These people don’t

Greg Hunt, Minister for the Environment 

We reproduce the following communication to Mr Hunt from a constituent:

Why am I not surprised you’re the one blocking a moratorium on new wind farms, Greg?

Myself and others have discussed this issue with you for years … John Stone, Alby Shultz and Samantha Stepnall are just a few noteable examples.

You give the impression to all that you understand the serious implications of industrial wind turbines, appearing sympathetic and genuinely concerned … and then you demonstrate a totally different mindset via your actions.

So what are your motives and on what basis do you justify protection of the wind industry despite the mounting evidence and first hand testimonials? You represent the people, you have a duty of care.

I have been telling many for years not to trust Greg Hunt because he says one thing and then does another. They all believe me now.

Come out of the closet and declare your interests, Greg.

We are all looking forward to more of your feeble excuses and warped logic. I’m sure you won’t disappoint.

But believe me when I say if you have any intention of sticking around in politics, the evidence is mounting faster than you can bury it and the truth always finds a way to come out.

If not for the sake of the many communities adversely affected or soon to be, then for the sake of your career at least … make sure you are on the right side of the truth. The Greens can see this – what are you hiding that prevents you from doing the same?

And with that, we at STT might say the answer is blowin’ in the wind, my friends, just blowin’ in the wind. Thanks Bob.

Twitter twits

What is is about social media, Green zealots and University of Sydney academics?

140 characters and a new tweet every hour and somehow that’s supposed to mean something … a statement, or even a campaign.

Old Greenies, and there are a few in our group, used to be in the front line, in the trenches.

“We were members of the Greens when it meant something,” they say.

Now we have a new breed of keyboard cowards.

A frequent tweeter, Infigen’s Ketan Joshi emerged out of the murky waters of Babcock and Brown. As far as we can tell, the colour of their water hasn’t changed all that much. We are working on future posts about that lot.

We’re happy to link to Joshi’s  blog postings. Here.

And here.

As he was writing this  stuff the Daniel Shepherd paper had been in the public domain for a year – peer reviewed, published.  Dr Nina Pierpont’s peer-reviewed study was out, plus a host of other research on low frequency noise which we have referred to elsewhere on this site.

And Professor Henrik Moller and Professor Christian Sejer Pedersen published the following article in mid-2011 using the wind industry’s own figures.

Moller’s paper is downloadable here.

It’s an old scam. Ignore the facts.

In short, Joshi writes so much fiction we’d amost recommend him for the Miles Franklin. But his prose is lousy.

Meanwhile, they actually let this guy run brainwashing sessions about wind energy for kids at the Australian Museum in Sydney.

In the UK, they call this propaganda.

And then there’s Cam Walker from Friends of the Earth. Cam believes if you have a different opinion, you’re the enemy. But that’s  the FOE.

You’d think they would oppose thousands of hectares of countryside being industrialized by turbines, or the thousands of birds being killed every year.  (Read this.)

FOE refuses to see the irony of lining up alongside some of the biggest energy companies in the world. And fossil fuel companies now invest in wind, Cam. Don’t you get it?

So it’s your hypocrisy that rankles most.

What on earth exactly are you a friend of?

In our opinion, you want to kill the environment to “save” it.

Wouldn’t it be better to engage than take childish shots through Twitter? (Or maybe something else is going on between big wind and the FOE?)

At one stage, you were making noises of sympathy about people getting sick from WTS. But that was just a pretense. Part of your “I’ll pretend to be your friend so I can find stuff out” strategy. It’s a schoolyard manifesto.

And we’re intrigued by the FOE’s dramatic increase in income in recent years. One lot of figures we saw showed your annual Australian income leaping to the following quite impressive levels.

2004 – $77,000

2006 – $157,000

2008 – $420,000

2009 – $592,000

2010 – $794,000

These figures are, apparently, outside of donations.

Anyway, we’ve decided.  People are getting sick right across this country from WTS and you both want to play Twitter games?

Life is too short to engage with twerps – even in 140 characters or less. We’ve blocked you both.

@StopTheseThings

Christine Milne, former leader, Australian Greens party

We thought long and hard about whether to include Milne in this section. Without being offensive, criticizing Milne on a site like this appears a little too obvious and a little too easy.

Additionally, at least one of our group is a former Greens member. And all of us would say we have an adherence to a philosophy of sustainability and taking care of our planet.

But the Greens party has lost its way. It has certainly lost its connection to grass roots people who aspire to live in communities in a sustainable and fair manner.

Milne’s speech in Parliament (November, 2012) was a rant of truly hysterical proportions.

In the current style of the Greens, it consisted mainly of personal attack.

Additionally, there were repeated accusations of secret funding and astroturfing by those who oppose wind farms. (Hansard records Milne used the word “astroturf” more than 50 times in an 11-minute speech.)

We encourage you to watch her speech. Our friends at Wind Wise Radio have captured part of it and others here.

(Scroll down once you get to the link.)

We’re just disappointed we weren’t around when she gave it. STT would have loved to have been included in her “fossil-fueled fake grass roots campaign against wind farms”. Damn it!

But this gets to the heart of the matter for us.

The Greens and its supporters are undoubtedly the greatest astroturfers in modern Australia. We have seen this first hand. These days environmental organizations are well-funded, frequently by companies seeking to make profits in self-appointed “green” industries.

There is a level of expediency in this sector that not only borders on corruption (actually, it is corrupt) but is hidden behind a “holier than thou” veneer.

It is clear to us that Australians are waking up to the Greens, to their lack of honesty and their political thuggery, and not least of all, to their “we have to destroy the environment to save it” approach to rampant wind turbine installation.

Simon Chapman BA (Hons) (UNSW), PhD (USyd), FASSA

Chapman has been a tenacious scoffer of those who claim any ill-health from wind turbines. He is a sociologist and currently employed as the Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

He made his fame as an anti-tobacco activist. (Some critics have said this was “going for the low fruit” in public health.) He has been known to post blog comments under pseudonyms and loves a good internet stoush. (We look forward to your posts, Simon.)

Anti wind farm campaigners, however, said he refused to engage face-to-face when they were all in the same room at a National Health and Medical Research Council gathering.

Chapman is a vigorous user of social media and an Australian media darling (dare we say tart).

His CV runs to 56 pages and has its own index.  (The only thing it doesn’t tell us is his pin number).  But on wind farms, Chapman doesn’t get it.

Simon Holmes a Court

Simon is the son of Robert Holmes a Court, Australia’s first businessman to be worth over $1 million. But according to Wikipedia, Robert died intestate, leaving debts greater than his assets and no will.

Simon is founding chair of Hepburn Wind, Australia’s first self-proclaimed community wind farm. Holmes a Court told the Senate inquiry his organization operated on “radical transparency” but frequently cites “privacy issues” or “commercial in confidence” reasons for keeping details of the wind farm’s shareholders and performance a secret.

Hepburn Wind has arrived at a stand-off with some local residents who claimed of ill-health soon after its two turbines began operation.

HW claims it wants to consult with them, while affected locals say they don’t trust him or his organization.

“Community” wind farms are the future, says Holmes a Court. We see this as just another catch-cry by the wind farm white shoe brigade to justify riding rough-shod over people’s lives. In the end, the corporate social responsibility ethos is easy to spin. But in our opinion it’s always about money.

Articulate morons in Canberra

We thank renegade Queensland MP Bob Katter for this term.

Katter is on the record as being a wind farm supporter – but we like his apt turn of phrase. And up in Queensland, wind farms are generally built well away from communities.

But the ALP has been a big wind farm supporter, both federally and at state level.

Ex-Prime Minister Julia Gillard (right) thinks they’re Jim Dandy – and a sure way to capture the inner-city green vote that is deserting her party in droves.

In Victoria, former premier John Brumby gave the green light to a whole slew of wind farms, bypassing proper planning avenues, just before he lost the state election.

ALP local members across Australia generally refuse to even discuss the issue.

Take Federal Member for Ballarat Catherine King for instance.

She definitely doesn’t get it.

For more than three years she’s had one of the largest wind farms in the southern hemisphere on her doorstep.

Waubra wind farm is also one of the most controversial – a development owned and operated by Spanish multinational Acciona. And an operation other developers (we understand) quietly wish had never happened because of the significant amount of negative publicity it has generated.

Waubra actually sits in the Federal seat of Wannon, held by Liberal Dan Tehan.

But we believe King continues to ignore complaints from Waubra residents who went to her office because of its proximity and the ALP’s government position. Hepburn residents opposing Hepburn Wind Farm, which is in her electorate, also get no hearing. Her standard response is that wind farms are a state matter.

King is, however, apparently miffed at the large number of anti-wind farm constituents traipsing into the Ballarat office of DLP Senator John Madigan just up the road.

We believe the fact that King’s husband, Mark Karlovic, now works for GDF SUEZ Energy Australia, the owner and operator of the $92.5 million Canunda Wind Farm in South Australia, has nothing to do with her views on the issue.

As an aside, The Courier reported in 2012 King had taken to flying overseas first class, spending more than $50,000 on just two overseas trips. We thought the pointy end of the plane was reserved for heads of state and royalty. After holding the seat of Ballarat since 2001, she obviously realizes her gig may be up and is out to grab all the perks she can.

Labor Senator Doug Cameron was chair of the Senate Inquiry into “Excessive Noise from Wind Farms Bill”.

On November 29 he said there was not a problem of  “so-called” wind farm syndrome anywhere else in the world, except in Australia, Canada and in the UK. He said this was because English was the native-tongue in those countries.

Do you believe this? Do you believe such a clear thinker is also a Senator? Aren’t we lucky to have him?

We have only two questions.

1. What do we do with this bloke?

2. And why would someone with an obviously closed mind on an issue put up his hand to chair a committee on it? (Rhetorical question. We know why.)

It’s interesting to us that Cameron was parroting the latest propaganda from Chapman and other pro-windies about WTS not happening in Europe.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

And (of course) he ignored a 10-page letter Sarah Laurie sent on November 22, which he had requested. The letter had nine attachments.

Laurie’s final sentence in the document was: “Please don’t ignore the suffering of these people.”

Nice try Sarah. We admire your energy and persistence. But Doug “the slug”, you clearly don’t get it. In fact, we agree with the bloke with the sign.