Gam and I walked through this protest in Guyatt Park on the way to Toowong for grocery shopping on the weekend. We'd received several mailouts, including one from the local federal Liberal MP, Michael Johnson, urging people to come and protest against Telstra's plans to build a mobile phone tower.
Given the lack of consistent evidence for harm to peoples' health caused by mobile phone towers, and the fact that there are far more important issues affecting health and safety in the suburb (pedestrian safety along Carmody road, for instance), we simply threw the mailouts into the recycle bin.
When we walked through the park there were two large banners tied to the gazebo: one said something along the lines of "Stop the Cancer Cluster now!". We thought it was very funny, as the protest was just winding up, and we got stuck behind a group of 3 young men, one of whom lit up a cigarette as he left the park, and whose smoke we had to breathe until we could get upwind. He dropped the cigarette on the ground when he'd finished.
Also hilarious was the sheer number of cars parked along the streets- people had actually driven to Guyatt Park to protest. Given that Guyatt Park is no more than a 15-20 minute walk from any location in St Lucia, the car-lined streets emphasised what lazy bastards these protesters were. 5 minutes' walk from the park, we saw a BMW that had been parked in the close near the park drive slowly into the driveway of a posh block of riverside units!
What's annoying about these morons driving to the park to whinge about the Mobile Phone Tower of Doom is that they'd be whinging like little bitches if their coverage was patchy. Of course, it's not like they've all decided to stop using their phones in protest, or even in paranoia about the risk to their health. They still want to keep using their phones, they just want the tower to be located in a less wealth-eh suburb so it will be little Darren and Sharon at risk of a brain tumour rather than little Gertrude and Sebastien. And, as Gam said, most of them work in the City or Toowong, where there is a much greater density of mobile phone towers, yet they're not exactly up in arms about that.
While I can see why these people aren't protesting about things like hoons and pedestrian safety in St Lucia (because they all drive everywhere), if they're worried about 'cancer clusters' then why don't they get out and organise protests demanding that public smoking be banned? We've all got to breathe the same air. I suppose it's out of the question to demand measures to force drivers to reduce the number of unnecessary trips they make in order to cut greenhouse emissions and improve air quality in the city...? After all, these are things for which there is sound evidence pointing towards adverse public health effects. Why the total lack of interest in things that actually matter?
7 comments:
Also, these people are idiots.
If mobile phones do give us cancer, it's gonna be the phones, where shitloads of concentrated radiation are shooting straight into our heads because they're clamped to our ears, rather than the much more diffuse towers that cause it.
But it's easy to blame a tower, they're nice and tall, and they don't seem that convenient. Not like phones, which we use every day, and they're, you know, cool.
Yeah! Protest Telstra! Fight against their exploitation of their monopoly! Stand up to their violations of the Trade Practises Act! Demand the ACCC get the teeth it needs to finally chew into it!
Oh wait, they're just protesting a tower. Neat.
Hi,
If you'd actually bothered to stop and listen to the protest you may have heard some interesting information like
1) How Australian EMR 'safe' levels compared to other countries.
2) How the Australian EMR standards were drawn up, and how the CSIRO walked away because they thought the committee was heavily influenced by Industry. And that a previously health based standard had been increased to accommodate new telecommunications technology.
3) How people can choose to use their phones when they want and not be constantly exposed to EMR levels that would exceed the safe levels set in Switzerland.
4) How there was a call for the government to review the Australian standards, and to involve the CSIRO, so it is safe for ALL Australians.
Sigh.
Right... and the literature on this 'information' comes from where?
Priorities, priorities...
so kurt, we can assume that you've written a letter to telstra and optus explaining that you're cancelling your contract and throwing your mobile away so as not to support their insidious network of radiation towers?
you've also written to every radio station in qld to tell them you no longer listen to them and will be boycotting all their advertisers (it's all emr kurt)?
you also know that unless you turn your phone off it is constantly emitting in your pocket? not just that but every one else's mobile is emitting the same deadly rays all around you. hell, even the monitor you looked at to type this emitted plenty of rf right at you.
did you also know that most of the studies on rf exposure effects involve exposures of usually several watts for extended periods of time? literally microwaving the test tissue.
how about you come up with some scientific evidence, like the kind we have for smoking, living next to a multi-lane road, getting in your car on a hot day and using roundup in your garden?
I think the whole point is that there isn't enough substantive evidence that indicates - one way or the other - that emissions within the limits of the international standards cause negative health effects. The uncertainty of the international scientific community is enough for me to want to limit the amount of exposure I receive.
Please notice I said "limit", meaning that we all realise that there are many other sources of EMR around, we just don’t want another one right next door.
Also, to suggest, even sarcastically, a complete boycott of any service that produces such emissions shows how flippant and derisory your argument actually is.
Oh do go on... tell me where you'd like the tower necessary to maintain your coverage to go, then?
As for more substantial issues like public smoking and vehicle emissions, both of which pose demonstrable risks to public health, I'd like to know when you've got a protest planned against them- I'd love to go!
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