If we build a bunch of wind turbines near communities, people are going to start dropping to the ground in pain because infrasound is affecting their inner ear. Or, at least, that’s what one New York doctor wants us all to believe. She’s wrong – but the problem is, opponents of wind power are seizing onto her argument to further their own agenda.
Pediatrician Nina Pierpont gathered testimony from a scant 38 people who live near wind turbines in England, Canada and elsewhere about headaches, nausea, insomnia, visual blurring, vertigo and panic attacks. Her website, WindTurbineSyndrome.com, and book of the same name attributes these symptoms to infrasound, a type of low-frequency sound that she claims disrupts the inner-ear vestibular system—the body’s chief tool for balance and spatial orientation.
Thankfully, Grist has examined and debunked Pierpont’s hypothesis:
So here’s what’s wrong with wind-turbine syndrome. First, there’s Pierpont’s method. Her study consisted of 38 people from ten families—by most standards too small to yield conclusive results. All of them self-identified as people who were already experiencing health effects; there was no control group.
Further, acousticians who study the issue say Pierpont fundamentally misunderstands the nature of low-frequency sound. Geoff Leventhall, an English acoustician who retired from the University of London and chairs the European Institute of Noise Control Engineering, agrees that turbines create infrasound that cannot be heard. So do driving with an open window, swinging on a swing set, and even jogging—the slight rise and fall of the head create the effect.
Leventhall describes infrasound as a common phenomenon that isn’t dangerous except at extremely high levels, such as those produced by spacecraft. Infrasound from wind turbines does not approach that level, said Leventhall, who recently flew to Wisconsin to testify at a hearing for the proposed Glacier Hills Wind Park.
Her work isn’t even peer-reviewed, despite her claims – the four-person editorial board that she cites includes herself, her husband and two others—a professor emeritus of literature and an ecologist and psychologist.
Grist has more technical details on why Pierpont is wrong, as well as an analysis on how her claims are affecting the wind industry.
None of this is to say that noise from wind turbines are never an annoyance for people who live near them – but it’s probably safe to say that the effect upon people who live near them is far less dangerous than that of fossil fuel-burning power plants.
Link [Grist]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
