Risk-Risk Tradeoffs: Does Wind Power Cause Adverse Health Effects?

Peter Rabinowitz, M.D.

Associate Professor of Medicine, Director of Clinical Services, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Yale School of Medicine

Risk-Risk Tradeoffs: Does Wind Power Cause Adverse Health Effects?

5 November 2009, 12pm

Room G01, Kroon Hall, 195 Prospect St., New Haven

Lunch will be served

Wind power is being promoted as a source of clean and renewable energy that will reduce national dependence on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While some environmental concerns have been raised in the past regarding the effects of wind turbines on bird and bat populations, concerns about risks to human health have received less attention. Recently, however, some medical professionals and community members living near wind turbine facilities have expressed and published concerns about the effects of low frequency noise and "shadow flicker" from wind turbines causing a wide spectrum of health problems that have been labeled "wind turbine syndrome." In some localities, such concerns are now holding up the siting of new wind turbines. In this seminar, Rabinowitz will discuss whether "wind turbine syndrome" actually exists and how to balance such potential risk against the benefits of wind power.

Rabinowitz is the Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Clinical Services in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine department at the Yale School of Medicine. He received his M.D. from the University of Washington.

This lecture is sponsored by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, the Institution of Social and Policy Studies, and the School of Epidemiology and Public Health.

This lecture is free and open to the public