What Vestas knew, and when

The numerous instances of wind farm operators refusing to release noise data, not keeping accurate records of complaints and buying out some neighbours to silence them with gag clauses is well known and also indicative of an industry desperate to suppress damning information. 

The Act on Facts campaign is acknowledgement by the wind industry that they have not been able to successfully control the dissemination of information that is detrimental to their very existence.  Community support is vital for the wind industry as they cannot profitably survive in any country in which they operate without continued generous public subsidies.

This is what makes the Vestas Act on Facts campaign nothing more than corporate spin as outlined in The Guardian: ‘Ken McAlpine, public affairs director for Vestas in Australia, said the highly-unconventional corporate campaign was being launched here because anti-wind groups in Australia had been more successful than in any other country. He accused some of spreading misinformation and using "astroturfing" (fake grassroots) campaigns to persuade politicians to pass legislation making wind farm operations more difficult.’ 

Or maybe the more than 2000 community groups in 33 countries have been successful because they are the only ones telling the truth.

Does Vestas inside knowledge, since 2004, that their turbines will have an effect on some people and their subsequent denials of such constitute misinformation or something much worse?  Certainly the culture at Vestas is called into question by Professor of Political Science, Peter Nedergaard from Copenhagen University who said “There’s no doubt that Vestas here smears its opponents."

If one accepts at face value the claims of the wind industry, vociferously articulated over the last decade that there are no health impacts from wind turbine noise, it begs the question of why they are so secretive with regards to noise data.  More importantly if they are so confident of their product, why not take the fight to their critics by vigorously encouraging government to undertake health studies to prove there are no adverse effects as they claim? 

Surely it would be in the interests of the wind industry to fund independent studies to vindicate their claims and silence critics, especially since they say their turbines pose no threat to human health.

The hypocrisy of claiming moral purity while not taking available action that would exonerate them, while concealing information that damns their operations, exposes the duplicitous nature of the wind industry and some supporters. 

These supporters, many of whom are on the fringes of the medical fraternity, have either knowingly or unknowingly endorsed the denials of the wind industry. 

Despite the wind industry being well aware for years that their product has the potential to cause serious harm to human health they invited Professor Simon Chapman, the Climate and Health Alliance, and others to help Vestas launch their ‘fact-based’ campaign last year.

Professor of Public Health, sociologist Simon Chapman who lacks any medical or acoustic qualifications, has been vocal in the media denigrating those who call for medical research into the effects of wind turbines and spoke at the launch of the Act on Facts campaign. 

How can Professor Chapman reconcile his ridicule of the reasons numerous people have been forced to abandon their homes because of continuing adverse health effects with the knowledge that the company initiating the campaign knew a decade ago there were problems?