March 3, 2021. Radio frequency radiation (RFR) is invisible. It has no smell or taste and you can’t feel it, so it is difficult to know when you are exposed and how high your exposures are. The government is not monitoring RFR and unless you have your own meter you do not know if levels in your immediate environment are elevated and possibly unhealthy. This needs to change, but how do you motivate a government that receives money from the wireless industry and that has no desire to seriously regulate this industry or to ensure that exposure levels are as low as possible?
Current Situation
Our attempts to connect with Health Canada have been futile. They simply won’t listen and they still provide inaccurate information on their website about RFR. Unfortunately, other health agencies at the provincial or municipal level are unwilling to challenge Health Canada. People in Canada and the Canadian environment are NOT protected against the increasing levels of RFR.
Canada is not unique. Other countries–U.S. and U.K., for example–have similar unprotective guidelines for RFR exposure. The legal challenge in the U.S. against the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) by Environmental Health Trust and the Childrens’ Health Defense has been initiated because the FCC, like Health Canada, has failed to update their inadequate guidelines. They continue to ignore the scientific evidence that documents cancers, reproductive problems (especially with sperm but also with childhood behaviour for mothers exposed to RFR during pregnancy), and various neurological, hormonal, immunological and cardiovascular reactions that contribute to Electromagnetic illness (EMI). Research documenting these effects dates back to well before the 1970s. We’ve known for more than 50 years that this radiation can be harmful … yet NOTHING has been done to control emissions. Indeed, it is full speed ahead with this insane wish to be the first with 5G technology. We have a serious disconnect between IT experts and health researchers about how our exposure to RFR should be managed.
Unfortunately, when it comes to environmental contaminants–like DDT, PCBs, asbestos, tobacco, lead, mercury–the science preceeds policy by 3 to 5 decades! It has been well over 50 years that we have known RF to be a problem so solutions and improved policy are long overdue.
What can we do about this?
I have an idea but it will take the help of hundreds of people around the world participating to make this successful. Here is what I suggest we do collectively.
We now have a large population that is aware of the health effects of RFR. We also have accurate and relatively inexpensive meters that measure RFR. One of those meters is called the Safe and Sound Pro II RF Meter available at Safe Living Technologies. This meter provides average, peak and maximum values and is easy to use. Cost is about $500 Canadian. For people volunteering to help with this research, Safe Living Tehcnologies is providing a discount. You may contact me for the discount code should you wish to participate in this project.
It is time for Community-Based Research and Citizen Scientists to get involved and to volunteer to do monitoring in their area and to share this information with others. The first project I would like to propose is, “Can you BRAG about your city?”
NOTE: The concept of citizen scientist is not new and citizens have been helping professional scientists for a long time. Some of the principles of citizen science are provided here.
This project entails measuring RF along the main street in the city centre at intersections (so the measurements can be repeated in the same locations). We will provide volunteers with the protocol for how the monitoring should be done and how the data need to be recorded. The aim here is to make the monitoring as easy as possible in the shortest possible time. Total participation time for this project is about 2 hours and that includes measurments and data submission.
How valid is something like this?
There are many examples where citizens helped scientists with their research. I would like to share just 2 examples here.
Long-Distance Transport of Air Pollutants: Prior to my research with electrosmog I was involved in acid rain research. In the early 1970s scientists were debating the long-distance transport of air pollutants. How far do different air pollutants travel? Sweden and Norway were complaining that most of their acid rain orginated in the UK, which UK scientists denied. Coincidentally, a teacher at a school in the UK did a project. He had his students release helium-filled balloons with a message inside. The message asked the person who found the balloon (after it had deflated) to call the phone number (before internet) and indicate where they found the balloon. This allowed the students to determine where and how far these balloons traveled. Some of the balloons were picked up in Sweden and the scientific debate about air pollutants travelling from UK to Sweden was resolved in a most unorthodox fashion.
Nutrient Loading of Lakes in Ontario: Ontario has a lot of pristine lakes and many of these lakes have cottages within their watershed. The Ministry of the Environment is responsible for monitoring these lakes and testing for eutrophication or nutrient enrichment, which often results in algal blooms and reduced transparency of the water column. Ministry scientists enlisted the help of cottagers and asked them to determine the transparency of their lake using a secchi disc (a black and white plate that is lowered into the water column until it disappears and that distance from top of the water to the disappearance of the secchi disc is a measure of transparency). At the end of each season the Ministry would report the findings to the cottagers. What was expected is that over time more nutrients would be added to the lake resulting in algal blooms and a decrease in transparency. What they found instead is that the lakes were getting clearer and transparency was increasing. It turns out that these lakes were acidifying, which leads to reduced lake productivity and clearer water. Ministry scientists would not have been able to get this information without the help of cottagers.
There is real value to this type of research.
Sharing the information is critical and we can produce maps (colour-coded for RF exposures). That is where BRAG comes in. “BRAG“ stands for different colours: Black, Red, Amber and Green and is based on the school BRAG study I did with my university students. Using these four colours it is easy to see where there are hot spots and where levels are low. If your downtown city core is green (low RFR) then you can BRAG about your city! By measuring at city intersections, the same locations can be remeasured over time for temporal trends and these can be diurnal (over a 24 hour period) trends, seasonal trends or changes as additonal wireless radiation is introduced. There is also an educational value and a raising awareness value to this type of project.
So … if you would like to volunteer to measure the RFR in one or more cities near you, please send me an email with “Global RF Monitoring Project” in the subject heading. We would like to start monitoring by April 2021 and are asking people to respond as volunteers by March 5th, 2021 if possible. However, if you read this post after March 5th and would like to participate, please contact me because I believe we will be doing different projects for quite some time.
All I need to know is the following:
- Do you have (or can you borrow) the Safe and Sound Pro II RF meter?
- City that you are willing to measure. Please provide country (province/state) as well.
- Amount of time you are willing to spend volunteering? 2 hours, more than 2 hours as your time permits on projects of your choice.
Please contact me at [email protected] if you would like to participate in this or subsequent community-based projects. See the results from existing monitoring at: globalEMF.net.
I look forward to hearing from you.