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Wind Turbine Syndrome
Aug. 17th, 2008 09:59 amThe latest invented disease for (anti-)marketing purposes? That would be my take on it. Or Rush Limbaugh poisoning.
A bit of the psychosomatic is also possible given the fear that has already been indicated by poor Mrs. Eaton on hearing there might be something wrong with the turbines. She could end up with sleeping and other problems unrelated to the turbines themselves. Just the thought of the turbines would be enough.
I'm also reminded a bit of sleeping next to railroad tracks when I was younger. After the first couple weeks, I got used to the darned things. Even if they rolled through in the wee hours. Likewise the semis rolling by my parents home at all hours before they moved the highway. Plenty of low frequency (and other) sounds coming from those babies too.
Wind Turbines Across Oregon Stir Up Health Scare - Houston Chronicle - 16 Aug 08
"Sherry Eaton pulled into the driveway of her rural, high-desert home to see one of several giant wind turbines being assembled a half-mile away. 'I started to cry,' Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. 'They're going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there's the medical thing.'
'The medical thing' is new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her 60-year-old husband, Mike, soon will be doing, can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood "night terrors" and other health problems."
"Dr. Nina Pierpont of Malone, N.Y., coined the phrase 'wind turbine syndrome' for what she says happens to some people living near wind energy farms. She has made the phrase part of the title of a book she's written called Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on the Natural Experiment. It is scheduled for publication next month by K-Selected Press of Santa Fe, N.M."
Windmills Split Town and Families - AP - 16 Aug 08
"[John] Yancey stares at them, his face contorted in anger and pain. He knows the futuristic towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community. But Yancey hates them.
He hates the sight and he hates the sound. He says they disrupt his sleep, invade his house, his consciousness. He can't stand the gigantic flickering shadows the blades cast at certain points in the day."
Conversely . . .
"Ben Byer, a 75-year-old retired dairy farmer, feels the same way. Like Ed Yancey, Byer felt lucky when the wind salesmen knocked at his door. He was one of the first to sign up. Now he can count 22 windmills from his Rector Road home. Seven are on his land. 'The sound don't bother me,' he says. 'And it sure beats milking cows.'"
"All around the windmills spin. John Yancey looks up from the grill occasionally and grimaces at them. Right now, no one else seems to care."
A bit of the psychosomatic is also possible given the fear that has already been indicated by poor Mrs. Eaton on hearing there might be something wrong with the turbines. She could end up with sleeping and other problems unrelated to the turbines themselves. Just the thought of the turbines would be enough.
I'm also reminded a bit of sleeping next to railroad tracks when I was younger. After the first couple weeks, I got used to the darned things. Even if they rolled through in the wee hours. Likewise the semis rolling by my parents home at all hours before they moved the highway. Plenty of low frequency (and other) sounds coming from those babies too.
Wind Turbines Across Oregon Stir Up Health Scare - Houston Chronicle - 16 Aug 08
"Sherry Eaton pulled into the driveway of her rural, high-desert home to see one of several giant wind turbines being assembled a half-mile away. 'I started to cry,' Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. 'They're going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there's the medical thing.'
'The medical thing' is new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her 60-year-old husband, Mike, soon will be doing, can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood "night terrors" and other health problems."
"Dr. Nina Pierpont of Malone, N.Y., coined the phrase 'wind turbine syndrome' for what she says happens to some people living near wind energy farms. She has made the phrase part of the title of a book she's written called Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on the Natural Experiment. It is scheduled for publication next month by K-Selected Press of Santa Fe, N.M."
Windmills Split Town and Families - AP - 16 Aug 08
"[John] Yancey stares at them, his face contorted in anger and pain. He knows the futuristic towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community. But Yancey hates them.
He hates the sight and he hates the sound. He says they disrupt his sleep, invade his house, his consciousness. He can't stand the gigantic flickering shadows the blades cast at certain points in the day."
Conversely . . .
"Ben Byer, a 75-year-old retired dairy farmer, feels the same way. Like Ed Yancey, Byer felt lucky when the wind salesmen knocked at his door. He was one of the first to sign up. Now he can count 22 windmills from his Rector Road home. Seven are on his land. 'The sound don't bother me,' he says. 'And it sure beats milking cows.'"
"All around the windmills spin. John Yancey looks up from the grill occasionally and grimaces at them. Right now, no one else seems to care."
