ANGEL OF THE NIMBIES

In the fairly short history of anti-windfarm nonsense in the UK, one person has emerged as the darling of the nimbies. Let's call this person 'JD'.

'JD' now gets paid by nimby groups across the country to come along and wind them up. The reason - when a windfarm was erected not far from the farmhouse where JD and her partner were living, they quickly found that they had to move out of their own home in order to get away from the constant noise, etc., of the turbines.

This sad story is music to the nimbies' ears. That's everything they want to hear: put a windfarm up nearby and you'll be forced to move out of your own home.

But before we create a shrine to JD in the heart of Middle England, there are a few questions that are worth considering:-

1. Why is it that, if JD and her partner were forced to leave their own home, JD's in-laws were perfectly capable of remaining in the same house?

2. How come acoustic engineers and sound recordists spent over three weeks solid at the house and couldn't trace, let alone monitor, record and identify, the so-called constant noise?

3. How could it be that JD and her partner claimed to be hearing the noise of the turbines even when the turbines were not connected to the grid and weren't operational?

4. Why should JD's partner still be hearing the turbine noise when they were five miles away from the windfarm?

Bearing those pertinent questions in mind, we shouldn't be too surprised to discover that no less than five of the thirty-or-so people referred to in Dr Nina Pierpont's meaningless study of 'Wind Turbine Syndrome' are accounted for by JD and her family.

Or, to put it another way, Dr Pierpont spoke to JD over the phone, and JD answered for FOUR MORE PEOPLE - at least two of whom did not leave the farmhouse.

Are we getting a picture of how nimby propaganda works, here? The nookies publicise Pierpont's claims about 'Wind Turbine Syndrome' and trumpet JD's unfortunate experiences. What they don't tell you is that a fair amount of Dr Pierpont's 'research' was just a phone conversation with JD, or that JD's story isn't quite as clear-cut as it seems.

No, as usual they tell you what they want you to know. That someone was forced to leave home because a windfarm.

Perhaps when the four questions raised above have been properly answered, we will be able to decide how much merit this story really has.