The anger is blowin' in the wind

“Gerard, could you hold the end of this for a second?”

The banner depicted three wind turbines in the ocean, crossed out by a red ‘no’ sign. I took hold of one end without much thought. Martine Shepherd, an anti-wind farm activist who had invited me along to Perth's World Freedom Rally, snapped some photos on her phone.

I felt a sudden regret. I'd been to more than my fair share of protests, but I was meant to be at this rally as a reporter, not a participant.

Looking at the crowd around me, I saw an upside-down Australian red ensign flag, a MAGA cap, and placards that read ‘Free Assange’ and ‘No Digital ID’. A child wore a t-shirt bearing the slogan ‘McGowan lied; people died’.

Wasn’t I on the opposing side of climate and culture wars to the people I was surrounded by? What would my leftie friends think if a photo of me at a cooker rally popped up on their Facebook feeds? And what did I think about turbines?

I grew up in the Indian Ocean off the South West of Western Australia. I swam with dolphins, watched whales, and snorkelled over coral. During childhood summers, my family would swim twice a day at Bunbury’s Hungry Hollow, a short walk from our home. As a teenager, I’d catch the Runaway Bus with my mates down to surf breaks in Yallingup and Dunsborough. 

Bunbury businessman Rodney Peterson also grew up with a strong connection to the local ocean. “It’s been my backyard for all of my life,” he told me. He spends his spare time fishing, diving, boating, and monitoring local marine life.

I met Rod at the Leschenault Estuary. He had a pair of binoculars in hand and was searching the area for a pregnant dolphin he likes to keep track of.

“She lives here by herself in a certain area where other dolphins tend not to go, and just has a very interesting lifestyle, which I'm keen to keep an eye on,” he explained.

Rod is part of a local campaign called Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay. The group opposes plans for offshore wind infrastructure to be built off the South West coast.

In August 2022, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen declared an area of Indian Ocean near Bunbury one of six ‘priority areas’ in Australia for offshore wind development. The proposed Bunbury offshore wind zone is more than 7000 square kilometres in size and sits at least 20 kilometres off the coast, overlapping with Geographe Bay. Public consultation on the proposal ran between February and May this year.

Danish company Copenhagen Energy has begun seeking government approvals for its planned Leeuwin Offshore Wind Farm within the proposed area and hopes to build up to 200 turbines.

Rod said he’s concerned by potential impacts on the local marine environment.

“There are just so many questions that need to be answered by the government, and I don't even think they have the answers at the moment,” he said.

Rod is on the board of a local organisation called Geographe Marine Research. It formed in 2021, before the proposal was made, and began studying whales in the area. Rod stresses Geographe Marine Research does not have a position on offshore wind development. 

“The wind farm proposed here in Geographe Bay would be one of the world's first smack bang in a whale migrational route,” he said. “We can prove that. So to be able to research what impact that will have on the whales, the only research you can do is put a wind farm in and see how the whales react.”

Chris Bowen has presented offshore wind as a climate solution that would also provide economic opportunities for the region. 

“We know that this part of Western Australia, this industrial powerhouse, will need more clean, green energy as investors and consumers demand decarbonisation,” he said in February when visiting Bunbury to announce consultation on the proposed zone.

Rod Peterson is concerned by climate change.

“I think it’s a concern to everyone,” he said. “What we don't want to see is the environment being destroyed in acting on this. We want to see the best way to transition to other forms of energy without damaging the environment.

“I'm not against wind turbines. I'm not even against offshore wind turbines if they're in the right place. I just don't believe Geographe Bay is the right place for it.”

When I met up with Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay campaign co-coordinator Martine Shepherd at the World Freedom Rally, she told me about the first time she met Rod Peterson in person. 

In late April, around 160 pilot whales stranded themselves at Toby Inlet near Dunsborough, about 70 kilometres south of Bunbury. 29 of them died. Both Martine and Rod were among the many local volunteers who helped with efforts to rescue the whales.

“It was pretty traumatic,” Martine told me.

“You could see the trauma on a lot of people’s faces. There was a lot of joy as well. We did manage to get a lot in [the ocean], and they stayed.”

The evening before the mass stranding, the local council, the City of Busselton, held a Special Electors Meeting, called by residents who wanted to share their concerns about the proposed offshore wind zone. Elector after elector addressed the listening Councillors. One local farmer described turbines as “huge offshore monsters”. Another man adopted Donald Trump’s habit of calling them “windmills”. 

Martine said many of those in the meeting were also out on the beach the next morning to help.

“I’d just finished telling the City of Busselton… that a big part of my motivation is to be a voice for those that can't have a voice for themselves,” she said. “For me, it's particularly whales. They're very vulnerable.”

“I swore that I was going to protect them, and then 12 hours later, I'm on the beach pulling dead whales out of the ocean.”

Martine provides much of the driving force behind the Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay campaign. She moderates the Facebook group, coordinates protests, designs posters and stickers, and liaises with other groups from across the country who oppose both onshore and offshore wind developments.

Martine believes an offshore wind farm in Geographe Bay could have a detrimental effect on businesses in the region.

“There's been so little consultation with the fisheries industries and with the locals on how it's going to impact tourism,” she said.

“In Busselton alone… we’ve had beautiful ships come in with tourism that has brought in a lot of money. These wind turbines will stop all these ships coming into Geographe Bay.

“You'd put a question mark: is this a level of corruption? How is it that we're allowing corporations to come into our own nation without any consultation from the people?”

Around 150 people attended the Perth Freedom Rally on a rainy Saturday afternoon in May. A young man with an acoustic guitar kicked off proceedings by playing a delicate ballad about chemtrails. A former doctor told the crowd he’d given up his career and worldly concerns to follow Christ, and that all who wished to find true freedom must do the same. A lesbian anti-trans activist received a round of applause when she said she’d never held a rainbow flag in her life. Martine’s speech about offshore wind went down well, but the crowd only truly revved up when hearing about Covid lockdowns and vaccine mandates. The gathered faithful, much fewer in number than they’d been at big marches three years ago, maintained a palpable anger towards former Premier Mark McGowan and the medical establishment.

I asked Martine how offshore wind connected to the other issues on the agenda. She referred to the 2021 Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill, which she said had passed under the cover of Covid lockdowns.

“We were in lockdown, so there wasn't any discussion about it,”  she said. “They had us in fear that someone might sneeze on us, and we'd drop dead in a heartbeat”.

“I think [the issues] all tie in together because it's about overreach of the federal government laws and jurisdiction and actually probably violations not only of human rights that have happened, but about our constitutional [rights].”

Martine also expressed scepticism about climate change, which she suspects is caused by natural variations in solar patterns, rather than human activity.

“I am question-marking why CO2 emissions and climate change are put together, and that's the thing that concerns me,” she said.

“To become carbon neutral is actually a way to try to destroy the planet.”

Earlier, when I’d been at Leschenault Estuary with Rod Peterson, I asked him if it was challenging to work in a campaign that included a very diverse range of viewpoints.

“I think it's manageable,” he said. “I think if people's hearts are in the right place, I think that's the main thing.”

After speaking to Rod and Martine, I wanted to learn more about how wind turbines could impact sea life. I organised a Zoom call with marine scientist and Curtin University Professor Christine Erbe.

She said offshore wind wasn't an inherently harmful industry.

"It just needs to be understood and managed,” she said.

“Anything that you do in the ocean has the potential to cause an impact or effect on marine life, so the question then is, what is the impact and how significant is it? How do we manage it?”

Erbe said Geographe Bay was a “sensitive area” that was ecologically significant for many whale species, and research was required on potential local impacts of offshore wind.

“One of the unique things about southwestern Australia is many of the great whales migrate past Cape Leeuwin, and they have no other way of migrating past southwestern Australia… The suspicion is then that the migration corridors might be fairly narrow… That needs to be investigated. You also want to somehow estimate how many animals you potentially expose to certain noise levels.

"There are a lot of countries who have a history in wind, but the environments are different. At least we know already what noise vibration comes from these [turbines] and we know what mitigation strategies are in place to make things quieter. We still need to figure out how that translates into our environments, but there has been a lot of work done... We can learn."

Erbe said climate change, offshore wind, and the oil and gas industry all had potential impacts on marine life, but that offshore wind could be implemented responsibly in Western Australia if planned properly.

“I don’t think everything that has ‘green’ in the title is necessarily green,” she said. “Stuff needs to be manufactured. How do you store and use the energy? There’s issues. I think people feel in general, ‘It’s wind, it’s solar, it’s natural, it’s good’. How you actually install and harvest that energy, how you transport it and what you do with it, can actually be quite similar across the energy industries.”

Similar debates about offshore wind have played out in other parts of Australia and the US. Scientists have said claims spread on Facebook that wind farms in New South Wales would kill whales were not grounded in evidence. A 2022 review in Nature found offshore wind could have both positive and negative impacts on marine ecosystems. Meanwhile, many marine experts fear the climate crisis is the most significant risk to endangered marine life.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water (DCCEEW) received 2670 written submissions on the proposed Bunbury offshore wind zone.

Multiple community meetings were held in the South West as part of public consultation during March. By all accounts, they were chaotic.

Attendees confirmed to me what the local newspaper had reported: the first meeting in Binningup was drawn to a close after one resident called a DCCEEW representative a “stupid bitch”.

After the Binningup meeting, the format was changed for subsequent sessions in Bunbury, Busselton, Harvey, and Mandurah. Instead of a panel addressing the whole room, DCCEEW representatives discussed the proposal with residents in small groups.

Rod Peterson told me it was no surprise the consultation sessions became heated, given the way they were run.

“We didn't really get to ask any questions and get any answers,” he said.

“I think it’s important that the public is brought along with these decisions that the government's making.”

Martine Shepherd said DCCEEW representatives demonstrated little understanding of the region or the proposal.

“Only one of them had been in Western Australia before, so they didn’t know what they were talking about,” she said.

“Every time there was a question asked it was referred back to a website. That's not consultation.”

DCCEEW will now work through the feedback it's received. Minister Bowen is expected to make a decision on the proposed area in coming months.

Following a declaration, potential developers would apply for feasibility licences and present project proposals. Any projects proposed would need to be assessed under state and federal environment laws and require approval from the Environment Minister.

A DCCEEW spokesperson told me the consultation period was just the “first step in a multi-year planning process and only the first opportunity for consultation.”

Walking through the streets of Bunbury, my hometown, I saw Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay posters in the windows of health food cafes and gift shops. It seemed there was genuine grassroots concern about the proposed development. I was curious about whether the same people who were speaking out against offshore wind also joined campaigns on other environmental issues.

Outside the Bunbury Library, I met with Julian Bowron, who had coordinated the local Extinction Rebellion group for a number of years. I’d previously worked with Julian on climate campaigns.

He told me he was interested in the proposal when he first heard about it. “Anyone needs to understand the pros and cons of such a large-scale project,” he said.

Julian attended one of the consultation sessions. “I don’t think they did it well,” he said.

“It was a big room, and they let limited numbers of people in. And of course, there is no project to rail against at this point, it’s just a proposal to attract people who might be interested in a project, so it was very loose in that regard. I think it was hard for a lot of people to find something to grasp onto.”

Around that time, Julian also joined the Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay Facebook group. The group is very active and ideologically diverse. I’ve seen pro-coal, anti-coal, pro-nuclear, anti-nuclear, pro-solar, and anti-solar posts. Martine Shepherd is one of the more regular contributors. Her post history includes video clips of Donald Trump, Jordan Peterson, and Australian gas industry critic Punter’s Politics.

“What I saw was primarily a lot of very aggressive anti-[wind farm] ranting,” Julian said of the group.

“There didn't seem to be a lot in the way of more moderate voices within that forum. I listened for a while, and then I started to put up links to posts that perhaps provided a more balanced position or pointed to the value of wind farms in some situations, but at the same time stating that I was neither for nor against at this stage. And very quickly, I got blocked, and certainly I copped a fair amount of abuse for what I thought was a fairly mild interaction.”

Julian said he was called a “numpty” and a “bloody greenie”.

He said he’s since concluded that, at this stage, he supports offshore wind in the South West, though he recognises some people may hold genuine environmental concerns.

Julian said there was little crossover in the local community between those campaigning on offshore wind and those campaigning on climate and other environmental issues. I asked him if he thought it might be possible to find some common ground between the two groups. It seemed to me both had a genuine desire to do the right thing for the environment and future generations.

“I think that there is room for a nuanced conversation from those who are prepared to listen on both sides, rather than just dismissing climate activists as being ‘that mob’, and similarly those of us who are involved in the climate movement dismissing those others as being head-in-the-sand right-wingers,” he said.

“But how to bring those people together to find a reconciliation of those, at first glance, opposed views is a challenge. We're not used to working in that way so much.”

Greenpeace is a recurring target of ire in the Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay Facebook group.

Greenpeace has campaigned heavily against offshore gas developments in Western Australia in recent years, focusing on protecting whales from seismic blasting and safeguarding marine environments around the Kimberley’s Scott Reef.

“When you make statements that you're concerned about the whales at Scott Reef, but you're all about offshore wind turbines, I think you're a hypocrite,” Martine Shepherd told me.

In February, Greenpeace posted a statement to its website in support of the proposal for the offshore wind zone.

“Today’s announcement from Minister Bowen marks a clear investment in WA’s clean energy future – it will deliver thousands of sustainable jobs in the clean energy sector and lower energy costs,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific Head of Climate and Energy Jess Panegyres said.

“Western Australia is in the grips of the climate crisis, and so many of us are being crunched by rising costs of living. 

“It makes sense, both environmentally and economically, to invest in renewables and ensure a cleaner, safer future for West Australian communities. The overall environmental benefit of wind farms is a win for nature and our climate.”

I reached out to Greenpeace in an attempt to organise an interview but got no response.

As I spoke to various opponents of the proposed Bunbury offshore wind zone, it struck me how closely their reasoning and rhetoric echoed that of climate activists.

Some anti-wind arguments are the same ones we use against coal and gas projects: governments are needlessly subsidising big industry, consultation is inadequate, approvals are rushed, and all the profits go offshore.

Many of those with real concerns about local impacts of wind farms, or about how our energy systems are dominated by big international corporations, seem to find a political home in the world of right-wing conspiracy theories. Perhaps that’s because it’s where they’re welcome. Environmentalists can be wary of discussing the potential drawbacks of renewable energy, because they fear the conversation could detract from bigger-picture concerns over climate breakdown. It’s only natural that people who hold concerns for ecosystems they love might find such avoidance alienating.

As I followed this story, I kept thinking about Doppelganger, the Naomi Klein book published last year. In it, Klein writes that conspiracy theorists “get the facts wrong but often get the feelings right.”

Maybe that explains why it felt natural for me to grab hold of that banner. I didn’t share many of the beliefs of the people around me, but I shared their suspicion that we were all being taken for a ride.

UPDATE 10 June 2024: The new episode of The Last Place on Earth podcast takes you deeper into the world of anti-wind farm activism in Western Australia. We look into where the money comes from for Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay and how anti-wind might be linked to fossil fuel-funded right-wing think tanks. Listen here.

UPDATE 4 June 2024: This article has been updated with additional links to articles on the science of offshore wind.