Presumably, U.S. President Donald Trump was about to give a press conference on a new European Union trade deal. But it did not take long for the former real estate mogul to steer the conversation in a familiar direction.

“I think windmills—wind turbines are a con job,” Trump told reporters. “The windmills send out these massive waves that go all over the place. Whales go loco because of the windmills. They go crazy. The birds don’t know what to do. They kill the birds. They kill so many birds.”

The number of whaling deaths by wind turbines appears to be zero. That is not to say wind farms do not kill birds. A 2021 meta-analysis of wind farm impacts found on average, there were 2.3 bird deaths per megawatt per year. It is not clear how this is a problem, especially when compared to the death tolls from other power sources. Critics of wind turbines, on the other hand, regularly cite inflated bird deaths, numbers that sound especially bad when compared to what are presented as the far lower avian mortality rates at fossil fuel and nuclear sites. (In fact, the opposite is true—coal and gas plants kill more birds than wind, nuclear, solar, or hydropower.) On average, bird deaths at U.S. fossil fuel power plants in 2020 were more than six times as high per megawatt as those for wind, at 15.3 per megawatt.

Wind farms have also not been conclusively linked to health problems like the “wind turbine syndrome” conspiracy theory claims. The University of Maryland School of Medicine, for one, has stated that “wind turbine syndrome is a non-disease, because there is no convincing evidence that it exists.”

Trump was eventually told by reporters that there was no scientific evidence for his claims, prompting the president to respond that wind farms kill people.

Wind turbines have drawn other similarly nonsensical conspiracies and opposition over the years. In the United States, wind turbines have been labeled anti-American by conspiracy theorists who baselessly claim they are Chinese-made. In Texas, Trump supporters raised concerns over the noise, falling ice, vibrations, and health risks created by a single wind turbine. After New York banned fracking, opponents of the rule set up a phony “natural gas smell” station in Times Square, and other conspiracy theories have claimed wind farms create “mind control rays.”

Curiously, the Republican president has often conflated wind turbines with windmills. The term “windmill” has become a shorthand for wind turbines among many climate deniers and right-wing pundits. Punctuating his complaints with the “windmills” phrase, Trump laments the introduction of new technologies to many in this crowd.

Wind turbines have been among the most visible targets of a longer global trend of renewable energy conspiracy theories. Across the world, countries that have pushed wind power have seen moral panics like the one against wind farms take shape.

Trump has also borrowed other cultural tropes in decrying wind farms. The phone, like wind power, was once a technological shift that unsettled people, many of whom believed it could spread diseases. This, like Trump’s tweets about birds and whales, is part of an enduring phenomenon in which the introduction of new technologies can unsettle people and societies for a number of reasons. In some cases, those fears can lead to conspiracy theories or mass opposition to that technology.

The Science of Wind Conspiracies

As a generation of scientists has been warning for decades that burning fossil fuels could cause unprecedented and relatively imminent environmental change, a parallel conversation was taking place about clean energy. The first renewable deployments were largely framed not only as an environmental solution, but as a tool to break up the domination of the energy sector by fossil fuel companies.

A good example of the cultural resistance to the fossil fuel sector can be found in The Simpsons. In a classic episode, tycoon Mr. Burns erects a towering structure that blocks out the sun, and the entire town of Springfield is forced to buy his nuclear energy. The cartoonish portrayal was intended as a parody, but it spoke to an undercurrent of anxiety that the powerful fossil fuel sector would find ways to delay renewable deployment.

Indeed, it turned out those fears were well-founded. In Australia, then–Prime Minister John Howard in 2004 brought a group of fossil fuel executives together to create the Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group. Far from promoting the rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, this group’s function was the exact opposite—to slow the uptake of renewable energy and thereby maintain the grip of coal, oil, and gas on the energy system.

Perceptions of wind turbines also suffered early on from a number of obstacles. Coal mines and oil fields may be kept away from city centers, and nuclear facilities have a way of staying out of sight. Wind turbines, on the other hand, stand out. Companies often need to put their turbines on ridgelines or flat plains so they can catch the most wind. As a result, wind farms have become a highly visible symbol of renewable energy—and a prime target for conspiracists.

The so-called wind turbine syndrome, a “non-disease” according to medical professionals, is a conspiracy theory that has been levied against wind farms for years, often tied to other rumors about birds, water poisoning, or even mass blackouts. In fact, communities all over the world have for years taken to sabotaging wind projects, often with multiple acts of vandalism over the course of a single project.