“Independent” “Smart” Meter Proponent on PG&E Payroll; Company Failed to Disclose Financial Ties


Mahlon Aldridge works for Ecology Action in Santa Cruz, and makes a six digit salary from PG&E contracts, disclosures that would have been relevant on this PG&E funded circular- one might have thought he was just a “Santa Cruz resident”  Funny no mention of the World Health Organization.

When we received the new publication, “SmartRead” in our Santa Cruz mountains mailbox last month, courtesy of our friendly local utility, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), we wondered who these “Santa Cruz residents” actually were.  Nearly everyone we’ve spoken with says things like, “I’ve had a headache since they installed that thing” or “I’m really worried about my 2 year old- her bed’s on the other side of the wall from the meter.” or “I don’t want to get cancer.”

We wondered aloud whether PG&E actually stooped to the level of paying these people to appear in their propaganda.

Well, it turns out we were right.

An internet search reveals that Mahlon Aldridge, who said “Smart Meters are essential to achieving a sustainable energy future” is Vice President for Strategic Development with Ecology Action, a corporate environmental organization in Santa Cruz County.

Hmmm….this is beginning to sound familiar.

Ecology Action has a lucrative contract with PG&E that pays Mahlon’s cushy six (not three) digit salary.  It’s no wonder Mahlon is willing to put his reputation behind a very unpopular device.  When Wendy Sarsfield- Government Relations Manager for PG&E called him to ask him a favor and feed him a quote, he didn’t say no.  Paying off local non-profit groups so they will support the company’s position is nothing new to PG&E.

We showed up at the Ecology Action office for their recent “Energy Upgrade” marketing event with PG&E to ask Mahlon some questions about why an environmental organization was promoting an ecological toxin- he agreed to a video interview and here is the entirety of that interview:

We’re sorry that Mahlon has chosen not to find the time to meet the victims of the false techno solution he’s promoting- the electrosensitive people, the plants, the bats or the bees.   As Upton Sinclair once said:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it…”

This entry was posted in Bees, Carbon Offsets, Citizen rebellion, Democracy, Environmental Concerns, interference, PG&E, Plant damage, Privacy, Santa Cruz County, World Health Organization. Bookmark the permalink.

8 Responses to “Independent” “Smart” Meter Proponent on PG&E Payroll; Company Failed to Disclose Financial Ties

  1. Liberty Eagle says:

    So Mahlon says that the economics of Smart Meters will push us into re-newables. Translation: when people cannot afford to buy Electricity, Gas & Water energy ( things essential to sustain life) this will push people into living off the grid or living like an Indian,( if they don’t die first from not being able to afford water). So Mahlon says that we should all become energy “self-sufficient,” then why would we even need a power company? “The Data is essential?” Translation: The data is essential for selling to the highest bidder for $$$$$.

  2. Coral Brune says:

    Very key points you’re making Josh

    Redefining WHAT IS clean energy is!! worth maintaining contact with these ecology people so as to not have them weaponize against our efforts ..BUT..

    Not seeing the forest for the trees. These guys need and we all do to deeply evaluate our fears, the laws, the laws of nature, and free speech, and well the health risks in the future- a lot of liabilities from environmental effects by the energy giants- so the truth is in what are the HEALTH EFFECTS! What are the Safety effects! What is proof of them! Whose word is over shadowing the other! All of the health based organizations need to combine their focus so that the money and energy and jurisdictions cannot prevail.
    What is becoming of the environmental attorney relationship? Why is buying energy key to them? What the hell is clean energy and dirty money!

  3. Chris Kaster says:

    Josh, (assuming that is you in the video doing the questioning?),

    I support more investigation into Smart Meters, I am currently opposed to them, and I have refused installation of mine. In part, because of the information I’ve been able to glean via your posts. With that said, to give you context where my current stance and investment on the issue is?…I have to say that I found the tactics you used in this article and video distasteful.

    -You patronize the guy; cutting him off on several occasions and giving “yeah sure” answers in midstream. This implies to me that you aren’t really listening and you already have your response ready before you’ve heard him out.

    -You try to paint him as a shill, and point to his “cushy” salary as evidence that he’s bought and paid for by PGE. I’m curious if you had any problem with his work, reputation, or salary prior to his endorsement of PGE? Are you suggesting he was hired specifically to promote Smart Meters and nothing else? If so, say that. If not, then I think the cause-and-effect comparison you’re attempting to draw is sketchy.

    -Your attempt to block him from leaving the room; that’s just creepy.

    So, in conclusion? I think you had him dead to rights on the facts alone, and would been more effective if you’d have avoided what I consider repugnant tactics. Alluding to guilt, leading questions, etc…that’s weak stuff that I’d like to think can be avoided by both sides. It only serves to escalate tension, reduce civil discourse, and made you come across looking like a stooge.

    Keep up the good fight, but fight it in a respectful manner that doesn’t stoop to cheap tactics.

    • Thanks for the feedback Chris. I hear what you are saying, but let me respond with the following:

      -I felt that on the whole we were fair and let the man have his say. We’re familiar with his arguments, which are parroted from the PG&E script. At the end of the day, it was clear he didn’t do his homework about the issue and came out publicly on one side of a controversy he didn’t really understand. Even when confronted with evidence that the meters are doing ecological harm, he refused to examine that evidence.

      -I’m saying that PG&E failed to disclose financial ties with their main “Santa Cruz resident” on their flyer. That was unethical and deceptive and abusive of the public trust. Ecology Action and other corporate environmental groups should be ashamed to take so much money from PG&E, and act as their shill to defend programs that hurt ecological systems.

      -I thought it was creepy that he just decided to take off in the middle of an interview without saying anything. Perhaps it was a bit much to block him leaving the room, but I was just waiting for an explanation of what he was doing. besides. what’s worse? peacefully standing in front of some guy, or abusing your position, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fairly evil corporation and greenwashing their destructive practices, while helping to cover up the evils of a device that is forcefully evicting electrosensitive people from their homes and bees from their hives. That is violent and reprehensible. Our peaceful actions are certainly in your face and sometimes confrontational, but never violent.

      But thank you for your honest feedback- we appreciate it.

      • Chris Kaster says:

        Appreciate your civil reply in return.

        I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on the nuances of intensity and whether he was allowing to be heard or if he was cut off repeatedly.

        But no matter, I respect your right to do it in your own style, and I agree with the basic premise on Smart Meters. I will however continue to disagree with the tactic of trying to discredit this individual or Ecology Action as a whole based upon their involvement in this single issue. They have been around a long time, and done some good work, imo. And a quick scan of this guys bio at E.A. shows me that he’s been there a decade or so, involved in their work.

        So agree with him on this issue or not, I decline to participate in, and feel it’s unproductive to try to polarize the issue. Implying that he, a singular person, is soley beholden to PGE, and inferring that their hundreds of thousands of dollars of support to E.A. is somehow his sole means of funding or his sole purpose in being involved with E.A., is in my opinion an unfair representation of the man.

        And, I fear it risks being such a….subjective portrayal of him, and such an aggressive attack?….that it might cause some on the fence in this issue to question whether all of the anti-smart meter information and viewpoint is equally subjective or a mixed cocktail of fact and conjure.

        Me, I’ll be keepin it stupid regardless; no smarts for me thanks. But if the point is to convince those still on the fence or the other side? Keep it civil too, and win more converts accordingly.

  4. Mia Nony says:

    We have been had, people.
    This is the dead opposite of green in every possible way.
    This is where the corporate rubber meets the human road. The more environmental you are the more you should stop this.

    “Smart” grids & “smart” meters are totally non sustainable & fail on all 3 counts of the triple bottom line.

    The “smart grid” & its spawn, smart meters, aggregators, & collectors, use multiple frequencies which override the planet’s entire geomagnetic integrity. Smart meters are a blind fool’s fantasy, nothing less than a clear & present enviro threat to the continuance of life on earth.
    The “smart” grid is all enveloping. It represents the presenting symptom of everything which is dead wrong with fatally green washed deadly enviro deception.
    The “smart grid” is a P3 corporate scam which effectively privatizes the entire global Commons & usurps all global air space via EMF cybersmog pollution generated @ an unprecedented level.
    Meters, aggregators & collectors are illegal according to Health Canada’s own Safety Code Six pages 1 to 9.
    Health Canada is guilty of criminal negligence.
    “Smart” is quickly turning out to be beyond even Fukushima stupidity, to the point this corporate takeover of our lives is risking precipitation of mass extinction of species from ubiquitous EMFs which use frequency conflict to cause thermal heat effect on ALL biological tissue – in humans in under 6 minutes.
    There IS no “mystery” to “colony collapse disorder”.
    EMFs kill pollinators, bats, birds, everything which navigates.
    EMFs destroy magnetite in the brains of all navigational creatures.
    EMFs rapid heat damage can be made visible by use of specialized thermography.
    EMFs are the single most pervasive pollutant wrought by the digital age. “Smart” grid & meters are the worst possible all encompassing embodiment of EMF pollution’s pervasiveness.
    “Smart” meters are not only turning out to be a cybersmog mesh network drift net of all airspace but a silently unfolding environmental travesty. The “smart grid” is already proving to be a slow motion eco-disater in the making.
    Smart girds are a product of military weaponry. The difference is this.
    We are totally uninsulated from these conflicting frequencies and they are silent killers.
    We only have skin.
    We do not have any microwave protective gear.
    We are the target.
    Just ask this guy who gave expert witness testimony to Health Canada via Canadian Parliament on exactly this:
    http://www.thermoguy.com
    Ask a Canadian biological professor
    magdahavas.com
    Smart meters constitute nothing less than the weaponization of our lives
    It’s US or THEM.
    And unless we can change the law to protect us instead of them, we are hooped.

  5. XYZ says:

    If someone is verbally dynamic feel free to write a little something about Mahlon Aldridge on the website http://www.ripoffreport.com any future employers may like to read about someone they might be thinking about hiring.

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