Stop Smart Meters! is two years old today!
“Has it really been that long?” we’re thinking. “Is that all?” one reporter from a local newspaper told us “It feels like you guys have been around for years.” Believe me we have no desire to be a fixture- all we want is to get back to our lives- after we deal with this ‘little’ problem on our hands. This assault on our health, our safety, and our civil liberties, packaged as some “green” technological advance.
Two years ago, in July 2010 a small group of neighbors in Scotts Valley, California founded Stop Smart Meters! after utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) came to our neighborhood unannounced to install a new “improved” kind of meter (we said- and still say- NO!) A little research led to a lot more, and we started investigating and exposing the lies, hypocrisy and arrogance of a utility industry deploying untested, inaccurate, and hazardous equipment throughout our communities. A locally based, grassroots rebellion has now spread from California across the country and around the world as utilities try to deploy the unwanted devices in what increasingly resembles a military operation, with some residents in Texas now being forced to respond to the utility company’s Gestapo-like tactics with extreme personal defense measures. Sometimes this all feels like some kind of horrific sci-fi thriller where devices forced on our homes by unresponsive utility and government officials are making people sick. Unfortunately, this is no fiction novel.
Who would have thought that something as banal as a utility meter would cause such a fuss? Yet for a growing movement of people around the world, the smart meter has become a symbol of how our system has gone wrong- technology becoming obnoxious, costly and intrusive- even painful, increasing pollution and energy use and making our public services more vulnerable and less robust. The smart grid is a dangerous bubble waiting to burst. And like all bubbles, there’s someone looking to make a killing, and someone left with the short end of the stick.
And yet on the positive side- in what must be a worrying sign for the 1%- the smart meter debacle has ended up uniting the political left and right in townhall meetings across the US- only months before a national election. It has sparked an evolving discussion about energy- and the role of- even the need for- increasingly authoritarian and unaccountable utility companies.
With your support, StopSmartMeters.Org is able to dedicate the time and resources to keep fighting this fight. It is unlikely that California would have won an analog meter opt out without our organizing efforts and demonstrations. We continue to fight against extortionate opt out fees. Our press releases and outreach were instrumental in getting the smart meter health issue covered on the PBS Newshour last week, where our Director Joshua Hart presented key scientific evidence of the health risks of pulsed microwave radiation. We do a lot in the public eye. We also work hard behind the scenes to put out truthful information to counter the lies of industry.
If you can support these efforts with even a small donation, you will help us print flyers, do research, reach out to the media, and help mobilize and defend our communities against dangerous utilities in denial about health damage and only too happy to stomp on our civil liberties with their next ‘advance.’
Thank you for being a part of Stop Smart Meters! By saying NO to the greedy utilities together, we’ve already won. It’s only a matter of time before their smart grid debacle collapses.
