WIND farms don't make noise; it is a myth that wind farms influence property values; light flicker through turbine blades is not annoying; no bird would be stupid enough to fly into a wind turbine; wind turbines are magnificent sculptural entities which enhance nature's boring landscapes; and so on.

We are told such things repeatedly. Indeed the Department of Trade and Industry has a web site entitled "Ten myths explained about wind power" which includes several such assertions. Has any Government department previously promoted a single private industry in this way?

Similar stories are told by governments and the wind power industry throughout the world, but the whole monstrous lie is blown apart in a letter sent this month by the Noble Environmental Power company of Churubusco, New York State, to neighbours of Noble's wind power developments. The letter offers a "Windpark Border Easement Agreement" which would pay the owner, or any future owner, of the neighbouring property "an annual easement fee".

Now why would a wind power company wish to pay its neighbours for the pleasure of living beside a wind factory which does nothing but enhance the local landscape? Or is it true that most people do not like these 400-foot machines, that property values really are reduced and the turbines save next to no CO2 emission?