Amy O’Hair, a San Francisco resident who has been testing radiation from Smart Meters was arrested this morning for refusing to move off a Welllington Smart Meter installation truck. The officer handcuffed her and took her to the county jail. The SF Examiner reported this story “Woman arrested for allegedly blocking SmartMeter installation” See Stop Smart Meters for more on the story.
Empowering choices
According to PG&E over 16,000 people have signed up to opt out of Smart Meters. Thousands more have posted signs, built cages or locked up their analog meters. Then there are thousands of people stuck with a Smart Meter who want it removed, and neither the utilities nor the utility regulators will help them. In some situations customers have had to make extreme, but empowering choices because they have been abandoned by the system.
After two months of heart attack symptoms and trips to the hospital, a utility customer took matters into his own hands. He bought an analog meter from a supply store, hired an electrician and replaced the Smart Meter with the analog. After all, neither PG&E nor the CPUC was listening, and this was a matter of life or death.
Another woman could no longer live in her home after a Smart Meter was installed. She experienced headaches, sleep and neurological problems. Unlike others, in similar situations who were forced to moved, she also purchased an analog, hired an electrician, and replaced the Smart Meter with the analog. She writes, ” I bought the “AC Killowatt-Hour Meter” from Real Goods (707) 472-2407. My electrician was hesitant, so I used a former Wellington employee who once installed Smart Meters. Then I locked up my new analog meter as shown on the picture. The chain goes around the meter, and around the pipe above and below the meter.”
Update October 9, 2011.
Earlier I wrote “Tampering with a utility meter is a crime , but isn’t it also criminal that serious Smart Meter health complaints are continuing to be ignored and people are suffering from these meters which are not only a health threat, but for some a daily nightmare.”
My mistake. Tampering is a crime, but we needed to define tampering. The EMF Safety Network has retained a lawyer and learned more about tampering laws. Please see Tampering defined.
In addition Christoper Myers, PG&E representative has asked us to include safety information about swapping meters, including that PG&E personnel are trained, and follow specific safety procedures when removing meters. They wear hard hats, goggles and fire retardant clothing. If you have any questions about the safety of meter removal PG&E asks you to contact them directly at 1-800-743-5000.
PG&E threatens customer-install it or else!
Charles Pine, an Oakland resident did not want Smart Meters installed on the duplex he owns. He was home when a PG&E worker showed up, without previous notice, to install them and Charles refused. Although the PG&E worker did not install the meters that day, he threatened Charles, stating, “…Either we install it, or you find another energy company”. [Ya right, PG&E is a monopoly in our area] Many people have contacted the EMF Safety Network to complain about how PG&E has treated them when they call about not wanting Smart Meters, but Charles Pine had a recorder in his pocket and he caught the workers statements on tape. Check out the story and listen to the recording on Stop Smart Meters.
Texas Investigation Reveals Smart Meter Fire Risk
In Houston Texas, “Local 2 investigates Smart Meter fires” reports they looked into homeowners complaints of Smart Meter fires and found some people are left with no electricity and major damage to their homes, including burnt out appliances after a Smart Meter has been installed by the utility.
“Charles Phillips saw smoke coming from the transformer in his backyard one morning last November. When he went out to inspect the damage, he said he saw a CenterPoint Energy contractor at his meter box with a fire extinguisher. He told me it had caught on fire, Phillips said.”
“Inside Phillip’s home, two TVs were fried, his air conditioner and garage door opener stopped working, and all of the wires and cables hooked up to his electronics were melted from the jolt his electronics took when a fire sparked after the installer removed his old meter. Phillips was left with a total of about $2,500 in damages.”
According to the article, Centerpoint, the utility for Houston Texas, has admitted the connection, stating there has been less than 100 problems. “CenterPoint’s LeBlanc said the problem is mostly in older homes where wiring is not up to code or something has caused a strain on the wires running into the meter box.”
In other areas, news reports indicate some utilities are beginning to recognize the problem. According to this article, A CEO of Oncor, another Texas utility, says, “the company has a new procedure for installation of smart meters after two house fires in Arlington last week. Robert Shapard says old wiring in two homes could not support the new smart meters.”
In the State of Maine a news report states a utility supervisor admits finding Smart Meter fire hazards, “…the technicians are actually discovering more possible fire hazards than the company anticipated, and informing customers of dangers they otherwise would not have known existed. He said, so far, they have discovered 70 to 80 electrical issues in the Portland area.”
Powercor, a utility company in Australia, recognizes the safety risk from Smart Meters, stating, “A defect notice is issued when a wiring safety issue is identified.” In Victoria, Australia, installers identified possibly life-threatening electrical hazards in 3500 Victorian homes.
In July 2010 Cindy Sage, Sage Associates and James J. Biergiel, EMF Electrical Consultant wrote an article describing the risks of “Wireless Smart Meters and Potential for Electrical Fires.”
The EMF Safety Network has been collecting stories and news reports onthis issue. Two unreported stories involved house fires and suspicions of possible links to the newly installed Smart Meters. One fire started in a surge protector, which destroyed the older home. The other was reported to start in a swamp cooler and the owner died in the fire. Both had recently installed Smart Meters. In the second fire, a loud humming was heard in the home, an explosion sound and a computer fried, and later the fire erupted.
More info: Smart Meter Fires and explosions.
Medical Implants and Wireless Hazards
Widespread wireless installations including Smart Meters are creating safety risks for 20-25 million people, who have medical implants such as pacemakers, infusion pumps, metal rods and hearing aids. In some cases these interference risks are life threatening. Dr. Gary Olhoeft, professor of Geophysics in Colorado, has a medical implant, a deep brain stimulator for Parkinson’s disease. Olhoeft shares his research and knowledge about wireless interference with implants.
In part two Dr. Ohloeft describes a situation where as he passed through a retail store security system his stimulator was turned off. He shares, “I had to turn myself back on. I have about four seconds to do that before I start shaking so bad I can’t do it.”
Special thanks to EMR Policy for these important videos. EMR Policy writes, “Translating the complex science and drawing upon personal experience of such interference with his own implant, Olhoeft’s information poses important policy questions on protecting the disabled from interference. ”
WHO’s Statement is a Game Changer
By Joshua Hart, Director StopSmartMeters.Org
June 2nd 2011
Make no mistake. The decision by the World Health Organization on Tuesday to classify non-ionizing radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” is an absolute game changer for our movement. This seemingly cautious statement by the world’s pre-eminent health organization should ring loud alarm bells around the world. Despite backroom industry influence and widespread conservatism, the slow-to-react beast was finally forced to act- as the walls of wireless damage closed in.
Wireless technology is something most of us have taken for granted for quite a while now. Someone said the other day, “I don’t even remember when they introduced cell phones. All of a sudden everyone was just using them.” Therein lies the crux. We just took the phone we were handed. We didn’t ask questions. We trusted that any authority that would allow this product to be sold would not do so without reasonable assurances of safety. It is now clear that that misplaced trust has been betrayed, and people are dying because of it.
The truth is that our government allowed (even promoted) a technology whose effects on biological living systems we really knew very little about. There’s capitalism for you. Life really isn’t that important. It’s all about the money. You are expendable. So- apparently- is the planet.
The WHO’s decision, and the large number of studies that led to it are suddenly opening up a whole new set of questions about how we use wireless- questions that people wouldn’t have dared to whisper- even last week.
Continue here:
http://stopsmartmeters.org/2011/06/02/whos-statement-is-a-game-changer/
SmartMeters: Who has the power?
By Howard Glasser
If you’re waiting for somebody else to do something about this, don’t hold your breath. Meanwhile we’re all being led like sheep to the slaughter while being portrayed by the industry that would commit genocide as a fringe group of misguided, uninformed, conspiracy theorist, tin hat lunatics that also believe in alien abductions. Smart Grid Industry trade publications say that “The proliferation of anti-SmartMeter citizen groups is a direct result of the lack of community outreach by the utilities in the smart meter rollout.” They add, “Utility companies need to make their case for SmartMeters to the public and they need to hone their PR skills.”
We’re being treated like uneducated idiots. Worse yet, we’re being ignored because this crime’s being committed in broad daylight while we watch and do nothing and PG&E and the CPUC are confident they’ve got local government’s hands tied and the ratepayers right where they want them in their pocket.
Now’s not the time to give up and lay down because they’re just getting started. This deal was made in back rooms and a long time before you knew about it and there’s a lot of catching up to do. It took a lot of time to plan something this big.
It involved the cooperation of utility companies and regulatory commissions and buy in from every level of government both here and abroad. It crossed party lines and international boundaries. An alliance was formed, stakeholders were rallied, meetings were held, an agenda was issued, lobbying groups were activated, campaigns financed, politicians elected, promises made, t’s crossed, votes cast, lips zipped, bills passed, capital raised, wheels put in motion, science bought, marketing commissioned, brochures printed and then one day as if it all happened overnight while we slumbered, global deployment was under way.
This isn’t a new story. In matters where government and business have a great deal of money at stake, they’re going to protect their investment and their interests will not necessarily be yours. If there’s enough money to be made, the entities that control world markets will stop at nothing to achieve their goals and if they’re caught doing wrong, the penalty is always worth the price.
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1854
Corporations aren’t in business to be nice. They exist to return a profit to their investors. None of this should come as a surprise. What isn’t about money these days? If it’s not about making money, it’s about lobbying money or laundering money or hush money or payoffs or bailouts or rip-offs or rate hikes. Without a financial incentive, industry doesn’t care and the policy makers won’t listen.
It’s not and never has been about getting government and corporations to respond for moral or ethical reasons or even because they’ve been backed in to a legal corner. It doesn’t matter what corner they’ve been backed in to, they have enough money to buy themselves out and enough political muscle to win.
SmartMeters are not about going green or conserving energy or reducing greenhouse gas emissions or saving polar bears. It’s about how our money finds its way in to a utility company’s pockets. The utility companies aren’t doing this for your health or for the environment.
This isn’t about Green Power but the power that’s wielded over a citizenry stripped of its rights and that the CPUC would see buried to meet industry deadlines and increase shareholder returns while leaving us in the rubble of PG&E’s twisted machinations. It is and always has been about the money. It’s about having enough money to turn big money into mega money because as anyone with great wealth can tell you, you can’t ever possibly have enough money.
This isn’t a game for amateurs and the players are not easily identified. It’s not like they’re wearing jerseys that say, I’m the quarterback. They’re well-protected. You could be standing right in front of them and not know it. You may have even voted for them. They have speech writers. They have people who run around after them with erasers when they falter. They have marketing agencies and makeup artists. They’re packaged and sold like commodities and even when they’re in plain sight, we’d never guess what they’re up to.
Forty-seven years ago, a voice stepped forth out of the crowd and uttered these words: “There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” Mario Savio, University of California at Berkeley, Dec. 2, 1964.
Who will step from the crowd now and lead us forward and who will stand with them? If you still believe in America and you want change, you’ll have to stand up for it and it’s going to take more than letters and a handful of people on the courthouse steps. It’s going to take numbers too big to ignore. Organize and mobilize or lose the chance to get back your country.
Howard Glasser, Kelseyville
Original article “Smart Meters: Who has the power ” was published in the Lake County Record Bee on 5/31/2011
Wireless devices-potential cancer risk says World Health Organization
Cell phones, cell towers, wi-fi, smart meters, DECT phones, cordless phones, baby monitors and other wireless devices all emit non ionizing radio frequencies, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has just classified as a potential carcinogen. This is big news from the WHO and governments and decision makers can no longer hide behind the “no RF health effects” industry mantra.
Cindy Sage, co-editor of the Bioinitiative Report writes, ” The WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer has just issued it’s decision that non-ionizing radiofrequency radiation is classified as a 2B (Possible) Carcinogen. This is the same category as DDT, lead, and engine exhaust. This mirrors the 2001 IARC finding that extremely low frequency (ELF-EMF) that classified as a 2B (Possible) Carcinogen. This pertained to power frequency (power line and appliance) non-ionizing radiation. These two findings confirm that non-ionizing radiation should be considered as a possible risk factor for cancers; and that new, biologically-based public safety standards are urgently needed. ”
IARC CLASSIFIES RADIOFREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS AS POSSIBLY CARCINOGENIC TO HUMANS
Lyon, France, May 31, 2011 ‐‐
“The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1, associated with wireless phone use.
Background
Over the last few years, there has been mounting concern about the possibility of adverse health effects resulting from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, such as those emitted by wireless communication devices. The number of mobile phone subscriptions is estimated at 5 billion globally.
From May 24–31 2011, a Working Group of 31 scientists from 14 countries has been meeting at IARC in Lyon, France, to assess the potential carcinogenic hazards from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. These assessments will be published as Volume 102 of the IARC Monographs, which will be the fifth volume in this series to focus on physical agents, after Volume 55 (Solar Radiation), Volume 75 and Volume 78 on ionizing radiation (X‐rays, gamma‐rays, neutrons, radio‐nuclides), and Volume 80 on non‐ionizing radiation (extremely low‐frequency electromagnetic fields).
The IARC Monograph Working Group discussed the possibility that these exposures might induce long‐term health effects, in particular an increased risk for cancer. This has relevance for public health, particularly for users of mobile phones, as the number of users is large and growing, particularly among young adults and children.
The IARC Monograph Working Group discussed and evaluated the available literature on the following exposure categories involving radiofrequency electromagnetic fields:
␣ occupational exposures to radar and to microwaves; ␣ environmental exposures associated with transmission of signals for radio, television and wireless telecommunication; and ␣ personal exposures associated with the use of wireless telephones.
International experts shared the complex task of tackling the exposure data, the studies of cancer in humans, the studies of cancer in experimental animals, and the mechanistic and other relevant data.
1 237 913 new cases of brain cancers (all types combined) occurred around the world in 2008 (gliomas represent 2/3 of these). Source: Globocan 2008
Results
The evidence was reviewed critically, and overall evaluated as being limited2 among users of wireless telephones for glioma and acoustic neuroma, and inadequate3 to draw conclusions for other types of cancers. The evidence from the occupational and environmental exposures mentioned above was similarly judged inadequate. The Working Group did not quantitate the risk; however, one study of past cell phone use (up to the year 2004), showed a 40% increased risk for gliomas in the highest category of heavy users (reported average: 30 minutes per day over a 10‐year period).
Conclusions
Dr Jonathan Samet (University of Southern California, USA), overall Chairman of the Working Group, indicated that “the evidence, while still accumulating, is strong enough to support a conclusion and the 2B classification. The conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk.”
“Given the potential consequences for public health of this classification and findings,” said IARC Director Christopher Wild, “it is important that additional research be conducted into the long‐ term, heavy use of mobile phones. Pending the availability of such information, it is important to take pragmatic measures to reduce exposure such as hands‐free devices or texting. ”
The Working Group considered hundreds of scientific articles; the complete list will be published in the Monograph. It is noteworthy to mention that several recent in‐press scientific articles4 resulting from the Interphone study were made available to the working group shortly before it was due to convene, reflecting their acceptance for publication at that time, and were included in the evaluation.
A concise report summarizing the main conclusions of the IARC Working Group and the evaluations of the carcinogenic hazard from radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (including the use of mobile telephones) will be published in The Lancet Oncology in its July 1 issue, and in a few days online.
2 ‘Limited evidence of carcinogenicity’: A positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer for which a causal interpretation is considered by the Working Group to be credible, but chance, bias or confounding could not be ruled out with reasonable confidence.
3 ‘Inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity’: The available studies are of insufficient quality, consistency or statistical power to permit a conclusion regarding the presence or absence of a causal association between exposure and cancer, or no data on cancer in humans are available.
4 a. ‘Acoustic neuroma risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case‐ control study’ (the Interphone Study Group, in Cancer Epidemiology, in press) b. ‘Estimation of RF energy absorbed in the brain from mobile phones in the Interphone study’ (Cardis et al., Occupational and Environmental Medicine, in press)
c. ‘Risk of brain tumours in relation to estimated RF dose from mobile phones – results from five Interphone countries’ (Cardis et al., Occupational and Environmental Medicine, in press) ”