28 January 2012

The Invisible Children Meet Big Wind

NA-PAW announces Child Spokesperson for Anti Wind campaign, US and North America.

In a bid to give a voice to the thousands of people who suffer in their health from the vicinity to wind turbines, the North American Platform Against Wind Power (NA-PAW) presents to the public twelve-year-old Jordynn Stom, whose already delicate health is being threatened by a wind farm project.

So concerned is Jordy, that she has volunteered to become the “NA-PAW’s ambassador of good will”, says Sherri Lange, chief executive officer of NA-PAW. “Jordy has good communication skills, and will be travelling around North America delivering speeches, reaching out to other disabled children threatened by wind farms, and to their families.”

Jordy will no longer be able to enjoy a normal family life on her parent’s ranch in Kern County, California, where plans are afoot for the construction of an array of wind machines in the vicinity. She is one of the many American children who suffer from disabilities. Her immune system is deficient, and she has Systemic Lupus and Photo-Sensitive Epilepsy. Last Christmas, she had a seizure when camera flashes bombarded Santa at a public event.

Despite her medical condition, she attends school and is a straight A student; she surfs, kayaks, rides her motorcycle, hikes, cooks, and writes short stories. But she knows, and her parents know, that a wind farm may soon cause havoc with her life, as her disabilities will make her especially vulnerable to the turbines’ infrasound and shadow flicker.

“In Canada, there are over 565,000 disabled children”, says Lange. “In the U.S. one in every 12 children is disabled. They are all protected by the United Nations’ Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), to which both Canada and the U.S. are parties. This is something that has been entirely overlooked by developers and governments, and wind farms have caused the health of a number of them to get worse.”

Dr Robert McMurtry, Order of Canada, Canada’s highest civilian award, former Special Advisor to the Romanow Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, and Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario, is often sought out as an expert. He wrote to NA-PAW recently that, “Sadly I can confirm the reality of Jordy’s vulnerability as many parents and grand-parents have communicated the details of their children’s adverse health effects. They have reported nosebleeds, sleep disturbances and regression in development of their children and grand-children. One particularly disturbing case involved an eight-year-old blind boy Jason whose hearing by necessity is very acute. He simply cannot bear to be within 2 kilometres of industrial wind turbines which are slated to be erected 800 meters from his home.”

The Platform thinks that the plight of these invisible children, as the UNESCO calls them, can no longer be ignored. “Turbine developers, planning departments, municipal, local, state, provincial and federal governments ARE responsible, and these children and their families will exercise their legal rights”, warns Lange. “Non-compliance with the UN Conventions can no longer be ignored, nor tolerated. A dialogue with the government on this issue has become urgent.”

CONTACT: Sherri Lange
CEO, NA-PAW North American Platform Against Wind Power
416-567-5115

CONTACT: Meredith McCalmont (parent of Jordynn Stom), 1-714-351-7848


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