Most of the people who know me today will find it hard to believe that I was an early adopter of mobile technology. I had a mobile phone in the mid 90’s when they first became popular in Japan, albeit with VERY intermittent reception. I was working at one of the most globally recognized mobile communications companies when the early Blackberry was being tested … and was continuously told how safe the technology was based on a vast body of research.
I have seen first-hand how mobile connectivity can uplift communities when I visited rural Kenya and Uganda to interview ordinary people and find out how the first mobile money transfer services had changed their lives.
But I am also aware that the explosion in connectivity and the obsessive race to go wireless, cashless, smart … comes at a hidden cost. When I first encountered the controversy surrounding the detrimental health effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from smart meters, I was already aware of how frequencies can affect the human body and still I wasn’t really ready to explore the subject matter, lest I encounter some inconvenient truths.
However, the subject became harder and harder to ignore, as it started to emerge as a topic of concern at various trainings I went to, in newsletters I read, on online conferences … and then I started to suspect that it was affecting people around me. Still hesitant to accept that I might personally be affected by ‘electro smog’, I decided to do an experiment – I found a rare nook in the UK with no smart meters, limited mobile reception and no Wifi at a seminar where those around me where happy to ditch their mobile phones for a full 5 days.
Cringing at the thought of the upheaval this could mean in my life and the ridicule I might have to endure if I decided that this topic was worth championing, I had to admit that my energy levels were great and my mind was incredibly clear during my 5 day enforced ‘EMF Detox’. Upon returning home, the change was remarkable, as all gains were lost. I desperately wanted to chalk my noticeable drop in vitality up to ‘jetlag’ or ‘climate’, but my curiosity had been peaked, so I counted the number of wifi signals I could pick up in my bedroom and was horrified when it was 60+ in the day and 30+ at night.
Absolutely paranoid at this point, I started looking up the research and was astonished to find the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) had classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (including the environmental exposures associated with transmission of signals for radio, television and wireless telecommunication; and personal exposures associated with the use of wireless telephone) as “possibly carcinogenic (cancer promoting) to humans” in 2011, calling urgently for more research. Happily it appears that more research is being done and one very informative repository for some of the science and changes in policy towards wireless is the Environmental Health Trust https://ehtrust.org/about. I have since listened to podcasts, TED talks and some experts on the last EMF Health Summit.
The realisation that this is a ‘THING’ made me admit that I cannot just sit back and say ‘PROTECT ME’. It was a timely meeting with Max Chua of Choizya (https://www.choizya.com) that prevented me from going into overwhelm mode. He came to my house, measured the exposure levels, looked at all of the devices and gave me a pragmatic action plan based on the fact that most of the exposure in my home was generated internally by our wifi router, so at least at home I didn’t need to shield from the surrounding exposures (more in a separate post). I learned a few tips on using my mobile more consciously, got a shielding case and radiation-free earphones for it.
A simple starting point for reducing exposure levels in our home environment naturally included turning the wifi off at night, no mobiles in the bedroom (or only in flight mode as a compromise) and then taking a step further to cable-in and getting a router with a simple wifi off switch, so we have flexibility. I sat on this for a while as I knew that as of June 2019, Singapore is switching from cable to broadband, so our provider would have to upgrade the equipment etc.
D-Day for the ‘switch’ was this Saturday past, so when the man came I asked what I thought were simple questions such as ‘Can I cable in?’, ‘Will the phone and TV still work if I switch the wifi router off?’, ‘Does the router have a Wifi off switch?’, all questions which did not seem to compute, although requiring only ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. So I am not sure whether my rising frustration brought on a headache and a level of tension that saw me completely flip and loose my cool or if it was perhaps the boost in the strength of the new router (which certainly looks like a monster piece of kit).
Hopefully, I will soon regain my equilibrium and continue taking steps to protect my home and work space (separate posts on my discoveries), but I am concerned that no matter what protective measures I put in place, the island-wide launch of 5G and the gradual role-out of smart meters may well drive me to the point of distraction as current solutions to keep exposures to a minimum may not be sufficient.
I am willing to take the risk of being called crazy for looking into this hotly disputed topic that by now permeates all of our lives, but it is precisely because it does that I believe it is crazy not to give it a second thought.
For more information on upcoming events exploring this topic, please visit the Spreading Awareness page and International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space.