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Tuesday 26 February 2013

NOW HIRING: AGENT REQUIRED TO GO BACK IN TIME TO FETCH COMMONSENSE STUCK THERE


[this is one of the energycanaries.blogspot.com posts]

If a toddler girl is throwing a temper tantrum at bedtime insisting that she must take the clock-radio to bed with her and that she wants it to be under her pillow or directly beside her head or hugged like a teddy bear and it must remain plugged in to the electrical outlet, simply as-is not with the radio on, would a parent agree to that? Even if there seems no way to stop this tantrum, a parent would never allow such an hours-long close encounter with the clock-radio to happen. I know it seems as though no explanation of the “why not” is necessary, that it’s simply commonsense, but just think about it for a moment. WHY NOT? It isn’t “just because.” Think about it. Think about what it is that makes it commonsense. At the root of it, it’s because (a) it’s a machine so it isn’t passive, it can DO things, and (b) it uses electricity and electricity is this invisible thing that is dangerous if you touch it or go too close to it, and it can even severely permanently injure you or kill you quite easily if you touch it. Electricians, doctors, and other experts consciously know and act in respect of these hazards and facts every day; others of us know these things by commonsense; others of us seem to have forgotten these hazards and facts; and others of us, I suppose, only know the reality of machines and electricity being commonplace and therefore assume there is no hazard because experts and those of us with the knowledge and commonsense haven’t shared it often enough.

Machines and electricity have been around so long now that generations and generations have come and gone, and nowadays we see and are surrounded by so many machines and electricity throughout every day and night. The centuries-old commonsense reasons to respect the inherent hazards of machines and electricity have not gone away. If we think about it, the long-standing commonsense reasons to not have constant and/or close encounters with cell phones, wifi routers, cordless phones, tablet computers, laptops, baby monitors, hair dryers, microwave ovens, a table lamp, keeping babies’ fingers out of electrical outlets, and so on should be enough to in fact avoid these constant and/or close encounters. Anything that is a machine and as well anything that runs on wired or portable electrical power DOES come along with those risks that we’re aware of by knowledge or commonsense. Certainly we make choices about our risks, for example, cars are machines and they use electrical power; and cars can kill and yet so many of us do choose to drive them.

Ahh, but there are CLEARLY publicized laws, rules, and instructions about driving cars so that there is a reduced risk of harm to yourself as a driver, to other drivers, and to anyone who is not driving. And these laws, rules, and instructions are monitored, changed from time to time, and enforced—including serious penalties against drivers who do not obey laws and against drivers who harm other drivers or harm people who aren’t driving. There are also enforced laws and rules applicable to manufacturers of cars. There are also laws and rules regarding the by-products or emissions that occur when a car is operated; similarly, those emissions are monitored, changed from time to time, and limits are enforced—with various penalties when emission and operation standards are exceeded. These laws, rules, and instructions exist because health and safety of individuals and the public is a priority; and generally, these laws, rules, and instructions change when there is new or varying concern regarding health and safety of individuals or the public—not when car manufacturers and fuel producers want changes so that their profits will increase. Laws, rules, and instructions for cars and drivers don’t apply only while driving. They also apply to stopped cars, parked cars, abandoned cars, wherever. If your neighbour habitually parked his car with the open end of the car’s exhaust pipe positioned directly beside a window or door of your home and your home was always filling with fumes, you could probably ask your neighbour to stop doing that, and he probably would apologize as most people are kind and certainly don’t intend to harm anyone, and he probably would stop doing it by parking his car differently. I don’t know the letter of the law—I suppose that if your neighbour refused to make this change, because our homes by law are actually supposed to be not airtight, and if these fumes continued to be overwhelming, you would have some recourse perhaps by police or other legal intervention to put a halt to these fumes polluting your home. Again here you’ve got commonsense coming into play: no one really has to explain why fumes are unwanted. Again to go back as to why we have this commonsense knowing that polluting fumes are bad, it’s that (a) they might smell or look very unpleasant, and (b) regardless whether or not they have a smell or are visible at all, exposure to air pollutants can cause ill health right then and there or in the future.

The up-close and personal habits that people have adopted with their electronic machines—wired or wireless, stationary or portable—don’t make sense. Somewhere along the way, commonsense was thrown out the window. Point one: these are machines. Point two: these machines operate using electricity.

I said earlier that the centuries-old commonsense reasons to respect the inherent hazards of machines and electricity have not gone away. There is however something that HAS changed: the hazards have increased, in a number of ways. Nowadays, we’re touching and near so many, many more machines and so many more sources of electricity. And we’re doing that continually throughout our entire lives during the entire 24-hour cycle every day and again the next day and the next; in fact, these exposures start before we’re born, in fact, even before we’re conceived because genetic material from parents that becomes an embryo has been similarly exposed non-stop.

And all the above is before you add into consideration all the other electromagnetic fields flung everywhere throughout every size of airspace indoors and outdoors and as well into every nook and cranny in case there’s a machine there that wants to communicate wirelessly with another machine somewhere nearby or anywhere else on the planet. Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are a type of radiation; and EMFs are everywhere in our 21st-century air. EMFs aren’t gentle, thin, invisible threads harmlessly winding their way from a wifi router in the house, or from a DECT cordless phone, or from a cell phone that’s on, or from a baby monitor, or a rooftop antenna 200 metres or 5 kilometres away and detouring around people and plants and animals in order to gently touch another machine (big or small); you’re always enveloped by a never-ending explosion of this radiation and this radiation explosion is constantly travelling through your skin and into the inside of your body and brain where the cells throughout your body and brain react to this radiation in ways that they wouldn’t react if it wasn’t there.

It is jaw-droppingly astonishing whenever anyone in authority suggests that these machines and electromagnetic fields that we interact with are benign and needn’t be avoided or at the very least handled with caution. Who is it that we need to teach or remind about this commonsense about the hazards of machines and electricity so that we stop harming you, me, and everyone else present and future?

Saturday 23 February 2013

It Ain't Rocket Science


I don't have to be a rocket scientist to comprehend that 1800 scientific studies is a lot more than 0 and a lot more than "not enough." And I don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize when experts who used to say it's urgent to reduce to a maximum limit of 1000 are now saying we better aim for something more like 3 or 6 that, "Houston, we have a problem."

An amazing compilation of science and conclusions from 29 of the world's top electromagnetic radiation scientists: a new report by the BioInitiative Working Group 2012. At its website www.bioinitiative.org , you'll find many options for reading the Report or summaries and sections of it. I started by reading the Conclusions section (the clickable alongside my post here). The Report says that evidence for risks to health has substantially increased since 2007 from electromagnetic fields and wireless technologies (radiofrequency radiation). The Report reviews over 1800 new scientific studies. [Note: 1800 is not a typo, so when anyone claims there are no scientific studies ... and that number is only mentioning the "new" ones.]

The Report is not at all only about brain cancer, and not at all only about cell phones. There are sections about Autism, Fertility, Fetal Exposure, Alzheimer's Disease and other neurological effects, plus many other relevant topics. Any and all powered devices or networks that communicate with something else without the use of wires are using floods of electrically-generated unnatural electromagnetic radiation waves to carry and distribute digital signals and information throughout all your indoor and outdoor airspaces (whether or not you or anyone else is actively using a device or network). These communications don't happen by magic ... they happen because in the 21st century your air is densely filled with this unnatural radiation ... always ... everywhere.

Please notice that the Report often mentions cordless phones in the same breath as cell phones.

“There is a consistent pattern of increased risk for glioma (a malignant brain tumor) and acoustic neuroma with use of mobile and cordless phones” says Lennart Hardell, MD at Orebro University, Sweden. “Epidemiological evidence shows that radiofrequency should be classified as a human carcinogen. The existing FCC/IEEE and ICNIRP public safety limits and reference levels are not adequate to protect public health.”

If you referred to The BioInitiative Report 2007 for their recommendation for maximum exposure limit of 1000 microwatts per meter-squared, it's my understanding that the revised recommendation in the 2012 Report is 3 to 6 microwatts per meter-squared. [Again, there's no typo: it was 1000, and now it's 3 to 6.] There is also a paragraph: "Safety standards for sensitive populations will more likely need to be set at lower levels than for healthy adult populations. Sensitive populations include the developing fetus, the infant, children, the elderly, those with pre-existing chronic diseases, and those with developed electrical sensitivity (EHS)."

Friday 22 February 2013

A fetus isn't a brick wall


I wrote the following paragraphs approximately one year ago as my reply below various commenters at an online article in The Globe and Mail. The headline of the article was "Cellphone use during pregnancy linked to hyperactivity," and several of the commenters were performing their stale “Pfft, don’t-worry-about-it song and dance.” I don’t often participate in these comment-strings but I was appalled that these folks don’t seem to have the decency to care about pregnant and unborn people. Some of the cellphone manuals now include a phrase something like, “Keep away from pregnant and teenage abdomens.” Obviously, cellphones should be away from everyone's heads but also how often is a pregnant woman holding her cellphone directly on her abdomen - carrying it or using it to text?

Even if not 100000% proven, for 9 months someone can't justify keeping a cellphone away from a pregnant belly just in case this radiation that DOES penetrate into every person's body (including your body and including a developing fetus) and DOES interact with the cells it encounters can cause problems? Every health authority, every manufacturer of devices and supplier of services that emit this radiation will agreeably tell you that the radiation DOES penetrate into the body and DOES interact with the cells inside your body. The only controversy is around whether or not those interactions are health harm, and no one has tested pregnant women or fetuses.

We're talking about pregnant women and fetuses here; how can anyone be so inhuman as to speak as if they can guarantee that electronically-generated radiation that enters into a fetus' developing cells/body will do no harm?

Hello: it's radiation that penetrates into the body. It's radiation that is intense enough to penetrate several types of walls and fly intact for hundreds even thousands of feet through the air to a tower, and between towers/satellites/whatever to make electronic contact at even the far side of the globe where again the radiation travels intact over hundreds or thousands of feet and causes letters and pictures and sounds on an electronic device there -- I don't care what description and strengths etc. are named in everyday or scientific language, this electronically-generated radiation is capable of significant force, intensity, and action, and there is no reason to say that it would be a mistake to keep a source of this radiation away from a pregnant belly.

Definitely worse than the common cold


I apologize that I didn’t note where the following quote is from. I think it's from October 2011. After the quote is my reply to it.

“The issue of whether to remove WiFi in schools is certainly worthy of great discussion. On the one hand, everywhere that one goes nowadays – from Starbucks, to airports to work environments – is equipped with WiFi. Is it really that realistic to think our kids will never be exposed to WiFi? Trying to protect your kids against WiFi is like trying to protect them from the common cold these days as WiFi is ubiquitous and a lot of times is around without our knowledge.”

A common cold is not a brain tumour, nor a salivary gland tumour, nor years of panic attacks, nor piercing migraines for years, nor a constant buzzing sound inside your head (even when there should be only silence), nor autism, nor depression, nor insomnia, nor changes in blood pressure or heartbeat or bloodsugar.

If you could see and/or smell a lot of car exhaust when you enter a Starbucks, or an airport, or a work environment – or a school – you wouldn't stay there very long, and as you're leaving you might even warn people not to go in there, and you'd probably feel sorry for any people who for some reason HAD to stay there for a long time. It seems like an automatic reaction; if you think about it, you react that way because your body doesn’t want to take in the car exhaust pollution because once it’s inside your body it would be absorbed by various tissues and cells and could harm your body. If the air in a school contained lots of visible pollution or a very strong odour for a long time (whether it’s car exhaust or something else), people would leave the building, and if it was bad enough the Principal would insist that everyone must leave the building. The radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF) that the World Health Organization announced as a possible carcinogen are invisible and have no smell – and they are a man-made “physical agent” that does pollute air. The emissions from the normal operation of WiFi equipment is RF. Many WiFi sources are always on, so the RF is continually being pumped into an area. In an area where there is a collection of car exhaust, no matter if the area is indoors or outdoors, usually the car exhaust eventually blows away, or is diluted by other fresh air – provided the car that produced the exhaust leaves or is turned off.

In many countries, kids (and teachers and school staff) must be in school for 6 or 7 hours each day, every day of the schoolyear for many years of their lives. We are fortunate to live in a country that believes that the health and wellbeing of each individual citizen is important. Kids (and adults) must spend so much time in their school environments, so various governments and authorities have provided laws, regulations, and policies that must be followed for health and safety reasons. Some of these laws, regulations, and policies are in place to help reduce our exposures to pollutants that are invisible and odourless. Hopefully, decisions and changes regarding those laws, regulations, and policies happen quickly whenever there is new information about a pollutant.

Indeed, if a cure for the common cold is invented, very likely kids, teachers, parents, staff, volunteers, and everyone else involved in school environments would be at the very least encouraged and perhaps regulated by law to use the invention so that exposure to contagious germs would be reduced—so that fewer people would suffer ill effects. As far as I know, we don’t yet have a specific invention that is known for certain to cure the common cold or to be effective in reducing exposure to it. Some people do choose to take precautions such as taking vitamins, wearing masks, washing their hands frequently, eating health foods, keeping warm, sitting at a distance from people who are coughing or sneezing, and so on – these are choices they can make for their own personal space.

We do, however, have a specific invention that is known to reduce exposure to RF in schools – where many, many people are required to be for many, many hours each day for many, many years of their lives. We can turn off the WiFi and use wires and cords to plug in to experience the wonderful world of Internet, cloud computing, learning, e-book readers, socializing, phoning (VOIP), and so on. And the plug-in connections are usually much faster, more reliable, and less susceptible to personal security and privacy risks. Always on, WiFi equipment inside a school is spewing RF emissions non-stop at each person in the school whether or not that person is using the Internet or other wireless applications. Even if you’re certain that you’re not feeling ill effects from the WiFi at school, there are some kids, parents, and teachers who do know that it makes them ill and feel ill – some of them feel very ill. Some people would like to choose ways to keep RF out of their personal space, but they cannot because the RF from the WiFi equipment can’t be avoided by wearing a mask or standing at a distance – the WiFi travels throughout all the airspace and areas of the school, that’s why computers and other wireless devices find a wireless connection everywhere inside the school (and often outside near the school because RF can go through many walls, roofs, and windows).

I’m pretty sure that no one would force a child (or adult) to stand face-to-face with someone who is ill and coughing and sneezing with the ill person coughing and sneezing non-stop. The WiFi equipment in most schools is constantly on and therefore each body in the building (kids and adults) is absorbing amounts of that RF, so in effect the WiFi equipment is constantly “coughing and sneezing” at all the cells and tissues in each body, your body.

I prefer to hook up with wires and cords so that the cells and tissues in my body don’t have to face dealing with RF from WiFi emissions. And I prefer to hook up with wires and cords so that I’m not “coughing and sneezing” RF at the cells and tissues of other people’s bodies in my area.

You can probably guess that I encourage wired/corded plug-in connections everywhere – not only in schools, and definitely in workplaces and homes where we all spend hours and hours at a time as well. Hopefully, if we reduce our longer-duration exposures to RF (such as at school, home, and work), possibly we won’t get ill from RF exposure; I said “possibly” because I don’t know for certain. If I breathe in just a little bit of car exhaust every day, it might not be enough to make me ill but then again it might be!

Thank you for considering your own wellbeing and for being considerate of others.

I have two words to say to The Cloud ...

... but they don't fit in the "be polite" category. By accident, I flung energycanaries.blogspot.com into the ether and, so far, The Cloud hasn't answered my plea for a return flight. Oh well, if that's the worst The Universe can dish out, that's wonderful. So I've opted for reincarnation. I don't think I saved my previous blog posts elsewhere. If I find some, I might fling them onto this new blog.