Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Stephen Colbert Blows Away "Wind Turbine Syndrome"

The New Bedford Standard-Times splashed a study on its front page this weekend claiming to find evidence of health effects from wind turbines ... from as far as 4,500 feet away! Wind turbines are barely audible at 900 feet and at 1,500 feet they fall below the background noise of a populated area. But somehow people three times that distance are blaming a variety of hard-to-disprove problems - trouble sleeping, general anxiety - on wind turbines.

The study itself compares wind turbine noise to "road, rail & aircraft noise," all of which we all agree can be annoying, but no one is blaming trains for making them sick or talking about tearing up all roads near houses. When the study leads off with the mind-blowing statement, "Environmental noise is emerging as one of the major public health concerns of the twenty-first century" ... well, you have to wonder if the authors might not be completely objective.

A Massachusetts effort to look at all available studies found no evidence for so-called "Wind Turbine Syndrome," while other studies have noted that giving cash to its alleged victims seems to be a miracle cure. As Stephen Colbert points out, one study that did claim to find evidence for this "syndrome" not only blamed wind turbines for weight loss and weight gain but ... herpes:

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