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Interim Public Works Director Forbids New Climate and Energy Manager from Discussing Telecom and Dig Once

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At first, I was excited to speak with the city’s new climate and energy manager Seth Vidana in an attempt to help him make the obvious connections between technology and the impact it has on the environment. Specifically, I wanted to talk to him about the benefits of a local Dig Once Policy and the amount of energy wireless communications use. He told me that while he was personally interested in wireless energy usage, its impact on the environment, and Dig Once, etc., he has been forbidden by his boss, Interim Public Works Director Eric Johnston, from discussing these issues or their effects on the environment with me or anyone else. He also said that all communications related to these issues have to go through Eric Johnston. Since Mayor Seth Fleetwood has literally been to my house for a Dig Once presentation and seemed to agree that it makes sense, I’ve put a call in to him.

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Wireless Uses Too Much Power and Is a Security Threat

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A lot of the questions surrounding wireless, especially with the roll out of 5G, have to do with legitimate health concerns surrounding a virtually untested technology from a health standpoint. While those concerns should be investigated further, this article is about one specific point about technology that is often overlooked. A point that our global high-tech culture has largely refused to hold the tech industry accountable for. The amount of power unnecessarily used by the industry in the first place. Not only is wireless less reliable but it is also much less efficient at moving data than wired connections, especially fiber-optic connections.

Technology

Comcast Lies About Bridging The Digital Divide

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The City of Bellingham, like many cities in the US, is controlled by a Comcast monopoly facilitated by our politicians despite widespread consumer objections to Comcast. Other private providers have likewise failed to produce value for most. For example, CenturyLink, as highlighted in the book “Fiber”, brought in a very small amount of fiber to spur interest in their other lower-quality services and provide spotty access at best. The idea of choice, without public fiber, is no choice at all. In the neighboring City of Anacortes, Chatanooga, TN, Wilson, NC, and other places with public fiber-optic networks, individuals are going to have Gigabit (1,000 Mbps/1,000 Mbps) Fiber to the Home access for about $70 a month. Here, $110 a month will get you a high fade, low-performance, connection from Comcast instead. They will claim the connection is 100 Mbps down and only 10 Mbps up, but it will often perform much lower than that and unlike fiber, the time it takes for signals to get back and forth is much longer.

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The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning If….

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Have you ever considered what tremendous potential we have as humans if we were to think about the world in larger terms and with more open minds? This is not a pipe dream. We have made more advances in the last 100 years than the last thousand, and in the last 10 than the 100 before that. Still, not all these advancements have been beneficial. We have often used our knowledge to create better weapons instead of better conditions for people.

Environment

The Green New Deal and Publicly Owned Fiber-Optic Networks

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Authors: Atul Deshmane and Jon Humphrey
There is no doubt that America needs real infrastructure improvements, and that they should come in the form of large scale updates that help improve the environment as well. This is a large part of what the Green New Deal proposes, but as with most ideas in our culture the lack of understanding, and proper education, regarding technology is polluting this idea as well and keeping it from reaching its true potential. The Green New Deal (GND) aims to address climate change and economic inequality, just like publicly-owned fiber-optic networks will as outlined in this Bellingham Public Fiber petition, but the need for broadband to be part of the Green New Deal doesn’t just end there. Recently the Green New Deal was discussed at an event held by Indivisible Bellingham, a fantastic organization that I am proud to have been allowed to address on the topic of public-fiber, but sadly the issue of broadband and the way it related to the GND did not come up. 
Most are aware that Renewable Energy begs the most important question in the Green New Deal. If we are going to be more mindful of how we get our SUPPLY of energy we must start with how we DEMAND our energy.

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New York Times Sells Out To Protect 5G

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So, how is this local? Recently, Bellingham became one of many cities to form a “Stop 5G Bellingham” group and setup a petition asking for the same thing. As expected, our local main stream news source, The Bellingham Herald, posted an article in support of 5G that was full of inaccuracies and as of yesterday had been removed. We’ll see if it stays that way. Why did they do this?

Technology

Deforestation and 5G

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There are many legitimate health concerns surrounding 5G technology, but our local governments remain anywhere from uninformed to actively defensive of the anti-net neutral, anti-first amendment big telecoms, but those are topics for another article. Today, I want to write specifically about deforestation and 5G. I was shocked by the permitted deforestation on Samish Hill to make way for new housing developments.  These developments–along with the clear-cutting of trees–are unnecessary until the many abandoned (some publicly owned) buildings in Bellingham’s downtown and surrounding areas are renovated to provide new housing stock. Yes, new builds should be built to the LEED Platinum standard, but nothing is as green as refurbishing old buildings in the first place. Still, this topic got me thinking about all kinds of unnecessary deforestation, including that taking place around the installation of 5G technology.