Windfarm critic fired by Danish university

Another day, another researcher on the receiving end of retribution from his green-minded colleagues. The story this time comes from Denmark, where a leading expert on infrasound, in particular infrasound generated from windfarms, has lost his job at Aalborg University. English translations of the coverage in the Danish newspapers is here:

He is not only known as the country's leading noise researcher, but also as a person who with his academic qualifications has repeatedly challenged and criticized both the EPA and the wind turbine industry for misinforming others about the low‐frequency noise that large wind turbines emit.

Now the 63‐year‐old professor Henrik Møller has been fired from Aalborg University after 38 years of service, and the reason is that the professor is no longer sufficient financially lucrative for its faculty.

The official explanation is that I do not earn enough money. Apparently I am not my money's worth, because I've spent my time on wind turbines. But I know there have been many years where my activities have resulted in quite a substantial income. Besides, statistically, it is probably about half of the faculty members who make a loss...

H/T John Droz.

Comments

[Doug Proctor]

It is time that rich people (again) set up Universities for the purpose of increasing planetary knowledge, not being profit machines.

I understand that Universities, like all places, need an income stream to exist. And perhaps many are too big, simply too costly to survive without a large focus on profitable avenues of study. And I understand the anxiety that occurs when one group - the money-generating alarmists - sees another, non-profit-making group, skeptics, challenging their work. Professional, personal and - within the "Corporation" - self-image are at stake. Even if the Universities are ambulance-chasers because, financially, they have to be chasing ambulances, they won't like or wish to recognized as not different from the (socially viewed) lowest of the legal profession.

Prostitution may be tolerated, or even legal in some countries, but the intellectually inclined still do not give respect to the prostitute, regardless of what service is being provided or who is being serviced.

[Duncan]

So another two years until retirement and they couldn't wait that long! He must be onto something.

[Stuck-Record]

They're not even pretending anymore. It is out in the open and is going to get ugly. Then the public will finally get a glimpse of what we've all been seeing for the last fifteen years.

[Phillip Bratby]

It has been long known that the wind industry is so vital to the Danish economy that for years the noise issue has been covered up by tyhe Danish Government and its paid minions.

[Pharos]

Something is rotten in the ethical state of Denmark.

[Phillip Bratby]

For example read this.

The comment made by retired Danish High Court judge Peter Roerdam in the Copenhagen Post on 16th November, 2012 [12] that wind power is “an industry which has thoroughly corrupted the political system” is all too true, in my experience, and comes at the direct expense of the health of Danish people.

It is clear the institutional political corruption, and the lack of professional ethics on the part of wind industry acousticians and public health researchers, who ignore or deny the existence of the sleep and health problems and the consequent serious long-term damage to health, is not limited to Denmark.

[CharmingQuark]

The Green Iniquisition strikes again. All heretics will be sought out and dealt with

How are universities through the world such dens of McCarthyism?

[Alan the Brit]

Now, wasn't there something not so long ago about Denmark cutting its wind subsidies, or was that Holland? I can't recall at present which it was. Still, pretty atrocious behaviour but no less than I have come to expect from the Climate Industry!

[pesadia]

This act is just further confirmation that science has no place in the climate debate.
We cannot reason people out of positions that they have not reasoned themselves into.
The vested interest will always triumph, even at the expense of the wellbeing of the public
at large.
There is only one answer, albeit a very unpalatable one.
And it is not the ballat box.

[jamesp]

I hope he takes it to whatever the Danes have for unfair dismissal. That might reveal some interesting connections...

[Pointman]

The honourable Senator from Wisconsin strikes yet again from far beyond the grave. Roll over Bengtsson, and tell Møller the news.

http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/the-age-of-unenlightenment/

Pointman

[Bebben]

According to the Danish newspaper Information , the university hired two new teachers in acoustic less than a year before Møller was fired.

"Critics think that this fact strengthens the suspicion that there are other motives behind the firing of Henrik Møller beyond the economic ones."

"Apart from 3 scientists at a closed down research section in Esbjerg, Henrik Møller is the only out of almost 200 scientists at the institute that has been fired."

"In the termination notice management notes that there are too many employees at the Acoustics Section in proportion to the number of students, and the income they have from external projects and publications. Still, since May last year they have employed two new lectors [assistant professors] at the Acoustics Section, thereby increasing the number of fixed scientists from five to seven."

"The reason given for continuing the two new employees at the Acoustic Section was »that it was necessary to keep up the momentum at the Acoustic Section« and »there were urgent teaching tasks to be solved«, as well as one was interested in the two candidate's research profiles, explains the dean, Eskild Holm Nielsen."

"He [Nielsen] emphasizes at the same time that he always has protected Henrik Møller's right to free speech.

»People may come up with what conspiracy theories they want. There is nothing I can say to that. It's like fighting windmills« he says."

(my translation)

[Hoi Polloi]

Is he fired, or was his contract not extended? If he worked on a indefinite working contract then in this case it's easy to appeal at the judge, especially when 2 new ppl were hired. Here in Holland he would have been paid the 2 remaining years until retirement by his employer.

[jamspid]

So hes only an expert on the annoying noises wind farms makes.Apparently not worth his money.

Shame hes not an Expert on The Ebola Virus he really could save the Danish their Bacon.

So would cutting down all their wind turbines and the Danes carting them off to the scrap metal yard in Copenhagen.

[Luther Bl't]

Wind Turbines can be Hazardous to Human Health - http://oto2.wustl.edu/cochlea/wind.html

Responses of the Ear to Infrasound and Wind Turbines - http://oto2.wustl.edu/cochlea/windmill.html

Wind Turbine Sound Measurements - http://oto2.wustl.edu/cochlea/wt4.html

Wind Turbine Syndrome & the Brain - http://waubrafoundation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Pierpont-Dr-Nina-Wind-Turbine-Syndrome-the-Brain1.pdf

The Inexpensive Infrasound Monitor Project - http://www.infiltec.com/Infrasound@home/

IK1QFK VLF MONITORING STATION Live data from CUMIANA (TO), NW Italy - http://www.vlf.it/cumiana/livedata.html

[rxc]

He was fired for not creating the right kind of scientific data for the eco-progressive movement. They have taken over the universities and stuffed them full of post-modern social "scientists" who generate pseudo-scientific "facts" for their politicians to use to support their pet projects. With the energy field, they are now venturing into the harder sciences, and climate "science" is the leading edge. Now we have the firing of a genuine expert in sound, who does adhere to the party line. Gradually, they will take over the STEM fields as well.

He is not useful, and must disappear. It is a common tactic in "progressive" societies.

[Greg Cavanagh]

If what retired Danish High Court judge Peter Roerdam says is true, (and I think I'd be a mug not to believe him), then it’s nothing more than a mafia run country. Where truth is what they say it is. Which to me is about equal to some Middle East countries I know of. What a state of affairs this has become.

[hunter]

Tthis same sort of stuff happened during Eugenics and Lysenkoism.

[Clive Best]

Don't worry. The wind power bubble will burst very soon. It is exactly the same scam as the original South Sea bubble because its income is based purely on public debt. There is no real business model.

[dearieme]

"We haven't the money, so we've got to think." Rutherford.

[Bruce]

Instapundit has been talking about the small amount of money spent Conservative law-fare compared to left-wing lawsuits

I think a law firm could make billions suing wind farms if they hired this guy .,, as long as they aren't bought and paid for by the "green" side.

Mann has a "green lawfare" law firm working for him.

[bill]

Possibly correct, but seems a bit simplistic. Yes Moller is an expert on low frequency noise but his career has not focussed on noise from wind turbines. In fact, the amount of academic research on this topic is quite small, and only seemed to get going a few years ago. Among other things, he has been quite ill in recent years, maybe he has not been in a position to make the contribution required? Sacked, or took (perhaps under pressure) a redundancy package? Newspapers don't bother with nuance.

[johanna]

The low frequency noise issue has been squashed at every opportunity by wind-power promoters. The tests that wind installations have to pass exclude the issue entirely.

Anyone who has lived near a fan of "doof-doof" music knows that there is a lot more to disruption by sound than just volume.

[bill]

Johanna, INdeed. Then there is also the psychological aspect: regardless of what the decibel meter may say, one person may find a sound at a certain level really annoying, another might regard it as insignificant; and that personal sensitivity is further affected by the nature of the noise itself: For example, I find the noise of trains at night soothing; maybe the chap next door is muttering "bloody trains" and wrapping his pillow round his head....