The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life

Posted on May 19, 2019 by

Activist, author and researcher, Arthur Firstenberg, writes in The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life with devastating honesty about the unfolding human rights and environmental emergency unleashed as a result of our deadly embrace of electrical technology.

Spanning humans’ initial foray into harnessing electricity, through to our microwave-fuelled leap into the abyss, this book is a tour de force.  By turns riveting, confronting, yet remaining rigorously scientific, The Invisible Rainbow, to quote renowned environmental health expert Prof David O. Carpenter MD, PhD, is a ‘remarkable contribution’ and one that is ‘easily readable and provocative while being entertaining’.

The Invisible Rainbow is available from the Cellular Phone Task Force’s website at:  https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/buy-the-invisible-rainbow/  For orders outside of the U.S. and Canada, go to the Add to Cart button towards the top of the webpage.

The Invisible Rainbow is a hardcover book weighing in at a hefty 918 grams so it is worthwhile investigating the shipping cost prior to purchasing.  This can be done online by choosing the country followed by the shipping method after following the links to the PayPal Guest Checkout page.  As shipping costs are calculated by order (up to 10 copies), ordering multiple copies brings down the individual price per book.  So it might be worthwhile to team up with a few friends and order multiple copies!

Proceeds from sales of The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life are the main source of funding driving the International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space campaign.  Although the Appeal stands on its own, Firstenberg’s book provides us with the larger historical and scientific picture.

Posted in EMR | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Health Australia Party policy on EMR

Posted on May 15, 2019 by

SSMA and its members have approached a number of political parties in an effort to secure policies that reduce public exposure to the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR).

It seems that for the forthcoming Federal election on 18th May, the Health Australia Party (HAP) is the only party to have a policy on EMR – and a very good one at that!

If you haven’t yet cast your vote, you might like to review the HAP’s EMR Pollution policy.  This is articulated in code 3.3.1 of the HAP Full Policies document available on this webpage.

The current version of the policy states that:

“The HAP supports the following initiatives which are needed due to the changing electromagnetic environment in which we live.

(a) Adopting the precautionary approach regarding exposure to electromagnetic fields;

(b) Designing, building and wiring buildings so as to reduce exposure to electromagnetic fields;

(c) Requiring new radiation-emitting technologies, including 5G, to be demonstrated to be safe for all members of society before their introduction to the market/rollout across Australia;

(d) Requiring the Australian standard for radiation protection (RPS3) to be updated to accommodate new research showing harmful biological effects of non-heating levels of exposure;

(e) Requiring an Australian standard for power frequency electromagnetic fields that reduces public exposure to the 4 mG associated with the doubling of childhood leukemia and classified as a Class 2B carcinogen (current exposure level is 2000 mG);

(f) Requiring all radiation-emitting devices to carry the notice: ‘This device emits radiofrequency radiation. Use with caution’;

(g) Requiring all research be undertaken by independent researchers;

(h) A public education campaign informing people about safer technology use.”

The HAP also released an ‘Official Statement on Electromagnetic Radiation & 5G’ on 27th April 2019.  The link for the document is: https://www.healthaustraliaparty.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/HAP-official-statement-on-EMR-April-27-2019.pdf

The Health Australia Party is indeed worthy of your number 1 vote in the Senate.

Posted in Electromagnetic radiation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

“Self-serving nonsense”: Why smart meters and the energy industry failed Australia

Posted on May 5, 2019 by

Gavin Dietz, “energy insider” and global executive of Landis+Gyr; the world’s largest manufacturer of smart meters, writes:

“…in reality, smart meters have failed hugely to deliver on the perceived promise that accompanied their global promotion and rollout in the early-2000s and since.

Today it’s become common to hear so-called ‘smart meters’ being condemned for actually being ‘dumb’. In the age of the smartphone, they are a clunky reminder of a bygone tech era.

Early notions that smart meters would be used as a key enabler for emissions reductions through energy efficiency and renewable energy have faded. They’ve actually been a bit player, at best, when compared to the transformative success of solar photovoltaics, wind farm technologies, energy efficiency programs, and low-emission products such as LED lighting systems.

In fact, depressingly, they mainly are being used to prolong the old energy order, protecting legacy energy companies and metering manufacturers alike, and keeping business and household electricity consumers at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the power of data.

The consumer-empowering marvel of the internet era has been blocked when it comes to the electricity sector, because, even if consumers officially own their smart meter data — which they do — they can’t control it nor even access it in useful and timely ways.

This isn’t how it was meant to be. At least, it isn’t how the people I worked with in the mid-2000s anticipated the smart meter story unfolding.

As the Australian-based investment group Bayard Capital, we went around the world buying up 14 smart meter manufacturers, rolled them all up into Landis+Gyr, then ultimately sold the lot to Japan’s Toshiba in 2011 for a successful exit valued at $US2.3 billion.

We also promoted smart meter rollouts for Australia, and globally, including seeing tens of millions installed in post-global financial crisis America to help to stimulate the economy; and nearly three million across Victoria – a mandatory rollout that many came to see as an expensive debacle, which killed off any plans for the whole nation to do the same.”

Abridged from: https://www.smartcompany.com.au/industries/energy-resources/smart-meters-failed-australians/

Posted in Smart Meter | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The controversary over 5G is examined in a new paper by Don Maisch PhD

Posted on April 30, 2019 by

In his recent paper Are community concerns over the 5G network rollout based on unfounded anxiety or valid evidence?”, Don Maisch PhD writes “The high number of small cells needed for an effective 5G network is causing community disquiet and that, combined with many scientific unknowns about the possible biological effects of prolonged exposure to mm waves, is resulting in increasing community opposition in Australia and internationally”.

In addition to referring to Australian reports regarding the increasing concern about 5G, Maisch gives a sampler of growing international opposition to 5G network rollouts:

In 2017 an international 5G Appeal was launched by scientists and doctors who are calling for the EU to halt the roll out of 5G due to serious potential health effects from the technology. As of April 24, 2019, 231 scientists and medical doctors have signed the appeal.[i]

March 24, 2019: Portland Oregon city officials in the US stated their opposition to the installation of 5G networks around the city, supported by the mayor and two commissioners. The city officials considered that 5G health risks were not well enough understood to warrant installations.[ii]

March 28, 2019: Florence, Italy, applied the precautionary principle by refusing permission for 5G infrastructure and referring to “the ambiguity and the uncertainty of supranational bodies and private bodies (like ICNIRP)”, which “have very different positions from each other, despite the huge evidence of published studies”.[iii]

March 28, 2019: The Roman district “XII Municipality of Rome” voted against allowing 5G trials, with other districts expected to follow. Other motions to stop 5G are expected in the four regional councils, one provincial council and other municipal councils of Italy.[iv]

April 1, 2019: Plans for a pilot project to provide high-speed 5G wireless internet in Brussels have been halted due to fears for the health of citizens. Environment Minister Céline Fremault said that “The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt”.[v]

April 4, 2019: The House of Representatives of the Netherlands expressed its concern over the possible health risks of radiation from the new 5G network. Political parties want to know as a matter of urgency what the dangers are before 5G is rolled out on a large scale.[vi]

April 5, 2019: The California Supreme Court Justices unanimously upheld a 2011 San Francisco ordinance requiring telecommunications companies to get permits before placing small cell antennas on city infrastructure.[vii]

April 8, 2019: A petition asking the German Parliament to stop the award of 5G frequencies has reached 54,643 signatures, surpassing the quorum, according to an environmental campaign group called ‘Diagnose: Funk’. The German Parliament may decide to suspend the procedure to award 5G frequencies based on “scientifically justified doubts about the safety of this technology”, according to the petition.[viii]

April 9, 2019: Switzerland’s 3rd largest region, Canton of Vaud, adopted a resolution calling for a moratorium on 5G antennas until the publication of a report on 5G by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment.[ix] Other cantons may follow with further moratoriums.[x]

April 11, 2019: Geneva adopted a motion for a moratorium on 5G, calling on the Council of State to request WHO to monitor independent scientific studies to determine any possible harmful effects of 5G.[xi]

April 20, 2019: Switzerland announced that it will monitor 5G health risks as a result of a pushback from citizens who claim that 5G emissions present dire health risks.[xii] Four cantons have now stopped 5G networks, Jura, Geneva, Vaud and Neuchâtel. Comprising 1.5 million people. However, the majority state-owned Swisscom defied these cantons by activating 5G stations in 102 locations by upgrading existing antennas installed for previous generations of wireless technology.[xiii],[xiv]

In part Maisch concludes: The assurances of a complete absence of risk from 5G networks coming from these experts is not reflected in what is known about the many uncertainties which exist with 5G technology and speaks more about their own ignorance than that of concerned communities.

To read this informative paper in full along with its concluding thoughts, go to: https://www.emfacts.com/download/26April_5G_concerns_paper.pdf

 

References Continue reading →

Posted in 5G | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Victoria’s Minister for Water evades questions about smart water meters

Posted on April 18, 2019 by

Stop Smart Meters Australia (SSMA) raised concerns last year about the rollout of smart water meters in Victoria in a letter to the Hon Lisa Neville, Minister for Water.  SSMA also posed a number of questions, on behalf of members and followers, to the Minister.

The Minister asked an Executive Director at the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) to reply on her behalf.  The response was emailed to SSMA on the eve of the 2018 Victorian State election.

The government’s reply fails to explain its role in the rollout of water smart meters, other than to state that “Victorian Government approval is required prior to any broad introduction of new digital water metering technology” and that the “Victorian Government is regularly briefed on the progress of digital meter trials, including customer feedback and business case considerations”.

This hands-off approach appears to be another case of déjà vu for long-suffering Victorian utility customers.

If the government had done its due diligence in the first place, Victorians would NEVER have been subjected to the mandated rollout of electricity smart meters to every household and small business (as opposed to the due diligence conducted by other states). The cost-benefit justification for the rollout of electricity smart meters turned out to be little more than a Victorian Labor Government thought bubble.

Instead, Victorians have been burdened with increased costs as a result of the transition to electricity smart meters.  As reported in Deloitte’s 2011 report titled Advanced metering infrastructure cost benefit analysis, “Over 2008-28, the Victorian AMI Program will result in net costs to customers of $319 million [in 2008 dollars]”.  SSMA asks how much greater would these net costs be if the impact of adverse health effects arising from the rollout of smart meters were included?  And how much more would the net costs be if the benefits which were supposed to accrue as a result of the rollout (and, often, didn’t!) were to be revisited and verified?

The Victorian Auditor-General’s 2009 report slammed the government department overseeing Victoria’s ill-fated multibillion-dollar rollout of smart meters.  The report stated that “Given the significant uncertainty about the cost of AMI [advanced metering infrastructure] to both industry and consumers, as well as the nature and scale of the market intervention, the project always warranted much stronger departmental governance and central oversight”.

Are Victorians now to have water smart meters foisted upon them again as a result of a lack of adequate government oversight?  Worryingly, if we wanted more information, SSMA was referred to a person listed as being an employee at one of the water corporations. Is this another case of the Victorian Labor Government being asleep at the wheel?

View SSMA’s letter to the Minister for Water, and the questions that we posed, here.
View the government’s response here.

Please note, at the request of the government, its response has been redacted. Specifically, the government, in a reply sent on Christmas Eve in response to an email from SSMA asking permission to publish its letter, stated “Please remove all personal details in the letter including all names, position titles and signatures before any [sic] publishing it on your website”.

Previous posts that SSMA has done on the rollout of water smart meters include:
Look out Victorian water customers – your utility may be rolling out smart meters!
Water authorities rolling out wireless smart meters!
Smart water meter “trials” have commenced!

Posted in Smart Meter | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

NSW, QLD, SA, Tas and ACT electricity customers allowed to have communications on ALREADY-INSTALLED smart meters TURNED OFF

Posted on April 5, 2019 by

The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has made a final rule to allow metering coordinators to deactivate the communications on already-installed smart meters.

The AEMC’s Competition in Metering Rule, which started in December 2017, stipulates that all new and replacement meters must be an advanced ‘type 4’ meter unless a customer makes a request not to have a type 4 meter at the time a new meter is installed or if there isn’t a telecommunications network in the area to support a type 4 meter.  Type 4 meters host wireless communications that emit pulsed radiofrequency radiation in the microwave range 24/7.  In instances of customer refusal, an advanced non-communicating meter, known as a type 4A meter, is provided.  If instead a customer has an existing ‘working’ meter, and doesn’t require a new meter, opt-out provisions are available.

However, there was no provision in the rule for the meter’s communications to be deactivated if a customer moves into a house or business premise that already has a type 4 meter installed.

The final rule allows metering coordinators, at their discretion, to deactivate the remote communications in response to customer objection.  Deactivation may be achieved by a variety of means (for example, cease polling/collection, remote deactivation, or physical removal of the meter’s communication facilities).  Metering coordinators may only accept a request for deactivation if they have evidence that the retailer has advised the customer about upfront charges associated with a type 4A meter and similarities and differences between a type 4 and a type 4A meter.

The Australian Energy Council (AEC), which represents 23 major electricity businesses, requested the rule change. The AEC anticipated that their proposal would “reduce the number of complaints customers make to retailers and jurisdictional ombudsmen, therefore reducing administrative costs whilst simultaneously improving customer’s experience”.

In response, the AEMC concurred that there was a need for a process to deactivate remote communications at the lowest cost. This was in recognition of the fact that “a small cohort of customers holds strong views regarding the use of advanced meter communication at their premises, as stated in AGL and EnergyAustralia’s submissions”.

The AEMC may only make a rule if it is satisfied that the rule will, or is likely to, contribute to the achievement of the national electricity objective (NEO).  Although factors to be considered in the NEO include safety and security of supply of electricity, the AEMC’s decision was solely on the basis that allowing deactivation will lead to cost reductions in respect of customers insistent on having a non-communicating meter.  The AEC had pointed out that the costs associated with deactivation are three to five times lower than replacing the meter entirely (as well as not requiring an interruption to the customer’s supply of electricity).  Prior to this final rule, a meter swap was the only means by which customers moving into premises with an existing communicating smart meter might obtain a type 4A meter.

The final rule commences on 1 July 2019 in the jurisdictions which have adopted the National Electricity Rules (NER). These jurisdictions are NSW, QLD, SA, Tas and the ACT.

The Northern Territory has only adopted certain parts of the NER which do not include parts related to the final rule.  The Competition in Metering Rule does not currently apply in Victoria as a result of Victorian Ministerial Order.  Western Australia continues to be subject to a State-based regulatory framework.

Customers who have a type 4A meter must continue to shop around retailers, if they want to obtain the best deal and avoid being gouged for manual meter reading fees.  Although the Australian Energy Regulator sets the maximum fee for manually reading meters, there is NO obligation on retailers to charge this fee.

SSMA commends the AEC for proposing this rule and the AEMC for overseeing its formulation.  This final rule represents a step in the right direction.  However, when one takes into account safety and security of supply issues, SSMA considers that the NEO would be better served by eliminating wireless transmissions from ALL meters.   

For previous posts on this issue, see:

Residents of NSW, QLD, SA, Tas and ACT: It’s time to say NO!

Victoria delays implementation of national arrangements for metering competition

Power distributors advocate optional smart meters in Victoria – But will the Victorian Labor Government listen?

 Smart meters by stealth

Posted in Smart Meter | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Emeritus Professor Martin Pall slams ARPANSA response

Posted on March 22, 2019 by

The Minister for Health (The Hon Greg Hunt MP) and the Minister for Environment (The Hon Melissa Price MP) referred a letter from a member of Stop 5G Perth and Australia wide to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) for a response.  The letter sought information about the role of ARPANSA and the health impacts of millimetre wave (5G) technology.

ARPANSA replied in its usual vein, downplaying any possible cause for alarm.

Martin Pall PhD, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences, Washington State University, was asked by Stop 5G Perth and Australia wide to respond to ARPANSA’s (unsigned) letter.

Professor Martin Pall’s 28-page forensic analysis of ARPANSA’s letter, which includes reference to his own document on the risks of 5G and other EMF, is a chilling indictment of the competence, professionalism and independence of ARPANSA.  ARPANSA is the organisation that supposedly monitors and identifies radiation risks to Australians!

Pall notes that ARPANSA provided “not one iota of evidence that its exposure standard is based on scientific research or that it protects us from any, let alone all harmful effects nor that it protects people of all ages and health status against all known adverse effects of RF (the word they are using for microwave frequency) exposures”.  Professor Pall pointed out that by ignoring 158 bodies of evidence ARPANSA completely fails in its responsibility to protect the health of Australians.  He goes on to say that, in general, “ARPANSA makes grandiose claims that are both undocumented and found to be false or, at best highly questionable when one examines the scientific literature”.

Professor Pall raised a number of questions for ARPANSA in his response.  He asked ARPANSA to provide answers to these questions within three weeks of receiving his letter.

The public of Australia awaits ARPANSA’s response…….

 

Documents referred to in Prof Pall’s letter to ARPANSA:

  1. 41 statements of high concern
  2. 5G: Great risk for EU, U.S. and International Health!  Access Dr Pall’s 90-page document here.
  3. Response to 2018 ICNIRP Draft Guidelines
  4. Biological effect of millimeter radiowaves
  5. Examples of the Effects on Humans (mm Waves)
  6. ARPANSA letter 18 Dec 2018
  7. Prof Pall Response to ARPANSA letter 4 March 2019
Posted in 5G | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments