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More on mobile phones & other wireless devices
In article ,
Mike Vandeman wrote: What's "low" about that? It's a microwave frequency, like a microwave oven: "[a microwave oven] operates at a frequency of either 915 or 2450 millioncycles per second": Bzzzt Wrong Answer, from a PHd yet..... Must be Phd in "Basket Weaving" because this Idiot Obviously doesn't have ANY Knowledge of ElectroMagnetic Emmissions. 900 Mhz is a UHF Frequency. UHF is DEFINED as Frequencies between 300Mhz and 3000Mhz. Microwaves START at 3000Mhz and go up in frequency from there..... Before you open your PieHole, again, Mikey.... Do the World a favor, and get your Definitions Correct.... |
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More on mobile phones & other wireless devices
On 19 Apr 2007 14:56:04 GMT, Chris wrote:
Mike Vandeman wrote in : On 19 Apr 2007 12:10:29 GMT, Chris wrote: Mike Vandeman wrote in : On 18 Apr 2007 14:34:52 GMT, Chris wrote: Mike Vandeman wrote in om: On 17 Apr 2007 22:10:20 -0700, (Bill Z.) wrote: Mike Vandeman writes: Check out Dr. George Carlo's site www.safewireless.org/ You can read his report to the CEO of AT&T and view a clip from "Cell-Phone Wars", a recent doc on mobile phones. You can find a bio of this dude at http://www.tapsns.com/gallery.php?mode=profile&galleryid=3202. It isn't clear what expertise he has regarding the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter, particularly when the frequency is too low Cell phone frequency is "low"? What planet are you from? If cell phone radiation didn't interact with matter, they wouldn't work! DUH! to cause ionization and when the power level is so low that heating is negligible. My guess is that Vanderman is beating the bushes and if you do that long enough, you can find someone who will say anything. Mike, 1) What frequency and power levels do cell phone use today?? "Cell Phone - A wireless telephone that sends and receives messages using radiofrequency energy in the 800-900 megahertz portion of the radiofrequency (RF) spectrum." What's "low" about that? It's a microwave frequency, like a microwave oven: "[a microwave oven] operates at a frequency of either 915 or 2450 millioncycles per second": "Microwaves - A subset of radio waves that have frequencies ranging from around 300 million waves per second (300 MHz) to three billion waves per second (3 GHz)." So it "cooks" your brain slowly, which is why it has been shown to cause tumors on the auditory nerve.. You have no idea what you are talking about do you? I wail make this as simple as I can for you. 300MHz to 3GHz is in the RF spectrum (longer wavelengths) and in entire spectrum is relitily low frequency see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_frequency Much higher frequencies (lower wave lengths) that are all around you all the time, like visible light for example see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum What 'cooks' food in a microwave oven is a particular frequency (wave length) that 'excites' water/fat at 2.45 GHz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven "[a microwave oven] operates at a frequency of either 915 or 2450 millioncycles per second" In other words, 915 Mhz is also capable of cooking you, and cell phone frequencies are very close to that. Of course, nothing in this message proves that they are safe, which they are NOT. DUH! Cell phone AVOID the 915 MHz freq also. The closest cell freq is 14 Mhz away. That is pretty close! You can't guarantee that cell phones aren't harmful. I believe I am having a discussion with an idiot. 'Close' is not good enough, very specific frequencies are needed to 'excite' water (i.e. your brain) The brain is more than water! DUH! The very lower power emitted from cell phone is 125 mWatts has not be shown to be unsafe to humans. You are LYING. It has been shown to cause tumors. Low power Microwave ovens , type that is used in a home, areare 1000 Watts, or about 8000 times more powerful. So what? The cell phone is usually placed right next to the temple, where it can do the MAXIMUM damage. Russian roulette comes to mind. Please do not try to link Microwave ovens and cell phones. I do not feel constant cell phone use is safe myself, especially for the young. Any type of microwave energy (800, 900 MHz 2.4 Ghz) at the lowest engeries (125mW) at 2 - 3 cm from your brain cant be healthy. I dont own one. But.... Cell phones DO NOT COOK YOUR BRAIN. May cause cancer. I don't think you know what you are talking about. There is no evidence of cancer. But there IS evidence of tumors. Do your homework, before opening your mouth. You will notice that frequencies that cell phone use AVOIDS that particular frequency that microwave ovens do http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies That is done for 2 reasons: 1) Cell phone companies are tring to avoid 'cooking' thier customers 2) Microwave ovens would interfere with cell operation 2) What is ionizing radiation and how is it created? 3) Please relate items 1) and 2) above What for? A microwave oven can kill you, regardless of whether it uses ionizing radiation or not. What you're saying, in other words, is that it's okay to cook your brain, as long as it's done slowly. Please stick to subjects you have a glimmer of knowledge about. DUH back at you === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande |
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More on mobile phones & other wireless devices
On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:35:50 -0700, cc wrote:
Mike Vandeman wrote: On 19 Apr 2007 12:10:29 GMT, Chris wrote: Mike Vandeman wrote in : On 18 Apr 2007 14:34:52 GMT, Chris wrote: Mike Vandeman wrote in : On 17 Apr 2007 22:10:20 -0700, (Bill Z.) wrote: Mike Vandeman writes: Check out Dr. George Carlo's site www.safewireless.org/ You can read his report to the CEO of AT&T and view a clip from "Cell-Phone Wars", a recent doc on mobile phones. You can find a bio of this dude at http://www.tapsns.com/gallery.php?mode=profile&galleryid=3202. It isn't clear what expertise he has regarding the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter, particularly when the frequency is too low Cell phone frequency is "low"? What planet are you from? If cell phone radiation didn't interact with matter, they wouldn't work! DUH! to cause ionization and when the power level is so low that heating is negligible. My guess is that Vanderman is beating the bushes and if you do that long enough, you can find someone who will say anything. Mike, 1) What frequency and power levels do cell phone use today?? "Cell Phone - A wireless telephone that sends and receives messages using radiofrequency energy in the 800-900 megahertz portion of the radiofrequency (RF) spectrum." What's "low" about that? It's a microwave frequency, like a microwave oven: "[a microwave oven] operates at a frequency of either 915 or 2450 millioncycles per second": "Microwaves - A subset of radio waves that have frequencies ranging from around 300 million waves per second (300 MHz) to three billion waves per second (3 GHz)." So it "cooks" your brain slowly, which is why it has been shown to cause tumors on the auditory nerve.. You have no idea what you are talking about do you? I wail make this as simple as I can for you. 300MHz to 3GHz is in the RF spectrum (longer wavelengths) and in entire spectrum is relitily low frequency see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_frequency Much higher frequencies (lower wave lengths) that are all around you all the time, like visible light for example see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum What 'cooks' food in a microwave oven is a particular frequency (wave length) that 'excites' water/fat at 2.45 GHz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven "[a microwave oven] operates at a frequency of either 915 or 2450 millioncycles per second" In other words, 915 Mhz is also capable of cooking you, and cell phone frequencies are very close to that. Of course, nothing in this message proves that they are safe, which they are NOT. DUH! As Chris pointed out, microwave radiation excites a particular rotation mode in the water molecule. You have no idea if it also has other effects. Similar radiation has been shown to break down the blood-brain barrier, which can allow toxis substances into the brain. All this does is increase the temperature. That's obviously not good! ESPECIALLY in the brain. This is totally different than what is expected to cause cancer, which are mutations caused my DNA scission or other damage to genetic material - what someone else termed "ionizing radiation". Do your own research, Mike. Have you been following this thread??? No one is suggesting that cell phone use causes cancer. I said that there is evidence that it causes tumors on the auditory nerve. Learn to listen. You will notice that frequencies that cell phone use AVOIDS that particular frequency that microwave ovens do http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies That is done for 2 reasons: 1) Cell phone companies are tring to avoid 'cooking' thier customers 2) Microwave ovens would interfere with cell operation 2) What is ionizing radiation and how is it created? 3) Please relate items 1) and 2) above What for? A microwave oven can kill you, regardless of whether it uses ionizing radiation or not. What you're saying, in other words, is that it's okay to cook your brain, as long as it's done slowly. Please stick to subjects you have a glimmer of knowledge about. DUH back at you === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande |
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More on mobile phones & other wireless devices
On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:27:24 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote: Mike Vandeman writes: On Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:59:27 GMT, (Bill Z.) wrote: Mike Vandeman writes: On 17 Apr 2007 22:10:20 -0700, (Bill Z.) Cell phone frequency is "low"? What planet are you from? If cell phone radiation didn't interact with matter, they wouldn't work! DUH! Vandeman, you would look like less of a liar if you would at least reply to full sentences: I stated that it is "too low to cause ionization", and that is a fact. It is simply dishonest to try to put words in people's mouths. BS. I quoted you verbatim. You quoted only one half of a short clause, pretending "low" did not mean "too low to cause ionization", Irrelevant. the latter being what was actually said. === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande |
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More on mobile phones & other wireless devices
On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:00:18 GMT, You wrote:
In article , Mike Vandeman wrote: What's "low" about that? It's a microwave frequency, like a microwave oven: "[a microwave oven] operates at a frequency of either 915 or 2450 millioncycles per second": Bzzzt Wrong Answer, from a PHd yet..... Must be Phd in "Basket Weaving" because this Idiot Obviously doesn't have ANY Knowledge of ElectroMagnetic Emmissions. 900 Mhz is a UHF Frequency. UHF is DEFINED as Frequencies between 300Mhz and 3000Mhz. Microwaves START at 3000Mhz and go up in frequency from there. I didn't name them "microwave ovens", but that's what they are called, whether you like it or not. Of course, this is all irrelevant to the danger of radiation from cell phones. ..... Before you open your PieHole, again, Mikey.... Do the World a favor, and get your Definitions Correct.... === I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.) Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of! http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande |
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Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Mike Vandeman, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal"
Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Mike Vandeman,
"warming of the climate system is unequivocal" http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...interests.html Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action An organization representing companies that mine coal and burn it to make electricity has called on its members to fight the proposed listing of the polar bear as an endangered or threatened species. "This will essentially declare 'open season' for environmental lawyers to sue to block viirtually any project that involves carbon dioxide emissions," the Western Business Roundtable said in an e-mail. To settle a lawsuit by environmental groups, the Department of Interior announced last month that it would take a year to consider whether global warming and melting Arctic ice justifies declaring the bear "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. "This seems a little unfair, pitting all those big coal companies and power companies against the poor polar bear," sniffed Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...urce=whitelist Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act Proposed regulatory changes, obtained by Salon, would destroy the "safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction," say environmentalists. March 27, 2007 | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or mining. "The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered Species Act," says Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, who helped Salon interpret the proposal. "This is a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's most popular environmental protections. If these regulations stand up, the act will no longer provide a safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction." In recent months, the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone to extraordinary efforts to keep drafts of regulatory changes from the public. All copies of the working document were given a number corresponding to a person, so that leaked copies could be traced to that individual. An e-mail sent in March from an assistant regional director at the Fish and Wildlife Service to agency staff, asking for comments on and corrections to the first draft, underscored the concern with secrecy: "Please Keep close hold for now. Dale [Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] does not want this stuff leaking out to stir up discontent based on speculation." Many Fish and Wildlife Service employees believe the draft is not based on "defensible science," says a federal employee who asked to remain anonymous. Yet "there is genuine fear of retaliation for communicating that to the media. People are afraid for their jobs." Chris Tollefson, a spokesperson for the service, says that while it's accurate to characterize the agency as trying to keep the draft under wraps, the agency has every intention of communicating with the public about the proposed changes; the draft just hasn't been ready. And, he adds, it could still be changed as part of a forthcoming formal review process. Administration critics characterize the secrecy as a way to maintain spin control, says Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a national environmental group. "This administration will often release a 300-page-long document at a press conference for a newspaper story that will go to press in two hours, giving the media or public no opportunity to digest it and figure out what's going on," Suckling says. "[Interior Secretary Dirk] Kempthorne will give a feel-good quote about how the new regulations are good for the environment, and they can win the public relations war." In some ways, the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act should come as no surprise. President Bush has hardly been one of its fans. Under his reign, the administration has granted 57 species endangered status, the action in each case being prompted by a lawsuit. That's fewer than in any other administration in history -- and far fewer than were listed during the administrations of Reagan (253), Clinton (521) or Bush I (234). Furthermore, during this administration, nearly half of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees who work with endangered species reported that they had been directed by their superiors to ignore scientific evidence that would result in recommendations for the protection of species, according to a 2005 survey of more than 1,400 service biologists, ecologists and botanists conducted by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit organization. "We are not allowed to be honest and forthright, we are expected to rubber stamp everything," wrote a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist as part of the survey. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is the worst it has ever been." The agency has long seen a need to improve the act, says Tollefson. "This is a look at what's possible," he says. "Too much of our time as an agency is spent responding to litigation rather than working on recovering the species that are most in need. The current way the act is run creates disincentives for people to get involved with recovering species." Kempthorne, boss of the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been an outspoken critic of the act. When he was a U.S. senator from Idaho in the late 1990s, he championed legislation that would have allowed government agencies to exempt their actions from Endangered Species Act regulations, and would have required federal agents to conduct cost-benefit analyses when considering whether to list a species as endangered. (The legislation failed.) Last June, in his early days as interior secretary, Kempthorne told reporters, "I really believe that we can make improvements to the act itself." Kempthorne is keeping good on his promise. The proposed draft is littered with language lifted directly from both Kempthorne's 1998 legislation as well as from a contentious bill by former Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif. (which was also shot down by Congress). It's "a wish list of regulations that the administration and its industry allies have been talking about for years," says Suckling. Written in terse, dry legal language, the proposed draft doesn't make for easy reading. However, the changes, often seemingly subtle, generally serve to strip the Fish and Wildlife Service of the power to do its stated job: to protect wildlife. Some verge on the biologically ridiculous, say critics, while others are a clear concession to industry and conservative Western governors who have long complained that the act degrades the economies of their states by preventing natural-resource extraction. One change would significantly limit the number of species eligible for endangered status. Currently, if a species is likely to become extinct in "the foreseeable future" -- a species-specific timeframe that can stretch up to 300 years -- it's a candidate for act protections. However, the new rules scale back that timeline to mean either 20 years or 10 generations (the agency can choose which timeline). For certain species with long life spans, such as killer whales, grizzly bears or wolves, two decades isn't even one generation. So even if they might be in danger of extinction, they would not make the endangered species list because they'd be unlikely to die out in two decades. "It makes absolutely no sense biologically," wrote Hasselman in an e- mail. "One of the Act's weaknesses is that species aren't protected until they're already in trouble and this proposal puts that flaw on steroids." Perhaps the most significant proposed change gives state governors the opportunity and funding to take over virtually every aspect of the act from the federal government. This includes not only the right to create species-recovery plans and the power to veto the reintroduction of endangered species within state boundaries, but even the authority to determine what plants and animals get protection. For plants and animals in Western states, that's bad news: State politicians throughout the region howled in opposition to the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf into Arizona and the Northern Rockies wolf into Yellowstone National Park. "If states are involved, the act would only get minimally enforced," says Bob Hallock, a recently retired 34-year veteran of the Fish and Wildlife Service who, as an endangered species specialist, worked with state agencies in Idaho, Washington and Montana. "States are, if anything, closer to special economic interests. They're more manipulated. The states have not demonstrated the will or interest in upholding the act. It's why we created a federal law in the first place." Additional tweaks in the law would have a major impact. For instance, the proposal would narrow the definition of a species' geographic range from the landscape it inhabited historically to the land it currently occupies. Since the main reason most plants and animals head toward extinction is due to limited habitat, the change would strongly hamper the government's ability to protect chunks of land and allow for a healthy recovery in the wild. The proposal would also allow both ongoing and planned projects by such federal agencies as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Forest Service to go forward, even when scientific evidence indicates that the projects may drive a species to extinction. Under the new regulations, as long as the dam or logging isn't hastening the previous rate of extinction, it's approved. "This makes recovery of species impossible," says Suckling. (You can read the entire proposal, a PDF file, here.) Gutting the Endangered Species Act will only thicken the pall that has hung over the Fish and Wildlife Service for the past six years, Hallock says. "They [the Bush administration] don't want the regulations to be effective. People in the agency are like a bunch of whipped dogs," he says. "I think it's just unacceptable to go around squashing other species; they're of incalculable benefit to us. The optimism we had when this agency started has absolutely been dashed." http://www.earthjustice.org/news/pre...otections.html Bush Administration Rewrite of Endangered Species Act Regulations Would Gut Protections Hush-hush proposal "a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's most popular laws" Washington, DC -- A secret draft of regulations that fundamentally rewrite the Endangered Species Act was leaked to two environmental organizations, which provided them to the press last night An article in Salon quotes Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman saying, "The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered Species Act." The changes are fiercely technical and complicated, but make future listings extremely difficult, redefine key concepts to the detriment of protected species, virtually hand over administration of the act to hostile states, and severely restrict habitat protections. Many of the changes -- lifted from unsuccessful legislative proposals from then-Senator (now Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne and the recently defeated congressman Richard Pombo -- are reactions to policies and practices established as a result of litigation filed by environmental organizations including Earthjustice. "After the failure of these legislative proposals in the last Congress, the Bush administration has opted to gut the Endangered Species Act through the only avenue left open: administrative regulations," said Hasselman. "This end-run around the will of Congress and the American people will not succeed." A major change would make it more difficult for a species to gain protection, by scaling back the "foreseeable future" timeframe in which to consider whether a species is likely to become extinct. Instead of looking far enough ahead to be able to reasonably determine whether a species could be heading for extinction, the new regulations would drastically shorten the timeframe to either 20 years or 10 generations at the agency's discretion. For species with long generations like killer whales and grizzly bears, this truncated view of the future isn't nearly enough time to accurately predict whether they are at-risk now. "These draft regulations represent a total rejection of the values held by the vast majority Americans: that we have a responsibility to protect imperiled species and the special places they call home," said Kate Freund, Legislative Associate at Earthjustice. According to several sources within the Fish and Wildlife Service quoted by Salon, hostility to the law within the agency has never been so intense. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is the worst it has ever been," one unnamed source is quoted as saying. In addition, the proposal would allow projects by the Forest Service and other agencies to proceed even if scientific evidence suggests that the projects might drive species to extinction so long as the rate of decline doesn't accelerate owing to the project. The Bush administration's antipathy to the law is shown by the numbers of species it has protected, in each case as the result of litigation -- 57. By comparison, 253 species were listed during the Reagan administration, 521 under Clinton, and 234 under Bush I. The administration reportedly had expected to reveal the new regulations in a few weeks. The draft regulations must be published in the Federal Register for public comment before they can become final, which is likely to be at least a year off. Contact: Jan Hasselman, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340, ext. 25 |
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More on mobile phones & other wireless devices
"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message ... BS. I quoted you verbatim. You quoted only one half of a short clause, pretending "low" did not mean "too low to cause ionization", Irrelevant. Yeah, facts are always irrelevant to you. |
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Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Jeff Strickland, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal"
Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Jeff
Strickland, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...interests.html Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action An organization representing companies that mine coal and burn it to make electricity has called on its members to fight the proposed listing of the polar bear as an endangered or threatened species. "This will essentially declare 'open season' for environmental lawyers to sue to block viirtually any project that involves carbon dioxide emissions," the Western Business Roundtable said in an e-mail. To settle a lawsuit by environmental groups, the Department of Interior announced last month that it would take a year to consider whether global warming and melting Arctic ice justifies declaring the bear "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. "This seems a little unfair, pitting all those big coal companies and power companies against the poor polar bear," sniffed Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...urce=whitelist Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act Proposed regulatory changes, obtained by Salon, would destroy the "safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction," say environmentalists. March 27, 2007 | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or mining. "The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered Species Act," says Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, who helped Salon interpret the proposal. "This is a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's most popular environmental protections. If these regulations stand up, the act will no longer provide a safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction." In recent months, the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone to extraordinary efforts to keep drafts of regulatory changes from the public. All copies of the working document were given a number corresponding to a person, so that leaked copies could be traced to that individual. An e-mail sent in March from an assistant regional director at the Fish and Wildlife Service to agency staff, asking for comments on and corrections to the first draft, underscored the concern with secrecy: "Please Keep close hold for now. Dale [Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] does not want this stuff leaking out to stir up discontent based on speculation." Many Fish and Wildlife Service employees believe the draft is not based on "defensible science," says a federal employee who asked to remain anonymous. Yet "there is genuine fear of retaliation for communicating that to the media. People are afraid for their jobs." Chris Tollefson, a spokesperson for the service, says that while it's accurate to characterize the agency as trying to keep the draft under wraps, the agency has every intention of communicating with the public about the proposed changes; the draft just hasn't been ready. And, he adds, it could still be changed as part of a forthcoming formal review process. Administration critics characterize the secrecy as a way to maintain spin control, says Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a national environmental group. "This administration will often release a 300-page-long document at a press conference for a newspaper story that will go to press in two hours, giving the media or public no opportunity to digest it and figure out what's going on," Suckling says. "[Interior Secretary Dirk] Kempthorne will give a feel-good quote about how the new regulations are good for the environment, and they can win the public relations war." In some ways, the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act should come as no surprise. President Bush has hardly been one of its fans. Under his reign, the administration has granted 57 species endangered status, the action in each case being prompted by a lawsuit. That's fewer than in any other administration in history -- and far fewer than were listed during the administrations of Reagan (253), Clinton (521) or Bush I (234). Furthermore, during this administration, nearly half of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees who work with endangered species reported that they had been directed by their superiors to ignore scientific evidence that would result in recommendations for the protection of species, according to a 2005 survey of more than 1,400 service biologists, ecologists and botanists conducted by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit organization. "We are not allowed to be honest and forthright, we are expected to rubber stamp everything," wrote a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist as part of the survey. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is the worst it has ever been." The agency has long seen a need to improve the act, says Tollefson. "This is a look at what's possible," he says. "Too much of our time as an agency is spent responding to litigation rather than working on recovering the species that are most in need. The current way the act is run creates disincentives for people to get involved with recovering species." Kempthorne, boss of the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been an outspoken critic of the act. When he was a U.S. senator from Idaho in the late 1990s, he championed legislation that would have allowed government agencies to exempt their actions from Endangered Species Act regulations, and would have required federal agents to conduct cost-benefit analyses when considering whether to list a species as endangered. (The legislation failed.) Last June, in his early days as interior secretary, Kempthorne told reporters, "I really believe that we can make improvements to the act itself." Kempthorne is keeping good on his promise. The proposed draft is littered with language lifted directly from both Kempthorne's 1998 legislation as well as from a contentious bill by former Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif. (which was also shot down by Congress). It's "a wish list of regulations that the administration and its industry allies have been talking about for years," says Suckling. Written in terse, dry legal language, the proposed draft doesn't make for easy reading. However, the changes, often seemingly subtle, generally serve to strip the Fish and Wildlife Service of the power to do its stated job: to protect wildlife. Some verge on the biologically ridiculous, say critics, while others are a clear concession to industry and conservative Western governors who have long complained that the act degrades the economies of their states by preventing natural-resource extraction. One change would significantly limit the number of species eligible for endangered status. Currently, if a species is likely to become extinct in "the foreseeable future" -- a species-specific timeframe that can stretch up to 300 years -- it's a candidate for act protections. However, the new rules scale back that timeline to mean either 20 years or 10 generations (the agency can choose which timeline). For certain species with long life spans, such as killer whales, grizzly bears or wolves, two decades isn't even one generation. So even if they might be in danger of extinction, they would not make the endangered species list because they'd be unlikely to die out in two decades. "It makes absolutely no sense biologically," wrote Hasselman in an e- mail. "One of the Act's weaknesses is that species aren't protected until they're already in trouble and this proposal puts that flaw on steroids." Perhaps the most significant proposed change gives state governors the opportunity and funding to take over virtually every aspect of the act from the federal government. This includes not only the right to create species-recovery plans and the power to veto the reintroduction of endangered species within state boundaries, but even the authority to determine what plants and animals get protection. For plants and animals in Western states, that's bad news: State politicians throughout the region howled in opposition to the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf into Arizona and the Northern Rockies wolf into Yellowstone National Park. "If states are involved, the act would only get minimally enforced," says Bob Hallock, a recently retired 34-year veteran of the Fish and Wildlife Service who, as an endangered species specialist, worked with state agencies in Idaho, Washington and Montana. "States are, if anything, closer to special economic interests. They're more manipulated. The states have not demonstrated the will or interest in upholding the act. It's why we created a federal law in the first place." Additional tweaks in the law would have a major impact. For instance, the proposal would narrow the definition of a species' geographic range from the landscape it inhabited historically to the land it currently occupies. Since the main reason most plants and animals head toward extinction is due to limited habitat, the change would strongly hamper the government's ability to protect chunks of land and allow for a healthy recovery in the wild. The proposal would also allow both ongoing and planned projects by such federal agencies as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Forest Service to go forward, even when scientific evidence indicates that the projects may drive a species to extinction. Under the new regulations, as long as the dam or logging isn't hastening the previous rate of extinction, it's approved. "This makes recovery of species impossible," says Suckling. (You can read the entire proposal, a PDF file, here.) Gutting the Endangered Species Act will only thicken the pall that has hung over the Fish and Wildlife Service for the past six years, Hallock says. "They [the Bush administration] don't want the regulations to be effective. People in the agency are like a bunch of whipped dogs," he says. "I think it's just unacceptable to go around squashing other species; they're of incalculable benefit to us. The optimism we had when this agency started has absolutely been dashed." http://www.earthjustice.org/news/pre...otections.html Bush Administration Rewrite of Endangered Species Act Regulations Would Gut Protections Hush-hush proposal "a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's most popular laws" Washington, DC -- A secret draft of regulations that fundamentally rewrite the Endangered Species Act was leaked to two environmental organizations, which provided them to the press last night An article in Salon quotes Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman saying, "The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered Species Act." The changes are fiercely technical and complicated, but make future listings extremely difficult, redefine key concepts to the detriment of protected species, virtually hand over administration of the act to hostile states, and severely restrict habitat protections. Many of the changes -- lifted from unsuccessful legislative proposals from then-Senator (now Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne and the recently defeated congressman Richard Pombo -- are reactions to policies and practices established as a result of litigation filed by environmental organizations including Earthjustice. "After the failure of these legislative proposals in the last Congress, the Bush administration has opted to gut the Endangered Species Act through the only avenue left open: administrative regulations," said Hasselman. "This end-run around the will of Congress and the American people will not succeed." A major change would make it more difficult for a species to gain protection, by scaling back the "foreseeable future" timeframe in which to consider whether a species is likely to become extinct. Instead of looking far enough ahead to be able to reasonably determine whether a species could be heading for extinction, the new regulations would drastically shorten the timeframe to either 20 years or 10 generations at the agency's discretion. For species with long generations like killer whales and grizzly bears, this truncated view of the future isn't nearly enough time to accurately predict whether they are at-risk now. "These draft regulations represent a total rejection of the values held by the vast majority Americans: that we have a responsibility to protect imperiled species and the special places they call home," said Kate Freund, Legislative Associate at Earthjustice. According to several sources within the Fish and Wildlife Service quoted by Salon, hostility to the law within the agency has never been so intense. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is the worst it has ever been," one unnamed source is quoted as saying. In addition, the proposal would allow projects by the Forest Service and other agencies to proceed even if scientific evidence suggests that the projects might drive species to extinction so long as the rate of decline doesn't accelerate owing to the project. The Bush administration's antipathy to the law is shown by the numbers of species it has protected, in each case as the result of litigation -- 57. By comparison, 253 species were listed during the Reagan administration, 521 under Clinton, and 234 under Bush I. The administration reportedly had expected to reveal the new regulations in a few weeks. The draft regulations must be published in the Federal Register for public comment before they can become final, which is likely to be at least a year off. Contact: Jan Hasselman, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340, ext. 25 |
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More on mobile phones & other wireless devices
Mike Vandeman writes:
On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:25:10 GMT, (Bill Z.) wrote: Mike Vandeman writes: On 19 Apr 2007 12:10:29 GMT, Chris wrote: What 'cooks' food in a microwave oven is a particular frequency (wave length) that 'excites' water/fat at 2.45 GHz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven "[a microwave oven] operates at a frequency of either 915 or 2450 millioncycles per second" In other words, 915 Mhz is also capable of cooking you, and cell phone frequencies are very close to that. Of course, nothing in this message proves that they are safe, which they are NOT. DUH! Instead of being reduced to silly statements like "duh", I suggest Vanderman pick up a graduate-level text on electricity and magnetism, plus a few books on quantum mechanics so that he can understand what is going on. The width in frequency of these transitions can be quite narrow (and depends on the lifetime of excited states - the longer the lifetime, the narrower the width). I'm not going to go into the details - it would take far too long to explain, and there is no point in my writing a physics textbook for Vanderman's edification. In case you didn't notice, we aren't talking about physics, and it's pretty irrelevant. No, it is highly relevant. You claimed that one could be "cooked" by a cell phone (i.e., heated) and ignored the fact that the absoption or radiation is highly frequency dependent when hf equals the excitation energy. Simply saying the frequency is "close" in some unqualified sense is not good enough. When medical research shows that cell phone use causes tumors on the auditory nerve, no amount of hand-waving and name-dropping can explain that away. Please explain why you think it's IMPOSSIBLE for cell phones to do damage. The "research" shows at best a very low risk of tumors for unknown reasons (and is not very convincing). There is no direct physical evidence that electromagnetic radiation is responsible. The normal cause of radiation-induced tumors (ionization) requires frequencies many orders of magnitudes higher than those used in a cell phone. Can you show that being subjected to continual loud noise does not cause such tumors? You do know that some individuals tend to use cell phones in very noisy environments, don't you? -- My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB |
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