Good news! Wind energy companies and developers in the US and Canada have scanned the medical literature and looked at the studies purporting to describe health issues related to their technology and found there is nothing to worry about. Notwithstanding the hundreds, perhaps thousands of folks, coming forward complaining of headaches, dizziness, nausea and ringing in the ears as a result of the installation of wind turbines nearby, the wind industry has looked into it and has discovered, lo and behold, that the health worries aren’t real.

The folks with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in wind energy technology—the folks expecting to reap billions of dollars in guaranteed profits from wind energy— have concluded that those who claim sickness or health decline related to their proximity to massive generators churning above their homes are, at best, suffering from an annoyance. At worst—they’re NIMBYs disguised as victims.

None of this should be terribly shocking. We could hardly expect the wind energy companies to admit their turbines are making people sick—no more than we would expect the oil industry to admit that its products pollute the environment or the tobacco industry to concede that cigarettes cause cancer.

Neither can we be surprised that the wind energy industry is scrambling to counter act the growing tide of health complaints arising from communities in which the electrical hum and buzz never stops. Not to mention the lawsuit launched by Big Island resident Ian Hanna seeking to compel the Ontario government to be guided by precaution—to fully study and understand the health effects before investing billions of taxpayer dollars in erecting 40-storey fans across Ontario’s vacationland.

What is most disappointing, however, is that a key government official, Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen, is buying and peddling this nonsense. Still giddy from his experience in Copenhagen last month, Gerretsen told the Kingston Whig Standard over the holidays that the wind energy company review had found health concerns to be merely annoyances—that annoyances are not a pathological entity.

“Some people don’t like wind turbines,” said Gerretsen. “The vast majority of people do. To me there is a lot of NIMBYism involved.”

So there you have it. Ontario’s environment minister has done his homework and there is nothing to worry about.

What is particularly horrifying about the naïveté of the minister’s comments is that his ministry—the Ministry of Environment—is the last protective barrier Ontarians have to defend themselves and their property from wind energy developers. In foisting the Green Energy Act upon this province, the McGuinty government has gutted the safeguarding role of municipalities, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ontario Energy Board. Meanwhile it compelled Hydro One and other grid operators to stop dragging their feet and figure out how to absorb this dirty and intermittent electricity (whether it ever makes it to a consumer is a secondary concern).

As MPP Leona Dombrowsky explained to Prince Edward County councillors before the holidays—some of whom were still operating under the old-fashioned notion they had a say in wind energy development in County—the Ministry of Environment has become the sole arbiter of wind energy development. Wind turbines are making you sick? Go to the Environment Review Tribunal. Industrial wind installations have destroyed the habitat for millions of migrating birds? Go to the ERT. Wind developers are destroying your roads and bridges? Go to the ERT. Turbines are messing up your air traffic control system? Go to the ERT.

The ERT is now the clearing house for every complaint, every grievance arising from this ill-considered enterprise whether voiced by residents, local or federal governments or naturalists simply wanting to know where the birds and animals have gone. And who leads the ERT? The Ministry of Environment. Who leads this ministry? John Gerretsen.

From his home in Kingston, the Ministry of Environment has a panoramic view of the turbines on Wolfe Island. He likes the view.

He doesn’t hear the wind turbines. His house doesn’t rattle like a washing machine when the wind picks up. The ice won’t throw across the bay to his yard. The flicker doesn’t reach his sunroom. Several kilometres away they are pretty distractions.

“They are part of the future,” said Gerretsen.

Gerretsen has heard all he needs to hear. Precaution is for ditherers. Gerretsen is a man of action. Besides, no religion would get off the ground if you waited for all the proof to come in.

Hurry up and take a picture of paradise, for it is about to be paved and covered with industrial wind turbines.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca