Canadians Protest Wind Turbines

NIK282000 writes "Ontario farmers rallied in downtown Toronto to protest the subsidization of wind turbines. Several of the protesters stated that they fear for the the health of their families and that they refuse to live near wind turbines. Others fear that the value of their property will be reduced significantly by the presence of turbines. With the cost of gas and oil on its way up it's a wonder that any one would be against the use of renewable energy sources."

Comments

Re:Reality check

[ClioCJS]

The real problem is people who want to control everything within eyesight of the property they own, as if buying property at location X gives you authority over everything within eyesite of location X. We can thank them for the zoning laws that make any family wanting to own its business have to rent (and drive to) a separate building to operate their business because OMG SOMEBODY MIGHT USE THE PARKING ON MY STREET (which you don't own).

I'm glad I don't give a fuck what's on my horizon and aren't contributing to making the world worse place with entitled assholeism.

Well, at least not that kind of entitled assholeism ;)

Astroturf, ho!

[qeveren]

This whole thing is actually astroturf by a competing energy company in the region. They've been going around basically stirring up the farmers and whatnot with BS about the wind turbines, posting protest signs along the country roads, etc. All with their little energy company website url at the bottom.

Re:There's always a downside

[cbiltcliffe]

It's not that people are against wind energy, per se. It's that the Ontario government passed a law giving them final and absolute authority over where they were placed, effectively killing any municipal control over zoning, land use, etc.

It's basically a bunch of idiot urban politicians saying to a rural county "We're putting a wind farm in your county, right here on the map, complete with massive construction traffic and huge amounts of concrete for the bases of these things, and it doesn't matter to you, because there's hardly anybody living there to complain. After all, you've got, what, 1/100th the population density of Toronto?"

If the local county had zoned that area agricultural, or had plans for a shopping mall that had been years and hundreds of thousands in the making, and were ready to break ground tomorrow, then tough luck.

Another thing is, considering the amount of concrete involved, it effectively kills the land for any agricultural use, anyway. Even if the turbine and its base is removed, the leach from the concrete will have done serious damage the the ground's ability to grow crops. Since the provincial government is frequently putting them in prime agricultural areas, rather than in, place where the soil is too shallow over bedrock to be productive, it's a reasonable concern.

Re:There's always a downside

[Chris Burke]

there is actually tangible reasons and evidence that there could be some health risks associated with living near large turbines.

Oh? Like what?

It's about constant exposure to low frequencies as I understand it, which is not something that people are generally exposed to in their daily lives.

Yeah I'm pretty sure we're all exposed to low-frequency EM radiation constantly. How exactly are low-energy photons supposed to be more dangerous than high-energy? Are all the Wi-fi/cell-phone people crazy for going after that rather than radio towers?

Now, I don't know if there are actual health risks or not - all I'm saying is that I accept the possibility.

Sure, it's possible. It's possible that there's some heretofore unknown mechanism that allows this to damage you. I just find it hard to believe that these protesters have stumbled across this revelatory new science so as to make them so sure that it's real.

If there is a real effect of being near wind turbines, then I'd bet anything it's actually due to a chemical like an herbicide with a perfectly understandable mechanism for causing harm. I don't know if these are organic farmers, but if they're not, then I have a hard time believing their occupation is less hazardous in this regard than wind towers.