> Environmental and Health Concerns > Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) and Microwaves

The conquest of time and space began with the telegraph wires over 155 years ago. It had two important consequences: the world began to be electrified and human beings became capable of influencing faraway places with no time delay. Both of these have adversely affected life on earth. Both have been magnified enormously by the worldwide computer network.

Despite the fact that the computer network is an extremely useful tool, I oppose the use of the Internet to spread the emergency message of electromagnetic radiation and its [threat] to the global environment.

It makes no sense to me to fight cellular telephone systems with computer systems. I cannot support a system of communication which requires all participants to be irradiated at their terminals (by their computer screens) and which is inundating the radio airwaves with massive amounts of transmitted data. I also cannot support the erasing of this earth’s physical boundaries and the destruction of the ecosystems which must follow.

Oscillating circuits in microwave radiation have now become easy to produce and inexpensive to buy. It is so easy to broadcast and manipulate radio waves of any desired frequency that there is no place left to escape them. The global computer network makes it possible to coordinate immensely profitable wireless operations everywhere in the world at the same time. Since communication is as basic and necessary to human existence as water, there has been demand for radio waves since their discovery in the 19th century. Communication is now done by satellites.

Satellites cover the earth. The company Iridium completed its global coverage with several satellite launches during the spring of 1998. Orthcomm. went commercial on November 30, 1998 with a fleet of 28 satellites orbiting 500 miles up.

Globalstar tested its now complete satellite coverage of the earth in late July 1999–with 48 satellites in orbit by the end of that year. Motorola announced that it would continue to back Iridium and to guarantee satellite service to its customers. Angel Technologies has begun testing its high altitude aircraft which it plans to use to provide wireless internet service from 60,000 feet up in early 2000!

All of these broadcasts from space are interfering so much with radio astronomy that astronomers are calling for the international community to set aside radio-free zones, and to regulate satellites to blind their signals. We at the Cellular Phone Taskforce want astronomers to know that there are human beings out here to protect too! We are 100 percent behind them in the need to control the radio-pollution of space and establish radio-free zones for the health of the nations.

Arthur Firstenberg is editor of the journal No Place to Hide, a publication of the Cellular Phone Taskforce. For information phone 718-434-4499 or write PO Box 100404, Brooklyn, NY 11210.

Source: alive #209, March 2000