Category Archives: News

5G Global Day of Action – Sept 26, 2020 – Vancouver Island Events

The Annual Global Day of Protest against 5G (Fifth Generation cellular networks) is coming up this Saturday, September 26, 2020. Two events are planned for Vancouver Island on the day: one in Victoria, BC, and one in Qualicum Beach, BC.

Victoria, BC: From 1:00-2:00 pm gather at the ISED (formerly Industry Canada) office, 1230 Government St. Bring signs and posters, and remember social distancing and masks. We will picket on the sidewalk outside this office. Make signs that have some info about higher energy use, capturing data for Internet of Things, cybersecurity hazard, as well as health issues. Hopefully, we will be able to share some of our information with people new to the topic. Please spend just an hour of your time to protest publicly against 5G and ISED’s failure to ensure our safety, privacy and environment.

Qualicum Beach, BC: From 12:30-2:30 pm gather at the site of the proposed cell tower on Village Way at Old Island Highway. Open mike at 1:00 pm. We are following Covid-19 protocols. Masks are appreciated, and required if you wish to use the microphone. Meters will be demonstrated, and volunteers will be available to answer questions you may have.

For more information on the Qualicum Beach event: https://stopsmartmetersbc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/5G-Protest-Day-Tower-Protest-Qualicum-Beach-BC-September-26-2020.pdf

Below is the Qualicum Beach rally site – an area that will be lost if the cell tower is installed:

Here are examples of USEFUL signs to make and bring – signs that address the health issues associated with 5G as well as cybersecurity risks, higher energy consumption. data mining. For a clickable link to get to these signs individually, go here: https://www.5gcrisis.com/signs

Personal message from website owner, Kim Goldberg: There are MANY legitimate reasons to raise concerns about the roll-out of 5G – the most basic of which is that the Precautionary Principle is not being observed. We do NOT have data confirming that these exposures are safe, and there is a considerable body of evidence suggesting it may not be safe.

Apart from human health and safety risks, there is the impact to wildlife, environment, forests, honeybees, whales–all of which have shown signs of significant damage from wireless radiation.

And then there are the very legitimate cybersecurity concerns (hacking, potential shut-downs of hospitals, governments, entire population centres). As well as the vast data collection on individuals that is occurring already and that will become even more possible and more comprehensive with the advent of 5G cellular networks and the Internet of Things.

My point is that it is not necessary at all to go down the QAnon rabbit hole of endless Youtube videos and conspiracy theories in order to make a legitimate case against the roll-out of 5G. In fact, you are very much hurting the valid case against 5G by floating the right-wing conspiracy theories conjoining 5G to cabals and micro-chipping and pedophiles and Covid-19 and Deep State and what-not. All of that is the carefully crafted pro-Trump QAnon agenda. And many 5G opponents are completely unaware that they are unwitting dupes of that agenda as they go around promoting it. This results in a total loss of credibility for the legitimate science-based opposition to 5G.

The message to keep coming back to, in order to anchor yourself and your activist work is:

Follow the Precautionary Principle where all wireless radiation technology is concerned.

~Kim Goldberg
September 24, 2020

Bans on Cell Phones in Classroom Growing Worldwide

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Bans on Cell Phones in Classroom Growing Worldwide

November 9, 2019

by Kim Goldberg

An increasing number of cities, states and entire nations are banning student use of cell phones at school, with Israel being the most recent addition to the list.

On November 6, 2019, the Israeli Ministry of Education announced a ban on cell phone use in the nation’s elementary schools. Students will be required to leave their phones in their bags in class and during breaks.

In September 2019, the Canadian province of Ontario implemented a cell phone ban in classrooms province-wide.

In June 2019, the Australian state of Victoria announced a ban on cell phones in classrooms for both primary and secondary students. The ban takes effect in early 2020. “Students will be required to switch off their phones and store them securely in lockers from the start of the school day until the final bell. When emergencies occur, parents or guardians can reach their child by calling the school,” the statement from the government of Victoria said.

In 2018, Australia’s largest state, New South Wales, banned cell phones in primary schools.

Also in 2018, France banned school use of smartphones and other internet-connected devices such as tablets nationwide for all students between 3 and 15 years old. An earlier French law in 2010 had already banned the use of smartphones during all teaching activity, making France an early leader in recognizing the problem of cell phone use in schools. Additionally, France banned Wi-Fi in all nursery schools in 2015 in a law that also requires Wi-Fi to be turned off in elementary schools unless it is in use for teaching.

Beyond these cases of national and state lawmaking against school use of cell phones, a growing numbers of individual schools, school districts and teachers worldwide are establishing a “no cell phone” rule in the classroom. In most cases, the reason given for these bans is to curb student distraction and cyber-bullying, and to increase student focus and academic performance.

Biological Diversity at Risk From Wireless Radiation

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Biological Diversity at Risk From Wireless Radiation

by Kim Goldberg
December 28, 2017

An international team of conservation scientists and ecologists has listed wireless radiation as one of the top emerging issues that could threaten global biological diversity in coming years.

In its ninth annual “horizon scan” to identify emerging issues affecting biological diversity, the Cambridge Conservation Initiative listed electromagnetic radiation from 5G technology as one of 15 top emerging issues to potentially threaten wildlife. The 15 issues were selected from a list of 117 possible candidates. The Cambridge Conservation Initiative is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

The “2018 Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation and Biological Diversity” was published in the January 2018 issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol 3, No. 1.

Read the full report here: 2018 Horizon Scan.

“Our aim is to highlight systematically both risks and opportunities to the conservation of biological diversity that are not widely known by conservation scientists and decision makers,” writes lead author William Sutherland. “Horizon scanning can help reduce the degree for conservation biology to be a crisis discipline.”

The entry for Electromagnetic Radiation in the article is printed in its entirety below:

Potential Effects on Wildlife of Increases in Electromagnetic Radiation

Understanding the potential effects of nonionising radiation on wildlife could become more relevant with the expected adoption of new mobile network technology (5G), which could connect 100 billion devices by 2025. During use, mobile telephones and other smart devices generate radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), a form of nonionising radiation, which may change biological processes such as neurotransmitter functions, cellular metabolism, and gene and protein expression in certain types of cells, even at low intensities [82]. The notion of risk to human health remains controversial, but there is limited evidence of increased tumour risk in animals [83]. 5G uses the largely untapped bandwidth of the millimetre wave-length, between 30 and 300 GHz on the radio spectrum, which uses smaller base stations than current wireless technology. As a result, wireless antennae may be placed densely throughout neighbourhoods on infrastructure such as lamp posts, utility poles, and buildings. This could expose wildlife to more near-field radiation. Although some studies reported negative associations between electromagnetic field strength (radiofrequencies and microwaves: 1 MHz-3 GHz range) and species, for example the density and abundance of house sparrows ( Passer domesticus ) [84,85], these studies have not yielded clear empirical evidence that the observed effects are due to RF-EMFs. The potential effects of RF-EMFs on most taxonomic groups, including migratory birds, bats, and bees, are largely unknown. The evidence to inform the development of exposure guidelines for 5G technology is limited, raising the possibility of unintended biological consequences [86].

Global WiFi from Space Will Destroy Ozone Layer

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The following news release from GUARDS (Global Union Against Radiation Deployment from Space) just came across my desk this morning and contains important information. -Kim Goldberg

Planned Global WiFi from Space Will Destroy Ozone Layer,
Worsen Climate Change, and Threaten Life on Earth

For Immediate Release

Date: March 25, 2015
Who: Global Union Against Radiation Deployment from Space (GUARDS)
Contact: Ed Friedman, Maine USA, 207-666-3372 edfomb@comcast.net

Five companies are gearing up to provide high-speed global WiFi coverage from space within the next three to four years. This would be an ecological and public health nightmare, according to a recently-formed international coalition: the Global Union Against Radiation Deployment from Space (GUARDS).

According to GUARDS, the extensive satellite networks required will endanger the ozone layer and significantly contribute to climate change. Rocket exhaust contains ozone-destroying chlorine, water vapor (a greenhouse gas), and aluminum oxide particles, which seed stratospheric clouds. Complete ozone destruction is observed in the exhaust plumes of rockets.

The New York Times (May 14, 1991, p. 4) quoted Aleksandr Dunayev of the Russian Space Agency saying “About 300 launches of the space shuttle each year would be a catastrophe and the ozone layer would be completely destroyed.”

At that time, the world averaged only 12 rocket launches per year. Maintaining a fleet of (ultimately) 4,000 satellites, each with an expected lifespan of five years, will likely involve enough yearly rocket launches to be an environmental catastrophe.

GUARDS’ second area of concern is WiFi itself. Although widely perceived as an unqualified good, WiFi operates using extremely rapid pulses of microwave radiation—the same radiation used in microwave ovens. And a parade of studies continue to be published and ignored implicating wireless technology in the die-off of forests, the demise of frogs, bats, and honey bees, the threatened extinction of the house sparrow, and damage to the DNA of the human species. It is vital to the continuation of life that large parts of the earth be spared from the incessant radiation that accompanies wireless technologies.

“The human body”, says Dr Gerard J. Hyland, of the University of Warwick, UK, “is an electrochemical instrument of exquisite sensitivity”, noting that, like a radio, it can be interfered with by incoming radiation. If a signal can operate a mechanical device, it can disturb every cell in the human body.

On February 7, 2014, the U.S. Department of Interior stated that “the electromagnetic radiation standards used by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) continue to be based on thermal heating, a criterion now nearly 30 years out of date and inapplicable today” in reference to guidelines governing WiFi radiation frequencies.

In 2011 the World Health Organization classified radiation emitted by cell phones, and other wireless commercial infrastructure such as WiFi and smart meters as a Class 2B possible human carcinogen, along with lead, engine exhaust, and DDT. Yet, the global WiFi projects would make this exposure ubiquitous and inescapable.

A recent letter sent by 88 organizations, representing over a million people, to the European Economic and Social Committee outlines how governments are betraying the public trust by ignoring the hazards of radio frequency/microwave (RF/MW) radiation.

Studies show wireless radiation can adversely affect fetal brain development, in addition to causing double-stranded DNA breaks and causing a wide spectrum of illnesses. Continuing and expanding involuntary exposure of the public to this known toxin violates the Nuremberg Code of Human Rights for non-consensual experimentation.

# # #

GUARDS is an international coalition of diverse groups that have joined together in order to stop the implementation of global WiFi from space, which threatens all life on earth.

Resources

Human Health

The 1500-page BioInitiative Report on RF/MW health effects was published in 2012. The authors are 29 scientists from ten countries. They reviewed thousands of studies showing interference with chemical processes in the body, implicating RF/MW in a whole spectrum of alarming effects including genetic damage, cancer, immune dysfunction, neurological injury, and infertility. The report can be found at <www.bioinitiative.org>.

The Letter of Notice sent in February 2015 to the European Economic and Social Committee by 88 organizations regarding the betrayal of public trust in ignoring the effects of RF/MW radiation can be found at <http://www.radiationresearch.org/images/rrt_articles/EM-Radiation-Research-Trust-Letter-of-Notice-Served-on-Mr-Richard-Adams.pdf>.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a committee of the World Health Organization, has classified RF radiation, including that emitted by wireless technology, as a class 2B carcinogen. <http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf>.

British physician Erica Mallery-Blythe has an excellent report focusing on Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), now estimated to affect five percent of the world’s population. www.iemfa.org/wp-content/pdf/Mallery-Blythe-v1-EESC.pdf

Department of Interior: “the electromagnetic radiation standards used by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) continue to be based on thermal heating, a criterion now nearly 30 years out of date and inapplicable today.” (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/us_doi_comments.pdf)

Environment

Studies show radiation from wireless technology harms the environment—both flora and fauna are affected (http://www.moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/final_mobile_towers_report.pdf and (http://www.biolmedonline.com/Articles/Vol4_4_2012/Vol4_4_202-216_BM-8.pdf).

An October 31, 2014 presentation to the Manitoba Entomological Society, reviewing 91 studies on the effects of RF/MW radiation on honey bees, insects, birds, etc.: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mobilfunk_newsletter/0RUPGTI4qQY

On ozone depletion and climate change from rocket exhaust: (http://www.eucass-proceedings.eu/articles/eucass/pdf/2013/01/eucass4p657.pdf).

Satellite Deployment Plans

The five companies seeking to provide global WiFi radiation include:

SpaceX: 4000 satellites, 750 miles high http://www.spacex.com/
OneWeb: 648 satellites, 500-590 miles high http://www.oneweb.world/
Facebook: Satellites, drones, and lasers. http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/03/27/facebooks-connectivity-lab-looking-drones-satellites-lasers-provide-internet-access/
Google: 200,000 high altitude balloons (62,500 feet) (“Project Loon”) http://www.google.com/loon/
Outernet: Low-orbit microsatellites https://www.outernet.is/en/

BC Human Rights Tribunal Rejects Class Action Against Smart Meters

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September 19, 2014

This just in from Sharon Noble of the British Columbia organization Coalition To Stop Smart Meters. It pertains to a human rights complaint filed in 2012 by Citizens for Safe Technology against BC Hydro, on behalf of electrosensitive people. The BC Human Right Tribunal dismissed the complaint yesterday, September 18, 2014.

Editorial Note:
EHS = Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity
RF = Radio Frequency Radiation
$$meters = wireless “smart” meters
BCUC = BC Utilities Commission

“Sad news. Our Human Rights case was dismissed by the Human Rights Tribunal. This was a class action on behalf of people with EHS and whose doctors said that they should avoid RF and not have $$meters. Even though EHS is a recognized by the Human Rights Commission in Canada, the Americans with Disabilities in the US, and as a disability in other countries, the Tribunal chose not to accept evidence but rather to base its decision in large part on the evidence the BCUC accepted in the Fortis application.

“Fortis BC paid a company (Exponent) to defend the $meter. Exponent is a “product defense company” and has defended some of the most dangerous products in the world – pesticides, Agent Orange, asbestos, etc and now microwave radiation. They buy scientists who will produce reports saying anything is safe. One of their people said that our bodies emit more radiation that does a smart meter and the BCUC accepted that while rejecting testimony from world-renowned experts like Dr. Martin Blank, Dr. Isaac Jamieson and Dr. Meg Sears.

“It’s a sad day when the government is allowed, by the Human Rights Tribunal, to come between a patient and his physician, but this is what has happened. Here is the decision for you to read. This makes it more urgent for us to fight this re: fires, fee discrimination, and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

The text of the Tribunal’s reasons for decision is here.

The other class action lawsuit against BC Hydro over smart meters is still ongoing. That one represents all customers of BC Hydro (residential and business) who are unhappy about any aspect of the smart meter program (i.e., getting one if you didn’t want it, getting one and later deciding you don’t want it, being harassed and bullied for refusing to get one), whether or not you currently have a smart meter.

There is no cost and no financial risk to join the ongoing class action lawsuit against BC Hydro. Go here to join: http://bcsmartmeterlawsuit.ca

PHOTOS: Anti-Smart Meter Rally in Nanaimo

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By Kim Goldberg

June 15, 2014

More than 75 people turned out for Nanaimo’s rally against smart meters yesterday, on the sidewalk in front of MLA Leonard Krog’s office downtown. The event was part of a multi-city Day of Action Against Smart Meters occurring across British Columbia and Quebec.

Speakers described the risks of fire, surveillance, and illness associated with wireless smart meters. And some described their own personal health ordeal triggered by the installation of a smart meter on their home—from headaches, to heart arrhythmia, to loss of vision.

Attendees and passers-by on the busy street corner were encouraged to join the class action lawsuit currently underway against BC Hydro over the risks associated with smart meters.

Story and images © Kim Goldberg

Jim Stachow dons his ‘tinfoil hat’ to take the stage. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

June 14, 2014 Anti-Smart Meter rally in Nanaimo. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

Solar: The Only Smart Grid (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

Save the Bees, Foil your Smart Meter (photo © Kim Goldberg)

FILM: Take Back Your Power, Coming to Nanaimo

BC Hydro Breaks Down Barricade to Install Smart Meter in Nanaimo

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By Kim Goldberg

August 14, 2013

Jurgen Goering has one more smart meter today than he had yesterday – and not by choice. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

NANAIMO, BC—One month after BC Energy Minister Bill Bennett announced that smart meters are no longer mandatory for citizens who do not want one, a Nanaimo man had a smart meter forcibly installed, and his property vandalized in the process, by an individual who appears to have been a BC Hydro employee.

Jurgen Goering has one more smart meter on his home today than he did yesterday. And not by choice.

Jurgen shows me the plywood barricade he had placed over his three remianing analogue meters, with holes cut for meter-reading. BC Hydro broke the locks off the plywood to force a smart meter on him. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

Jurgen shows me the plywood barricade he had placed over his three remaining analogue meters, with holes cut for meter-reading. BC Hydro broke the locks off the plywood to force a smart meter on him. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

I visited Goering at his downtown Nanaimo home this afternoon. He told me that an unidentified man driving a BC Hydro van and wearing civilian clothes entered his backyard yesterday around 2:00 pm, broke through his padlocked plywood barricade guarding his three remaining analogue meters, and exchanged one of them for a wireless smart meter while Goering stood there telling him to leave.

“This really shakes my faith in the political system and in BC Hydro,” Goering told me.

“What [Energy Minister] Bill Bennett did when he announced the opt-out last month was to send a message that the war in the backyards is over. So why did this happen?” Goering asks.

Goering says he confronted the installer on the spot yesterday and told him he was trespassing.

“I also told him I was the homeowner and I was not granting permission,” says Goering.

BC Hydro ripped the woodscrews out of the plywood barricade to get past the padlock just one month after BC Energy Minister Bill Bennett said no one would be forced to have a smart meter against their will. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

BC Hydro ripped the woodscrews out of Jurgen Goering’s plywood barricade to get a smart meter on his Nanaimo home one month after BC Energy Minister Bill Bennett said no one would be forced to have a smart meter against their will. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

The installer, who had already ripped out the woodscrews holding the padlock on the plywood barricade, continued installing the smart meter beside a posted sign forbidding it and then left, Goering told me.

Goering’s home has four hydro meters on it – one for each separate residence. And he owns the entire building. One of the four meters had been replaced with a smart meter a year earlier, when a tenant moved out and contacted BC Hydro to close the account. Goering was using plywood and padlocks to protect the other three analogue meters on his home from a similar fate.

RCMP Non-responsive

Goering says he also phoned the police while the unauthorized installation was in progress. But the police told him to phone BC Hydro instead, leaving Goering dumbfounded.

“Someone’s invading the privacy of your home and premises, and you can’t get them off your land?” Goering asks.

Last month, on July 11, BC Energy Minister Bill Bennett announced that the province will now offer citizens alternatives to the once mandatory smart meter program.

“People who want to opt out can,” Bennett stated. “They will not be forced to have a smart meter, but they are going to have to pay the costs… We don’t want to force people to have a smart meter if they really don’t want one,” Bennett told the public. “It’s not our intention to offend people or bully people.”

Either someone forgot to inform BC Hydro of the Minister’s new policy, or else the government’s promise of an opt-out option for customers was never genuine to begin with.

Jurgen Goering tends is tomatoes in his lush organic food garden in has backyard, and mulls the Orwellian implications of BC Hydro's forced installation of a smart meter on his home. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

Jurgen Goering tends his tomatoes in his lush organic food garden in his backyard and mulls the Orwellian implications of BC Hydro’s forced installation of a smart meter on his home. (Photo © Kim Goldberg)

“It’s like living in George Orwell’s 1984,” says Goering. “It’s double-speak and double-think. They say one thing and do the opposite.”

Last month two BC organizations, Citizens for Safe Technology and Coalition to Stop Smart Meters, filed a class action lawsuit against BC Hydro to force the corporation to adopt a genuine opt-out option in which customers will be allowed to keep or revert to their analogue meters, and pay no additional costs for their choice.

More information about the lawsuit is here.

Kim Goldberg is an award-winning journalist and author in Nanaimo, BC. Her next book, REFUGIUM: Wi-Fi Exiles and the Coming Electroplague, is due out in 2014.

Osoyoos Indian Band Nixes Smart Meters

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Chief Clarence Louie and the full Band Council of the Osoyoos Indian Band in British Columbia are barring Fortis BC from installing 700 smart meters because of health risks associated with the wireless technology.

This following press release just came across my desk from Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band, located in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley…

Osoyoos Indian Band

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Osoyoos Indian Band Prohibits Smart Meter Installations

Oliver, B.C. Canada—June 13, 2013

On behalf of the Osoyoos Indian Band, Chief Clarence Louie announced today that he and all Band Council members have signed a governing document prohibiting Fortis BC, the local utility company, from installing Smart Meters on the approximately 703 homes and businesses on the Osoyoos Indian reserve.

“Having been presented with science-based evidence, the Band Council and I are convinced that Fortis’s proposed wireless smart meters in meshed-grid networks have the potential to harm our children and our environment. No scientist on the planet has been able to verify the safety of these extremely dangerous devices that emit microwave radiation 24/7 in perpetuity and which cannot be turned off.”

“As Chief of the Osoyoos Indian band, my first duty is to protect my people, our future generations and our lands. For that reason, the band Council and I believe we need to err on the side of caution and respect the world’s leading independent scientists who say—and have evidence to prove—that electromagnetic radiation, especially pulsed and microwave frequency radiation, is harmful to all living things.”

“I am proud of our Council for standing up and voting to prohibit the installation of smart meters on our lands in order to protect not only our own people but all the peoples who resides and work on the Osoyoos Indian Band lands.”

###

For More information, contact:

J.R. (Banjo) Linkevic

Osoyoos Indian Band

(250) 498-3444 x 119

Email: smartmeters@oib.ca

VIDEO: Mold Toxins Skyrocket with EMR Exposure

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Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt narrates this 5–minute video recounting the discovery of a Swiss scientist who grew mold cultures first in a faraday cage (shielded from ambient electromagnetic radiation) and then exposed to ambient EMR in the lab.

The mold cultures were initially shielded from ambient EMR by having a silver-coated cloth draped over them, effectively creating a faraday cage.

When the cloth was removed and the mold cultures were exposed to the ambient EMR in the lab, coming from the lights, computer and nearby cell phone tower, the molds produced more than 600 times the quantity of biotoxins that they produced when shielded from EMR.

And the biotoxins produced by the molds weren’t simply more plentiful, they were also more potent and virulent.

This finding could explain many things – from the rise of ‘superbugs’ sweeping through entire hospital wards (hospitals are bristling with cell towers, wifi and EMR in general), to the reason that some people are far more sensitive to EMR than others. The sensitive people may well have an underlying Candida infection or other microbial infection that is flooding their bodies with biotoxins in response to the exposure to wireless emissions and other sources of EMR.

-Kim Goldberg

Refugium

Wi-Fi Exiles & The Coming Electroplague

Category Archives: News

5G Global Day of Action – Sept 26, 2020 – Vancouver Island Events

Bans on Cell Phones in Classroom Growing Worldwide

Bans on Cell Phones in Classroom Growing Worldwide

Biological Diversity at Risk From Wireless Radiation

Biological Diversity at Risk From Wireless Radiation

Global WiFi from Space Will Destroy Ozone Layer