STT champion, Alan Jones is absolutely on fire. Before kicking off an utterly brilliant interview with Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira, Alan rips into the Liberal Coalition’s Energy and Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg.
Frydenberg is juggling a politically poisoned chalice, overflowing with the voter backlash that’s brewing in South Australia – due to its wind powered pricing and supply calamity – a debacle that’s all been driven by the Federal Government’s Large-Scale RET; which, if it isn’t dropped now, threatens to wreck the grids and economies of any other State that is foolish enough to follow SA’s disastrous lead.
Frydenberg appears to believe that if he closes his eyes and holds his breath the whole thing will blow over. However, unable to bring himself to spell out what everyone in the wind industry knows and dreads – that the ultimate annual 33,000GWh set by the current LRET will never be satisfied and, accordingly, will need to be slashed, yet again – Frydenberg continues to live in a fantasy world, where the wind blows at 11m/s 24 x 365 and voters couldn’t care less about rocketing power prices, routine load shedding and statewide blackouts. It’s a dangerous delusion, to be sure.
If Frydenberg wishes to continue pandering to the catastrophic global warming crowd, he needs to front up and deliver an ultimatum: if CO2 gas really is destroying the planet (as the wind cult zealously allege), then the only practical solution is for Australia to build latest generation nuclear power plants to replace all of those wretchedly “dirty” coal-fired plants (that still, magically, keep the lights on and the beer cold).
If the CO2-gas-fear-mongers were really in earnest, they would be pushing for nuclear power, rather than continuing their infantile push for wind and solar.
The disastrous example provided by South Australia gives Frydenberg the perfect, unassailable retort: wind power is a proven failure, so if the future of the planet depends upon reducing CO2 emissions in the electricity generation sector, then it’s nukes or nothing.
However, don’t expect Frydenberg – as politically ambitious as he is clever – to demonstrate the kind of leadership that’s required to provide Australians with reliable, secure and affordable electricity, any time soon.
Alan Jones also unloads on the wind industry’s hackneyed myth that the adverse health effects – such as sleep deprivation – suffered by wind farm neighbours due to incessant, turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound is all a figment of their febrile and readily suggestible imaginations.
The so-called ‘nocebo’ theory – cooked up by a former tobacco advertising guru – also has it that it is only those people who are not being paid who complain of ill effects from turbine noise and vibration; their runaway ‘jealousy’ being the cause.
However, that theory doesn’t seem to sit all that well with people like Clive and Trina Gare, South Australian farmers – who receive over $200,000 a year from AGL to host turbines on their property near Hallett. Clive and Trina gave evidence in June last year to the Federal Senate Inquiry into wind power that the noise from the turbines on their property is “unbearable” and continues to prevent them sleeping in their own home, even after the installation of sound-proofing and double glazed windows, paid for by AGL (see our post here).
Also helping to nail the wind industry’s ‘nocebo’ nonsense is Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira, a physicist, biomedical engineer and leading environmental health researcher, who gave evidence for the Waubra Foundation on the adverse health effects caused by low-frequency noise and infrasound in a trial in Adelaide in September; and since then has been touring noise affected communities across Australia and New Zealand.
As usual, STT has provided the transcript of the broadcast for the benefit of those with slow or shaky internet connections that limit the ability to listen to the audio file. However, for those that can, we recommend listening to what Alan Jones and Mariana have to say, if for no other reason than to enjoy Mariana’s wry sense of wit and humour.
Listen to the audio here – transcript follows:
Alan Jones AO: I want to return to the point that I’ve been making all week. It is no accident that the polls indicate a complete lack of faith by large segments of the community in the Turnbull Government. The case in relation to Bill Leak and the Queensland University of Technology students being prosecuted by the Human Rights Commission is classic.
A government worth two bob would simply call the Human Rights Commission to heel, call for the resignation of Gillian Triggs, spring to the complete defence of people like Bill Leak and these poor students and the way they’ve been treated, but the government is mute.
Now I can give you a million such examples, but I’m going to just give you one today. Because we are in the presence of a distinguished international figure, and I’m talking again about this renewable energy rubbish and wind power.
Now, Josh Frydenberg, the Minister, has come into this Parliament as a person of incredible intellectual strength. He betrays his own intellectual ability by towing the bureaucratic line. Josh Frydenberg knows that we will be dependent on coal-fired power for years and years to come. He knows that wind power is unaffordable and unreliable. He knows that wind power produces about 1.4% of the world’s total electricity.
He knows that solar power is so pathetically low it has to be bundled up with tidal and wave power to even register 0.1 of a percent of the world’s electricity. He knows that China and India continue to open up one new coal-fired powered station a week. He knows that coal and nuclear power make up over 80% of the world’s power and that they are the two power sources that the Greens and his party and others fight to prevent.
He knows he doesn’t have the guts to take these arguments to the people and tell the truth. He knows that his responsibility as a Minister, the Energy Minister, is to provide energy security and energy affordability and, as a Minister in general, to guarantee the good health of Australians.
Now witness South Australia. They have neither energy security nor affordability. They boast about having the highest number of wind turbines, I don’t know what they say, on the planet, in the world. It doesn’t matter, it’s rubbish.
Last year, 11,000 homes in South Australia had their power cut off. They couldn’t afford the inflated electricity prices because renewable energy was fed into the grid. How do they keep themselves warm in winter? How do they safeguard their health if they can’t heat their homes? How do they cook their food? How do the kids do their homework? Another 13,000 households were on hardship plans, struggling to pay their electricity bills.
Frydenberg knows that. What does he do? Tows the renewable energy line. He doesn’t like me saying that. Well, I’m going to keep saying it until he breaks from the bureaucracy and faces reality. He knows we’re exporting coal to China so they can have cheap electricity, but we demonize coal-fired power here. He knows that subsidies to wind power are $42 per megawatt hour of electricity produced. He knows that subsidies to solar power are $412 per megawatt hour. So if you want handouts, go solar, go wind.
[Note to AJ, the subsidy paid to wind power outfits is the REC aka the LGC – they receive one for each MWh dispatched – which is currently worth $89 and the total paid in wind power subsidies is designed to reach $3billion a year, every year until 2031, under the current LRET.]
Yet what did Frydenberg recently tell the Parliament in question time? Quote, “We’ve been able to restore 800 million dollars in grants for the renewable energy sector while keeping the ten billion dollar Clean Energy Finance Corporation intact.” Both of them Abbott wanted to get rid of. But he boasted about 12 different projects, 6 in Queensland he said, 5 in New South Wales, ah yes and buggering up peoples’ health completely. Making people refugees in their own homes.
Of course the private sector want to invest in solar and wind because we mugs are providing billions of dollars in subsidies. Of course they’d be in the game. By the way, they’re foreign owned as well. Foreign owned. You and I are paying for wind turbines and peoples’ health is suffering.
There was a Senate select committee on wind turbines which reported last year, and this proves the validity of what I’m saying. They found what I’ve been arguing. What’s the Turnbull Government doing? Hasn’t responded. Report was tabled in August. Nothing has been done.
Throughout that Senate wind inquiry, the committee received 500 submissions, 100’s of witnesses giving harrowing evidence, and 8 public hearings held across Australia. Evidence from experts in the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, submissions written in French and Danish and Dutch. They were awful, absolutely awful stuff. Graham Lloyd writing in the Australian in June this year said, “The failure of all parties to properly assess what they’ve pledged, this is by way of renewable energy targets, raises the prospect of a potentially nasty price shock for electricity users down the track, to say nothing of existing health shocks.”
There’s evidence everywhere of the impact of these infrasound vibrations. As I said, if they weren’t a risk to health, why not put them on Bondi Beach? Put them down Macquarie Street, George Street, Brisbane, Collins Street, Melbourne, plenty of wind there. I know, wouldn’t do that, because they know they’re injurious to health.
An International project led by the International Meteorology Institute of Germany has concluded that human beings can hear sounds lower than have been assumed. The impact of low-frequency noise on people is poorly understood. Scientists in Japan have measured brain function and reported last year that it showed that the brains of Japanese wind turbine workers could never achieve a relaxed state. How would you like to be next to this stuff?
A study of 45 people by the Tehran University published last year said, “It can be stated that this technology has health risks for all those exposed to its sound.” Work by Neil Kelley at NASA in the 1980’s on an early model wind turbine came to the same conclusions. A direct cause and link between wind turbine infrasound, low-frequency noise, and the health problems of the neighbors, including sleep disturbance. They become refugees in their own home. As the number and size of wind turbines has increased, the spread of complaints has grown.
The German research said, “Although commonly declared as non-audible, the number of complaints about infrasound exposure has been increasing exponentially.” In Germany and other countries, serious problems exist. The German project leader Christian Cox said, “It’s been agreed that infrasound represents an almost unknown hazard to human health.”
Well, you won’t hear it from this lady. We’ve got a distinguished academic in our presence. Dr. Mariana Alves-Pereira. She’s an Associate Professor at Lusofona University in Portugal. She has argued and proven that increasing technological development is putting communities at risk due to what she calls insidious low-frequency noise and vibration. She says that vulnerable at risk groups include those not just living next to wind farms, those in high exposure environments, airline pilots and other transportation industries and those living in close proximity to industrial scale installations like wind turbines.
She and her colleagues have been conducting research – she’s not just a new fly on the ointment – they’ve been conducting epidemiological studies over the last 20 years of people chronically exposed to low-frequency noise and infrasound. They found that the effects are grim, cardiovascular, respiratory, neurologic, and renal pathology symptoms, which they’re calling Vibroacoustic Disease.
Mariana Alves-Pereira has a BSC in Physics from the State University of New York, an MSC in Biomedical Engineering, PhD in Environmental Science. The author and co-author of over 50 scientific publications, peer-reviewed.
But she was brought here because the Waubra Foundation, which has been fighting the consequences of wind power on public health in Victoria, the Andrew’s Government is a disgrace, has had its status as a Health Promotion Charity revoked. The Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission, there’s another one. You didn’t know you funded that did you? Another government outfit. Has written of its decision to exclude the Waubra Foundation from being considered a Health Promotion Charity and said … listen to this.
“There’s been no rigorous independent scientific evidence that finds that the ill health complained of is caused by the physiological effects from wind turbines. Nor that there are human diseases called Wind Turbine Syndrome or Vibroacoustic Disease.” In other words, Dr. Mariana Alves-Periera, you’re telling lies. Go home.
This outfit is doing the Government’s bidding. Telling us that there are no human diseases from wind turbine exposure and all Mariana Alves-Pereira’s research establishing the existence of vibroacoustic disease doesn’t exist. In other words, like Gillian Triggs, tell lies, tell lies, that’s the only way you can win your argument. There’s no other word for it.
Well, Dr. Alves-Pereira has agreed to talk to me and she’s on the line. Mariana Alves-Pereira, good morning.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Good morning Alan.
Alan Jones AO: Thank you for your time. You’ve done any number of studies haven’t you. Not just human beings, on animals with infrasound low-frequency noise and the consequence on health.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Yes we have.
Alan Jones AO: And they’re published.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: They are published.
Alan Jones AO: So can’t people Australia read?
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Of course, they’re in English.
Alan Jones AO: So what’s the story? Why do people continue to tell lies about this?
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Well that’s a very political issue and not quite a scientific issue. If they were looking at the science, they wouldn’t be telling lies.
Alan Jones AO: You have spoken about this mob, the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission, and here they are denying the very evidence that is available to you in the English language.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Yes. What can we say? I think it all comes down to a litigation problem in the future and lying right now is the best way to go.
Alan Jones AO: You have written … this lady, Dr. Mariana Alves-Pereira, has written to this Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission. She wrote delicately. She said, “It’s not my place to discuss the economic, political or legal background against which your decision and this letter are being produced.”
But then she said, “I represent a group of scientists who procure knowledge for the sake of knowledge, particularly when it advances the well-being of societies through the prevention or control of diseases. Wind turbines for example,” she said, “are but one of many problematic sources of ILFN, that’s infrasound and low-frequency noise, that we have investigated over the past 30 years.” [Mariana’s letter to the ACNC is available here]
Now Mariana, you’ve made the point that your research is extensive and it’s been recognized Internationally with a stack of awards, I won’t list them. But your point is that none of these studies have been disputed.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: No they haven’t.
Alan Jones AO: Yet, there’s no opposing scientific evidence. You’ve evaluated the level of damage and noise amongst people exposed to low-frequency sound. You’ve argued to this Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission, quote “Concluding that no ILFN, infrasound low-frequency noise induced pathology exists is ludicrous in terms of the axioms of scientific methodology.”
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: That’s absolutely true. Most other scientists are evaluating these effects through questionnaires, as opposed through medical diagnostic tests. We evaluate the effects through medical diagnostic tests and therefore are indisputable.
Alan Jones AO: That’s right. I thought you made an excellent point. By the way, you’ve got a sense of humor. Dr. Pereira said, “That if a medical health provider argued that things like cholesterol and blood pressure levels had no impact on overall health, they’d be referred to psychiatric care. People would say you’re mad, you’re mad. Yet acousticians, who’ve proven that sites are contaminated by infrasound and low-frequency noise, are told what you can’t hear won’t hurt you.”
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Precisely. That’s a very old argument.
Alan Jones AO: It is.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: It cannot be sustained by science as we know it today. This has been studied way back since the 1940’s. In the 1960’s with the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, infrasound and low-frequency noise was again evaluated properly. But today, people prefer to take a questionnaire. How do you feel? And then refer them to psychiatric care if they insist on feeling bad.
Alan Jones AO: You’ve been everywhere since you’ve been here. You’ve been to Waterloo in South Australia, McArthur and Cape Bridgewater, Victoria. I get letters from these Mariana. It’s just frightening what these people are enduring. You’ve met the families. They’re desperate. They’re refugees in their own homes aren’t they?
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: They are indeed.
Alan Jones AO: You’ve been to Cullerin, Capital, Gullen Range in New South Wales. You’ve visited the mining community in the Upper Hunter. There’s a mountain of research. We could talk all day. People listening to you at the moment all across Australia, can you say something to them about this?
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Protect yourselves. Protect yourselves. Demand the correct medical diagnostic tests to prove that you are actually ill and that you’re not imaging this. This is not a psychological effect. There is actual tissue damage happening when you are excessively exposed to this sort of agent of disease.
Alan Jones AO: Yet government’s continued to approve them. As I’ve said, if they weren’t injurious to health, you’d put them in Collins Street, Melbourne or George Street or Bondi Beach wouldn’t you.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Precisely.
Alan Jones AO: They shove them out amongst farmers. You’ve met these farmers who just weep and I do as well. Look, thank you for what you’ve done. You’ve given them a real psychological boost. The obligation’s on us now to carry on your good work. I can guarantee you we will.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira: Thank you for having me Alan.
Alan Jones AO: You’re most welcome. There she is, Dr. Mariana Alves-Pereira. The Frydenbergs of this world want to ignore she even exists.
2GB Alan Jones Breakfast
For more on Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira’s work see our post here: Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira – how to test for the effects of low-frequency turbine noise
And here are a just of few of the papers that Mariana has published:
Clinical Protocol for Evaluating Pathology Induced by Low Frequency Noise Exposure
STT hears that Mariana has now joined up with a crack team of medicos and acoustics experts – based here and in New Zealand – all of whom are ready, willing and able to provide the evidence needed for long-suffering wind farm neighbours to prosecute legal claims seeking damages for pain, suffering and personal injury, based on actions in nuisance and negligence – against wind power outfits, wind turbine hosts and the wind industry’s pet acoustic consultants. STT will keep you posted.
wind power debacle is caused by the ‘nocebo’ effect.
STOP THESE THINGS 
Many thanks to Alan Jones, Mariana and all who speak out to draw the general publics’ attention to this important issue. Persistence and the truth will ultimately win the day. Keep on fighting. Never give up. Never give up.
Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira’s is an exceptional person.
She has been maligned by many who are probably peeved at her dedication and quality of her and her teams work. Work which questions doubters mediocre attempts to prove people are suffering a fallacy diagnosis and promoted ‘Nocebo’ effect.
Some of these people purport to do research using some form of methodology, research which when closely examined says nothing, but concludes without any scientific examination that this ‘Nocebo’ effect or some other such suggestion is PROBABLY the cause of health issues.
They don’t even state emphatically that it is. Other or similar accusations are just dropped into conclusions as a suggestion without any qualification or evidence.
This sort of thing is designed to put into people’s minds the idea the research has been done into this claim, which it has not.
To do this you first have to eliminate any medical causation, each of the complainants need to have undergone not only exhaustive medical examination, but also psychiatric evaluation both covering their whole lives.
It seems none of the doubters have done this, none of those claiming quality research because they have used some form of epidemiological methodology, or not, have undertaken personal medical and or psychiatric evaluation.
So is anyone suffering the ‘Nocebo’ effect – YES – those who are so gullible they continue to parrot the promotion of this myth.
The ‘tripe’ spouted has no foundation in sound research into the topic.
Dr Alves-Pereira and her team have undertaken the work over many years, they are recognized as experts in relation to others suffering from noise/sound etc of industrial turbines/machinery etc, but when it comes to those adverse effects from IWT’s, promoters and their ‘workers’ try to demonize this important work – WHY – because it doesn’t suit the greedy money grabbing industry or their ‘workers’ who gain in some way including by some notoriety and self promotion.
When will authorities in this country and others stop following the bread crumbs and start by-passing the branches created to blur and confuse the path to truth.
The don’t just “shove them amongst farmers” they shove them anywhere it is convenient to attach to the grid at least cost. If the local community happens to be rural residential, ie, small landholdings up to, say 100 acres, then they just lie in all of their documentation and call it “predominantly broad acre farming”. Nobody calls them to account and multiple government departments accept it all in good faith because to do so adheres to a governments “green” credentials.
Politicians lost the backbone to represent their constituents years ago and have become the most corruptible members of society. The demise of the Democrats, and the alliance between the ALP and the Green-Tards has ensured that all decisions are blinkered and adhere to the wishes of the wind zealots at any expense to the local affected community or all power users through the theft of money via the RET.
Nocebo effect is all in the WindWeasel’s mind…
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“Frydenberg appears to believe that if he closes his eyes and holds his breath the whole thing will blow over. However, unable to bring himself to spell out what everyone in the wind industry knows and dreads – that the ultimate annual 33,000GWh set by the current LRET will never be satisfied and, accordingly, will need to be slashed, yet again – Frydenberg continues to live in a fantasy world, where the wind blows at 11m/s 24 x 365 and voters couldn’t care less about rocketing power prices, routine load shedding and statewide blackouts. It’s a dangerous delusion, to be sure.
If Frydenberg wishes to continue pandering to the catastrophic global warming crowd, he needs to front up and deliver an ultimatum:
– if CO2 gas really is destroying the planet (as the wind cult zealously allege), then the only practical solution is for Australia to build latest generation nuclear power plants to replace all of those wretchedly “dirty” coal-fired plants (that still, magically, keep the lights on and the beer cold).
– If the CO2-gas-fear-mongers were really in earnest, they would be pushing for nuclear power, rather than continuing their infantile push for wind and solar.”
Read all of this excellent post by STT. And the Jones audio is a must…
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