Submission to Senate inquiry into the health and psychosocial impacts of wind turbines

This 2015 APS submission to the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines examines the health and psychosocial impacts of wind turbines and recommends good community engagement to minimise stress and anxiety in local communities.

There is, in general, a high degree of support within the community for renewable energies and in particular wind energy. Given the far greater health impacts of a continued reliance on fossil fuels for energy production (both in terms of unmitigated climate change, and the direct health effects of coal extraction, processing and burning), the balance of evidence indicates that wind turbines are likely to be considerably less damaging to human wellbeing. It is thus in the public interest for wind turbines to be a part of the renewable energy mix to make the urgent transition away from fossil fuels.

However, there continues to be some individual and community resistance to actual wind farm proposals and projects. Psychological and social science has identified a number of inter-related factors that cause this resistance, including place attachment, concerns about visual impacts, anxiety about possible health impacts, and annoyance resulting in stress-related symptoms. None of these need arise or be serious issues if there is good management of wind farm developments. Good management would include community consultation and engagement from the early planning stages onwards, prioritizing community influence and control in local decision making processes, effective communication of the facts about impacts on health (absence of negative effects and importance of long-term benefits) before misinformation is spread by opponents and creates anxiety, and ensuring there is a flow of benefits from the wind farm into the local community (not just in terms of land for turbines, but through other means such as local employment, local shareholdings or improved local economy).

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