The cuckoos are birds of the family Cuculidae. Many species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species.

Have you all got that? More simply put, cuckoos are birds that do not build nests and stuff up the nests of other birds by laying their eggs in another bird’s nest. Then, when the cuckoo eggs hatch, the baby cuckoo kicks the other babies out of the nest and is fed by the mother, who is too dof to notice that she and the cuckoo are very different in looks and size. Sooner or later, the cuckoo leaves the nest and the mother bird is left without any offspring to care for her in old age.

What a pitiful story. The life of a cuckoo is based on deception and deceit. In this regard, I am reminded of the suppliers of wind turbines and the builders of wind farms. In many scientific magazines, most recently in the journal of the Acoustics Society of America (titled ‘How Does Wind Turbine Noise Affects People’ and written by Professor N Salt and Jeffery Lichtenhan) there is compelling evidence that (a) very low frequency sound (infrasound) from wind turbines affects people (b) that normal acoustics measurements using A-Weighing are not adequate for measuring infrasound and (c) that we should acknowledge the problem and work to eliminate it.

Salt and Lichtenhan are not just commentators on the matter – they work in the Department of Otolaryngology (the study of ear, nose, and throat conditions) at Washington University. If we look up ‘noise of wind turbines’ on the Internet, we get: “With a low 105 dB noise level, the SWT-2.3-113 is one of the quietest wind turbines . . .” (from Siemens). From Vestas Wind Turbines we have Michael Zarin advising that turbines do make a noise and the noise limit in Denmark is 44 dB, which “is not louder than a refrigerator or normal speech”. Other wind turbine suppliers make similar statements or ignore the issue of sound altogether.

These two extracts show one thing: unless Siemens and Vestas are extraordinarily stupid and just forgot what they were saying, these two statements are meaningless. You cannot have ‘a 105 dB noise level’ – it has to be associated with a specific frequency or range of frequencies. The same for ‘44 dB’. If, on the other hand, one assumes that it is just a printing error and the values should be dBA, and not dB, then one can calculate that the Siemens turbine can be heard 2 km away – and 16 turbines of a wind farm will be audible 8 km away.

If the Denmark regulations refer to a limit of 44 dBA, then the comparison of wind turbine noise to speech levels is completely wrong – they refer to a different frequency band. Further, dBA measurements have no infrasound components, so, in fact, the whole matter of the infrasound effect of turbines on people is neatly skipped over.

Nobody should be surprised by this – the wind turbine suppliers are keen to sell as many wind turbines as they can and would hate to acknowledge that they may be unhealthy. But, nevertheless, like cuckoos, the wind turbines have arrived. The beautiful Caledon valley, the beautiful Bot river valley and soon the most beautiful areas in the most beautiful province in the country are going to be less beautiful and more filled with infrasound in the name of the environment but more in the commercial interests of a few.

It would be nice if turbine suppliers would acknowledge the problem and work to eliminate it, but there is no evidence at all of this. No programme of ‘a study on reducing noise from wind turbines’ is funded by the wind turbine suppliers. The cuckoos have landed and are busy stuffing things up, kicking eggs out of nests, taking over. The Cape environment will never be the same. If a proposal was mooted to erect ten oil drilling rigs in the Caledon valley, it would evaporate like coffee split on a hot rock. But not wind turbines. A bit like stuffing up the environment to save the environment. Odd, but true.