Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Mill Valley joins effort to constrain 5G proliferation
The city of Mill Valley has enacted an urgency ordinance to regulate "small cell" towers amid concerns that cellphone companies want to grow their 5G networks and install new equipment in Marin. "We do intend to do more work and studies to craft a permanent ordinance within the next year," Mill Valley Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters said Friday. "The urgency ordinance has standards to limit and prohibit the installations of devices in residential neighborhoods, but there is more that we can do."
The decision came on a unanimous vote by the City Council on Thursday, after residents from across Marin packed the council chambers as part of a campaign urging local officials to block cellphone companies from attempting to build 5G towers in the county. No proposals for 5G towers have been submitted to Mill Valley, staff said.
The issue is that 5G towers, which would allow for faster and higher-capacity video streaming and other transmissions, could exacerbate health symptoms already suspected as a result of exposure to electromagnetic fields, according to the EMF Safety Network, a group advocating to keep communities EMF-free. Those symptoms can include fatigue, headaches, sleep problems, anxiety, heart problems, learning and memory disorders, ringing in the ears and increased cancer risk, according to the EMF Safety Network website.
"What 5G does is it adds another cloud to what we refer to as 'electromagnetic smog' into an environment that is already pretty saturated," said Fairfax resident and activist Valeri Hood. "In Fairfax, what we're doing is asking our council to step up in the way councils have in the past, and just say no to 5G."
Also at HardOCP.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 12 2018, @12:17AM
It's also not a new phenomenon.
When the junior Zombies were small, about 12 years ago (or so), their school decided to fund-raise and buy a bunch of wi-fi access points so that each class could have a decent wireless signal.
This bought a small but very vocal group out of the bushes. You know them, stay-at home Mothers with a "I want to speak to the manager" haircut, and too much time on their hands.
They asserted loudly and repeatedly that wi-fi would give all the children cancer, until another group formed which demanded to see their evidence, as we had spent the money on access points.
As you can imagine, there was unpleasantness for a while, but the kids got their wi-fi.
Curiously, some of the same anti-wireless campaigners also started lobbying for the children to all have programming lessons a few months later, which seems equally stupid to me.