Antinuclear

Nuclear Lobby’s anti wind power line – Australian Landscape Guardians

The template for the Australian chapter of the landscape guardians is the British Coastal Guardians, an anti-wind power organisation run by climate change sceptics with strong links to the nuclear energy industry.

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, The Age, ADAM MORTON, July 3, 2010 “…….Wind farm opponents also paid for advertisements in the weekly Pyrenees Advocate warning of ”Waubra disease”, an illness said to include symptoms of sleep disturbance, nausea, headaches and increased heart rate that could be ”coming to a house, farm or school near you”.

No evidence was given to back the claims, but the advertisements heightened concerns in the local community and were blamed for sparking rumours that Waubra Primary School was to shut due to concerns that turbines several kilometres away were affecting children’s health. The momentum of the rumour was so great that the school felt compelled to publish an emphatic denial in its newsletter, assuring parents the rumour was ”totally FALSE” and that it was going nowhere…………..

The provocative ads were paid for by the Western Plains Landscape Guardians, part of a loose network of what national organisers say are nearly 70 community groups campaigning against wind farm developments in Victoria and South Australia.

Renewable energy advocates believe the ads are part of an ideologically driven misinformation campaign aimed at whipping up fear in communities where wind farms are proposed…………

growth in clean energy over the next decade is overwhelmingly expected to come from wind power, the cheapest and most viable renewable option………

yesterday, with the release of a review by the federal government’s National Health and Medical Research Council that found no published scientific evidence linking wind turbines with illness, undermining one of the wind farm opponents’ key claims………

Acciona Energy managing director Brett Thomas says it is unclear whether the guardians are opposed to wind farms or completely reject the idea that renewable energy is needed to combat climate change. ”We don’t really know what they are looking for and how they will be satisfied,” he says.

The template for the Australian chapter of the landscape guardians is the British Coastal Guardians, an anti-wind power organisation run by climate change sceptics with strong links to the nuclear energy industry.

According to its website, the goal of the Australian Landscape Guardians is to protect the landscape, defined as ”anywhere between you and the horizon, even if that horizon is imagined”. Wind turbines are only one of several potential blights mentioned
In practice, the group’s objections are specifically related to wind farms and go beyond concerns about the landscape.A recent submission by Victorian Landscape Guardians president Randall Bell objecting to a proposal at Yaloak lists several unrelated arguments against wind energy.

Primarily, it says the science of climate change is ”hopelessly flawed” – a view that Mr Bell, a Geelong lawyer and former chairman of the National Trust, also promotes on an email distribution list. He says claims the Earth is warming are scientifically unreliable, and the idea of man-made climate change is headed for the ”Y2K dustbin”.

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

July 3, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | energy, spinbuster, Victoria, wind | antinuclear, Australia, climate change, energy, renewable, wind