Earthwatch - Dirty Electricity

(See below for thoughts on Earth Day, a Suicide Seeds update, and Seedlings and Sludge Awards.)

Why Your Appliances Might be Making You Sick

By Paul Henderson

Kevin Byrne had such agonizing pain in his hips, his lower and mid-back, and up to his shoulders, that even sitting still and lying in bed was painful. At 47-years-old he was aching with the joints of a man twice his age.

“I felt like an arthritic old man,” Byrne told Vitality in March. One day Byrne saw his neighbour, Walt Gibson, an environmental engineer, using what he later found out was called a Graham-Stetzer meter. Byrne was curious and asked what he was doing. Gibson was measuring what is known as “dirty electricity”; basically the high frequency energy in wiring.

Byrne tried the meter in his own home and found that his energy efficient lighting and his dimmer switches were giving off very high levels of dirty electricity. So Byrne purchased some Graham-Stetzer filters – a device developed by Martin Graham and Dave Stetzer – for his home. The Graham-Stetzer filter is a simple device that shorts the high frequency radiation with a capacitor.

Within three or four days, Byrne says he started to feel better. Within a week he felt significantly better. At the time he wrote it off to the placebo effect, until his wife’s more minor problems with health and sleep patterns also got progressively better.

“I said to myself something’s happening here,” Byrne said.

Just when you thought dirty air, dirty water, and dirty soil were getting you down, scientists are finding “dirty electricity” is a ubiquitous pollutant in our modern techno-world.

Can’t See it, Don’t Believe it

The medical system in Canada generally does not recognize this form of electrical hypersensitivity, sometimes referred to as electrical sensitivity, or ES. But some claim that the problem not only is real, it is widespread.

Magda Havas is an environmental science professor at Trent University who has done research on the health impacts of electromagnetic energy. Based on evidence from Europe, Havas thinks that millions of people in North America are suffering serious health effects from dirty electricity, and as many as 45-50% of the population might be sensitive to some degree.

“In Sweden they claim 2% of the population are sensitive,” Havas told Vitality. “300,000 people have this problem and it is regarded as a disability. The hospitals have electrically clean rooms for patients; villas for patients to recover. Sweden is ahead of most countries in this regard.”

Indeed in Canada there is very little awareness of electrohypersensitivity. The Toronto Star’s Tyler Hamilton reported that one doctor at a high profile Toronto hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that she is seeing increasing numbers of patients with unexplainable electrohypersensitivity-like symptoms. But she keeps quiet about it, because the medical community in general are skeptical the problem exists.

Havas has done studies showing that not only is the problem real, but otherwise serious medical conditions can be helped by using the Graham-Stetzer filter. In a study presented at the International Scientific Conference on Childhood Leukaemia in 2004, Havas found that the filters were associated with fewer and less severe headaches, more energy, lower blood sugar levels for diabetics, and improved balance for those with multiple sclerosis.

“I was stunned with the results we got,” Havas said. The lower the dirty electricity in a room the lower the symptoms expressed in patients.

Some of the startling results included putting people with diabetes in a room with the filter, and blood sugar levels began to normalize instantly.

The results with Multiple Sclerosis patients was even more remarkable.

“People who were in wheelchairs and using walkers, we put the filters in and we have videotapes of people who couldn’t walk, walking,” Havas said. “I actually think some percentage of the population that have MS are already responding to dirty electricity. Maybe it would work with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, depression, asthma?”

Further results of a study Havas reported to the World Health Organization on Electrical Hypersensitivity included a study of a private school in Toronto that had 50 filters installed. The study was single-blind (the teachers knew nothing about what the researchers were studying), and 50% of teachers showed some improvement in at least one of their symptoms. Other subjective results included teachers reporting that students were less disruptive in the classroom. Could dirty power be causing or exacerbating the rise in ADD/ADHD in kids? No one really knows because no one is studying the issue.

Some doctors certainly do recognize the possible problems caused by EMFs and encourage us to take a precautionary approach to adding to the EMF stew.

“These things are not experienced by people in isolation,” says Gideon Forman, executive director of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). “It’s not like you’ve got wi-fi in one place, radio in another, hair dryers another, and cell phones another. People are experiencing these things simultaneously and the interconnections between these things are very unclear. No one knows the answer to that because it is all extremely new.

“So you take these electromagnetic threats to people, and you pile on a whole lot of other threats that hit people — like ozone depletion and toxins in the environment — and they all work together. Particularly in the case of children, you’re loading them with a lot of stuff that children didn’t experience even 50 years ago.”

• For more information on this topic check out www.dirtyelectricity.ca

• To purchase the Graham-Stetzer filters go to www.stetzerelectric.com

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Happy Earth Day to You!

April 20 is Earth Day, some call April Earth Month. So what’s the point in having Earth Day or Month? The goal of the environmental movement should be to make Earth Day irrelevant. If enough cultural, communal, and political focus becomes focused on making sure our natural environment is protected — and we are protected from our unnatural environment — there would be no need for an Earth Day.

We’re not there yet so this year, on April 20, Earth Day is still on. But enough of the doom and gloom. Here are three examples of positive signs for the future. One local, one regional, and one international:

• First, in the city of Toronto two new and massive housing developments are underway: Regent Park and the West Don Lands. Regent Park is a huge project to renew the rough and downtrodden inner city neighbourhood recreating 5,000-plus units over the next few years. The West Don Lands is only part of the larger waterfront redevelopment, but at 6,000 units in itself, the West Don Lands will be as large as Canary Wharf in London or Battery Park in New York City. So what does redevelopment of a low-income neighbourhood, and the brownfield development of an area of the waterfront have to do with Earthwatch and Earth Day? Well, both these developments — Regent Park by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) and the West Don Lands led by the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC) — will be built to LEED Gold standards. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a green building rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED Gold is an ambitious level of environmental sustainability to be incorporated into these two projects. And according to John Campbell, CEO of TWRC, this is just the beginning.

“We hope this will be a new benchmark and go platinum from there,” Campbell said.

• Second, the Ontario government has finally announced an initiative that many were hoping they would (see Earthwatch, November 2005). With David Suzuki at his side, Dalton McGuinty announced that the province of Ontario will adopt the Standard Offer Contract program allowing small producers to sell green electricity into the grid at a premium. The rates will be 42 cents per kilowatt hour for solar photovoltaic energy, and 11 cents/kWh for wind, biomass, and micro-hydro.

“This is the most progressive renewable energy policy in North America in over two decades,” according to Paul Gipe, a renewable energy expert and consultant.

• Third, George Bush admitted he was addicted to oil. “Hello my name is Dubya and I’m an Oilaholic.” Many were critical of this PR manoeuvre (or whatever it was) and it’s easy to be cynical about anything this U.S. president says, but no matter what the first step to change is to admit there is a problem. And he admitted it. Who would have guessed that even a year ago?

So, sure Ontario is also planning to build nuclear plants, and sure Dubya is also trying to ease EPA pollution restrictions, and sure the suburbs are still spreading despite the good work being done to intensify and increase the quality of life in Toronto. But there are certainly steps forward.

Construction everywhere is getting greener. Governments are taking notice of eco-destruction. Companies are popping up making money off of the green consumer movement. Organic food is blossoming. Things are looking good. Stay positive.

There’s only one Earth.

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UPDATE: Suicide Seeds Sidelined

In March Earthwatch we looked at Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURTs) - otherwise known as Terminator technology - and the Government of Canada's work to end the global moratorium on these damaging genetically modified organisms. The good news is that at the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Curitiba, Brazil in March, a broad coalition of peasant farmers, indigenous groups, and activist groups helped to stop this move.

Along with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, biotech companies and the U.S. (not a party to the CBD) tried to get the moratorium lifted, but the CBD working group dealing with the issue unanimously rejected the biotech desire for a "case by case" assessment of Terminator tech.

A victory to be sure, but there is no way the biotech corporations and their supporters in governments are done yet. Now the fight is for a national ban on Terminator as has been adopted by Brazil and India. 

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Seedlings of Hope and Toxic Sludge

 Seedling:To Michigan Sub Pop recording artist Kelley Stoltz for purchsing renewable energy offset credits for the making of his latest album, Below the Branches. This album is the first to incorporate the Green-e label on the packaging. This certifies that the album was made with renewable energy. Pearl Jam also recently toured and offset their carbon emissions from touring.

Sludge: To the latest toxic-sludge-is-good-for-you campaign from Crop Life Canada. These are the people who represent the biotech industry reponsible for pesticides and herbicides, not to mention genetically modified organisms. Corp Life hired a dietitian and a home economist to tour around Ontario speaking to journalists about how horrible organic food is, and how great chemically sprayed food is. In their contrived logic, because organics are more expensive, consumers then may focus on purchasing organics, but will be deterred by price, then they may limit their vegetable intake. Circular, self-serving logic if we've ever heard it. 

 Seedling: To the Toronto-based boilingfrog.ca for their activist promotion of independent media committed to environmental and other social justice issues. Great local web portal for all things green and worth supporting. Why boiling frog? Because of an old experiment where a frog is placed in boiling water and immediately hops out. But if that frog is put in cold water that is slowly brought up to a boil, the frog doesn't hop out, and boils to death. Sound like what's happening on Earth?