The proposed Boco Rock Wind Farm will be located 10km south west of Nimmitabel, and 30km north of Bombala, in New South Wales.
The wind farm will comprise up to 122 wind turbines spread over 24 different properties.
Already, developers Continental Wind Partners and Wind Prospect Group have put up for sale a stake in the project (typical white shoe/green energy tactic).
But here’s something they didn’t expect.
In 2001, comedian Billy Connelly was in a film called The Man who Sued God. Now Boco Rock will be the scene of God energy verses Greed energy.
The Holy Transfiguration Monastery is a monastic community of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Founded in 1982, it is presided over by Abbott Hieromonk Sergius in the pristine and rugged valley of the McLachlan River.
Thousands of pilgrims visit the monastery every year.
Comments about the proposed wind farm by the order’s Fr Sergei Shatrov, however, make for enlightening reading.
Fr Shatrov says he has visited a small village in Turkey surrounded by wind turbines. And people are getting sick.
How can this be the nocebo effect when there is no internet access and therefore no online/email contact with the outside world? he asks.
Fr Shatrov says he has witnessed the vicious tactics of the wind energy sector, the silencing of dissent, complaints treated with disdain and the lack of any proper community consultation.
And he calls wind turbines Greed energy.
The following is from the recently-updated monastery’s website.
The natural surroundings surrounding the monastery influence and impact on the Orthodox traditional monastic spiritual way of life.
Monasteries have traditionally sought a degree of isolation from the secular world, whether it was the desert ascetics of fourth century Egypt or the great Northern Thebaid monastic settlements in northern Russia, as a means to spiritual enlightenment and salvation.
However, in keeping within the traditions of hospitality, monasteries have always welcomed travellers and pilgrims that come to their doors.
In providing this website as a tool for pilgrims and for those interested in Orthodox monasticism, we maintain a certain detachment from the world in order to preserve our spiritual heritage and disciplines.
In the past there were sermons on offer to visitors to the website. We hope that in the near future that we can provide further material.
Holy Transfiguration Monastery is to have a wind turbine farm erected adjacent to its property in 2013.
In principal, we remain opposed to this intrusive development… Your support is crucial in helping preserve our monastic heritage of the Orthodox Church.
And in a letter to the local paper Fr Shatrov writes:
… I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the Holy Transfiguration Monastery’s position on wind turbines.
The Russian Orthodox monastic communities on the McLachlan and Snowy rivers are environmentally self sufficient and conscientious.
Long before the Renewable Energy Certificate scheme was set in place, we invested heavily into solar energy and environmentally sustainable projects as an expression of our deep relationship with the pristine and often fragile landscape.
What the landscape gives in our spiritual and religious vocation is fundamental to the traditions of the monastic way of life.
This is why we chose the Monaro as our home thirty two years ago. It is, simply put, a very beautiful part of Australia. To suggest that we are victims of scare mongering and ignorant to the blight of the Industrial Wind Turbines (IWTs) debate, is something I strongly reject and refute.
Having been to Hatay, Turkey, early 2012 and spent time with the locals there who have over thirty 120-metre tall IWTs planted right in the middle of their villages by the German government, they described in careful detail, the serious health concerns that are debilitating and greatly affecting their quality of life after the installation.
To describe simple poor people with little if any contact with the internet as simply victims of the nocebo affect, would be insulting.
Having also visited eight separate IWT farms and communities in NSW, South Australia and Victoria last week in person, the problem of the lack of independently verified data (the Federal Hansard noted that wind mast data hasn’t been released in the recent Senate Estimates Committee which I attended), lack of (if any) proper community consultation, silencing dissent or protest toward IWT developments, the divisive and vexed issue of turbine host payments, and complaints unheeded with disdain and in some cases contempt, are some of the common themes I am constantly hearing.
We chose the Monaro as our spiritual home and we don’t want the landscape industrialised. MP Dr Mike Kelly expressed recently that he personally didn’t want Eden’s Twofold Bay IWT (now failed) development to go through because of “landscape aesthetics and damage to potential tourism”.
Cynic that I am of political opportunism, I am afraid the Monaro wasn’t aesthetically pleasing enough for blocking development then. In this age of Greed Energy, what ever happened to common sense?
STS comment: Frequently, descriptions of the wind industry as corrupt or evil are seen as overblown or laughable, the ravings of fanatics. Wind farm supporters scoff at us when we speak in these terms.
But we have seen companies prepared to trample over homes and communities, and now places of worship. And they do this armed with confidentiality clauses and in the full knowledge that people will be harmed.
Wind farm companies use the term “receptor locations” for the sites of people’s homes as they receive noise and vibration impacts. They actually predict noise for “receptor locations”. (Google the term if you don’t believe us). It’s part of the dehumanization of the collateral damage wind farms cause in the name of “saving the planet”.
We’re familiar with this type of Orwellian language. It’s been utilized from the Third Reich through to the US military. Think of the terms “friendly fire” and “senior advisers”.
Investigative reporter John Pilger said it was hardly surprising that the UK Ministry of Defence, in a 2000-page document leaked to WikiLeaks, described investigative journalists – journalists who do their job – as a “threat” greater than terrorism.
And so we make the comparison.
The internet now allows a new style of investigative journalism. It’s one unfettered by old allegiances and vested interests, uninterested in celebrity and trivia, and fueled by a concerned citizenry with a commitment to truth.
We know the wind industry sees truth as a threat greater than anything else – global warming, the financial crisis, conservative governments, restrictive legislation.
And lastly, we think it’s ironic the Holy Transfiguration Monastery is approximately only 200 km from Australia’s capital, Canberra, the seat of our Federal Government. In a plane, it’s minutes away.
You can read here about the desecration of a holy site in Turkey.
STOP THESE THINGS 
Christmas…reading this post about these sacred spaces being ravished by wind farms and my heart is heavy with sadness for the people in Southern Turkey, the Community at Bombala and the so many being afflicted by industrial disturbance in so many special places and homes. The natural places where turbines and bleak infrastructure and uncaring “greed energy” corporations least belong.
They don’t turn off the turbines even for Christmas or Easter and there is no quiet or peace and it is difficult to rejoice. While unwanted disturbances of noise and vibration or the threat continue, it is impossible to forgive these injustices. My hope is that common sense prevails, that people become aware of what is being done and not being done, to permit this metallic swathe and ravishment of whole sections of our people and our States.
Don’t hope for a nice country drive on your way to the mountains or the seaside with soaring open spaces and beautiful open skys….take a good look and see what is being done. Soon we’ll be like Scotland where literally half the land is covered with bigger and louder turbines. The very silent Planning Department and Premier must answer a lot of questions that we good and honest law-abiding country folk have about this mess of seemingly lawless wind farms. I’m still waiting for replies!
A difficult unacceptable aspect is that taxpayer money is paid to these corporations and is being used to bribe people through ‘community grants and funding’ – literally silencing them against protest. That ‘greed energy’ again.
A city Christmas beckons, the wide open space of Albert Park or the botanical gardens, where only traffic sound hums steadily in the background… predictable and easily blocked out. No headache, no nausea, no dizziness and sleep. All I want for Christmas is the turbines blocked out!
This is sacrilege. What will it take to stop the Boco Rock wind farm? Thank you for publishing the monastery story. I hope it gets out to as wide an audience as possible.
Growing complaint, escalating bills and falling share prices support that the global wind industry is also trembling at the knees at the thought of ‘the truth’ being revealed.
At a 2011 Grattan Institute conference: ‘The Future of Wind Energy in Australia,’ Infigen’s Jonathon Upson had the following to say about opposition threatening their fragile industry:.
“As Ken (serial-tweeter-McAlpine of Vestas) mentioned, the largest public relations issue for the industry as the moment is the theory of an ex-doctor that infrasound or low frequency noise from wind turbines is likely to make anyone within 10km of a wind turbine sick. This story has been going for well over a year. It has legs as they say in the business. Imagine how quick this story would fade if the media included the following facts every time Sarah Laurie was interviewed….”
Click to access 041_transcript_energy_20072011.pdf
Dr Sarah Laurie: (people’s champion, humanitarian, truth warrior, qualified medical doctor) has them squirming in their snake-oil-stained carbon footprints.
Enter Simon Chapman- A weapon to influence media, control public opinion and wage sardonic war-by-blog against affected rural Australians who would dare to give voice to the ”inconvenient truths” that threaten the new Green agenda-(of the folding variety.)
I pray that the truth, however pricey or terrifying, will rise to set us all free!
For any person to dehumanise their fellow human is disgraceful in the extreme and takes us to the question “why have so many humans suffered and died to save the generations of humans from dehumanisation?” And non-hosts are being dehumanised.
For any commentator, academic or others to suggest that sincere, hard-working, genuine, honest country people, who are simply unable to manipulate or tell lies, are suffering from the nocebo effect and not wind turbine syndrome is beyond my comprehension.
What is so wrong is when honest, hard working country people are not believed or validated regarding the adverse health effects they are suffering due to wind turbines syndrome.
Such an attitude reminds me of an innocent child molested by a trusted uncle or friend of the family and is not believed by their parent or significant others that such an atrocity took place. I am not a psychologist but I would imagine that not being believed must be incredibly psychologically damaging.
The other statement I have read against country people is that non-hosts are jealous of hosts and the monies the hosts receive. How utterly rediculous. Living in the country we can be surrounded by enormously wealthy people on huge acreages and jealousy simply doesn’t come into it. Some people own and drive Mercedes Benz others drive lesser cars. Some send their children to costly private schools others send their children to the local State school. Some are religious others are not. It matters not. When the chips are down e.g. a bush fire or a personal tragedy all, people from all walks of life, pitch in no matter what their personal finances happen to be. People in the country work together.
Another unfairness is when, as non-hosts, they see their properties diminish in financial worth whilst hosts receive additional income to their agricultural pursuits and can compensate for the devaluation of their properties. The non-hosts naturally feel aggrieved. They may own properties they rely upon to finance them into their old age. To say this doesn’t occur is, again, nonsense. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9418617/Wind-farms-do-bring-down-property-values.html
The non-hosts could well become a burden on the public purse needing to secure pensions to see them through old age.
I have read that in some other countries the wind farm payments are more evenly distributed to hosts and non-hosts depending on the circumstances. Surely that reflects some vestige of democracy.
Whomever makes insulting assertions about country people obviously do not know the country and country people.
And human health and well-being aren’t the only casualties of the wind industry and other “planet saving” industries.
Reblogged this on Quixotes Last Stand.