Wind-Farms Pose New Global Threat

By Miss P. Acrimony

All over the world fields and hillsides are blooming with a new kind of flower, ones whose enormous composite petals are open wide to gather the pure power of the wind. Graceful, innovative, and esthetically pleasing, these modern giants wave theirs arms in celebration of a new era of environmental awareness and responsibility, championing mankind's crusade against the imminent horrors of climate change. These marvels of cutting-edge  science represent a bold step towards a healthy relationship between humans and the planet we inhabit.

Or do they? Long touted by the scientific community as the leading solution to the greenhouse gas crisis, many experts now fear that we may have traded the dangers of climate change for another, more sinister threat.

Researchers at the Institute of Geoclimatic Inquiry began monitoring the rate and angle of the earth's rotation on its axis in relation to the gravitational season of windspeed as early as 1971, when noted magnetowindologist M. Herman Gust, PhD Blusterous Studies first postulated that the relationship could be dynamic. In recent years, researchers have recorded a sudden and steady decline in rotational speed of the earth, which has been found to coincide with the growing number of wind farms worldwide. "This development was startling," says Stinify Rearwind, Professor of Windomatics at the Institute of Geoclimatic Inquiry. "But when we began receiving reports of gradually lengthening days from our research stations in the Antarctic, it was indisputable." Similar effects have been reports throughout the Southern hemisphere.

"Global rotational lethargy is to be expected whenever trans-oceanic and polar winds are disrupted," says Dr. Pilidineusian Smith, PhD in Horticultural Physics and Inner-planetary Connectedness, who was the first to suspect that the rise in the global number of wind turbines could be a contributing factor. "Wind turbines are deliberately placed in locations where wind presence is acute, and, taking into account the surface area of the blades and the friction coefficients of their transmissions, the result is that the natural weather systems are obstructed and sometimes redirected by these large turbines. This may sound minute, but the compounded effects could be catastrophic."

Noted meter-rotationspedologist and winner of the 2004 Nobel Pert Prize, Dr. Flimbus Dompton, PhD in Socioclimatology and Enlightenment Studies, and author of the Pullzfinger Prize winner book The Winds We Ignore, agrees. "People must face it: the disruption of our winds can mean dire consequences for life on this planet. The leading experts in this field of study all agree to the indisputability of the relationship between the patterns of global air currents and the combined gyroscopic effect - CGE - they have on the rotation of the earth. The balance is delicate, and heavy spinning objects such as turbine blades are just enough to tip it over the brink of disaster. The effects of the imbalance are already being seen in the disturbed migratory patterns of certain key species of birds and insects. This further compounds the mounting patterns since the breezes caused by the flapping wings of these creatures are no longer being produced at the critical time, location, and rate as they were when migration patterns were normal." Dompton further warns that if awareness to the danger of trans-hemispheric rotational lethargy is not raised then we could expect to see such environmental catastrophes as tectonic storms and reversal of ocean currents within the next forty years. "Communities need to come together to change this," says Dompton.

In response to the mounting evidence, experts have proposed a number of possible solutions to the environmental problems resulting from over-farming of wind, including altering the direction of turbine blade rotations to compensate for trans-hemispheric rotational lethargy. Another proposition put forth by scientists at the University of Technological Technology suggests that the problem could easily be reversed by replacing the towering, multi-million dollar wind turbines with children's plastic pin-wheels, which are lower to the ground and as such are less likely to produce the same trans-hemispheric centrifugal forces. Tina Loopie, president of the Students for Centrifugal Responsibility at UT Tech, believes this to be a plausible solution. "Pin wheels spin at a much faster rate than a wind turbine. They require so little wind to run that even the gentle breath of a child can bring them to life. Plus they are easier to manufacture and have a much less exploitative effect on developing countries." She also argues that pin-wheel wind farms would be more in harmony with the natural environment. "They're so pretty and come in so many different colors; they are like flowers, so I think they are a great way to get kids involved and make them to know that they can make a difference," Loopie says. Opponents of this option fear that fields of pin-wheels with brightly colored blades might lead to the confusion of hummingbirds who could mistake them for flowers on their migration routes. Early research at the University of Technological Technology, however, confirms Loopie's theory.

What the future holds for the wind-turbine we once loved cannot be said, but the truth of its impact is obvious. "We have always been so adversarial in our relationship with the planet," says Dr. Flimbus Dompton. "We hope that its on the mend before it is too late for us all."