People who actually live with and host wind turbines on their properties are rarely heard in the emotional debate on wind farms and health. Australian filmmaker and researcher Neil Barrett is giving this critical group a voice in his excellent short film, The way the wind blows. Evidence around the world has shown that those who earn money from turbines don’t get sick from them.
In the film, 15 hosts from the central Victorian district near Waubra tell what it’s really like to live surrounded by large wind turbines generating renewable power. Waubra has become a byword for allegations about adverse health effects, because of a well funded lobby group, most of whom reportedly don’t even live there.
Those who do live there explain that turbine hosts at Waubra earn A$8,000 a year for each turbine on their land. This means that wind power can “drought-proof a farm”: a land owner with ten turbines can ride out a tough year, thanks to the reliable income from wind power. And those who get paid from turbines don’t get sick from them.
This film adds to the ever growing evidence that so called “wind turbine syndrome” is a contagious nocebo effect caused by fear and dislike of turbines, and not by the turbines themselves. See more at The Conversation.