Protest in Santa Cruz County in August that Shut Down PG&E's Smart Meter Program
As you may have noticed, I have had to take a break from regular posts on this blog, as we mobilize communities against our utility in California, PG&E, who are attempting to force ‘smart’ gas and electric meters on everyone’s home- with or without their permission. Green on the surface, but rotten to the core, the more I’ve learned about this undemocratic program, and the dangers of wireless radiation, the more horrified I’ve become. Now more than 25 local governments have formally objected to the program, yet the state allows PG&E to continue. The worst part about it is that many of the approximately 3% of the population who are electro-hyper sensitive are being forced to leave their own homes, in some cases becoming refugees, living in their cars to avoid the emerging ubiquitous wireless radiation.
Climate change is an emergency. But from where I’m sitting, the even greater emergency are some of the false solutions they are coming up with to ‘respond’ to the crisis. Real solutions to climate change help re-localize, come from the grassroots, involve reduced consumption and foster stronger communities. The ‘smart’ grid -as its being implemented- does none of these. There is more information and regular updates on the site I am running, http://stopsmartmeters.org.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to put a halt to the wireless smart meter assault and return to our regularly scheduled programming of anti-car righteousness. I’m also pleased to announce that my Driven to Excess research is set to be published in the World Transport Policy and Practice Journal soon (social decay caused by motor traffic now in new improved statistically significant format!)
Thanks for bearing with me as we fight the machine. Look out San Francisco, it’s on your doorstep!
It’s incredible to me how so many of my friends- even those who know the risks- still hold small microwave ovens (cause that’s what they are) up to their heads and keep them on their bodies. Watch this video if you are still not convinced. Serious shit people- wake up- I don’t want to lose you!
I’m devastated and heartsick to hear that the pregnant blue whale who washed up at Bean Hollow beach this last weekend was the victim of a ship strike off the coast. This follows another recent whale killing where a cargo ship pulled into Oakland terminal with a whale stuck to its bow. Over the years, the Cetacean death toll from shipping has been horrific. I covered this issue here at On the Level when I was crossing the Atlantic on a cruise ship last year to get back to the US. It’s appalling that we continue to allow this to happen in our backyard.
While the mainstream media might decry this as a tragic ‘accident’ the truth is that we continue to treat marine mammals (and all marine life) with a recklessness and cruelty that boggles the mind. It’s no accident when we fail to enforce low shipping speeds in areas where whales are feeding and birthing. It’s no accident that we fail to use the latest sonar technology to allow ship captains to avoid whales in the open ocean. It’s an intentional, cold calculation to internalize profit, while externalizing damage and death to the natural world.
From oil and gas drilling, to naval sonar exercises that can damage the inner ears leading to the horrific deaths of the most magnificent animals on the planet near extinction, our culture seems hell bent on destruction of the natural world. It’s a suicidal system that will bring us to a grisly end as well if we don’t manage to turn things around in time.
While our ‘leaders’ call for infinite, exponential economic growth and more trade with Asia as a way to stem unemployment and increase wealth, what does this actually mean in terms of the real world? Increased carbon emissions, more cargo ships and oil tankers crushing the life out of whales, more mercury raining down on our environment from coal fired power stations, and the list goes on.
Does job creation really depend on slaughtering the living world? Or is it actually the generation of extraordinary stores of wealth by a very few psychopaths like Donald Trump that depends on these vicious attacks on humans and nature?
Why is there such a fuss put up by religious fundamentalists when one woman out of seven billion makes the choice to end her own pregnancy because she can’t give the baby the life it deserves, but there is barely a peep when one of the last 5000 or so Blue Whales on Earth- a mother and her unborn calf are murdered so that Wal Mart can stock the latest plastic crap that we don’t really need or Chevron can import blood oil from Iraq to its Richmond refinery?
It’s time we expand the idea of being pro-life to include all of life, of whatever species.
Crystal Springs Reservoir: Pristine Looking, But Contaminated with the Toxins from our Excess Consumption
I read this article in the Chronicle about a month ago, and its been festering in the back of my mind since then. I didn’t want to let it pass without mentioning it on my blog. Essentially- if you haven’t heard- scientists recently sampled fish living in Crystal Springs Reservoir, the source of drinking water for much of the San Francisco Bay Area, and they found some of the highest levels of mercury- a powerful neurotoxin- in any body of water anywhere in the state.
They suspect that the mercury is being carried from Chinese coal fired power stations by clouds across the Pacific, where it is deposited across California in the form of rain, leaving a toxic residue across the land, where it builds up in bodies of water, including reservoirs, and bodies of fish and other animals (like us).
It’s pretty clear that our attempt to distance ourselves from dirty manufacturing by offshoring factories in places where poor brown people live has been a tragic, shortsighted failure. We live on a small planet, and we cannot run from the effects of our excess consumption.
What I’m having a hard time understanding is this: when a multinational corporation wants to set up shop in 100 different countries, getting a permit to operate, citing its factories where labor is cheap and selling its products where the money is, there is no problem. But when it comes to enforcing international environmental issues like toxic mercury pollution or climate change, we are told we are powerless.
According to Tim Ramirez of the State’s water board, “if it’s airborne pollution from a global source, that’s going to be hard for us to do something about.”
I beg to differ. We can begin to charge corporations the real price of manufacturing their products in a filthy, irresponsible way. We can force them to pay for the externalities that they impose on the rest of us with impunity.
And individually, we can stop buying cheap plastic crap that we don’t really need.
I’ve settled down with my honey in the Santa Cruz Mountains now, and helped to start the Scotts Valley Neighbors Against Smart Meters (SVNASM). We are a resident-led local organization fighting PG&E’s plans to force inaccurate, potentially health damaging meters onto the nice people of California. If you haven’t woken up to the health impacts of cell phones, wifi, and now smart meters, now is a good time to start asking questions. I was truly appalled after reading the health studies over the past couple months.
Around the state of CA, there is a growing rebellion against these plans that- for a $2.2 billion project- don’t seem to have been all that thought through. We’ve been speaking out, highlighting the connection between SF’s recent cell phone radiation right to know law and the new wireless (not so) smart meters. Some awkward truths coming out for sure.
Read about PG&E’s illegal activities in Scotts Valley and take action. Come to the protest Aug. 12th 1pm at the CPUC in SF at Van Ness and McAllister.
The other day, my mom’s neighbor saw me arriving by bike from Marin County (about 60 miles away), and told me how impressed she was with the ‘sacrifice’ I was making by not driving. I thanked her, and said that actually I quite enjoy riding my bike, as well as the relaxing time I spend on the ferry and the train, and that I was impressed with the sacrifice she was making by sitting in gridlock on the freeway every day on the way to work. She laughed, and said, “I guess that’s another way of looking at it.”
The mainstream ‘way of looking at it’ did not come about by accident. It is very much a manufactured perspective that dictates transportation social norms. Where do these norms come from? You might have guessed from the title of this post.
The details of this manipulation are described in the excellent article by Tom Vanderbilt that appeared on Slate.com last Friday about the way Hollywood depicts people who don’t drive. It would be hard to overemphasize the power that films have over people’s style and behavior- not only in this country, but all over the world. This fantasy image marketing has very real impacts in the real world as people choose to drive- not because it’s practical- but because they think it will get them laid.
Whether it’s a case of displaying what screenwriters and producers see around them every day in LA, or something more sinister (think about who profits if we drive more) there are layers of meaning behind the stereotypes of people who are car free.
Too bad for Hollywood- they will have to play catch up. Cause this movement isn’t waiting for some navel gazing producer to catch on to the fact that bikes are hot shit these days…..
Last week, we had a couple of victories as the cities of Scotts Valley and Capitola responded to growing public pressure, demanding that PG&E halt any further ‘smart’ meter installation until public hearings are held and investigations are completed. This is a major setback for PG&E, who were hoping to roll out their ‘smart’ meter program as quickly as possible without the public realizing that they are putting our health and finances at risk by trying to save a few dollars using wifi instead of safer, more reliable fiber optic technology.
It is astounding how one of the largest rollouts of technology in history- a $2.2 billion dollar project- on our own homes no less- has been approved with virtually no public consultation- and barely any notification. This is yet another example of the kind of false solution to climate change we’re seeing more of these days. Some people are looking at climate change, and instead of seeing a watershed moment in human history where we need to re-assess our relationship with the natural world- moving beyond seeing it as an object to be exploited, and instead to a more reciprocal, respectful way of interaction, they are seeing an opportunity for profit. I’m not against technology, but when governments and corporations offer up techno fixes for some of our most serious problems, we’ve got to be concerned. Just look at MTBE, a poisonous chemical that was added to gasoline several years ago to prevent air pollution- well it seeped into the ground, poisoning our drinking water. Catalytic converters have done a lot to reduce air pollution, but they have resulted in greater carbon emissions.
Many of these techno fixes are not solving problems– they’re just sweeping them under the rug. The nice things about greenhouse gas emissions and EMF radiation- as far as the industry and the government is concerned- is that they are invisible. People need to stand up and start resisting these attacks on our environment and health. It’s the same thing that led to the BP spill.
It’s great to see growing resistance to the ‘smart’ meter installations, as shown in the video above. People are beginning to realize the obvious truth- that the government is no longer looking out for our health and safety- they are only looking out to increase industry profits.
PG&E wants to rush ‘smart’ meters onto people’s homes before we realize they can cause cancer
After California’s utility PG&E was firmly smacked down with the defeat of Prop. 16 last month- an attempt by the corporate behemoth to extend their monopoly over the electricity market, while preventing local cities and counties from selling renewable energy to customers at lower prices- you would think the company would have learned a lesson about shoving things down the throat of the public. Predictably, the opposite appears to be the case, as PG&E attempts to install their so-called “Smart” Meters on every home and business in their service area, which encompasses most of California.
The new meters use wireless technology- short, high intensity bursts of microwave radiation that communicates your energy use data to the utility. With very little public input, or even advance notice, PG&E has already installed over six million of the meters. It began in the Central Valley, where reports of inaccurate bills and even spontaneously combusting meters typically followed wherever they were installed.
When I first heard the scare stories about smart meters, I have to admit I was sceptical. Surely the government wouldn’t allow the widespread installation of a technology with uncertain health effects in places where we live, work and sleep? Surely any reported illnesses related to cell phones, wifi, or indeed the new smart meters were simply paranoid delusions. Surely the smart meter scare belonged in the dusty file next to UFO’s and reptilian shapeshifters running the government.
Not so fast. The more I looked into the issue, the more concerned I became. The industry says that the electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell phones, wifi, and smart meters is absolutely safe. They point to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that place an upper limit on the amount of radiation that can be absorbed by human beings over the course of a half hour (the so-called Specific Absorption Rate). Essentially this is a measurement of how much human flesh heats up in response to a given amount of radiation. ‘If it doesn’t heat you, it doesn’t hurt you,’ as the saying goes. Mary Beth Brangan, an activist who has been fighting wireless expansion in Bolinas, says:
“PG&E claims that smart meter emissions are below FCC standards, which are completely irrelevant since the outmoded FCC standard is based on preventing a 6 ft. 185 lb. male from being cooked like a hot dog in a microwave oven from a single 30 min. exposure. So you can imagine how high that level would have to be. There are no FCC standards or tests done for constant, chronic exposure from multiple sources or for effects other than heating. And many studies have proven double strand DNA breaks are caused by chronic exposure to relatively low levels of radiation – such as that from cell phones. Double strand breaks mean that the body can’t repair them and that may cause many ill effects such as tumors, etc. Also, the electrical system of the body is affected. Smart meter mesh networks mean we’ll be exposed to criss-crossing pulses of radiation constantly from meters everywhere.”
Having a regular smart meter on your house is bad enough. But it gets worse. You may not even be aware that you have a ‘repeater’ meter on your house that collects data from up to 1000 adjacent houses, and sends it to PG&E, emitting higher levels of electromagnetic radiation nearly constantly.
The wireless industry tells us that EMF is perfectly safe (based on industry funded studies) and that this justifies an unlimited expansion of electromagnetic radiation throughout our communities. Other voices (who aren’t profiting from the expansion of cell phone technology) argue that this uncertainty is reason to tread cautiously. They point out that the government once insisted that asbestos and smoking were safe, leading to the suffering and deaths of thousands.
Since PG&E began rolling out their “SmartMeter” program, the health risks of wireless technology have become more widely known to the public. In June, San Francisco passed the nation’s first “right to know law” requiring that cell phones sold in the city include their radiation levels. This has generated something of an earthquake within the wireless industry, who have covered up the health risks of their product for many years – and, like a child throwing a tantrum when you take away their toys, the industry has pulled its annual conference out of the City, as reported by Maureen Dowd in the NY Times.
While countries like the US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and others (presumably where industry has significant influence over government policy) do not consider any potential effects beyond the heating of our flesh, other countries such as Russia, Switzerland, Italy and Hungary take a more precautionary approach- setting permitted levels of electromagnetic radiation far lower. These countries agree that the jury is still out on the question of electromagnetic health impacts, and that our cell phones might very well might be having serious impacts on our the living cells within our bodies.
This is not really that radical an idea, after all. Considering that each part of the human body- particularly the heart- emits electromagnetic radiation throughout the body as a way of regulating basic life support systems, doesn’t it make sense to tread a little cautiously here? Some like author Stephen Buhner have even suggested that subtle electromagnetic impulses form the basis of an ancient, subtle means of communication between living things. It sounds a little bit far fetched, but can we dismiss this idea entirely? In experiments, plants hooked up to lie detector equipment register a reaction when an experimenter simply thinks about cutting or burning it. Is this the reputed sixth sense- the language of the heart? And if it is, how is the electrosmog of wifi, cell transmissions, and various radio communications affecting this sense among not just humans but the rest of the natural world as well?
Could this be what has gone so wrong with our societies? Could we have been unknowingly robbed of our innate empathy for living things? Our internal biological compasses gone haywire from millions of smart meters, cell phones, and EMF spewing satellites in orbit?
As we know, the government has been spectacularly bad at regulating industry to ensure our safety- and when they have- usually dragged kicking and screaming to sensible precaution by public figures like Ralph Nader- the half measures enacted seem more geared toward ensuring the profits keep rolling in than protecting the public.
As a result, at the start of the 2nd decade of the 21st century, we have become simians constantly bombarded by electrosmog. Drinking in tap water of pharmaceutical traces, subject to lead, mercury, asbestos, as well as millions of chemical combinations we don’t even know about, electrosmog from wifi and cell phone towers, toxic air pollution, and petrochemical residues on our food and in our water. I knew something wasn’t quite right with everything- I just couldn’t put my finger on it. That sense of dread. That sense that something is deeply awry.
The existence of killer waves would, however, explain a lot. We’d have a much more comprehensive understanding of how and why we get cancer, for starters. We’d also understand why we sometimes get headaches after using a cell phone for a long period of time; why it seems like we know a surprisingly large number of young people with unusual cancers; why we struggle to remember incidental facts; why we used to be able to do the Sunday crossword but can now make it only through Friday; why our children have so much difficulty sitting still and reading books and speaking in complete sentences; why we get sad for no reason; why sometimes, when we look at our loved ones, for a bizarre split second we don’t recognize them; why it can seem that our lives are guided by some dark, implacable force; and why, when we sit up straight in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, we feel a dizzying sense of panic at the hopelessness of it all.
I began to think about the times I was on my cell phone- (especially when I was on the train when the cell emits high levels of radiation in order to find the next tower) when I felt a warming, and a sort of pressure building behind my temple. Things started to fall into place.
Enough is enough. How could I have been so blind?
Four months ago, I gave up my cell phone, and when it came time to order internet service at my new house, AT&T asked if I wanted a free wireless router and I said ‘no thanks.’
The smart meter scandal- and it is a scandal- is proving to be an eminently teachable moment, much to the dismay of the wireless industry. The arrogance of PG&E in assuming that since most people have wifi and cell phones these days, that no one would mind a little extra radiation in their home- has proven to be a spectacular misjudgment. And no doubt there are recriminations happening in corporate boardrooms as we speak, wondering whether perhaps they have overreached, shedding light on the dirty little secret of the cell phone/ wifi cash cow.
PG&E’s reckless, unilateral decision to install ‘smart meters’ throughout the places we live and work is not an isolated incident. It is one facet of a worldview that says that the environment, and human health and safety is expendable but the bottom line is not.
We delay action on climate change because we don’t know all the effects of spewing five billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year.
We fail to adequately regulate deepwater drilling, pacified by industry reassurances that they have safety and incident response plans worked out (I imagine that the cocaine and sex probably helped).
I am not one to reject technology just because it’s technology. But the burden to prove new technologies are safe must be placed on the companies or institutions who introduce them into our lives, not on members of the public or the government.
The ‘smart’ meter debate is heating up. To find out when PG&E will be bathing your neighborhood in radiation, click here. For information on how to resist, click here. For more information about the health impacts of EMF, visit the EMF Safety Network.
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground....Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
-Frederick Douglass
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