Wind Turbines and Proximity to Homes: The impact of wind turbine noise on health
Barbara J Frey BA MA and Peter J Hadden, BSc, FRics|January 1, 2012
This paper addresses the issues of wind energy policy where it violates the basic living environment of families and the adverse health effects of wind turbine noise. It also assesses the considerable number of anecdotal reports from people living with wind turbine noise. Although there are many who dismiss anecdotal reports as inconsequential or meaningless, these reports are from real people, living with real problems, often with no recourse: They put 'the human face on science'. The authors examine how this translates into a human rights issue, as government policy assigns more credibility to acousticians' reports than to medical evidence, and assigns more importance to renewable energy policy than to the individual lives injured by that policy.
This paper begins with a review of the acoustic impact of wind turbine noise reported by families and communities in the UK as well as similar cases in Japan, Australia, the United States, Canada and throughout Europe.