Denial is a funny thing. If you had told me a year ago that wireless radiation can cause cancer or symptoms like headaches, nausea, dizziness, and tinnitus, I would have rolled my eyes and called you a tin foil hat loonie- like I did (believe it or not) a little more than a year ago outside the San Francisco Green Festival after a woman from the North Bay with an ironing board and some flyers warned me of the hazards of “smart” meters. I feel awful about that now after having read the thousands of peer-reviewed studies that have documented the health impacts associated with microwave radiation levels far below that of the “smart” meter (if you know who this woman is please let me know so I can apologize to her).
After meeting people like Winifred and the countless others who are being sickened in their own homes by wireless “smart” meters, I’m in disbelief about how certain I was that wireless was harmless. Yet this is an indication of how quickly the game is changing- if the Director of Stop Smart Meters! was calling people “tin foil hat crazies” a year ago and is now a leader in the campaign to halt the most serious wireless incursion into our communities in years, this is just one small indication that there is a major social change afoot. In other words, I am not alone.
I admit I made a mistake. It’s human after all. We often have world views that are based more on social norms and soundbites rather than solid research. In our society today most of us are in a deep collective denial that the massive fossil fuel bonfire- from our cars, planes, and power plants- is not leading to some horrendous future. We are in denial that the wireless world we’re hurtling headfirst toward will not have unpredictable and horrific health and human rights consequences down the road.
The things that seem so normal and mundane now- driving a car, flying in a plane, talking on a cell phone, having a wireless “smart” meter on your home- in a few years may very well lead to the permanent flooding of our major cities, unprecedented extreme weather events, and an epidemic of brain tumors. That is not just what I think, but what the best scientific evidence available today warns us about.
While the world’s weather goes haywire, corporate and governmental interests continue to take advantage of the crisis to push false solutions like “smart” meters, carbon offsets, geoengineering, and electric cars. The fiction that we can continue our behavior as normal is appealing, and is making a few people very very rich. But the cat is out of the bag- as today’s Chronicle reports, PG&E and other utility companies just love to charge you two, three, even four times for the same product- making you feel good about offsetting your carbon sins and doing little else- it’s as much a con today as indulgences were in the middle ages. And about as effective, as Greenpeace points out. And worse, it’s distracting us from the real solutions we desperately need to embrace, such as the re-localization of our lives and an end to capitalism.
We can choose to remain in denial- indeed it is a more comfortable place to be- or we can begin to confront these issues head on- and hopefully- have the strength to admit we were wrong. We must acknowledge that we have a serious problem and that a system change is required if we are to have a chance to create anything resembling a healthy, free, and sustainable future.
Josh, Maybe you should run for president of the United States, That might get Obama to listen.
For your openness and willingness to learn and defend the truth. Electrosensitives are the canaries in the ELF and RF radiation-filled mine who have been trying to get the word out for many years that there is something toxic about these emissions. We appreciate your efforts to find the facts and protect everyone from these kinds of exposures.