[permaculture-oceania] Re: mobile phones safe, carbon tax not

[Matthew Bond]

Hi Russ,

I agree my response seems to cast doubt on all research and I should clarify
my position.  I also love technology but I have my boundaries.  I
acknowledge the importance of scientific studies but I think our intuition
should not be disregarded in the process.  When I was studying Electrical
Engineering, I gained first-hand knowledge of how an experiment's results
and conclusions could be manipulated by the inclusion or omission of a few
minor details or how they could be innocently interpretted in two different
ways.  I also remember observing things that 'weren't meant to happen'
according to the demonstrator/lecturer/ textbook.   If that happened I would
repeat the experiment.  It's not so simple for a 15 year study but I suppose
we'll eventually find out in 100 years or so!

If there happens to be more than one study on a particular subject, I think
we should take note of all the studies not just one of them.  If the WHO
found no evidence that exposure to radio frequencies from transmitters
increased a person's cancer risk then I think they weren't looking in the
right place because I have heard of other researchers finding evidence.

Permaculture is about being inclusive and that is why I said my offering was
food for thought.  I do not have any agenda to polarise permaculture into
being anti-mobile phones which would disassociate a huge proportion of the
population.  My intention was to stimulate the awareness of the issue and
that's why I tried to stick to questions rather than statements or
accusations because the answers can only come from the individual.  The
answers are personal and that in turn makes the issue a personal one which
means if you don't like the answers to those questions you can't blame me.
:)

Matthew.

From: Russ Grayson <info at pacific-edge.info >
> Subject: Re: [permaculture-oceania] Re: mobile phones safe, carbon tax
>         not
>
> Hi Matthew...
> I posted that item on research into the possible health implications of
> mobile phone use because the topic affects many on this list who use the
> devices and is, therefore, of potential interest to them.
>
> Your response seems to cast doubt on all research, which is a little
> disheartening because it suggests that we therefore have nothing on which
> to
> base our decisions as societies, which leads to the conclusion that
> planning
> anything is a useless activity as all research findings are suspect. It
> discredits centuries of scientific experience and by implication questions
>
> the entire post-Enlightement experience of the Western world, the
> experience
> which allows us today to sit before these machines and communiate rapidly
> and effectively with each other, to carry on conversations such as we are
> presently engaged in.
>
> This casts aspersions on the reputation of the researchers who conducted
> the
> reported research and on the journalist that reported it. But what was
> reported was cautionary. We have to learn to distinguish between what we
> would like to believe and what research and observation discloses. The
> wise
> person, when confronted with new information, changes their mind rather
> than
> concoct reasons why their own assumptions must be right and the
> researchers
> wrong.
>
> Unreasonable attitudes to scientific work also contribute to the
> anti-science agenda currently underway among medieval-like religious
> interests and their opportunistic political hangers-on that would push us
> into a new Dark Age where dogma, not reason, rules. They would say, of
> course, that since all that happens is preordaned by a diety, there is no
> reason to have anymore science or scientific research.
>
> Permaculture, in such a culture-in-reverse, would not get a look in.
> Premaculture is a product of logical, Western scientific reasoning and
> research. But, then, I suppose you could cast aspersions on the sceintific
> work of Dr Bill Mollison too.
>
> The theme of the research - the effect of electromagnetic radiation on the
>
> human body - has seen a number of research projects that have produced
> different results, as you say. Yet highly regarded research at Adelaide
> University a few years ago - I don't have a reference for it - as well as
> the research that was reported continue to show no impact on adults using
> mobile phones. And the World Health Organisation mentioned in the article
> has an anormous volume of resources and expertise at its disposal and is
> highly regarded.
>
> I have no opinion of the effect of mobile phone emissions and, like many
> others, would like a clear consensus to emerge. Meantime, all I have is
> the
> research on which to base my decisions. But the only way we can possibly
> get
> that research is through the ethical and proper employment of scientific
> method - we cannot divine this information with a pointed stick.
>
> Mobile phones - and laptops and iPods and PDAs (personal digital
> assistants
> - those handheld computers you see people writing into with their styli) -
> have rapidly become a part of the culture because they allow people to
> either:
> 1. do new things
> 2. or to improve what they already do.
>
> These tools are properly regarded as what anthropologists would describe
> as
> 'cultural artefacts' of industrial cultures as well an an increasing
> number
> of people in developing countries. For many people they are enabling
> technologies. They are prevasive - walking into town I see people in the
> park, laptops open, wi-fi antennas attached, communicating or obtaining
> information. A coffee shop I go to offers wi-fi conenction as do some town
>
> centres, everywhere are people plugged into iPods, some listening to
> music,
> some to downloaded Podcast radio documentaries, others perhaps using them
> as
> study tools. In short, digital technologies are now integrated into our
> societies.
>
> And what about their relation to Permaculture, as you ask? Well, if
> Permaculture disregards them and the younger demographic that has
> integrated
> them into their lives, then Permaculture is the loser. As any businessman
> knows, you have to go where the market is and, for Permaculture's market,
> if
> that means coming to terms about how digital devices can be used to
> support
> sustainable development.
>
> Another point about mobiles, laptops, iPods and PDAs and let's throw
> digital
> still and video cameras into that, especially those embedded into mobile
> phones - they are all mobile communications technologies - is that they
> give
> to the motivated individual the power of partipating in a great global
> conversation and allow individuals and community organisations to become
> media producers rather than simply media consumers. That includes
> Permaculture groups and that, surely, is politically and socially
> important.
>
> I might come across as a techno-booster, but I'm not. My attitude is that
> we
> should make use of these devices to promulgate our message. These devices
> are tools, just as shovels and garden forks are tools, just like the lead
> pencil was, just like books. So, let's have Permaculture Podcasts and
> Permaculture videos for our iPods (I note such devices now come with some
> mobile phones), Permaculture literature as e-books for our laptops and
> PDAs
> (and out mobile phones too), clever websites for rapid access to
> sustainability information accessible by laptop and mobile and SMS alerts
> on
> mobiles for Permaculture networks.
>
> ...Russ Grayson
>
>
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