid-1990s, when cell phone use began to accelerate rapidly. Within a few years, a large and soon a very large proportion of the population was using cell phones. The resulting service demands required that transmission towers mushroom across all countries.

Mobile phones and towers rapidly moved from being exotic technologies to being near-ubiquitous in every nation on earth. While outbreaks of health concerns were quite common in the early years of phone use,62 today they have long been a phenomenon of the past. It is now around 20 years since reports of protests about mobile phone towers regularly featured in news media.

While there are still die-hard enclaves of passionate crusaders against mobile phones and wi-fi, these are tiny. Their dire warnings in the face of no evidence of any increase in the diseases they have constantly warned us all about63 have rendered them as marginal and eccentric as the occasional person we have all encountered who tells us they would never have a microwave oven, a computer or a television in their home because ‘those things are deadly’. Here, there is probably no rival for heroic predictions gone badly wrong than that made in 2006 by two ‘researchers’ who predicted that by 2017, half of all the world’s population would have developed electrosensitivity.64

We believe it is quite likely that the few complaint hotspots around the world today where we still see a dribble of complaints about wind turbines and health will continue to reduce. The very small number of complaints received by Australia’s Wind Farm Commissioner in the first year of its establishment is plainly a sign that this process is well underway.

That is a very good thing. The world is in desperate need of a rapid transition to renewable energy. Wind is a critical part of that.  

We hope our book will be helpful in accelerating that process.