— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Apparently a bunch of idiots are protesting putting a cellphone tower at 16th and Dolores claiming that “they are concerned about the potential long-term health risks from electromagnetic waves.” Of course, the article goes ahead and points out that there is “no scientific consensus that cell towers can cause negative health effects.”
Sigh.
If you ever thing the neighborhood is being overrun by Silicon-valley nerds, think again.
Comments (18)
There’s also no scientific consensus that climate change will have a negative impact on human civilization. Just sayin’
I can’t even begin.
and vaccines cause autism…
all snark aside i recently learned that one of the leading proponents of the cell phones = brain tumor and horrible death lives in Berkeley. Lloyd Morgan. he is not crazy at all.
There’s no scientific evidence PERIOD that this would harm anyone.
Couldn’t these people have the decency to protest wars or something?
But it’s vitally important for me to be able to twitter about the fact that I just checked into Dolores Park on foursquare! Otherwise I get hives! HIVES, DAMMIT.
churches are being encouraged to get these things because they generate cash for the church. my old church in burlingame got one, but somehow in the process of putting it in, destroyed the church’s organ, so the telcom had to buy ‘em a new one!
I think every developed country with high rates of cellphone use except the US is actively investigating the potential link between cellphones and brain cancer…just saying.
Apparently firefighters (generally a whiny group) have also had some complaints about this:
“In August, the International Association of Firefighters voted for a moratorium on placing cell towers at fire stations until a study of health impacts can be done. This action came on the heels of a pilot study that found neurological changes in six firefighters living and working near cell towers for several years.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57511-2004Nov17.html
This is a travesty. Without cell phones in the park how the hell are we supposed to find out where our friends are sitting? Careful planning and coordination? Fuck that
75% of industry-funded studies find no biological affect from cell phone… but 70% of independent studies have found affects… if you don’t think this is an issue that needs to be examined before sarcastically writing it off… please explain your reasoning.
Unless you’re Randall from xkcd, I think you might need a quick lesson in “affect” v. “effect”.
Also, perhaps you’d care to cite your sources on that little industry v. non-industry study tidbit? Because the ACS, the WHO, and the FDA all call shenanigans. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_1_3X_Cellular_Phone_Towers…
And I bet they all have cell phones.
I’d be a little more worried about the radio BESIDE MY HEAD than the radio 200 feet in the air. Inverse square rule, bitches.
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/cellpcs.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/cellphone-radiation-testing/
That sign that lady is holding is made from plastic and that is currently a major source of pollution in our oceans and on land. Plastic (PVC/vinyl) production also results in contamination of drinking water, and has definite environmental impact. This is the problem with protesting things like cell towers: it is nuts relative to all the other shit we are doing in our lives. So here’s my list of recommendations before printing one of those signs:
+ Ride a bike instead of driving (less air pollution = healthier lungs for your kids)
+ Take canvas bags to go shopping (less plastic = less garbage)
+ Drink tap water (see the study on the crap in plastic bottles, and what it is doing to you as it builds up over time - http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/28/water-bottles-health.html)
+ Don’t talk on a cell phone w/o hands-free (yup as said above inverse-square: you have a transmitter next to your brain at zero distance)
Now that you’ve done the above you’ve significantly improved your own health, the health of your children and the health of the planet. Thank you for not wasting resources on meaningless sign making.
You know what I heard? Being alive causes cancer! That’s right, people, humans GET CANCER! Isn’t that fucked up?
Bottom line? Living is a risk. Living in a city is a risk. Living in a densely populated city is A RISK. I bet, if these people have children (obviously they do) they’d be pretty devastated if their child was in some sort of compromising situation and the only thing holding the kid back from being rescued was a god damn cell phone signal, we can all assume they’d be putting the damn tower up themselves…
johnny0 nails it. You get far more radiation using a cell phone that has to communicate with a cell site further away than you do from a cell site that’s near you. Plus, these infill cell sites are power limited so they don’t interfere with adjacent sites.
The more cell sites you have, the more power each site puts out, and the lower the overall RF radiation levels are.
PS- Your microwave oven leaks more radiation that that cell site 100 feet away from you does. And I really hope you don’t use an electric blanket… you’re sleeping under a high current low-frequency RF radiator.
I love how people in support of cell phone towers always use verbally abusive labels and profanity when promoting their radiation towers. Radiation is bad, and yes being alive around these things causes cancer faster. My argument is radiation is bad, these things definitely cause radiation, but feel free to take the other side of my argument. My position is, radiation is bad, and zero radiation is healthiest, Im a health person.
BROS NO ONE IN THIS THREAD KNOWS HOW RADIO, RADIATION OR CELL PHONES WORK.
Here is a what the EMR Policy Institute is reporting. In part 2, the man makes a very valid point when he states he is simply a volunteer. The truth can be found when money does not play a factor. This is called Cell Phone Tower Radiation Pollution, its a series. It gets into the very specifics about policy, scientific effects of tower radiation, and breaks it down in a very simple, easy to understand, scientific manner that details exactly how cell phone tower radiation effects us biologically.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M43AWNFq8Xs
BRO YOU SHOULD TAKE SOME COURSES IN RADIO TELEPHONY. ACTUALLY HERE IS A HELPFUL LINK THAT SHOULD EXPLAIN EVERYTHING TO YOU.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ