Get The Facts - Electro-Pollution

GET THE FACTS ELECTRO-POLLUTION

Building healthy homes begins with maximizing the use of natural unadulterated building materials, keeping their chemical load low when finishing, and designing for healthy indoor air quality. I talk about these topics in previous sections. Building healthy requires much more though, including all the factors that define my healthy homes as given in my Quality Standards. One of those—mitigating Electro-pollution—is so important that it merits its own Flip-page magazine on this web site. As I have pursued the idea of building healthy over the past 16 years, and as I have more critically considered what exactly makes a home healthy, I am now convinced more than ever that the most important component to a healthy home is the mitigation of electromagnetic radiation, or as some call it ‘electro-pollution.’ Most builders and those working within the field of Building Science dismiss this notion—or frankly aren’t aware of recent scientific research that unequivocally shows the biological effects electromagnetic radiation is having on human and environmental health. In my own development work, I strive to bring electromagnetic fields down to “ALARA levels”— that is “As Low As Reasonably Achievable”—and hope to become the standard against which other Chicago-builders measure their work. What makes me so adamant that electro-pollution is our biggest impediment to building truly healthy homes? Because I have studied Building Biology and met dozens of people who suffer the ill effects that often accompany Electromagnetic Sensitivity; because I have a fireman wife whose EMF exposure on the job is high, and sure enough, is beginning to experience many of the same symptoms; and because COVID and its aftermath has made us collectively—or at least me personally—suspicious of Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Government, Big ANYTHING. In that light, many are beginning to question the motives of the body that regulates our electromagnetic spectrum—the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—a group Harvard University has called the “most captured regulatory agency” in Washington. The FCC has no expertise in public health, regularly seems to put the interests of Big Telecom above those of the public interest, and is a group that the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in August 2021 was “arbitrary and capricious” in its recent decision to retain their 1996 safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation. In addition, the court held that the FCC failed to respond to “record evidence that exposure to RF [Radio frequency] radiation at levels below the Commission’s current limits may cause negative health effects unrelated to cancer” and the agency demonstrated “a complete failure to respond to comments concerning environmental harm caused by RF radiation.”

As Facebook points out in its current multi-media marketing campaign urging an update to Internet regulations, “A lot has changed in the last 25 years.” The ad I link to—along with the many produced for this campaign—provides startling visual chronological evidence of how much more electro-polluted our environment is today than back in 1996 . It makes a compelling case for why humans are more vulnerable than ever to electro-pollution and gives credibility to the idea that our epidemic of chronic “lifestyle” diseases is due to the dramatic increase in electromagnetic radiation, and begs for greater public awareness and updated safety guidelines. After decades of research, we know much more exactly how electro-pollution induces biological stress on the body and in so doing, compromises normal physiology and intercellular communications. For the geeks among us, Dr. Martin Pall digs deep into the science in his ground-breaking research work and Dr. Neil Nathan offers various protocols for diagnosing and treating those with chronic toxicity or sensitivity triggered by environmental factors like electro pollution. Specifically, research shows that when the body is exposed to electromagnetic fields—especially over prolonged periods of time—cell function deteriorates, blood brain barriers are compromised, cell membranes harden, free radical damage occurs, nutrients cannot enter the cell and toxins cannot be excreted. Moreover, emerging science shows that the most damaging electromagnetic fields are not necessarily those with the greatest power and frequency, but instead are the information carrying microwaves that use various frequencies to convey various types of specific information, e.g. voice, text, graphics, etc. and which we generally recognize as ‘wireless’. These frequencies never existed before in nature and hence the body views these unknown frequencies as ‘foreign invaders’ causing our cells to go into protective lockdown mode. This explains why even small doses of low-power frequencies (especially if incurred over sustained periods without breaks) can cause great biological harm in some individuals. Several studies have shown the harmful effects electromagnetic radiation has on the immune and nervous system, on learning, and on moods and behavioral patterns. Numerous more show that electromagnetic radiation affects both sperm health and prenatal fetal health. I remind readers of a terrific pamphlet available from BabySafeProject.org that discusses the latter. EFFECTS OF ELECTRO-POLLUTION

OUR BODY ELECTRIC

All these effects are not surprising when one realizes that the human body uses electric currents to regulate itself. Electricity is required for the nervous system to send signals throughout the body and to the brain, making it possible for us to move, think and feel. In order for the heart to pump, cells must generate electrical currents that allow the heart muscle to contract at the right

time and in precise intervals. Doctors observe these electrical pulses in the heart using an electrocardiogram, or ECG, and death is officially recognized when electrical activity has ceased in the heart and the brain. Books like the classic The Body Electric (Becker) and Healing is Voltage (Tennant) make clear that our bodies are more than a series of chemical reactions, they do indeed require electricity and voltage to both regulate and heal . We measure voltage in our bodies by measuring our “potential hydrogen,” abbreviated as we learned in high school chemistry as “pH”, a scale from 0-14 that measures how acidic or basic a substance is—less than 7 is considered acidic, more than 7 is basic (aka alkaline), and a reading of exactly 7 is neutral. Our body’s cells operate optimally between a pH of 7.35 and 7.45—a slightly alkaline state that corresponds to the negative voltage our bodies need to build new cells and heal. You may have heard it said “all disease occurs when you are acidic” or the expression (and title of one of my favorite books by Baroody), “alkalize or die.” Both are saying the same thing…….if the body is not alkaline enough it will not have the electrons available or the voltage required to do the work the body needs to build new cells, repair itself, and heal. Artificial electromagnetic radiation like that which we experience from cell phones and wireless devices disrupts our body’s pH balance, depletes our body voltage, and leaves us prone to poor health and disease. The biological impacts of our electro-pollution is not limited to humans however. Researchers are finding biological effects on vegetation, animals, microbes, and insects. In one comprehensive 2013 review of the literature which included information collected from 113 studies published in original peer-reviewed publications, the effects of EMFs on different biological groups were investigated and found electromagnetic radiation caused an effect in about 50% of the animal studies and about 90% of the plant studies. The plant studies, especially those involving trees, are quite telling as researchers like to note that trees have several advantages over animals as experimental subjects (e.g., trees are stationary and can be easily monitored for long-term exposure; they typically have uneven exposure to EMFs allowing analysis based on degree of exposure, etc.) EFFECTS NOT LIMITED TO HUMANS

In one 2016 study conducted in Germany over a ten-year period, observations and photographic evidence of unusual or unexplainable tree damage were taken in two cities, alongside the measurement of electromagnetic radiation. The measurements of all trees revealed significant differences between the damaged side facing a cell phone transmitter and the opposite side, as well as differences between the exposed side of damaged trees compared to all other groups of trees in the vicinity. Finally, it should be noted that multiple research studies have shown EMFs affect living organisms as diverse as honeybees to ants to sparrows to fruit flies. Our wireless devices use LOTS of energy. if you are concerned about greenhouse gases and carbon emissions, you should be against wireless. An Atlantic article headlined: Cell Networks Are Energy Hogs sort of says it all. But go ahead and keep Googling to see if you can find more evidence to buttress the assertion made in that Atlantic headline. On the first page of search results following the query ‘Wireless uses too much energy?’, I found these articles in this order: WIRELESS USES LOTS MORE ENERGY

Wireless Charging is a Disaster Waiting to Happen / Debugger How Wi-Fi Drains Your Cell Phone / MIT Technology Wireless Charging: A Colossal Waste of Energy / Resilience.org, and The Spiraling Energy Consumption Behind your Smart Phone/ The Guardian

There is an energy-efficient alternative to Wi-Fi and it is called fiber-optics. It uses significantly less energy and it is orders of magnitude faster. It is more reliable and way more secure. The City of Chattanooga began investing in a fiber-optic network ten years ago-- an investment that has seen $2.69 billion in economic benefits and accounts for 40 percent of all jobs created in the region since first being deployed. My healthy homes will be entirely networked with hard-wired connections and be designed to accommodate a hard-wire connection in every room in the house. When a wireless signal is called for, I have specified a special router in my homes that uses one-tenth the energy and will turn itself on and then turn itself off until another device signals the need for a connection.

INSURERS WON’T INSURE

If wireless radiation is so safe, why won’t major insurers cover it in their policies?

Lloyds of London and other major insurers explicitly exclude coverage for any claims for Wi-Fi related illness ( Principia Scientific International , Feb 12, 2019). Lloyd’s internal Risk Assessment Team compares wireless technologies with asbestos (Emphasis mine) in that the early research on asbestos was “inconclusive” and only later was it conclusively shown that asbestos causes cancer.

5G IS WAY WORSE

Or at least we think so since it represents an overlap of an entirely new, never-before-tested , beam forming millimeter wave technology overlain onto the current 4G network. Graphically, it looks like this with the wide blue lines representing our omnipresent 4G signal and the red beam representing the 5G signal that operates in tandem whenever a 5G phone calls for a signal:

The roll-out of 5G will be particularly insidious and potentially harmful to human health. The technology is based on much shorter wavelengths of microwave technology that have never been tested on humans before. These waves are pulsed, travel only short distances, are much more directional, and more easily obstructed by buildings and trees and even rain and fog. They therefore require the installation of a vastly greater number of transmitting devices installed much closer to our homes to function properly.

The days of us living a quarter-to a half-mile away from the nearest cell phone tower will be gone with the implementation of 5G. Instead, new transmitters will be added to the existing network of towers atop street lights and alley utility poles (or even private property) spaced approximately 200-250 feet apart, beaming their signals much more directly onto the sidewalks where we walk our dogs and our children ride their bikes and into the bedrooms where we sleep and the body does its best to rejuvenate and recuperate. (See this 5-minute video as an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61h_vuBujw0) Finally, it should be noted that some governing units have put moratoriums on 5G deployment until their safety is more completely understood. Brussels environment minister notoriously exclaimed back in April 2019, “I cannot welcome such technology if the radiation standards, which must protect the citizen, are not respected. The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt .” In my opinion no home is truly healthy unless it is built with safeguards to protect occupants from electro-pollution. As I hope this section shows, its health effects are myriad and real. While no home in our electro-polluted environment can completely protect its occupants, it can be designed in a way that minimizes occupant’s exposure to electromagnetic radiation and give’s one’s body time to rejuvenate each night. My homes start from that premise but ultimately rely on occupants to practice good electro pollution hygiene and live a wired life as much as possible to maintain optimal health.