CNN/GettyOpen wide folks, ‘cos here comes another delicious slice of outrageous Trump-ism which has got a lot of people worried, for one reason or another.
Are they worried about Trump himself? The guy is getting on a bit after all, though I know he did once claim to be the fittest American president ever. It could be true, but then again, he does need help going up and down gentle slopes so you tell me.
Are they worried about the kind of fake news he regularly reads and distributes? Probably.
I think most people are just more concerned about how brazen the current POTUS is with… well pretty much everything he does. Even claiming his own dad came from Germany. He didn’t. The Donald’s dad, Fred, was born in New York City.
Trump regularly throws himself into discussions with all the grace of an elephant on an oil slick sliding towards a glass house. His latest turn – into science, no less – is an eyebrow-raiser to say the least.
We all know Donald is not a fan of climate change. So much so he doesn’t believe it’s a real thing, and therefore his distaste for renewable energy, or anything environmentally friendly, is very evident.
Turns out he particularly doesn’t like – or doesn’t understand – wind-generated power either, but not because they might – to some people – be an eyesore on the landscape or anything like that.
He doesn’t like them because he thinks the noise they make causes cancer.
Let’s just let that sink in a minute…
FXThe president was speaking at the National Republican Congressional Committee spring dinner, where he said, via Sky News:
Hillary [Clinton] wanted to put up wind.
If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations your house just went down 75 per cent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer, you tell me that one, okay?
Check it out:
Trump claiming that the noise from windmill causes cancer.
This is just beyond parody at this point.pic.twitter.com/RJ4eWYX9hr
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) April 3, 2019
To which many, many people responded. Here are just a few:
NOISE CAUSES CANCER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
— Paul Potiki (@GuanoLad) April 3, 2019
Windmill noise doesn’t cause cancer. But as someone who worked in the coal industry for thirty years and who grew up in the shadow of a coal-fired plant … I can tell you what does cause cancer. And black lung. And more. https://t.co/LYVaWhAmkb
— Mark Sumner (@Devilstower) April 3, 2019
I told my mom this and showed her the video…she sat and just stared into space for 2 minutes looking blank. She then said, "We are in serious trouble." https://t.co/ZHPsLC2XxR
— shadownlite (@shadownlite) April 3, 2019
A personal favourite:
They aren’t even windmills. He keeps calling them windmills like the idiotic old man he is. They’re turbines you regressive fuck. At least call them the right thing if you’re going to lie about them.
— Tom Bailey🐝 (@tbailey264) April 3, 2019
And a more positive one:
On a road trip in 2009, I was in Western Kansas on I-70 and my friend and I pulled over to take some pics of the windmills. A farmer pulled up and chatted us up, it was his farm. He told us wind had saved his farm and 100 farms around him. 1/ https://t.co/u7KDDtZpOP
— Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) April 3, 2019
There have of course been studies conducted into the effect of wind turbines. According to Jorg Muhlhans, a psychoacoustic researcher at the University of Vienna, most concerns of turbines affecting health ‘come from myths around infrasound’, which are sounds outside of humans’ hearing capabilities.
While Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, said health issues related to wind turbines can be classed as ‘psychogenic conditions’, which occurs when people feel sick because of others talking about them, i.e. worrying themselves sick.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.