Anders Brunstad alerted me to the installation of one of the most powerful radar stations in the world on the Varanger Peninsula in Finnmark, Norway just before tens of thousands of birds fell dead all over the peninsula. The southern and eastern coasts of the peninsula also have 4G+ and, increasingly, 5G service, added recently.
At Ekkerøy Nature Reserve, on the southern coast of the peninsula, at least 15,000 endangered kittiwakes died at the end of July and beginning of August 2023. They nest there in the summer on high cliffs where they are directly in the line of fire of the radar, which is 50 kilometers away. The restaurant at Ekkerøy was forced to close for the summer because it was “raining down” dead birds. The total population of these seabirds in Norway was only about 50,000. Dead terns and other kinds of gulls have also been collected. Half of the cranes at Ekkerøy have died.
The radar, called Globus III, was built by the United States on the island of Vardøya in Vardø, the easternmost city in Norway, which is across a bay from northern Russia. It appears to be part of a civil defense network called the Space Fence. Details about this site have been kept secret, but I found a Request for Information published on February 22, 2022 on the U.S. government’s website, SAM.gov. It states:
“This system is a one-of-a kind design which will be fielded in 2023. The program is a bi-national, collaborative specialized collection system. The GLOBUS program is a dual band ground-based radar system consisting of an S-band solid state phased array, an X-band dish antenna, an Integrated System Controller (ISC), and a Mission Communications Suite (MCS) hosted at an Outside Continental United States (OCONUS) location.”
Other Space Fence radars are located on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands, and in Western Australia. These S-band (2 GHz to 4GHz) phased array radars each have 36,000 transmitting antennas, a peak power of 2.7 MW and, when focused into a narrow beam that scans the sky in all directions, a peak effective radiated power of several billion watts.
The conflagration is not confined to Finnmark, or to Norway. Last summer I reported on mass deaths of nesting seabirds in locations near new antennas in the Netherlands and France (Birds on Texel Island; Sea Birds’ Last Refuges). This summer the situation is immensely worse. The continued proliferation around the world of 4G and 5G cell towers and antennas, as well as offshore wind farms, has killed millions of wild birds on five continents, together with foxes, skunks, raccoons, fishers, badgers, martens, black bears, grizzly bears, bobcats, lynx, mountain lions, wild boar, otters, Virginia opossums, seals, penguins, and other animals.
Last year, 40% of the Dalmatian pelicans nesting in Greece died, along with 20% of those in Romania, and large numbers in Montenegro and Albania. By May 2023, more than 50,000 dead wild birds of all kinds had been reported in the United Kingdom, 40,000 in eastern Canada, and tens of thousands in the United States. By July 31, 2023, China was reporting 5,100 dead birds in Tibet. Reports of mortality have come from every state in the United States, across 129 species of birds. Huge numbers of bald eagles have died. Just in November and December 2022, more than 50,000 seabirds died along the coast of Peru, including 16,890 Peruvian pelicans and 4,324 brown boobies, both endangered in Peru. In Chile, as of January 1, 2023, perhaps 10,000 seabirds had died, including pelicans, kelp gulls, Belcher’s gulls, grey gulls, guanay cormorants, Peruvian boobies, elegant terns, and turkey vultures.
On May 9, 2023, the Chilean government reported the deaths of 27,977 seabirds, and on July 21, 2023, the Peruvian government reported the deaths of 519,541 seabirds. These represented birds of 65 species. In addition, Chile reported the deaths of 2,517 Humboldt penguins, 460 Magellanic penguins, 16,856 sea lions, and smaller numbers of dolphins, porpoises, otters and other kinds of seals, while Peru reported the deaths of 9,314 sea lions and 100 other sea mammals. According to a report by the OFFLU, a global network of expertise on animal influenza, Chile has lost at least 13% of its Humboldt penguins, Peru has lost at least 36% of its Peruvian pelicans, and Chile and Peru together have lost at least 9% of their sea lions.
Ornithologists are all blaming this catastrophe on avian influenza, in spite of the fact that most of the dead birds are testing negative for any influenza virus, and the ones that test positive have all different variants of the virus so could not be transmitting it to one another, let alone to bears and penguins. For example, 233 dead birds were examined for flu virus by the Norwegian Veterinary Institute between August 14 and October 1, 2023. They found highly pathogenic H5N1 virus in 8 birds, highly pathogenic H5N5 in 2 birds, highly pathogenic H5Nx (other subtypes) in 2 birds, low pathogenic H5Nx in 6 birds, “other Influenza A virus” in 8 birds, and no virus at all in 207 birds.
The disappearance of bugs has also been in the news. Dr. Norman Leppla, a professor of entomology at the University of Florida, said that state’s lovebug infestation has completely vanished. They used to come in massive numbers in the spring and fall around May and September with a little variation depending on if you are in the northern or southern part of the state. “It’s not subtle, they’re really not here this season,” he said in an interview published October 5, 2023. But no one is blaming that on “avian influenza.”
Wind farms are also devastating birds, as documented by German scientists in an article published in Nature on April 13, 2023. They found that populations of red-throated loons plummeted in the North Sea after five clusters of offshore wind farms were built there between 2010 and 2014. Their populations declined by an average of 94% within 1 kilometer of a wind farm and by 52% within 10 kilometers, with some population reduction at distances up to 24 kilometers.
Wind farms are also killing whales. At least 32 whales have washed up dead on the U.S. east coast in recent months, prompting a group of New Jersey legislators to call for an immediate moratorium on offshore wind farms in the area.
Communities that are waking up
Sanity has broken out in in Chhattisgarh’s Gariaband district, in the Indian village of Lachkera, home to 600 families. A village resolution prohibits the installation of any cell towers in order to protect birds. “We have learnt that the transmission towers cause radiation that is harmful; we would rather prefer to live with weak network connectivity from the adjoining locations. It’s a delight to welcome Openbill storks with the onset of the monsoon. They nest in the trees of our village and no one in the village disturbs them. We don’t permit any mobile phone service provider to establish their tower despite the pressure and temptation from them,” said Uday Nishad, the elected head of the village government.
They learned this from a field survey by scientists at C.V. Raman University that was conducted in 2017 of birds in the vicinity of the 9 cell towers in Bijapur district. Reviewing 113 studies on the ecological effects of RF radiation, the authors wrote:
“When birds are exposed to weak electromagnetic fields, they disorient and fly in all directions, which harm their natural navigational abilities. A large number of birds like pigeons, sparrows, swans are getting lost due to interference from the ‘unseen enemy’, i.e. mobile tower. It has also been noted of late that animals used near mobile towers are prone to various dangers and threats to life including still births, spontaneous abortions, birth deformities, behavioral problems and general decline on overall health. Electromagnetic pollution is a possible cause for deformations and decline of some amphibian populations too. Apart from birds and animals, electromagnetic radiation emanating from cell towers can also affect vegetable, crop and plants in its vicinity.”
They visited the areas where each cell tower was located for 2 to 3 hours in the morning and 2 to 3 hours in the evening, every day for 6 months, and counted birds — peacocks, wild ducks, crows, parrots, cuckoos, sparrows, wild pigeons, eagles, and woodpeckers. There were far fewer of every kind of bird in 2017 than there had been in a survey conducted in 2006 before the towers were erected.
It bears repeating, yet again, that influenza, whether in people, animals, or birds, is not caused by a virus and has never been demonstrated to be a contagious disease. In 1918, at the height of the Spanish influenza, attempts by medical teams in Boston and San Francisco to demonstrate the contagious nature of the flu met with complete and resounding failure. Such experiments in humans were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, and Public Health Reports. Such experiments in horses were published in Veterinary Journal. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 of my book, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life, are devoted to a complete, detailed examination of the history and science of influenza. Chapter 16, the longest chapter in the book, is devoted in part to the effects of electromagnetic radiation on birds. Some diseases are caused by viruses, but influenza is not one of them. I suggest once again that all bird conservation organizations should acquire my book and read it carefully.
This work and these newsletters are supported entirely by donations from individuals. We have no other source of funding. The Cellular Phone Task Force is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and donations by U.S. residents are tax-deductible. Our Tax ID Number is 11-3394550.
The last 62 newsletters, including this one, are available for viewing and sharing on the Newsletters pageof the Cellular Phone Task Force.This newsletter is published there both as a webpage and as a PDF. It is also on Substack.
In order to navigate the Conference, reports Cellular Phone Task Force assistant Kathleen Burke from Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, one must have a cell phone out and on nearly at all times. For the United Nationsâ 27th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, held this year at this resort city on the Red Sea, four fake palm trees have been erected on the grounds of the COP in order for the 40,000 conference attendees to all be on their cell phones at the same time, all day long, every day for two weeks. Each âtreeâ, captured in the foreground in the photo above, is simply a metal scaffolding for antennas.
The Safe and Sound Pro II radiofrequency meter, which Kathleen brought to the COP in order to measure radiation levels, reads âExtremeâ at all times everywhere on the grounds of the COP, inside and out. She may be the only person at the conference who does not have a cell phone.
The purpose of Kathleenâs participation as an observer at the COP is to begin to build bridges to the people who care most about the future of our world, who are not even aware of an existential threat that is even more urgent than the one they came to Egypt to address, and yet is intimately related to it. She is distributing the following letter to the delegatesâa letter that I wrote and officially submitted to the COP 27 before she arrived. Kathleen delivered the letter by hand today to all the offices of the parties (the countries represented at the Conference), as well as the Environmental Defense Fund and the World Health Organization.
_____________
A blind spot must be filled
Outside of an atomic nucleus, there are only two fundamental forces in nature: gravity and electricity. The electromagnetic force is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times stronger than the gravitational force. Yet much of western science pretends that it does not exist. This is now having terminal consequences for life on Earth. The consequences for life are being blamed on microorganisms. The consequences for the environment are being blamed on climate change.
This Conference is rightly concerned with halting the burning of fossil fuels. Unless that is stopped, the Earth will become uninhabitable. But even if it is stopped, the Earth will not survive unless global electrosmog is also stoppedâelectrosmog from the wireless cloud and from satellites. And electrosmog is even more of an emergency than climate change. We have only years to stop it, not decades. In addition, many of the strategies for reducing our dependence on fossil fuelsâsolar power, wind power, the smart grid, electric vehicles, smart highways, smart cities, and so forthâare only making matters much worse. The methods used to gather information about altered animal habitatsâGPS, radio tracking devices, etc.âare killing wildlife instead of saving them.
The following are a few of the facts that the United Nations must immediately recognize and take control of in order for our children to live to grow up:
Electricity, and no other force, is responsible for life. The study of electricity must be restored to biology, chemistry, and medicine.
Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) interfere with the flow of electrons in our nerves, our brains, and our heartsâ pacemakers. This is responsible for the recent huge increases in the prevalence of neurological diseases such as ADHD, Alzheimerâs disease, multiple sclerosis, and autism, and the large increase in the incidence of heart attacks in young people.
EMFs interfere with the flow of electrons from the food we eat to the oxygen we breathe, which occurs day and night in the mitochondria of every cell in order to make the energy necessary for life.
This interference with metabolismâinterference with the burning of sugars, fats and proteins for energyâhas put all living things into a state of oxygen deprivation. This is occurring to every person, every animal, every insect, and every plant, without ceasing and without possibility of escape.
The reduced ability of our cells to digest sugars is called diabetes.
The reduced ability of our cells to digest fats causes them to be deposited in in our tissues, resulting in obesity. It causes them to be deposited in coronary arteries, resulting in heart disease.
The reduced ability of our cells to utilize the oxygen we breathe causes them to revert to anaerobic (non-oxygen-using) metabolism, resulting in cancer.
The extraordinary increases in these four pandemic diseasesâobesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancerâare predominantly caused by constant radiation from personal wireless devices and the global infrastructure that supports them.
In bees, which have a very high metabolism, this interference is quickly lethal. Colony collapse disorder is caused almost entirely by electrosmog.
The 75% decline in flying insects in nature reserves throughout Germany, and the 98% to 99% decline in the number of crawling insects in a Puerto Rican rainforestâdecreases that reflect what is globally being called âinsect apocalypseââare predominantly caused by the enormous increase in the intensity of radiation from the global wireless infrastructure.
The unprecedented mass deaths of nesting birds worldwide in the spring and summer of 2022 was due to the tremendous global intensification of wireless infrastructure now occurring on land, in space, and in the oceans.
The emissions from wireless devices are called radio frequency (RF) radiation. In addition to the general interference with electron flow in our bodies that occurs from any source of EMFs, RF radiation carries complex information from one wireless device to another in the form of frequencies and pulsation patterns. It carries the same information to the cells of our bodies, interfering with and drowning out the communication between our cells, and between our bodies and the Earth.
This interferes with reproduction, growth, differentiation, maturation, healing, and normal functioning, and is responsible for the dramatic degradation of human health in the past two and a half decades.
This interference with internal communication does not depend on dose. Even at near-zero power levels, RF radiation has been shown to alter brain waves and change the structure of DNA.
Every wireless device and every antenna is responsible for electrosmog. None can ever be used safely, not even theoretically. Not cell towers, not cell phones, not WiFi, not Bluetooth, and not any of the 25 different wireless devices owned by the average household today.
Communication satellites, now being launched almost every other day, up to 54 at a time, by governments and private corporations, are massively polluting and altering the electromagnetic environment of the Earth itself. This is further degrading all of life below, because every living thing is part of the global electric circuit which flows at all times between the sky and the Earth.
There are 15 billion cell phones on Earth today emitting RF radiation, along with more than 6 million cell towers. At least 5,000 satellites are emitting radiation globally from space, with at least 100,000 more being scheduled and planned.
On behalf of my organization, the millions of people who support my work, and on behalf of humanity, all of life, and the Earth, I ask the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to recognize electrosmog as the emergency that it is, and a huge contributor to aspects of the degradation of life that have heretofore been blamed only on climate change. I further ask the United Nations to open an official discussion on this emergency threat to all nations and I propose the drawing up of a new treaty and the establishment of a Convention on Electrosmog. I, and the thousands of global experts with whom I communicate, are available to assist in this effort in any way that is required.
_____________
Kathleen also gave a copy of the above letter to Amy Goodman, who is the host of Democracy Now!, a news program that she founded 26 years ago and that airs on over 1,400 public radio and television stations worldwide. Her broadcasts from the COP 27 have been amazing. On Tuesday I heard her interview Vanessa Nakate, a climate justice activist from Uganda, and what Vanessa had to say about the climate emergency applies with equal force to EMFs. Tuesday was Vanessaâs 26th birthday, or âbearthday,â as she spelled it for Amy.
Vanessa reported that the Horn of Africa is experiencing severe drought, while large parts of Nigeria and Pakistan are underwater from record floods. The world must stop talking about âadaptation,â she said, because adaptation is already impossible. âYou cannot adapt to extinction,â she said. A just transition to renewable energy is essential, she said, as is the total cessation of investments in fossil fuels. She is appalled that the Conference on Climate Change is being openly used as a marketing venue for the fossil fuel industry: more than 600 representatives of the fossil fuel industry are marketing their products in the pavilions at the COP!
Her sentiments are equally applicable to EMFs. With radiation already so pervasive that the majority of people in some nations have diabetes or prediabetes, and 98% to 99% of insects have disappeared even in rainforests, âadaptationâ is impossible. âAdaptationâ in this case meaning âsafe useâ of wireless technology. The burning of fossil fuels must cease, and the use of cell phones must also cease. Those are the two things that must happen if we are to have a planet to live on in the near future.
Yesterday (Wednesday), Amy interviewed Harjeet Singh, an activist from New Delhi, India who is with the Climate Action Network. Like Vanessa, he is outraged that not only has there been no progress on climate change in 30 years, but there is not even any mention of fossil fuels in the Paris Agreement that was adopted in 2015. And (as of yesterday) there was no mention of fossil fuels in the draft report of the COP 27 either. He, too, is scandalized by the 600 fossil fuel lobbyists that have turned the COP 27 into an Expo for their products. He is urging the nations of the world to develop a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Tuvalu and Vanuato are calling for. They are two island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising sea levels.
The parallels to EMF activism are striking. Just as 600 fossil fuel lobbyists are hawking their products at a conference on climate change, so most people that attend EMF conferences and protests of 5G have cell phones in their hands. Just as there has been no progress on climate change for 30 years, so there has been no progress on radiation for 30 years.
âA fight for climate justice is a fight for human rights,â said Vanessa Nakate. Likewise, a fight for a radiation-free world is a fight for human rights. It is time to stop nations from being flooded and submerged, and it is time to stop millions of people from being tortured and made homeless, and children worldwide from growing up with brain damage. It is time to stop burning fossil fuels, and it is time to stop using cell phones.
My letter, as submitted by me to the COP on my organizationâs stationery, with my credentials, is here:
I ask everyone to please write to Amy Goodman requesting her to begin talking about radiation from wireless technology on Democracy Now! She is popular, respected, and reaches millions of people. Please do not question climate change when you write to her. We need to join forces with those who care about our planet if we want to keep it alive. The best way to contact Amy is on her website.
Donations to support this work are needed. The Cellular Phone Task Force is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and donations from U.S. residents are tax-deductible. Our Tax ID Number is 11-3394550.
In 2017, after two years of proceedings, we kept smart meters out of many of New Mexico’s cities, including Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Silver City, Lordsburg, Deming, Alamogordo, Ruidoso, and Tularosa. In an unusual show of cooperation, all of the public, private, and governmental entities participating in the proceedings listened to and supported one another in fighting for and securing the right of the people to their health and safety in their homes and communities.
The Attorney General of New Mexico; the City of Albuquerque; Western Resource Advocates; New Mexico Industrial Energy Consumers; Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy; Citizens for Fair Rates and the Environment; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union No. 61; New Mexicans for Utility Safety (that’s us); and the staff of the Public Regulation Commission were unanimous in opposing smart meters. As a result, PNM’s application for smart meters was defeated.
Now, five years later, PNM (Public Service Company of New Mexico) is back, reapplying for smart meters in our state. The Gen 5 Itron Riva meters it wants to install this time are designed to be part of a 5G network and a “Distributed Intelligence Web”. New Mexico has passed a new Grid Modernization Statute allowing public utilities to apply for smart meters. But among the criteria for approval is that the application must be “reasonable” and that smart meters must “provide customer protection.” Meters that damage customers’ health and the environment are neither reasonable nor protective.
You can help us defeat PNM’s new application and preserve New Mexico as a refuge and an example to the world of what the people can do to protect our health and environment. 300,000 people worldwide subscribe to my newsletters. If thousands of you write to the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission, that will have an impact. The public is specifically entitled to submit comments in any proceeding under the PRC’s rules.
Smart meters consume energy. Smart meters emit radiation and cause all the wiring in your home to emit radiation. Smart meters cause fires and explosions. Smart meters are hackable. Smart meters invade your privacy. Smart meters are inaccurate and raise your electric bills.
We ask everyone, worldwide, to please emailthe New Mexico Public Regulation Commission telling them your experience after a smart meter was installed on your home.
Tell them how it has affected your health.
Tell them how it has affected the animal, bird, and insect life on your property and in your community.
Tell them how it has affected your utility bills.
And if your smart meter caused a fire, of course include that.
Or, if you were able to opt out and keep your old meter, tell them your observations of the effect of smart meters on the health of your neighbors and community.
Write to: New Mexico PRC . Write “Case No. 22-00058-UT” in the Subject line.
Be sure to also send a copy to me at Arthur@cellphonetaskforce.org.
New Mexico is one of the last two states in the US — Connecticut is the other one — where an investor-owned electric utility has not deployed smart meters. We want to keep New Mexico that way — an example to the world of what is possible, and a lower-radiation refuge for those who need one.
In 1918, just 15 years after the Wright Brothers took their first flights, American soldiers in France were describing clouds that sometimes formed behind airplanes. Captain Ward S. Wells, for example, wrote from the Bois de Hess, behind Montfaucon (Scientific American, June 7, 1919, p. 601):
There were two or three days of rain, when came a wonderfully clear and beautiful morning with not a cloud in sight… Our attention was first drawn to the sky by the sudden appearance of several strange and startling clouds — long, graceful, looping ribbons of white. They were tapering to a point at one end… On close observation we noticed some distance ahead of each cloud point the tiny speck of a chase plane. Apparently the churning of the air was all that was needed to upset the delicately balanced meteorological conditions and precipitate this strange cloud formation.
German geophysicist, meteorologist and astronomer Alfred Wegener, who first advanced the theory of continental drift, also described persistent contrails. Writing in January 1920, he described a cloud 50 kilometers long that formed behind three airplanes that flew over Munich, and explained the physics behind it.
On May 9, 1919, and again on May 11, German pilot Zeno Diemer, flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet, at a temperature of about -50⁰ C, noticed the formation of a cloud stream that extended for about forty miles behind his plane. Each time, this stream gradually spread out to form a cloud layer that was about 3,000 feet thick. (Luftfahrt, Mai 1919, p. 17;Nature, May 3, 1930, p. 693).
As the technology improved and airplanes began flying at ever higher, colder altitudes, persistent contrails became more common. By the beginning of World War II, airplanes flying above 30,000 feet, as commercial airplanes do today, often left long, thickening clouds trailing behind them. In February 1942, French aviation pioneer and famed author Antoine Saint-Exupéry published Flight to Arras, a memoir of his service flying high-altitude combat missions against Nazi Germany in 1939 and 1940. He described the challenges of his reconnaissance missions, including the cold that could freeze the controls of his aircraft, and the anxiety of knowing his plane was trailing a white streamer that pinpointed his position for enemy fighters and gunners. Saint-Exupéry wrote:
The German on the ground knows us by the pearly white scarf which every plane flying at high altitude trails behind like a bridal veil. The disturbance created by our meteoric flight crystallizes the watery vapor in the atmosphere. We unwind behind us a cirrus of icicles. If the atmospheric conditions are favorable to the formation of clouds, our wake will thicken bit by bit and become an evening cloud over the countryside.
This was a problem for every nation. Flight Lieutenant M. V. Longbottom of Britain’s Royal Air Force, after consulting with a French meteorologist, wrote a report titled “Condensation Trails at High Altitudes,” in which he wrote that contrails will form under conditions of low temperature and high humidity. Under these conditions, he wrote, “the rapidly expanding gases from the exhausts” of the plane cause “sudden condensations to form in [the plane’s] wake.” This also meant that there might be layers in the atmosphere some of which would support contrail formation while others would not. And indeed this was the experience of the fighter pilots: when heavy contrails started forming behind them, they could sometimes stop their formation by descending one or two thousand feet.
Between 1928 and 1931, America’s top airman, General Henry H. Arnold, directed a project whose objective was finding a way to reduce aircraft vulnerability to enemy gunners by dissipating their contrails.
And in September 1942, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics issued a report on condensation trails explaining how and why they form, and that their persistence depends on temperature and humidity at that altitude.
Not only the higher altitude of airplanes, but the introduction of jet fighters during World War II made persistent vapor trails commonplace in the sky. They became a common feature also in peacetime skies after commercial jets became common during the 1960s.
Donald R. Baucom published a two-part history of contrails through 1945: “Wakes of War: Contrails and the Rise of Air Power, 1918-1945”, Air Power History, Summer 2007, pp. 16-31, and Fall 2007, pp. 4-21.
Here is a photograph from World War II, in which the exhaust clouds behind fighter planes blended together and covered the sky:
Here is another, from the 1957 book, Air Force: A Pictorial History of American Airpower by Martin Caidin, p. 100 :
Here is a 1953 photo by Ansel Adams, titled“Rails and Jet Trails”:
A production photo from the movie Spartacus, taken in Thousand Oaks, California in 1959:
A scene from the 1959 movie Battle Hymn with Rock Hudson:
Plate 113 from the 1967 book, Cloud Studies in Colour by Richard Scorer and Henry Wexler:
And Plate 11.4.1 from the 1972 book, Clouds of the World: A Complete Colour Encyclopedia by Richard Scorer:
I have a lot of such pictures from the past. But the most vivid are the ones engrained in my memory from my freshman year at college. Air traffic was exploding in the skies over upstate New York. It was 1968, as I sat high in the bell tower overlooking Ithaca. The tunes I was playing on the Cornell chimes rang out over the campus, and spilled down the hill into town. After my morning concert, I gathered up my books, descended the 162 steps, and hiked down into the bottom of Triphammer Gorge to study.
As I lay on my rock drinking in the early freshness of the breeze and the unbroken blue of the sky, I saw far above me a jet plane on its way to some unknown destination, leaving a widening trail of water vapor behind it — and then another, crossing the first, and another and another. By early afternoon, my beautiful sunny sky was gone. Not a trace of blue was left.
I tried to tell everyone I knew what was happening, but no one cared.
Eventually I moved out to the less humid west, where the sky was still blue and the growing rivers of air travelers left relatively little trace. That changed during the 1990s. Even in the arid west, there is a limit to how much water you can pump into the high layers of sky without making clouds. But half a nation of people who were used to air traffic being invisible did not know what they were seeing.
Origin of a Hoax
A couple of con artists from Lancaster, Ohio took advantage of that fact. Larry Wayne Harris was a lieutenant colonel in the white-supremacist organization Aryan Nations and a member of the racist, anti-Semitic sect Christian Identity. He was arrested for possession of bubonic plague bacteria in 1997, and convicted of wire fraud for posing as a research microbiologist to obtain it. He was arrested for possession of anthrax and convicted of impersonation of a CIA agent in 1998. He and his neighbor Richard Lew Finke are the people who invented “chemtrails.” But it took a nationwide radio show to popularize it, so widely that it has become nearly impossible for the average citizen to sort out the truth, to distinguish fact from fiction.
In 1996, Harris offered his services to analyze soil samples that he said were contaminated by fallout from additives in jet fuel. He told his clients that their samples contained ethylene dibromide (EDB), and that it was being added to jet fuel as part of a depopulation agenda. No matter that EDB was an agricultural pesticide that persisted in the soil for years. It was in agricultural soil, he said, because it fell from the sky. The following year he and Finke took this fable even further: they started a consulting company purporting to analyze soil, water and jet fuel samples and Finke sent out an email announcement about “genocide” via “lines in the sky.”
In 1998, that email slowly circulated and became embellished. EDB became transformed by some into aluminum, barium, and strontium. These were also found in samples of soil and groundwater and were also said to have fallen from the sky. No matter that aluminum and barium are also in agricultural pesticides, and that strontium is in gypsum and other minerals and is ubiquitous in groundwater.
In January 1999, Canadian journalist Will Thomas, still sticking to the EDB story, embellished it even more: he published two articles speculating that poisoned contrails were being “sprayed” by unmarked military jets, were related to HAARP, and were being used for weather modification. On January 25, 1999, Thomas appeared on Coast to Coast conspiracy radio, and disseminated a version of the fable to millions of people. On February 10, 1999, still talking about EDB, he sent out an email telling people to “TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY” and to “STAY INDOORS when contrails are being woven overhead.” He said that “Emergency Rooms are overflowing with acute respiratory cases from coast to coast,” that the New York Times was reporting that “this is not the flu,” that the BBC was reporting 6,000 deaths from respiratory failure in England in two weeks, and that there was “a BBC photo of a freezer-semi filled with dead bodies”. However the epidemic he described did not actually exist, and neither the BBC nor the New York Times reported any such thing.
But Thomas continued to embellish these reports on Coast to Coast radio. In March 1999, he coined the word “chemtrails.” He introduced the notion that “contrails” dissipate quickly and “chemtrails” do not. Whereas 80 years previously Wegener had explained that whether they dissipate or not depends on temperature, pressure and humidity.
Belief in the epidemic that Thomas had invented out of whole cloth spread round the world and has been impossible to eradicate since. Rather, it has been disseminated and embellished by a variety of individuals of questionable motives, all of them non-scientists, who to varying degrees have made their living from it: computer consultant Clifford Carnicom; filmmaker Michael John Murphy; TV weatherman Scott Stevens; builder of solar systems Dane Wigington; and author Elana Freeland.
More recently, in an attempt not to sound like conspiracy theorists, those spreading the fable have embellished it even more, claiming that the lines in the sky are being sprayed to combat global warming, and they are using the term “geoengineering” instead of “chemtrails” to sound more credible. Wigington’s website, for example, is now called geoengineeringwatch.org. But this newer invented purpose is in addition to depopulation, weather control, and “ionization” of the atmosphere to enhance global communications. And it has nothing to do with actual proposals to remedy global warming, which are found on geoengineeringmonitor.org, nogeoingegneria.com, and other websites that report only real information.
Early on, Thomas began to deliberately combine real information about electromagnetic radiation with made-up stories about “chemtrails,” and Freeland and others have further embellished and reinforced this. This confuses the public, discredits those of us with an important message, and does yeoman’s work for the telecommunications industry. The reason this is so important, and the reason I am sending out a newsletter about it, is that the “chemtrails” fable has been promulgated so successfully that according to a 2016 survey, almost 40% of Americans believe in it and only 34% are sure that it is false. This is also true of EMF activists and the people protesting 5G: a huge number of them believe in “chemtrails,” or “geoengineering” as it is now wrongly called, and do not believe in global warming. This discredits us and makes it more difficult to gain traction with the media and with environmental organizations.
Ironically, EDB actually was and still is being used as an additive in airplane fuel, just not in military or commercial jets. It is used as an antiknock agent in leaded fuel in general aviation by piston-engine airplanes that do not fly high enough to leave contrails behind them. That is the real scandal: 38 years after leaded fuel was banned in cars in the United States, 175,000 small airplanes are still spewing lead into all the air we breathe.
The last 53 newsletters, including this one, are available for viewing and sharing on the Newsletters pageof the Cellular Phone Task Force. Some of the newsletters are also available there in German, Spanish, Italian, French, Norwegian, and Dutch. To subscribe, go to https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/subscribeor click on this link:
Donations to support our work are needed. The Cellular Phone Task Force is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and donations from U.S. residents are tax-deductible. Our Tax ID Number is 11-3394550.
Low-radiation reserve on Texel Island, early June 2023
SEA BIRDS’ LAST REFUGES
All over the Earth, birds — symbols of freedom and joy — have been disappearing, and unless we stop killing them, they will never more enliven our skies and imaginations. They are terns, seagulls, avocets, gannets, skuas, guillemots, puffins, oystercatchers, ducks, geese, godwits, pheasants, magpies, sanderlings, storks, cranes, pelicans, herons, swans, loons, sparrows, pigeons, red-winged blackbirds, owls, cormorants, grebes, dunlins, crows, ravens, bald eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, all of them vanishing from the landscapes of our homes, forests, sea coasts and minds. It rarely makes the news, and a world grown accustomed to ever-dwindling resources and diminishing life has not been paying attention. The warning of a Silent Spring, sounded sixty years ago like a trumpet’s blare, has shrunken from a year-round emergency to the almost-meaningless ritual of Earth Day, celebrated just once a year.
But last spring, during May and June, the world was awakened to shocking tales and heart-rending photographs of dead seabirds littering their breeding grounds all over the Northern Hemisphere, nowhere so vividly as in the De Petten Nature Reserve on the island of Texel in the Netherlands, where the corpses of Sandwich terns littered the ground as if they had fallen dead out of the sky in mid-flight:
Texel Island, early June 2022
Ornithologists and bird conservation organizations, reflexively, said to themselves and the world, “This must be bird flu,” and they dressed in hazmat suits and masks as they wandered among the avian graveyards with their specimen collectors and testing equipment, while ignoring obvious signs to the contrary. Bird flu, they pronounced, is so contagious and deadly that it travels round the world in days, spreads like water between species, and kills entire colonies in weeks. While ignoring the fact that two Dutch colonies of Sandwich terns just 20 miles apart during the same breeding season had completely different outcomes: Waterdunen, whose 7,000 nesting birds were completely wiped out, and Yerseke Moer, whose smaller colony suffered zero mortality. That in France, 3,000 Sandwich terns at Platier d’Oye were entirely killed while thousands of pairs of Sandwich terns at Polder de Sébastopol had no disease at all. That bird flu was an autumn and winter disease and had never before been known to occur in spring or summer. And that it had never before affected so many different kinds of birds at once.
But this was not “bird flu”, it was radiation sickness from cell towers, as documented in my newsletter of July 28, 2022. Eighteen new 4G antennas had been added to three cell towers located at De Petten, within the territory where the birds were breeding, just days before they began dying. And a large number of other antennas and towers were aimed at the reserve from across a busy shipping lane whose traffic made heavy use of those antennas. While Yerseke Moer is host to no cell towers, has far fewer antennas aimed at it, and is in an isolated location, not near a major port, and not on a shipping lane.
Similarly, in France, dozens of new 4G and 5G antennas had just been added to towers near and at the reserve at Platier d’Oye, located near the port of Calais, while the Polder de Sébastopol is on an isolated island with no towers, few human residents or visitors and far from any shipping traffic.
One year later
In August 2022, researchers were astonished to find that 600 pairs of Sandwich terns — at least some of whom had come from the colonies that had been wiped out — had decided to try again so late in the season. They laid their eggs and raised at least 300 young birds, successfully, during July and August in a new location on Texel Island, a beach at the Prince Hendrik Sand Dike, owned by the water authority, Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier (HHNK). And this spring in 2023, the Prince Hendrik Sand Dike is filled with almost 3,000 breeding pairs of Sandwich terns, while a second reserve — the island of De Bliek in the Haringvliet — has more than 2,000 breeding pairs. These two colonies, and five smaller colonies, total about half the number of Sandwich terns of previous years. They are thriving, but all of last spring’s disastrous breeding grounds, many of which had been the breeding grounds for this species for years or decades, have been abandoned. “It is striking: the areas with colonies that were heavily affected by bird flu last year remained vacant this year, including those of Waterdunen (ZL), Wagejot and De Petten on Texel (NH), Griend and De Putten near Camperduin (NH)”, wrote Ruud van Beusekom of Vogelbescherming Nederland (BirdLife Netherlands) on June 5, 2023.
Now everyone is assuming that the birds nesting successfully this year have acquired immunity from the H5N1 influenza virus. But the areas chosen this year by the Sandwich terns are lower-radiation areas. The Prince Hendrik Sand Dike, the only breeding ground for these birds this year on the island of Texel, is the quietest, least visited beach on the island. The nearest antennas are about 3 kilometers away, and because of the small number of visitors and ships they are little used and emit little radiation. Likewise De Bliek, in the Haringvliet, is an island with no people and no antennas in a closed waterway visited by few ships.
Another anomaly not explained by researchers is the fact that removing all dead birds from the colonies last year increased mortality: “Last year it appeared that collecting carcasses in colonies has a negative effect on the further spread of bird flu,” wrote Odessa Langeveld on May 12 of this year. In other words, leaving virus-infected carcasses to rot on the breeding grounds decreased the spread of the disease, while removing them increased its spread. But no one is considering that the teams of workers removing the carcasses on a daily basis were all carrying and using mobile phones, which not only were emitting radiation themselves but were forcing the cell towers on or near the site to be continuously active.
It bears repeating that influenza, whether in people, animals, or birds, has never been demonstrated to be a contagious disease. In 1918, at the very height of the Spanish influenza, attempts by medical teams in Boston and San Francisco to demonstrate the contagious nature of the flu met with complete and resounding failure. Such experiments in humans were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, and Public Health Reports. Such experiments in horses were published in Veterinary Journal.
Chapters 7, 8 and 9 of my book, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life, are devoted to a complete, detailed examination of the history and science of influenza. Chapter 16, the longest chapter in the book, is devoted in part to the effects of electromagnetic radiation on birds. I suggest that all bird conservation organizations should acquire my book and read it carefully.
I receive reports from observers around the world about birds disappearing from sea coasts after cell towers are built on them. Just yesterday, for example, this email came from Manju Carrow, writing about a new Verizon tower on a quiet cape in Florida:
“I went to Cape San Blas, Florida last week. Sometime between April 2022 and before June 11th, 2023 they added a cell tower to the cape. Granted there are 2 nearby, but not directly on the cape. I have gone there 5 times since 2020. The cape has only homes and some small shops, no hotels. On all the beaches I’ve ever been to, there are many birds on the beach. For the first time on a beach, I didn’t see the little sandpipers and other birds that usually run on the beach when the waves go out to peck at the bugs. I mentioned it to a resident and actually they realized the same thing, they just hadn’t noticed. Of course, on day one when I realized I had only seen 2 birds all day I immediately thought of the new tower.”
If you are connected with any bird conservation organization, please forward this newsletter, together with last year’s newsletter titled “Birds on Texel Island”, to its officers and board of directors, and ask them to contact me. And everyone, please email Ruud van Beusekom and Marieke Dijksman at BirdLife Netherlands and tell them to wake up to the radiation that is killing their birds, and to work with us to put an end to it!
This work and these newsletters are supported entirely by donations from individuals. We have no other source of funding. The Cellular Phone Task Force is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and donations by U.S. residents are tax-deductible. Our Tax ID Number is 11-3394550.
A metà ottobre 2019, il Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project (Progetto di recupero di Uccelli Forestali di Maui), in collaborazione con l’U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (Il Servizio di Pesci e Fauna U.S.A),lo Stato delle Hawaii, The Nature Conservancy, (La Conservazione della Natura), l’American Bird Conservancy, (La Conservazione degli Uccelli Americano) la Pacific Bird Conservation (La Conservazione degli Uccelli Costieri del Pacifico) e lo Zoo Globale di San Diego, hanno attaccato radiotrasmettitori VHF alle zampe di 10 psittorinci di Maui prima di rilasciarli nella Riserva Naturale di Nakula, sul versante meridionale del vulcano Haleakalā. Gli psittorinci di Maui, una specie di picchiatori che si trova solo a Maui, sono in pericolo critico di estinzione. Sono piccoli, pesano meno di un grammo. Di questi piccoli uccelli intelligenti e longevi ne rimangono meno di 150.
Gli uccelli – alcuni allevati in cattività e altri selvatici – sono stati rilasciati nella foresta tra il 27 e il 30 ottobre 2019. Il 16 novembre tutti gli uccelli erano morti, tranne i tre che erano riusciti a rimuovere o disattivare il loro trasmettitore. I dettagli sono scioccanti.
Sette psittorinci selvatici sono stati catturati dalla riserva dell’area naturale di Hanawī e trasportati nelle voliere alla riserva di Nakula la mattina del 17 ottobre per essere rilasciati nella nuova riserva ornitologica proposta. Uno degli uccelli, il numero WILD9, ha ricevuto il suo trasmettitore il 29 ottobre. Prima di quel momento era forte e in salute, ma non appena il trasmettitore è stato attaccato, è saltato a terra ed è rimasto immobile sul pavimento. Mezz’ora dopo, ha infilato la testa sotto l’ala. Lo staff del Recupero Uccelli ha quindi rimosso il trasmettitore, ma l’animale non si è ripreso. Ha continuato a rimanere seduto tranquillamente sul suo posatoio ed è stato trovato morto la mattina successiva.
Un altro uccello selvatico, il numero WILD10, ha ricevuto il suo trasmettitore il 26 ottobre. Ha attaccato ferocemente l’imbracatura che lo teneva, l’ha morso e l’ha rimosso. È stato trovato a terra il 28 ottobre. Più tardi, il 28 ottobre, il team Recupero Uccelli (Bird Recovery) le ha applicato un nuovo trasmettitore. Il 29 ottobre era letargica e non mangiava. Il 30 ottobre, era “sprimacciata e inattiva”. È stata trovata morta la mattina del 31 ottobre.
Gli altri cinque psittorinci catturati in natura sono stati rilasciati nella riserva di Nakula con i loro trasmettitori intatti. WILD5 è morto l’11 novembre. WILD8 è morto il 5 novembre. WILD11 è morto il 16 novembre. WILD1 è riuscito a rimuovere il suo trasmettitore il giorno successivo al rilascio ed è stato osservato per l’ultima volta, in buone condizioni, il 24 novembre. WILD7 ha rimosso il suo trasmettitore l’8 novembre ed è stato osservato per l’ultima volta, in buone condizioni, il 12 novembre.
Anche cinque psittorinci allevati in cattività facevano parte del progetto. Erano stati tutti allevati in centri di riproduzione per la conservazione degli uccelli a Maui e alle Hawaii e avevano un’età compresa tra i 5 e i 18 anni. Due di questi uccelli sono morti durante le due settimane di preparazione per il rilascio, sebbene avessero prosperato per anni nei centri di conservazione degli uccelli. L’uccello numero MP022 ha ricevuto il suo trasmettitore il 29 ottobre. Come WILD9, è saltato a terra ed è rimasto sul pavimento dopo che il trasmettitore è stato attaccato, ma a differenza di WILD9, si è girato su un fianco e ha continuato ad attaccare il trasmettitore con il becco, finché non è rimasto con la mandibola incastrata nell’imbracatura. Il personale ha rimosso il trasmettitore e lo ha rilasciato nella riserva di Nakula senza, ma non si è ripreso ed è morto il 2 novembre. L’uccello numero MP026 è stato rilasciato con il suo trasmettitore il 29 ottobre ed è morto il 5 novembre. L’uccello MP023 è stato rilasciato con il suo trasmettitore il 28 ottobre ed è riuscito a rimuoverlo il giorno successivo dopo essere stato osservato “muoversi su un percorso diretto fuori dalla Nakula NAR”. Presumibilmente ha volato il più lontano possibile dai suoi rapitori. Anche l’uccello numero MP027 è sopravvissuto perché non è stato rilasciato con un trasmettitore. A questo uccello era stato applicato un trasmettitore in una prova precedente, l’8 aprile, e si è immediatamente sdraiato sul dorso sul pavimento della gabbia senza muoversi. Vedendo ciò, il personale ha rimosso il trasmettitore dopo pochi minuti. Il 23 ottobre gli è stato nuovamente attaccato un trasmettitore per un breve periodo, ma hanno deciso di non includerlo nell’esperimento e di restituirlo al centro di conservazione di Maui, dove era ancora vivo e vegeto alla data di pubblicazione del rapporto dell’MFBRP, il 15 marzo 2021.
Gli autori del rapporto hanno attribuito ogni morte di psittorinci alla malaria, nonostante i fatti, riportati nel rapporto, che la malaria non era mai stata riscontrata negli uccelli nei centri di riproduzione o nella riserva di Hanawī, da cui provenivano tutti gli uccelli; che non è mai stato noto che la malaria infettasse più del 10 o 15 per cento circa di una qualsiasi popolazione di uccelli di picchio; che la malaria non uccide tutti gli uccelli che infetta e che i falchi sono noti per sviluppare una resistenza ad essa; che negli uccelli sono stati trovati anche altri parassiti; e che il tempo medio dai primi sintomi alla morte per gli uccelli in questo progetto è stato di “1-2 giorni”, il che non è tipico della malaria. Due “psittorinci maschi grandi e sani” sono morti dopo poche ore dai primi segni di ridotta attività. Gli autori dello studio hanno scritto:
“Non è chiaro se questi uccelli abbiano potuto contrarre la malattia nella Nakula NAR, poiché hanno sviluppato i sintomi più rapidamente di quanto sia tipico e sono morti più rapidamente di quanto sia stato riportato per altri picchiatori”.
Hanno poi ipotizzato che:
“Le necropsia hanno trovato parassiti in diversi sistemi di organi, il che indica una grave infezione sistemica che si è spostata dal flusso sanguigno ad altri tessuti. Questo potrebbe essere il risultato di una maggiore replicazione del parassita della malaria in seguito a qualche cambiamento nel sistema immunitario degli uccelli, ad esempio in risposta a uno stress ambientale”.
Lo stress ambientale che non è stato considerato è la radiazione dei trasmettitori VHF attaccati agli uccelli.
Un corrispondente in Alberta mi ha scritto l’anno scorso:
“Prima di rendermi conto dei pericoli, avevo un collare di localizzazione per il mio beagle, perché era un po’ un artista della fuga. Sfortunatamente, dopo averlo indossato per un po’ di tempo (circa 3 mesi) solo quando era all’aperto, ha iniziato a soffrire di dolori articolari e a non camminare bene. Il veterinario disse che aveva un problema comune ai beagle: la colonna vertebrale iniziava a comprimersi e a causare problemi. Proprio nello stesso periodo stavo imparando a conoscere i pericoli di tutti questi dispositivi wireless e mi sono sbarazzato del suo tracker. In meno di un mese ha smesso di prendere antidolorifici ed è tornato alla normalità e il problema non si è più ripresentato”.
Il team del Recupero Uccelli (Bird Recovery) non ha nemmeno preso in considerazione le radiazioni provenienti dal gigantesco parco di antenne che sovrasta la Riserva naturale di Nakula in cima alla Puʻu ʻUlaʻula (Red Hill). Ci sono 159 antenne su 20 torri di telecomunicazione in cima a quella collina, che diffondono nella riserva di Nakula segnali di telefonia cellulare, internet, radio, televisione, governo, polizia, esercito e altro. L’impianto ottico e di supercalcolo dell’Aeronautico Militare di Maui (AMOS) si trova lì. Gli autori del rapporto sul recupero degli uccelli si sono chiesti perché gli psittorinci selvatici scelgano di rimanere nella piccola riserva dell’area naturale di Hanawī, che si estende per 7.413 acri sul versante ventoso del vulcano, e non si spostino sul versante sottovento, dove sarebbero più riparati dagli elementi. È perché nella riserva di Hanawī la cresta del vulcano che li sovrasta blocca tutte le radiazioni di quel parco di antenne e i telefoni cellulari non funzionano nemmeno dove vivono.
Dopo il fallimento del progetto di trasferimento, gli sforzi per salvare gli psittorinci dall’estinzione si sono concentrati sul rilascio di miliardi di zanzare infettate da batteri a Maui, nel tentativo errato di salvare gli uccelli sradicando la malaria aviaria dall’isola. Nel momento in cui scriviamo, una causa contro il progetto delle zanzare, presentata da Hawai’i Unites, è in corso presso la Corte ambientale delle Hawaii. Non solo l’importazione di miliardi di zanzare, per quanto alterate, nel parco nazionale e nelle riserve naturali della parte orientale di Maui non farà altro che peggiorare la situazione degli uccelli; non solo potrebbe ritorcersi contro di loro e diffondere ulteriormente la malaria invece di debellarla; ma non è possibile trovare una soluzione per questa o altre specie di uccelli rari finché la società continuerà a negare il disastro di radiazioni che stiamo infliggendo al nostro pianeta da ogni direzione.
Nel 2017, Mark Broomhall ha scritto un rapporto di 38 pagine per l’Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l’Educazione, la Scienza e la Cultura che fa luce sul motivo per cui gli psittorinci si sono ritirati alle alte quote del versante settentrionale del vulcano Haleakalā a Maui, e su ciò che deve essere fatto per proteggerli. Quanto segue è tratto dal suo riassunto degli anni di osservazione degli uccelli e della fauna selvatica sul Monte Nardi, nell’area del Nightcap National Park, Patrimonio dell’Umanità, in Australia. Questa montagna, su cui ha vissuto per 40 anni, ha torri di telecomunicazione sulla sua cima:
“È stato solo quando l’era analogica stava volgendo al termine, insieme all’avvento della tecnologia digitale wireless negli anni 2002-2004, che ho iniziato a notare un declino nella diversità e nella popolazione degli insetti. Questo periodo è coinciso con la fine di una prolungata siccità a livello nazionale e si è parlato molto di riscaldamento globale.
“Inizialmente ho attribuito il declino degli insetti a questi eventi. In seguito sono venuto a conoscenza della ‘tecnologia a microonde pulsate dei telefoni cellulari’ e ho capito da notizie di stampa che era stata installata sul Monte Nardi. Questa tecnologia è universalmente denominata dall’industria, dalla stampa e dal pubblico in generale come “3G”. Con questa conoscenza, ho iniziato a sospettare che forse stava accadendo qualcos’altro sul Monte Nardi. Allo stesso tempo, sono state introdotte ulteriori aggiunte, tra cui la tecnologia Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA).
“Nel 2009 è stata installata la tecnologia 3G avanzata e sono stati aggiunti alla torre altri 150 canali televisivi a pagamento. In seguito a queste aggiunte, ho assistito all’esodo di 27 specie di uccelli dal Monte Nardi, mentre contemporaneamente il volume degli insetti e la varietà delle specie sono diminuiti drasticamente.
“Alla fine del 2012 e all’inizio del 2013, con la costruzione di una nuova torre nel complesso e l’introduzione di un generatore da 600.000 watt, il sistema è stato aggiornato a quello che è diventato universalmente noto come “4G”. Subito dopo, ho assistito al rapido esodo di altre 49 specie di uccelli. Da quel momento, tutte le specie di pipistrelli conosciute localmente sono diventate scarse, 4 specie comuni di cicala sono quasi scomparse, così come la popolazione, un tempo enorme e variegata, di falene e farfalle. Le popolazioni di rane e girini si ridussero drasticamente; i volumi massicci e le diverse specie di popolazioni di formiche divennero da poco comuni a rare”.
Le osservazioni di Broomhall sono coerenti con migliaia di rapporti pubblicati nella letteratura scientifica, nonché con un flusso costante di rapporti informali da parte dei miei colleghi e abbonati che ricevo da tutto il mondo da decenni: dalla Spagna, dal Giappone, dalla Norvegia, dai Paesi Bassi, dalla Grecia, da ogni dove.
La differenza essenziale tra il Monte Nardi e l’attuale rifugio degli psittorinci è che un parco di antenne irradia tutto il Monte Nardi, mentre nella riserva di Hanawī non funzionano nemmeno i telefoni cellulari. È per questo che gli psittorinci si sono ritirati lì. Se gli uccelli saranno lasciati in pace e non riceveranno radiotrasmettitori, e se le antenne per telecomunicazioni, radar, WiFi e qualsiasi altro scopo saranno proibite sul vulcano e nelle riserve naturali che lo circondano, nonché sopra di esso dai droni, come è stato sperimentato in altre parti delle Hawaii, gli uccelli prospereranno. Altrimenti, moriranno.
Questo lavoro è interamente sostenuto da donazioni da individui. La Cellular Phone Task Force è un’organizzazione senza scopo di lucro 501(c)(3) e le donazioni dei residenti negli Stati Uniti sono deducibili dalle tasse.Il nostro codice fiscale è 11-3394550.
Questa newsletter è disponibile per la visualizzazione e la condivisione anche come pagina web, in formato PDF e su Substack. Questa newsletter e le ultime 63 sono disponibili alla pagina Newsletters della Cellular Phone Task Force, sia in inglese che in altre lingue.
Guidance to governments, legislators, environmental organizations, schools, and religious, political and community leaders. If your organization wishes to join in supporting this brief, please email us.
Key Points
The study of electricity should be restored to biology and medicine.
Personal wireless communication must be phased out because the radiation that carries all the messages is destroying life on earth.
Mobile phones must be replaced with landline phones, WiFi with ethernet cables, and other wireless consumer devices with devices connected by wires and cables.
Mobile phone antennas and masts must be phased out and removed.
Wireless technology must be removed from vehicles.
Smart meters must be replaced with analog meters.
Smart highways, smart cities, and the Internet of Things must cease being developed and deployed.
Radar stations must be limited in number, location and power.
Radar (microwave) ovens should not be used for heating food.
An international treaty on electrosmog, addressing radiation on land, in the oceans, and in space, must be drafted.
Introduction
Electrosmog is the totality of the electric fields, magnetic fields, and electromagnetic radiation that bathes us 24/7 from all electrical and electronic devices, electric wires, power lines, and wireless devices and antennas. With wired communication, information is transmitted via the wires, and the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and radiation are unintentional. Proper engineering can reduce these unwanted fields and radiation to a minimum.
By contrast, with wireless communication, the radiation is the product. Radiation substitutes for wires in transmitting information. Wireless means radiation. The ability to use a mobile device everywhere on earth means that every square meter of the earth must be irradiated at all times. Mobile devices operate in the microwave spectrum, with the result that the entire planet is now swimming in a sea of microwave radiation that is millions to billions of times stronger than the radiation from the sun and stars with which life evolved (1).
Life is based not only on chemistry but more fundamentally on electricity (2, 3). The unimpeded flow of electrons is essential to the functioning of our nerves, heart, and metabolism (3). Interference with these electric currents causes neurological diseases, heart disease, metabolic diseases such as diabetes, and cancer (4). Organisms that have a very high metabolism, such as bees and other insects, are being wiped out (5, 6). Thousands of studies document the devastating effects of wireless radiation on mammals, birds, insects, amphibians, and forests (7).
Because EMFs are not a foreign substance to living beings, a toxicology model does not apply and there is not a dose response: reducing the power does not reduce the effect. Even a signal that is almost immeasurably weak can interfere with normal biological functioning (8). “While the dose rate/SAR concept is adequate for description of acute thermal effects, it is not applicable for chronic exposures to N[on]T[hermal] M[icro]W[aves].” (9). Even at near-zero power levels, microwave radiation has been found to change the structure of DNA (10) and alter brain waves (11). Some studies have even found an inverse dose response. When the power of the radiation was reduced 1000-fold, damage to the blood-brain barrier increased (12). A review of 113 studies found that radiation with the lowest power tended to cause the greatest ecological damage (5). In another review of 108 experimental studies, a lower exposure level tended to have a greater biological effect, and the difference was highly significant (p < 0.001) (13).
The damage done to our health and our world by wireless devices and their infrastructure is caused not only by the microwave carrier frequencies, but also by the low-frequency modulation and pulsations that carry the transmitted information. “Thus modulation can be considered as information content embedded in the higher frequency carrier wave that may have health consequences beyond any effect from the carrier wave directly” (14). No matter what the carrier wave, the modulation is the same because it has to carry the same information. Therefore using light as the carrier wave, as is being done over short distances with LiFi, or using sound as the carrier wave, as is being done in the oceans, does not reduce the harm.
The finding that only a single two-hour exposure to a mobile phone during their lifetime, even when the power of the phone was reduced 100-fold, caused permanent brain damage in young rats (15) makes it likely that we are raising, and perhaps have already raised, a generation of children with brain damage. There is no question but that this must cease, and that cell phones are not safe at any power level, at any distance from the head, and for any duration.
Purpose of This Document
This policy brief provides an overview of an immediate threat to life on earth—even more immediate than climate change—that has been allowed to get completely out of control because it has been completely ignored. The source of the threat is a technology to which everyone has become addicted, and which, during the past two and a half decades, has become firmly entrenched in every aspect of life. Although more scientific studies have been published on the health and environmental effects of EMFs than on almost any other pollutant except for mercury and tobacco smoke, the impact of all this research upon public policy to date has been zero. Average citizens still do not even know that a mobile device emits radiation. Much less do they suspect that it is causing them brain damage or threatening their life and their future on this planet. The purpose of this brief is to outline actions that are required to be taken by political leaders, religious leaders, environmental organizations, public schools, medical schools and doctors to educate the public and to begin to dismantle this existential threat to the earth.
Essential Actions Required by National and International Leaders and Organizations
I. An International Treaty or Convention on Electrosmog must be adopted by all nations
The number of antennas and their distance from people and wildlife must be strictly regulated. The elements of an international treaty should include the following:
A. Phasing out and eventual prohibition of personal wireless devices, including mobile devices and WiFi
At present there are about 15 billion mobile devices and 6 million mobile phone masts; the earth cannot survive this. Private individuals should not have the right to irradiate their neighbors. Businesses should not have the right to irradiate their patrons.
B. Limiting antennas and devices that emit radiation to radio and television stations, emergency services such as police and fire departments, and radar for civil defense, aviation and shipping
C. Limiting the location, number, and power of civil defense radars
The present situation of unlimited power has allowed 3-billion-watt radars such as PAVE PAWS, which has irradiated millions of people on both coasts of the United States for more than four decades (16).
A five-year investigation into the health and environmental effects of a civil defense radar in Latvia after the end of the Cold War resulted in the decommissioning and removal of that radar. School children in the area—even children who lived 20 kilometers away—had impaired motor function, memory and attention, reduced lung capacity, and elevated white blood cell counts. The entire local population suffered from headaches, sleep disturbances and elevated white blood cells. Human reproduction was affected: 25 percent fewer boys than girls were born during the years the radar operated. Chromosome damage was found in local cows. Nest-boxes near the radar were occupied by extremely low numbers of birds. The average growth rings of trees during the years of the radar’s operation were only half as wide as before the radars were constructed, and study of pine cones revealed the trees were aging prematurely. Seedlings in the area grew into deformed plants with reduced reproductive capacity (17, 18, 19, 20,21, 22, 23, 24).
D. Phasing out weather radars, as they do more harm than good
There are an estimated 1,500 of these extremely powerful installations scattered throughout the world. Each of the 160 NEXRAD radars in the United States has an EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) of 32 gigawatts (32 billion watts) (25). These radars are heavily irradiating people and wildlife, and are neither reliable nor essential to weather forecasting (26).
E. Prohibition of antennas inside national parks, wildlife preserves and protected nature areas
A 2015 report to UNESCO detailed the devastating impact of communication antennas inside a World Heritage Site in Australia. When a telecommunication tower atop Mount Nardi began to convert its antennas from 2G (primarily voice communications) to 3G (voice and data) in 2002, a steady increase in species diversity suddenly reversed and became a steady decrease in species diversity. In 2002 insect populations and diversity began to decline. In 2009, enhanced 3G was installed, along with an additional 150 pay television channels. 27 bird species promptly left the mountain, and insect volumes and species dropped dramatically. In late 2012 and early 2013, 4G was installed, and 49 more bird species promptly left the mountain.
“From this time, all locally known bat species became scarce, 4 common species of cicada almost disappeared, as well as the once enormous, varied population of moths & butterfly species. Frogs and tadpole populations were drastically reduced; the massive volumes and diverse species of ant populations became uncommon to rare… [F]rom 70 to 90 % of the wildlife has become rare or has disappeared from the Nightcap National Park within a 2-3 km radius of the Mt. Nardi tower complex” (27).
F. Prohibition of the manufacture of vehicles with wireless technology and radar
WiFi, Bluetooth, wireless ignitions, wireless CarPlay, wireless tire pressure monitors, and radar are just a few of the in-car systems that have turned the small, reflective metallic bodies of vehicles into intensely microwaved chambers. To these are being added in-car 5G hotspots that are turning many new vehicles into autonomous mobile devices, using vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-pedestrian, vehicle-to-network, and vehicle-to-highway communication.
G. Prohibition of smart meters, smart highways, smart cities, and the Internet of Things
Smart meters are being placed on every home and business in the world, and are turning all the wiring inside the walls of every home and business into a radiating antenna.
Microchips and antennas are being placed in every machine, every appliance, and almost every consumer product in the world as part of the Internet of Things, and there are predictions of as many as one trillion antennas communicating wirelessly with one another in the near future. These all irradiate the entire population at close range, including inside their homes and businesses, without any choice and without possibility of escape.
H. Halting the launch of satellites, and phasing out most private, public and military use of space
The functioning of all living organisms is regulated by their electromagnetic environment, including the magnetic field of the earth, the vertical electric field between earth and ionosphere, the global electric circuit, the Schumann resonances, etc. If the electromagnetic environment of the earth is altered, life on earth will not long survive.
Both the number of satellites in orbit and the radiation they emit are completely out of control. Some satellites already have an effective radiated power of 83 million watts. Some are capable of emitting 5,000 individual beams. More than 8,000 satellites are already in orbit, and thousands more are being sent into space by near-daily rocket launches. Not only are they exposing every square meter of land and oceans to their radiation, but they are polluting the global electric circuit, which includes our bodies, with all of their pulsations and modulation patterns.
This is degrading all of life and causing pandemics, extinctions, and forest die-off, which cannot be successfully addressed without halting the radiation in and from space (4).
I. Prohibition of underwater wireless communication in the oceans
Along with national parks and nature preserves, the oceans should be absolutely protected from radiation.
Governmental, commercial and military interests have been collaborating to create Smart Oceans and build the Internet of Underwater Things. To do this they are building cell towers on the ocean floor, putting relay antennas in the depths of the ocean, and deploying smart ships, smart submarines, and underwater robots. The goal is to enable broadband wireless communication from any point on or in the oceans to anywhere else on the planet, up to and including “real-time video streaming from underwater” everywhere in every ocean (28).
Radio Frequency (RF) radiation is being used in the oceans for short- to medium-range communication, and is destroying ocean life the same way it is destroying land-based life. Acoustic waves are being used for long-range communication, and are deafening fish and ocean mammals with sound as loud as 202 decibels.
The fishing industry is also using underwater radar to locate and capture fish with a precision and on a scale that is devastating to ocean life (29).
All underwater wireless communication and radar must be halted.
II. Churches and other religious buildings should remove antennas and WiFi networks from their premises
Churches have become a prime target by telecommunications companies for the installation of antennas, often hidden inside false chimneys or fake bell towers. These antennas earn a lot of money for churches but turn them into hazardous environments for their worshippers and visitors.
III. Schools must remove mobile phone masts and WiFi routers and prohibit mobile phones
Schools are among the most intensely irradiated environments in society today, consequently the worst and unhealthiest places for our children to spend their growing years. Every classroom has one or more WiFi routers in it, together with dozens of children sitting in close proximity to one another every day all day, all of them with cell phones and wireless computers, irradiating one another at all times. Like churches, schools are earning money renting their properties to telecommunications companies for the installation of mobile phone masts.
All masts and all WiFi antennas must be removed from all school properties, and children must be prohibited from bringing cell phones to school.
IV. Religious, political and community leaders should encourage congregations and constituencies to get rid of their cell phones and other wireless devices
Nothing is more important today in the stewardship of our planet.
V. Medical schools should incorporate education on EMFs into curriculums, and classes in electromagnetic health should be required for continuing education
The books and studies are there by the tens of thousands. They sit on the shelves of medical school libraries gathering dust and being ignored. All that is required is to organize them into the curriculum and the base of knowledge required of every physician in order to earn a medical degree.
VI. Environmental organizations must form chapters on electrosmog, and must cease using wireless technology as a tool for monitoring and research
The rapid declines in biodiversity and species populations cannot be successfully addressed without reducing electromagnetic pollution which is causing half or more of the observed declines. As long as electrosmog is not addressed head-on, all of these problems will continue to be blamed on other things: climate change, land use, deforestation, pesticides, etc. Some of the means now being used to combat climate change, for example solar and wind energy, are worsening electrosmog and further decimating species. Some of the means to study these problems, for example GPS and radio tracking of wildlife, are diminishing wildlife instead.
All antennas must be removed from protected nature areas, wildlife preserves, and oceans. Radio tracking devices are deadly (30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37). They must be removed from all wildlife and not put on any more animals, birds, insects, or fish.
VII. Non-ionising radiation must be regulated by national environmental agencies with no conflicts of interest
In many countries, RF radiation from telecommunications facilities and devices is regulated by the same agency that is charged with promoting those facilities and devices. This is an obvious conflict of interest.
Most governments defer to guidance from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) or the World Health Organization, which also defers to the ICNIRP. The ICNIRP is not an environmental agency. It is a self-appointed private organization with 14 members answerable to no one (38). Its exposure guidelines are based on heating only, as though there were no other effects. In the United States, the agency that both regulates and promotes the telecommunications industry is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Like the ICNIRP, the FCC bases its exposure guidelines for humans on heating effects only, and completely ignores the effects on the environment.
RF radiation should be regulated transparently within each nation by their own environmental agencies based on the totality of science. It should be addressed within the UN not by the World Health Organization, but by the United Nations Environment Programme, which presently does not address it at all. And it should be subject to an international treaty and a convention on Electrosmog, as per point 1.
Conclusions
The policy considerations presented in this brief have their basis in science, and in the protection of human rights, human health and the environment. They were developed in response to an emergency situation in which the irradiation of the earth is accelerating at such a rapid rate that it has become the single most urgent threat to life on earth today. The recommended actions by political leaders, religious leaders, organizations, schools, and government agencies provide a path to health and survival.
References
Aleksandr S. Presman. Electromagnetic Fields and Life (NY: Plenum Press 1970), p. 31, Figure 11.
Robert O. Becker. The Body Electric (NY: Morrow 1985).
Sulman, Felix Gad. The effect of air ionization, electric fields, atmospherics and other electric phenomena on man and animal. American Lecture Series, Publ. no. 1029 (Charles C. Thomas Publisher, Springfield IL, 1980; 398 pp.).
Arthur Firstenberg. The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green 2020, 560 pp.).
Blake Levitt, Henry C. Lai and Albert M. Manville II. Effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields on flora and fauna, Part 2 impacts: how species interact with natural and man-made EMF. Reviews on Environmental Health 37(3): 327-406 and Supplements 1-4 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2021-0050
Igor Belyaev. Duration of Exposure and Dose in Assessing Nonthermal Biological Effects of Microwaves. In Dosimetry in Bioelectromagnetics (CRC Press 2017), pp. 171-184.
William Bise. Low power radio-frequency and microwave effects on human electroencephalogram and behavior. Physiological Chemistry and Physics 10(5): 387-398. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/751078/
Andrew Wood, Rohan Mate and Ken Karipidis. Meta-analysis of in vitro and in vivo studies of the biological effects of low-level millimetre waves. Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology 31: 606–613 (2021). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-021-00307-7.pdf
Anton Kolodynski and Valda Kolodynska. Motor and psychological functions of school children living in the area of the Skrunda Radio Location Station in Latvia. Science of the Total Environment 180: 87-93 (1996). https://www.wifiinschools.com/uploads/3/0/4/2/3042232/kolodynski.pdf
Jason D. Godfrey and David M. Bryant. Effects of radio transmitters: review of recent radio-tracking studies. In: M. Williams, ed., Conservation Applications of Measuring Energy Expenditure of New Zealand Birds: Assessing Habitat Quality and Costs of Carrying Radio Transmitters (Wellington, New Zealand: Dept. of Conservation), pp. 83-95 (2003). https://www.doc.govt.nz/documents/science-and-technical/SFC214f.pdf
John C. Withey et al. Effects of tagging and location error in wildlife radiotelemetry studies. In: Joshua J. Millspaugh and John M. Marzluff, eds., Radio Tracking and Animal Populations (San Diego: Academic), pp. 43-75 (2001). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780124977815500049
Roger Burrows, Heribert Hofer, and Marion L. East. Demography, extinction and intervention in a small population: the case of the Serengeti wild dogs. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 256: 281-92 (1994). https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rspb.1994.0082
Jon E. Swenson et al. Effects of ear-tagging with radiotransmitters on survival of moose calves. Journal of Wildlife Management 63(1): 354-58 (1999). https://www.jstor.org/stable/3802519
For the health and safety of all living beings, please read this newsletter only from a hardwired device with the deadly Bluetooth antenna and wireless turned OFF, or a printed hard copy. If these are not available to you, please begin taking the steps today to make them so.
RESTORED HEALTH AND VITALITY FROM DITCHING MY CELL PHONE
by Kathleen Burke
A year ago, I was leading a normal, full, active life with no idea of the damage my mobile phone was doing to me. On July 1, 2022, I cancelled my mobile phone service (“cell phone” in the U.S) and turned off the wireless function on my computer as well as the modem. I made these changes at the request of my respected ally and colleague, Arthur Firstenberg. In order to work together I had to experience, first-hand, the shedding of wireless technology, and I had to be willing to “be the change”. It seemed extreme at the time, and as readers may recall, I even cried over the matter before making my final decision. But ten months into this experiment my life is different, and better.
When people ask me if I regret having given up my cell phone, my answer is unequivocally “No”. I don’t miss texting on a phone. I don’t miss GPS. I don’t miss reading news that some news aggregator selected for me. I don’t miss QR codes for this, that and everything else. I do not regret ridding myself of having a cell phone and I would not go back to having one.
I generally feel better… a lot better! Before the wireless purge I was waking up five-six times a night, walking to the bathroom only to urinate minimally and returning to bed; sometimes falling back to sleep, sometimes not. In the weaning off process, I began sleeping better and I now sleep deeply every night and wake up maybe once a night. I also had had chronic stomach aches in the early morning for ten years. Doctors ruled out acid reflux, ulcers, etc. The stomach aches are now gone, entirely. I had frequent nightmares, and I often had headaches upon waking. Those are all gone as well. I wake up happy now instead of lethargic and depressed. Who knew?
My energy level changed noticeably after giving up my phone. I went from long days surrounded by wireless technology which rendered me exhausted, to equally long workdays ending still healthy feeling and still energetic. Now I easily move from the end of the workday to getting on my bicycle or hiking boots and going, rather than languishing due to low energy. This is the primary reason I will not go back to wireless phone or wireless computer. My life, my living is that much better now. I haven’t needed acupuncture for several months. My prana is better. My chi is stronger.
Other things I have noticed: my hair is growing in healthier and I have noticed more new hair growth along my hairline. In my cell phone using days I lost a lot of hair. There was a one-year period, 2016-2017, when I engaged in a lot of high-stress work and carried two cell phones at the time. I lost about one third of the hair on my head during that period and my hair greyed at a rate faster than I had previously seen. At the time I believed that it was simply stress which caused my hair loss. Now, I see it differently. I believe it was the result of having two cellphones near me and in operation at nearly all times. Two cellphones in close proximity produce a tremendous amount of toxic, I call them “slow death”, microwaves, though in truth, for many people they are “fast death” microwaves; those causing cardiac events, for instance. My body reacted to all the radiation. My cells coped, but poorly. I am experiencing a recovery now. My weight has normalized, which would be expected if my cells are now functioning better.
Once I began weaning myself off the cellphone, prior to shutting off my service altogether, I only powered it on rarely. When I began that process, I noticed that when I looked at the screen while powering on the phone, I felt quick and sharp pains in my face. They were subtle, but obvious, something like invisible low-pain darts hitting my face. I had never before felt these pains. I only felt them when I used the phone and only very briefly. I took that as a warning and further reason to get rid of the phone. I have not felt those pains again since except when the Bluetooth was accidentally turned back on in my computer for a few weeks—a few weeks during which my vision deteriorated for no reason that I could fathom until I realized the Bluetooth was on. I turned it off immediately and make sure that it is off every morning when I boot up.
The immediate effects from wireless are not noticed by most of us who have become accustomed to the damage microwave radiation is doing to us. Decreased health and vitality—and increased diseases and demand for medications—is thought of as “normal”. When I was carrying two cell phones I did not “feel” the effects they were having on my body. I didn’t “feel” my mitochondria. I didn’t “feel” cell death. I didn’t relate the deterioration of my body to my use of devices. But that is what was happening. I was aging myself prematurely, unknowingly.
Before I cancelled my service, I spent two months deeply researching the effects of electromagnetic radiation on living beings. I read peer-reviewed studies, books, reports from scientists around the world, and more. I found references to thousands of such studies, both recent and dating back decades. I read Arthur’s book, The Invisible Rainbow, and the compelling history of the dangers of wireless technology as well as electricity, and their deadly effect on living organisms.
I am reminded in this moment that two of the most intelligent, and youthful “senior” (they don’t seem senior) people I know do not own a cellphone and swore them off years and years ago. This cannot be an accident. These are the only other two adults I personally know at the time of this writing who do not own a cell phone, aside from the many kind folks who have contacted me via the Cellular Phone Task Force. They are exceptionally “alive” people.
A few weeks ago I discovered that a dear friend was living in a home riddled with RF radiation. This friend and I watch out for each other. He is almost 80 years of age and was formerly enthusiastic about tech and a big consumer of it. I believed that he had checked his home thoroughly with an RF meter last year and that his home was relatively safe. Just to be sure, I thought I better check.
I was shocked to see my RF meter flashing red, meaning “evacuate the area at once”, in his bedroom and in his office where he spends roughly three quarters of his life. The source of the incredibly high levels of radiation? Three cordless phones distributed around the home, a printer with a built-in wireless/Bluetooth connection, a modem which was mistakenly believed to have had the wireless function turned off, a state-of-the-art desktop PC which even though plugged into the Ethernet with the WiFi turned off was emitting like crazy because the Bluetooth was on. He and his three cats were bathed in radiation in their own home, which reminds me to point out that radiation from home devices, and associated illnesses and extinctions, are becoming more insidious, not less, still.
His wife died from complications (a fall) from advanced Parkinson’s disease. There was never an explanation given by any doctor for what caused the progressive Parkinson’s leading to her death. She was heavily irradiated in her home, which was the above scenario, plus two additional cell phones, and two additional PCs using wireless. She could not overcome the dense radiation in her home, where she also worked and taught piano. My friend, a man with obviously strong genes, was barely overcoming it; sleeping with a CPAP machine for sleep apnea while living in the midst of off-the-charts radiation. He was moving around his life in something of a zombie state. I witnessed it. This is when I met him. He often had trouble initiating walking, though he was perfectly able to walk. Often, I observe this semi-zombified state in people around me.
Even his indoor cats seemed neurotic, with patches of hair loss and various acting out of the norm. I look forward to seeing them improve now that the radiation is being brought to below “need to evacuate” levels after 20+ years of increasing radiation. They will all enjoy drastic improvements.
Another experience which reinforced my certainty about what wireless technology is doing to the world was my trip to the COP 27 in Egypt last November, where the entire grounds of the convention center were heavily irradiated at all times. My RF meter flashed red in every nook and cranny of the convention center where numerous cell towers lorded overhead disguised as palm trees. The out-of-doors was equally irradiated and essentially everywhere every person was on a cell phone at almost all times, partly because no conference information was made available on paper, not even maps of the intricate multi-facility conference grounds. It was estimated that over 40,000 people were present.
Sharm El-Sheikh is a modern tourist town where landlines are nowhere an option. The condominium complex where I stayed had wireless connections throughout and my housemates of course had their cell phones. Due to being heavily irradiated, I did not sleep for four nights upon my arrival and was subsequently placed in hospital, very depleted, where I required IV fluids and sedatives. Interestingly, the doctor’s four different sedatives did not work, which I can only attribute to the extremely high level of radiation at the hospital, because normally I am highly sensitive to medication. Again, the “evacuate at once” red flashing light on my RF meter. With some chagrin, when my legs began involuntarily spasming I left the hospital AMA (against medical advice), much to the physician’s displeasure. I did my best to smooth things over and finally slept on the fifth night at the condominium thanks to my kind housemate’s Melatonin and a space in the bedroom I identified with lower radiation.
There was a near total absence of birds at this the southernmost tip of the Sinai Peninsula, even though it was migration season. I saw a few flocks fly past out on the Red Sea, but not more than a dozen birds on shore and inland during the two weeks I was visiting. Birds simply are few there, despite plentiful palm trees and flowering shrubs. There was an unsettling quiet all around. Fortunately, a plentiful array of tropical fish still inhabit the sea there.
It was a tremendous relief to get back to the safety of my home where I resumed my journey to health and vitality again.
I gave up my cell phone and wireless service for a number of reasons, three of those being:
the preservation of my life and health, and that of my pets
the preservation of the creatures that keep this planet, my garden, and the refuges where I hike, lively, abundant and habitable
and concern for the survival of all species
Removing radiation in the home is like shaking off a debilitating disease. It has made for the restoration of a more beautiful and graceful life, one I thought I had simply lost. I am again feeling well and sleeping well. I am no longer damaging brain cells, destroying my blood brain barrier, or endangering my mitochondria; all things which compromise our wellbeing and what is needed for longevity and happiness.
In addition to being healthier, I am also freer now. My living is less interrupted by alerts and rings, many of which, in retrospect were superfluous. My friends and colleagues still matter to me every bit as much as they did before. Perhaps they matter more as my life has simplified. My time with them today is richer and feels better because Ifeel better. My social life improved qualitatively. I care for my friends and associates near and far and I sense they still care for me equally. Not carrying a cell phone has not changed that reality nor my ability to access life and love.
Having detached from the news aggregator which I previously used frequently on my phone has also improved my life. The news aggregator was informative, yes, but heavily propagandized like most news today; essentially an echo chamber endlessly looping propaganda at me. I am glad to be free of that. I am no longer bombarded by upsetting and intrusive hyped news all day long. I pick up news here and there. I am less propagandized. I feel less propagandized, and freer.
Desperately, my colleagues and I want the extinction of species to stop. I am thrilled by the birds and insects that make this planet productive. I have already envisioned a planet with the numbers of birds and insects returned. It is suspected that radiation is responsible for “half or more” of the species lost in the Seventh Mass Extinction which is ongoing. My garden is visited by relatively few birds and even fewer butterflies; just a few moth species. I saw some juvenile praying mantises last spring but never saw a single adult. Even worms are few. Climate change, pesticides and deforestation are factors, but radiation is a larger, more destructive factor, not smaller. Most of the world is downplaying, ignoring and even suppressing the destructive role of radiation as regards extinction.
Thanks to insights from the researcher Diana Kordas on the Greek island of Samos, I have come to understand that while I make choices around my personal use of deadly wireless technology, beyond my little bubble are all the creatures who have no say in a matter which is about life and death. Quite possibly their entire species are being irradiated to extinction by man-made wireless technology. I have a choice; they do not. Like on Samos, there are distressingly few signs of living animal creatures in my local mountains. There are increasingly fewer places to which they can escape from cell towers, cell phones and the like, and in many instances, no place at all. Hence extinction.
Tonight is a cool spring night in the high desert of the southwest U.S. It is quiet outside. The city where I live is not a typical bustling wealthy American city and I suspect most people are at home, perhaps at rest. Home, generally the place to which we go for safety and warmth. I wonder, as we are nestled here in our respective retreats, “Is home a place of safety anymore? Has home become as dangerous or more than the streets of a high-crime city?”. Consider nearly every home and public place in developed countries and beyond has at least one modem emitting deadly EMFs day and night, and one or more cell phones. Add to that a smart meter (wireless utility meters affixed to homes), perhaps a baby monitor, and all other sorts of other wireless gadgets.
My house is a haven and I am safer here, as are my pets. I fear for their well-being but know that they are protected here, at least. Even my dear neighbor’s new cat has chosen my home, which measures as far safer than the home where he is meant to be living. At least I can provide a haven for these few and for myself. I am much relieved that my pets are more safe, not less in my home.
A month after my return from Egypt, the subject line for one of the world’s most circulated newspapers, a popular U.S. publication, read: “The Morning: a happier new year, develop stronger relationships in 2023”. The first paragraph: “For over 80 years, researchers at Harvard have studied what makes for a good life. They found one surefire, scientifically proven predictor of happiness: developing warmer relationships.” The publication went on to say, “What emerged is that a crucial element of happiness is relationships.” One might question, what about those of us who have highly developed, ongoing warm relationships and relative happiness? What would be the challenge for us in 2023?
I am a big fan of warm relationships. If I am going to fry I would prefer to do so in the arms of a beloved. But let’s be clear, in the current dire state of what we, the living beings on Earth, are faced with, love is not enough. Warm relationships cannot reverse utter cell destruction and death from radiation. We here at the Cellular Phone Task Force will be much more optimistic on January 1 of next year if a headline were to read, “The Morning: a happier new year, cell towers being removed worldwide in 2024 as cell phone ownership declines and world leaders declare microwave radiation destroying the health of all species”.
There is no lasting happiness without health, according to the ancient medical system of Ayurveda. And health is becoming more and more elusive on this planet as every day a web of deadly radiation more densely blankets our planet; our home, Earth. There are scientists studying the effects of electromagnetic fields and radiation who predict humanity will only survive two more years on the planet due to radiation. There are many more scientists flagrantly ignoring this possibility altogether.
It is not unreasonable to conclude that in this current world of destructive microwave radiation “safety” is no longer a reality anywhere. I have relatively low electromagnetic frequencies in my home because of the precautions I have taken and I have walls built of mud bricks, which helps. But my home is not entirely safe and won’t be as long as wireless technology dominates and destroys our planet. We at the Cellular Phone Task Force encourage you and your families to join us by “being the change”.
Here is a short list of our top reasons to ditch your cell phone and other wireless devices:
Protect your health and happiness, including your brain, and minimize your need for medical intervention.
Protect your children’s happiness and their development, especially their brains.
Preserve your youth.
Protect your pets.
Protect your surroundings and gardens; pollinators, soils, plants, neighbors, wildlife.
Preserve species from extinction.
Preserve life on the planet.
Kathleen Burke is the executive assistant to Arthur Firstenberg, celebrated American scientist, anti-wireless activist, and author of the internationally acclaimed The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life(AGB Press 2017; Chelsea Green Publishing 2020) published in ten languages, as well as Microwaving Our Planet: The Environmental Impact of the Wireless Revolution (Cellular Phone Task Force 1996 and 1997) and president of the Cellular Phone Task Force. She authored the paper “How to Break Up with Your Cell Phone” (Cellular Phone Task Force 2022).
Kathleen is a gardener, hiker, and practitioner of Ayurveda in the US desert Southwest where she resides. She holds a certificate in Ayurvedic Medicine from the Ayurvedic Institute, Dr. Vasant Lad, BAMS. For reasons of personal health and the environment, Kathleen permanently gave up her mobile phone and ended her use of wireless devices in June, 2022 and has never regretted it. She can be reached at kathleenmariaburke@yahoo.com.
Kathleen has been invited to go to England to speak at the Better Way Conference in Bath, held June 2-4, 2023. Donations are needed to fund her trip. The Cellular Phone Task Force is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations from U.S. residents are tax-deductible. Our Tax ID number is 11-3394550.
In mid-October 2019, the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project (MFBRP), in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the State of Hawai’i, The Nature Conservancy, the American Bird Conservancy, Pacific Bird Conservation, and San Diego Zoo Global, attached VHF radio transmitters to a harness on the legs of 10 kiwikiu before releasing them into the Nakula Natural Area Reserve, on the southern slope of Haleakalā volcano. Kiwikiu, a species of honeycreepers found only on Maui, are critically endangered. They are small, weighing less than an ounce. Fewer than 150 of these intelligent, long-lived little birds remain.
The birds — some captive-raised and some wild — were released into the forest between October 27 and October 30, 2019. By November 16, every bird was dead except the three who had succeeded in removing or disabling their transmitter. The details are shocking.
Seven wild kiwikiu were captured from the Hanawī Natural Area Reserve and transported to aviaries in the Nakula reserve on the morning of October 17 in preparation for release in the proposed new bird sanctuary. One of the birds, number WILD9, received his transmitter on October 29. He had been strong and healthy prior to that moment, but as soon as it was attached, he hopped onto the ground and stayed still on the floor. Half an hour later, he tucked his head under his wing. Bird Recovery staff then removed the transmitter, but he did not recover. He continued to sit quietly on his perch, and was found dead the next morning.
Another wild bird, number WILD10, received her transmitter on October 26. She attacked the harness holding it onto her ferociously, bit it apart, and removed it. It was found on the ground on October 28. Later on October 28, the Bird Recovery team put a new transmitter on her. On October 29, she was lethargic and not eating. On October 30, she was “fluffed and inactive.” She was found dead on the morning of October 31.
The other five wild-captured kiwikiu were released into the Nakula reserve with their transmitters intact. WILD5 died on November 11. WILD8 died on November 5. WILD11 died on November 16. WILD7 removed his transmitter on November 8, and he was last observed, doing well, on November 12. WILD1 succeeded in disabling his transmitter the day after his release, and he was observed, doing well, with the harness still attached to his legs, on November 24. He eventually removed the harness as well and was observed again, doing well, on July 23, 2021, 632 days after his release into the forest.
Five captive-bred kiwikiu were also part of the project. They had all been raised in bird conservation breeding centers on Maui and Hawai’i, and were between 5 and 18 years old. Two of these birds died during the two-week preparation for release, although they had thrived for years in the bird conservation centers. Bird number MP022 received his transmitter on October 29. Like WILD9, he hopped onto the ground and stayed on the floor after his transmitter was attached, but unlike WILD9 he rolled onto his side and kept on attacking the transmitter with his beak until finally he got his mandible stuck in the harness. Staff removed the transmitter and released him into the Nakula reserve without it, but he did not recover and died on November 2. Bird number MP026 was released with his transmitter on October 29 and died on November 5. Bird number MP023 was released with his transmitter on October 28, and succeeded in removing his transmitter the following day after being observed “moving on a direct path out of Nakula NAR.” Presumably he flew as far away from his captors as he could. Bird number MP027 also survived because he was not released with a transmitter. This bird had had a transmitter attached in a previous trial on April 8, and immediately lay on his back on the floor of his cage and did not move. Seeing this, staff removed his transmitter after only a few minutes. On October 23 they attached a transmitter to him again briefly but decided not to include him in the experiment and returned him to the Maui conservation center where he was still alive and well as of the date of publication of the MFBRP report on March 15, 2021.
The writers of the report attributed every kiwikiu death to malaria, despite the facts, stated in the report, that malaria had never before been found in birds in the conservation breeding centers or the Hanawī reserve where all the birds came from; that malaria had never been known to infect more than about 10 or 15 percent of any population of honeycreepers; that malaria does not kill all birds it infects and honeycreepers are known to develop resistance to it; that other parasites were also found in the birds; and that the average time from first symptoms to death for the birds in this project was “1-2 days” which is not typical of malaria. Two “large, healthy male kiwikiu” died within hours of their first signs of reduced activity. The authors of the study wrote:
“[I]t was not clear if these birds could have contracted the disease in Nakula NAR as these birds developed symptoms more rapidly than is typical and died more rapidly than has been reported for other honeycreepers.”
They went on to speculate:
“The necropsies found parasites in multiple organ systems indicating a severe systemic infection that had moved out of the blood stream into other tissues. This could be the result of increased replication of the malaria parasite following some change in the immune system of the birds, such as in response to environmental stress.”
The environmental stress that they did not consider was the radiation from the VHF transmitters that they attached to the birds. Even after discovering that the bird who disabled his transmitter less than one day after his release was thriving almost two years later, the researchers remain wedded to their malaria theory. As reported in the Honolulu Star Advertiser on July 23, 2021, “officials said the discovery is unlikely to change the current plan to save the bird, which includes capturing up to 30 kiwikiu and shipping them to zoo facilities in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Utah while officials figure out how to control the disease-carrying mosquitoes in the wild.”
A correspondent in Alberta wrote to me last year:
“Prior to me being aware of the dangers I had a tracking collar for my beagle as he was a little bit of an escape artist. Unfortunately after having worn it for a while (3 months or so) with it on only while he was outside he started to develop joint pains and was not walking right. The vet said he had a common beagle issue of his spine starting to compress and cause problems. Right around the same time I was learning of the dangers of all these wireless devices and got rid of his tracker. He was off pain killers and back to normal in under a month and the issue has never returned.”
Nor did the Bird Recovery team consider the radiation from the giant antenna farm towering over the Nakula Natural Area Reserve atop Puʻu ʻUlaʻula (Red Hill). There are 159 antennas on 20 telecommunication towers on top of that hill blasting the Nakula reserve with cell phone, internet, radio, television, government, police, military and other signals. The Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing (AMOS) facility is there. The authors of the Bird Recovery report wondered why it is that the wild kiwikiu choose to remain in the small 7,413-acre Hanawī Natural Area Reserve on the windward slope of the volcano and do not stray over the top to the leeward slope where they would be more sheltered from the elements. It is because in the Hanawī reserve the crest of the volcano above them blocks all the radiation from that antenna farm and cell phones do not even work where they live.
Since the failure of the relocation project, efforts to save the kiwikiu from extinction have focused on releasing billions of bacteria-infected mosquitoes onto Maui in a misguided attempt to save the birds by eradicating avian malaria from the island. As of this writing, a lawsuit against the mosquito project, filed by Hawai’i Unites, is being heard by Hawai’i’s Environmental Court. Not only will importing billions of mosquitoes, however altered, into the national park and nature reserves of eastern Maui only make the situation worse for the birds; not only could it backfire and further spread malaria instead of eradicating it; but no solution is possible for this or any other species of rare bird as long as we as a society continue in our denial about the radiation disaster that we are inflicting on our planet from every direction.
In 2017, Mark Broomhall wrote a 38-page Report for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization that shines a bright light on why the kiwikiu have retreated to the high elevations of the northern slope of Haleakalā volcano in Maui, and what must be done to protect them. The following is from his summary of his years of observation of the birds and wildlife on Mount Nardi in the Nightcap National Park World Heritage Area in Australia. That mountain, on which he lived for 40 years, has telecommunication towers on its summit:
“It wasn’t until the Analogue Era was drawing to a close, along with the advent of digital wireless technology in the years 2002 to 2004, that I began to notice a decline in insect diversity and population. This period was at the back-end of a prolonged nationwide drought and there was much talk of global warming.
“Initially, I attributed the insect decline to these events. I later learnt of ‘mobile phone pulsed microwave technology’ and understood from press reports that this was being installed on Mt. Nardi. This technology is named universally by the industry, the press, and the public at large, as ‘3G.’ With this knowledge, I began to suspect that perhaps something else was happening on Mt. Nardi. At the same time, further additions included Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) technology.
“In the year 2009, enhanced 3G technology was installed and a further 150 pay television channels were added to the tower. Following these additions, I witnessed the exodus of 27 bird species from Mt. Nardi while simultaneously, insect volumes and species variety dropped dramatically.
“In late 2012 and early 2013, with the construction of a new tower in the complex and the introduction of a 600,000-watt generator, the system was upgraded to what became universally known as “4G.” Immediately after, I witnessed the rapid exodus of a further 49 bird species. From this time, all locally known bat species became scarce, 4 common species of cicada almost disappeared, as well as the once enormous, varied population of moths & butterfly species. Frogs and tadpole populations were drastically reduced; the massive volumes and diverse species of ant populations became uncommon to rare.”
Broomhall’s observations are consistent with thousands of published reports in the scientific literature, as well as a constant stream of informal reports from my colleagues and subscribers that I have been receiving from all over the world for decades — from Spain, from Japan, from Norway, from the Netherlands, from Greece, from everywhere.
The essential difference between Mount Nardi and the kiwikiu’s current refuge is that an antenna farm irradiates all of Mount Nardi whereas cell phones do not even work in the Hanawī reserve. It is why the kiwikiu have retreated there. If the birds are simply left alone and not given radio transmitters, and if antennas for telecommunications, radar, WiFi, and any other purpose are prohibited on the volcano and in the nature reserves around it, as well as above it from drones as has been experimented with elsewhere in Hawai’i, the birds will thrive. If not, they will perish.
This work and these newsletters are supported entirely by donations from individuals. We have no other source of funding. The Cellular Phone Task Force is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and donations by U.S. residents are tax-deductible. Our Tax ID Number is 11-3394550.
The last 63 newsletters, including this one, are available for viewing and sharing on the Newsletters pageof the Cellular Phone Task Force.This newsletter is published there both as a webpage and as a PDF. It is also on Substack.
