1) No time to go into the story but the CRD passed the motion to support Telus in improving cell service by bringing 5G to the Gulf Islands.
The Telus application is now in competition with funding for the Connected Coast.
Mention was made of the hundreds of letters they received in the past 36 hours – good job!
They don’t seem to understand that although 5G is not a replacement for Broadband Internet that is how it is being marketed and where technology is heading. (In the minds of those who supported this motion, there was no conflict between the fiber and the 5G cellular funding applications.)
A Successful Campaign Regardless of the Outcome
Thanks to all of you for being there, being awake and taking the time to share in this unexpected and frankly last minute campaign. I know we made an impact.
Please do not be discouraged by the outcome. Bit by bit awareness is growing. Remember, the CRD has simply agreed to write a letter supporting Telus’ funding application. Telus has not yet been granted the funds to install 5G on our islands.
Who to Thank
Here is a proper list of who we might write to thank for their support today. I suggest we keep it short, kind and gracious and save our 5G education for another letter : )
Of note – we were supported by 4 Mayors – David Screech, View Royal (Mayor); Barbara Desjardins, Esquimalt (Mayor); Ken Williams Highlands (Mayor) and John Ranns, Metchosin (Mayor)
plus Ben Isitt and Jeremy Loveday Victoria (Councillors) and Gary Holman of the Salt Spring Island Electoral Area.
Here are their email addresses:
mayorscreech@viewroyal.ca; barb.desjardins@esquimalt.ca; kwilliams@highlands.ca; jranns@metchosin.ca; bisitt@victoria.ca; jloveday@victoria.ca; ssidirector@crd.bc.ca;
Thank you for your support and know that this isn’t over.
Oona McOuat
And I thank you, too. Your response was amazing, and much appreciated.
2) Letter to Greta by Katie Singer about solar power and the problems that come with it.
Re-Evaluating Solar Photovoltaic Power — Considering the ecological impacts we aim to reduce
“My focus is not on quantifying whether solar is more or less harmful than other fuel sources. My point is that it does have ecological impacts. If we look at solar from its cradle-to-cradle, it’s not pure and clean, not carbon-neutral. It’s not zero-emitting. We do ourselves a disservice when we ignore its ecological impacts…and when we ignore that it’s not able to power industrial processes like smelting.
For the record, I am no fan of nuclear power. During routine operations, they leak electromagnetic radiation, and children nearby have higher rates of leukemia. Further, manufacturing all that cement generates equal or greater amounts of CO2. I advocate for substantial degrowth among those of us who have clean water, indoor plumbing, nutrient-dense food and basic electricity. Instead of manufacturing e-vehicles (for example), we need to quit the individually owned vehicle altogether. With solar power, are we aiming to continue current lifestyle levels? Can we recognize that solar power has ecological impacts, that it’s not a cure-all? Could we give attention to reducing production and consumption…or do we just rest with the idea that solar is our solution?”
https://www.ourweb.tech/letter-16/
3) Problems with 5G phones, batteries being drained and overheating, people not happy with the service (read the comments below this article. People being told to save power by using 2G which is not working in many places or being maintained in others.
(click on photos to enlarge)
Why Are Carriers Telling Us to Turn Off 5G?
Does 5G really offer so little that support staff think we might as well turn it off?
“When carriers are telling people to turn off 5G to save battery, there’s a problem, and it’s not just power drain….
Verizon started the ball rolling with an unfortunate, now-deleted tweet telling people to “turn on [4G] LTE” on their iPhones to conserve battery. On a recent iPhone, that means turning off 5G. T-Mobile’s sin appeared on a slew of device support pages, which suggest going down from 5G to 2G to preserve battery, which is really amusing. That will make your phone basically not work. T-Mobile has reduced its 2G network to an absolute minimum, mostly to support machine-to-machine devices like point-of-sale systems.”
https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/why-are-carriers-telling-us-to-turn-off-5g
Letters:
In response to a comment, within another group, that cellphones are the major issue re. EMF smog. I believe this is an excellent summary of the issues we face.
From: “Susan Foster” (name given with permission)
Sent: Saturday, March 6, 2021
X, you know the law as well as I do about federal, state, and local usurpation of land and the silencing of people who wish to object to cell towers because they are concerned about the health aspects of RF radiation. You have brought litigation at all levels to stop cell towers. So you know that our hands are tied when it comes to fighting cell towers. You know that in the United States and in most of the countries the “ROW” or right-of-way has been usurped for 5G small cells. This is not primarily because people are “forcing them [cell towers] on themselves”. This is because the new “black gold” is going to be data collected from our homes, schools, and places the business and sold to the highest bidder – algorithms will digest this data and sell it to companies that want to advertise to us.
Governments want a piece of the surveillance because telecom linked arms with the military decades ago to give them everything they think they need but don’t (& shouldn’t) have to have. We have lost our privacy and we are losing our health and we are not to blame but for the difficult-to-quantify percentage of shared blame that can legitimately fall to consumers. The telecommunications industry is predominately to blame.
This is an industry cultivating governments around the globe to implement nearly identical legislation silencing us on health concerns. This is an industry that sells governments on their products as being fundamentally necessary for purposes of war and purposes of surveillance. Right after 9/11 one of the first conferences with the new Department of Homeland Security was held in San Diego, California and was sponsored, in part, by Qualcomm. This is the most opportunistic industry in modern times.
People have been incentivized through advertising to think that they need the latest in communication but simultaneous with the introduction of newer smarter-better-phones has been the disappearance of other forms of communication. Try finding a payphone now. What about copper land lines we have paid to preserve through decades of taxes in our monthly landline bills, only to have that money diverted to build out the wireless infrastructure which we are powerless to stop.
Physiologically addictive features have been built into phones and into social media to keep people hooked on the technology. Doctors’ offices & hospitals were told they had to convert the latest and most technologically advanced wireless infrastructure within the hospital settings. Big tech has pushed Wi-Fi and tablets into the school setting by donating products to schools to addict another generation, and simultaneously removing from laptops the port that would allow students to use their laptops or tablets in a wired fashion. This is the same principle as tobacco companies giving free cigarettes to soldiers during World War II so they could relax amidst the stress of war. We all know what happened.
The vast majority of people I encountered who hear about the hazards of wireless from me for the first time are of the belief that the government would tell them if something were wrong with their laptop, their phone, Wi-Fi in their children’s schools, etc. I think every one of us has had similar experiences.
I’m not so sure about blaming the cell phone user for the presence of towers. I hear what you are saying, but I feel it’s a little bit like asking the victim of a violent attack how short her skirt was when she was walking down that dark street by herself. That cell phone is in billions of people’s hands because the telecommunications industry hired some of the best attorneys available on an international scale, handed out money liberally to lawmakers in multiple countries, got laws established that were beneficial to them and silenced us when it came to resisting towers based on health concerns, and they continued to nibble away at the remnants of resistance we can muster.
We need massive grassroots movements – and I think Dr. Magda Havas is on to something big with the concept of global RF measurements of the grassroots level. Concurrently, these local ordinances governing 5G are tremendously time-consuming but they are profoundly important because they are the last remnants of protection we have. 5G will be in our front yards without our resistance at this local government level. If you have an existing ordinance, it can be amended and you must find the attorneys who do this well and raise the money to hire them. Good people are needed to fight at every level. I know everyone is tired – every single one of us, but I am so grateful for this community of shared purpose and shared thinking and peaceful disagreements. Bless you all for everything you are doing.
Susan Foster
Sharon Noble, Director, Coalition to Stop Smart Meters
“A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.” Wade Boggs