The Scandal of Smart Meters and PG&E: Beyond the Greenwash

In this presentation, we will cover the major issues surrounding Smart Meters, including their threat to health (from their microwave radio frequency radiation), their invasion of privacy (in gathering hourly data about private lives), their easy hackability, and their violation of basic democratic rights. We will also refute the spurious claims to their environmental benefits and energy-saving capability. The installation of Smart Meters without consent represents a degree of corporate impunity possible only with government complicity. The Smart Meter program, as an expression of corporate control, stands in opposition to democratic and community rights, most directly expressed by denial of a right to refusal. It also represents a fundamental violation of the precautionary principle. Already large numbers of people have become ill after Smart Meters were installed near their living environment (e.g. headaches, nausea, ear ringing, heart palpitations etc). We will describe the meters themselves, the movement that has arisen against them, some of the immediate health effects, and the overall politics of this new form of grid (the "Smart Grid"). We will also discuss the research on the impact of non-thermal radiation on humans, animals, plant life, and those who have Electro-Hypersensitivity.

Steve Martinot is a writer, human rights activist, and retired lecturer from San Francisco State Univ., living in Berkeley. He has done union, community, and anti-war organizing for most of his life.

Marti Kheel is an ecofeminist scholar and activist and author of Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective. Currently she is a visiting scholar at U.C. Berkeley, Division of Society and the Environment.

Alexander Binik, an environmental health educator and licensed psychotherapist, is also Executive Director of the DE-Toxics Institute in Fairfax.

Sarah Reilly is a Certified Nutritionist and founder of Get Nourished, a Holistic Nutrition Practice that serves clients globally. She has advanced certifications in functional endocrinology, functional blood chemistry and brain chemistry with a special interest in inflammation and autoimmunity. She has had Electro Hypersensitivity since 2003 and has been studying the physiological impacts of Electro Magnetic Radiation on human physiology for the past 3 years.

Sponsored by the Alameda County Greens for “Green Sundays”