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Community Corner

At Last - Glimpses of the Truth from an Anti-Wind Fanatic

Mark Cool's 12/28/13 Patch blog provides a small, and long overdue, glimpse of the real issues motivating his anti-turbine crusade. Here's an excerpt from his entry titled "Harming Neighbors - Costing Taxpayers: What's Falmouth's next Move?"

"The New York Court of Appeals ruled that in an eminent domain proceeding, how real the perceived potential for future adverse health effects is claimed to be or not, makes no difference in the way damaged are calculated...   I contend the phrase 'perceived potential for future adverse health effects' is key. "

His grammar isn't easy to follow.  But he's saying it doesn't matter "how real" impacts are.  He says it's the "perceived potential" for problems that counts.   Got that?  One more time: PERCEIVED POTENTIAL is key, and it doesn't matter how REAL the problem is, according to Mr. Cool.

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Mr. Cool is acknowledging, at last, that it will be difficult or impossible to identify any real cause for turbine complaints. As bizarre as this sounds, it comes as a relief to see Mr. Cool finally agree with the view of many medical and public health professionals.    When symptoms are caused by perception rather that reality, medical doctors call them PLACEBO or NOCEBO effects.   You probably know the term placebo, it means "good" symptoms caused solely by expectation, with no actual physical cause.   Nocebo has the opposite meaning:  bad symptoms caused by solely by expectation.  (See the definition at - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo )

In March 2012, five Falmouth medical doctors co-signed a letter the Board of Health.  They wrote: "We are skeptical that any actual health hazard is created by their operation. Credible public health research indicates that psychogenic nocebo effects may be largely responsible for the controversy, as well as NlMBYism"  (the full letter is available at:  www.tinyurl.com/mdwrote)

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The nocebo diagnosis does not imply any disrespect.  It doesn't suggest anyone is "lying" or "crazy".  People with nocebo effects have real symptoms.   Medical doctors are familiar with these issues, which are also called psychogenic illness.  There are plenty of examples, for instance this 2012 story from the town of Leroy, New York:   www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/teenage-girls-twitching-le-roy.html

An interesting feature of nocebo effects is they can be worsened and prolonged by fear mongering.  Frequent Patch posts by the likes of Mr. Cool and Frank Haggerty (a Mattapoisett resident who posts as Bill Carson) do exactly that.

Other factors, such as political views, pre-existing conditions and substance abuse, can influence individual's perceptions.  The result is a swirl of intangibles which defies measurement.

It makes sense that Falmouth's turbine impacts are driven more by perception than by reality.  This explains why most people hear little or nothing from the turbines (and measurements show very low sound levels), while a small group of people claim turbines have ruined their lives.   Perception-based impacts fit with the difficulty in identifying the actual problem, which has repeatedly morphed, from loud roaring sounds, to inaudible infrasound, to mysterious pressure waves, and more recently to property value concerns. This also explains why other communities have little or no controversy with wind turbines - for example Gardner MA, where Mt. Wachusett Community College has two Vestas V82 turbines, identical to Falmouth's, located near a hospital and courthouse, without controversy.  Or a more extreme example, the farming town of Waubra, Australia, which is surrounded by 128 large turbines (check out this 12 minute video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTAi0DuI3e8 )

Solutions can be found, but not until the true nature of the controversy is recognized.  Although some are truly phobic about flying in airplanes, we haven't closed the airports.

Mr. Cool has done a service to the community by finally admitting, perhaps unwittingly, that perceptions rather than reality are driving Falmouth's wind controversy.  A small first step toward fixing the Town's confused, fruitless and expensive efforts to solve a phantom-like problem.

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