IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v133y2015icp358-365.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Adding insult to injury: The development of psychosocial stress in Ontario wind turbine communities

Author

Listed:
  • Walker, Chad
  • Baxter, Jamie
  • Ouellette, Danielle

Abstract

Though historically dismissed as not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) attitudes, reports of psychosocial stress linked to wind energy developments have emerged in Ontario, Canada. While the debate and rhetoric intensify concerning whether wind turbines ‘actually’ cause ‘health’ effects, less sincere attention has been given to the lived experience and mental well-being of those near turbines. Drawing on theories of environmental stress, this grounded theory, mixed-method (n = 26 interviews; n = 152 questionnaires) study of two communities in 2011 and 2012 traces how and why some wind turbine community residents suffer substantial changes to quality of life, develop negative perceptions of ‘the other’ and in some cases, experience intra-community conflict. Policy-related forces, along with existing community relationships may help explain much of these differences between communities. We suggest a move beyond debating simply whether or not ‘annoyance’ represents a ‘health impact’ and instead focus on ways to minimize and attenuate these feelings of threat (risk) and stress at the community level.

Suggested Citation

  • Walker, Chad & Baxter, Jamie & Ouellette, Danielle, 2015. "Adding insult to injury: The development of psychosocial stress in Ontario wind turbine communities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 358-365.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:133:y:2015:i:c:p:358-365
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.07.067
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614005073
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.07.067?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolsink, Maarten, 2007. "Wind power implementation: The nature of public attitudes: Equity and fairness instead of 'backyard motives'," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 1188-1207, August.
    2. Jamie Baxter, 2006. "A case study of intra-community conflict as facility impact," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(3), pages 337-360.
    3. Geraint Ellis & John Barry & Clive Robinson, 2007. "Many ways to say 'no', different ways to say 'yes': Applying Q-Methodology to understand public acceptance of wind farm proposals," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(4), pages 517-551.
    4. Barnes, Geoffrey & Baxter, Jamie & Litva, Andrea & Staples, Brian, 2002. "The social and psychological impact of the chemical contamination incident in Weston Village, UK: a qualitative analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(12), pages 2227-2241, December.
    5. Elliott, Susan J. & Taylor, S.Martin & Walter, Stephen & Stieb, David & Frank, John & Eyles, John, 1993. "Modelling psychosocial effects of exposure to solid waste facilities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 791-804, September.
    6. Anonymous, 1947. "World Health Organization," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(3), pages 535-537, September.
    7. Susan G. Hadden, 1991. "Public Perception of Hazardous Waste," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(1), pages 47-57, March.
    8. Siemiatycki, J., 1979. "A comparison of mail, telephone, and home interview strategies for household health surveys," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 69(3), pages 238-245.
    9. Wakefield, Sarah & Elliott, Susan J., 2000. "Environmental risk perception and well-being: effects of the landfill siting process in two southern Ontario communities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(7-8), pages 1139-1154, April.
    10. Jobert, Arthur & Laborgne, Pia & Mimler, Solveig, 2007. "Local acceptance of wind energy: Factors of success identified in French and German case studies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2751-2760, May.
    11. Susan Elliott & Sarah Wakefield & Martin Taylor & James Dunn & Stephen Walter & Aleck Ostry & Clyde Hertzman, 2004. "A comparative analysis of the psychosocial impacts of waste disposal facilities," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 351-363.
    12. Anonymous, 1947. "World Health Organization," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 134-136, February.
    13. Eltham, Douglas C. & Harrison, Gareth P. & Allen, Simon J., 2008. "Change in public attitudes towards a Cornish wind farm: Implications for planning," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 23-33, January.
    14. Aitken, Mhairi, 2010. "Why we still don't understand the social aspects of wind power: A critique of key assumptions within the literature," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1834-1841, April.
    15. Wolsink, Maarten, 2000. "Wind power and the NIMBY-myth: institutional capacity and the limited significance of public support," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 49-64.
    16. Elvin K Wyly & Mona Atia & Elizabeth Lee & Pablo Mendez, 2007. "Race, Gender, and Statistical Representation: Predatory Mortgage Lending and the US Community Reinvestment Movement," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(9), pages 2139-2166, September.
    17. Baxter, Jamie & Morzaria, Rakhee & Hirsch, Rachel, 2013. "A case-control study of support/opposition to wind turbines: Perceptions of health risk, economic benefits, and community conflict," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 931-943.
    18. Maruyama, Yasushi & Nishikido, Makoto & Iida, Tetsunari, 2007. "The rise of community wind power in Japan: Enhanced acceptance through social innovation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2761-2769, May.
    19. Krohn, Søren & Damborg, Steffen, 1999. "On public attitudes towards wind power," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 954-960.
    20. Cutchin, Malcolm P., 1997. "Community and self: Concepts for rural physician integration and retention," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(11), pages 1661-1674, June.
    21. Luginaah, Isaac N. & Martin Taylor, S. & Elliott, Susan J. & Eyles, John D., 2002. "Community reappraisal of the perceived health effects of a petroleum refinery," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 47-61, July.
    22. Jones, Christopher R. & Richard Eiser, J., 2010. "Understanding 'local' opposition to wind development in the UK: How big is a backyard?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 3106-3117, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hogan, Jessica L. & Warren, Charles R. & Simpson, Michael & McCauley, Darren, 2022. "What makes local energy projects acceptable? Probing the connection between ownership structures and community acceptance," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Emmanuel Songsore & Michael Buzzelli, 2016. "Ontario’s Experience of Wind Energy Development as Seen through the Lens of Human Health and Environmental Justice," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-18, July.
    3. Comeau, Louise A. & Parkins, John R. & Stedman, Richard C. & Beckley, Thomas M., 2015. "Citizen Perspectives on Energy Issues in Canada: A National Survey of Energy Literacy and Energy Citizenship," Project Report Series 211095, University of Alberta, Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology.
    4. Amanda D Boyd & Jiawei Liu & Jay D Hmielowski, 2019. "Public support for energy portfolios in Canada: How information about cost and national energy portfolios affect perceptions of energy systems," Energy & Environment, , vol. 30(2), pages 322-340, March.
    5. Küpers, Sophia & Batel, Susana, 2023. "Time, history and meaning-making in research on people's relations with renewable energy technologies (RETs) – A conceptual proposal," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    6. Heather Millar & Matthew Lesch & Linda A. White, 2019. "Connecting models of the individual and policy change processes: a research agenda," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 52(1), pages 97-118, March.
    7. Walker, Chad & Stephenson, Laura & Baxter, Jamie, 2018. "“His main platform is ‘stop the turbines’ ”: Political discourse, partisanship and local responses to wind energy in Canada," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 670-681.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Langer, Katharina & Decker, Thomas & Menrad, Klaus, 2017. "Public participation in wind energy projects located in Germany: Which form of participation is the key to acceptance?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 63-73.
    2. Langer, Katharina & Decker, Thomas & Roosen, Jutta & Menrad, Klaus, 2016. "A qualitative analysis to understand the acceptance of wind energy in Bavaria," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 248-259.
    3. Kontogianni, A. & Tourkolias, Ch. & Skourtos, M. & Damigos, D., 2014. "Planning globally, protesting locally: Patterns in community perceptions towards the installation of wind farms," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 170-177.
    4. Windemer, Rebecca, 2023. "Acceptance should not be assumed. How the dynamics of social acceptance changes over time, impacting onshore wind repowering," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    5. Zerrahn, Alexander, 2017. "Wind Power and Externalities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 245-260.
    6. Heras-Saizarbitoria, Iñaki & Zamanillo, Ibon & Laskurain, Iker, 2013. "Social acceptance of ocean wave energy: A case study of an OWC shoreline plant," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 515-524.
    7. Waldo, Åsa, 2012. "Offshore wind power in Sweden—A qualitative analysis of attitudes with particular focus on opponents," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 692-702.
    8. Chad Walker & Jamie Baxter & Danielle Ouellette, 2014. "Beyond Rhetoric to Understanding Determinants of Wind Turbine Support and Conflict in Two Ontario, Canada Communities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(3), pages 730-745, March.
    9. Carlisle, Juliet E. & Kane, Stephanie L. & Solan, David & Bowman, Madelaine & Joe, Jeffrey C., 2015. "Public attitudes regarding large-scale solar energy development in the U.S," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 835-847.
    10. Fast, Stewart & Mabee, Warren, 2015. "Place-making and trust-building: The influence of policy on host community responses to wind farms," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 27-37.
    11. Zerrahn, Alexander & Krekel, Christian, 2015. "Sowing the Wind and Reaping the Whirlwind? The Effect of Wind Turbines on Residential Well-Being," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112956, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Bidwell, David, 2013. "The role of values in public beliefs and attitudes towards commercial wind energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 189-199.
    13. Walker, Chad & Stephenson, Laura & Baxter, Jamie, 2018. "“His main platform is ‘stop the turbines’ ”: Political discourse, partisanship and local responses to wind energy in Canada," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 670-681.
    14. Ladenburg, Jacob & Termansen, Mette & Hasler, Berit, 2013. "Assessing acceptability of two onshore wind power development schemes: A test of viewshed effects and the cumulative effects of wind turbines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 45-54.
    15. Hübner, Gundula & Leschinger, Valentin & Müller, Florian J.Y. & Pohl, Johannes, 2023. "Broadening the social acceptance of wind energy – An Integrated Acceptance Model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    16. Dimitropoulos, Alexandros & Kontoleon, Andreas, 2009. "Assessing the determinants of local acceptability of wind-farm investment: A choice experiment in the Greek Aegean Islands," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1842-1854, May.
    17. Groth, Theresa M. & Vogt, Christine, 2014. "Residents' perceptions of wind turbines: An analysis of two townships in Michigan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 251-260.
    18. Lombard, Andrea & Ferreira, Sanette, 2014. "Residents' attitudes to proposed wind farms in the West Coast region of South Africa: A social perspective from the South," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 390-399.
    19. Slattery, Michael C. & Johnson, Becky L. & Swofford, Jeffrey A. & Pasqualetti, Martin J., 2012. "The predominance of economic development in the support for large-scale wind farms in the U.S. Great Plains," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 3690-3701.
    20. Grashof, Katherina, 2019. "Are auctions likely to deter community wind projects? And would this be problematic?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 20-32.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:133:y:2015:i:c:p:358-365. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.