Consultant Dan
25 July 2011
Will Four Corners confront hate speech when it tackles the anti-wind movement tonight?
Everyone who supports renewable energy will want to see tonight’s Four Corners, which will show an ABC documentary about ‘wind turbine sickness’.
Wind turbine sickness or ‘syndrome’ is not a medically accepted condition. It is a term used by anti-wind campaigners to describe a range of symptoms that they attribute to the sound, vibration and inaudible sound (infrasound) caused by the rotation of turbines.
The syndrome is becoming the key objection against wind farm development in Australia, which is why I have written about it recently.
There are, of course, legitimate concerns about wind turbines and the development of large scale wind farms. It was partly in response to these concerns that I decided to support Hepburn Wind, because I think that the appropriate scale and community ownership of our 2-turbine operation makes the technology more acceptable.
It is worth noting that while the anti-wind movement in Australia is quite peaceful, there are intellectual linkages between anti-environmentalism and rather more extreme right-wing speech and activity.
After the weekend’s terrorist attack in Norway, there is much attention on international right-wing extremism.
For example, Alby Schultz, who is a Liberal MP and key anti-wind activist, has compared the ‘perverted science of global warming’ to the ‘perverted science of national socialist ideology’.
If, indeed, global warming and its supporters are as evil as Mr Schultz alleges, then it is rational to want to kill climate scientists and renewable energy technologists. That is the reason that hate speech is wrong.
I hope that 4C does not shy away from this important issue tonight.
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