Sebastopol (CA) Argues WiFi May Harm Your Health

[Kadie]

Mar 24, 2008 10:32 am US/Pacific
Sebastopol Argues WiFi May Harm Your Health

SEBASTOPOL (AP) ― Sebastopol officials have turned down a plan to provide free wireless Internet, citing possible adverse health effects.

The City Council voted last week to rescind an agreement with Sonic.net that would have provided free WiFi throughout the town.

Sebastopol Mayor Craig Litwin thanked Sonic for a "very nice gesture" but says citizens have voiced concerns that radiofrequency signals would cause health problems.

Sonic CEO Dane Jasper says exposure from a Wi-Fi network would be "a drop in the bucket" compared to the amount that people receive daily from TV, radio and cellular phone signals. Also, Jasper has detected 25 WiFi signals active in the town already.

http://cbs13.com/local/sebastopol.california.wifi.2.683678.html

[Warren DeMontague]

1. As much as I love Sebastopol, sometimes it's a little too woo-woo even for me. nt

[Javaman]

2. Now who is behind this? perhaps the local cable service?

Or will some other cable outfit now come in to save the day! at a small charge of course.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. No, I can tell you for certain that this is the product of well-intentioned, but seriously misguided

locals.

I was out there a week or so ago, and saw a little xeroxed flyer (xeroxed on a machine that produces an electromagnetic field, no doubt) about this exact "issue". It looked like it had been drawn by a child.

Unfortunately, there are people on the "left" who are as ill-informed and reflexively anti-science as some on the right are.

All told, though, Sebastopol is a great little town.

[SidDithers]

6. Really?...

Unfortunately, there are people on the "left" who are as ill-informed and reflexively anti-science as some on the right are.

You've spent some time here on the DU tubes, obviously :)

Sid

[varkam]

7. If it's on Google, then it's Gospel.

Is it any coincidence that Google and Gospel are so close to each other in spelling? I think not :D

[Greyhound]

4. This is the kind of thing that drove me nuts about CA.

They have radio and television stations that pump out over 1000 times the RF radiation that a Wi-Fi router would, they wouldn't dream of shutting down the radio and television stations, but they're going to stop a perfectly benign community service out of nothing but ignorance.

Another kind of stupid for the list.

[Canuckistanian]

5. So, is he trying to ban radio stations putting out 50,000 Watts?

Or ban high tension powerlines that are powerful enough to light up fluorescent tubes?

WiFi "hotspots" can barely pump out about 4 Watts or so, and are limited by the FCC.

If he wants to go on a crusade about the dangers of EM radiation, there are far bigger fish to fry.

[slor]

8. Hey...I live in Sebastopol...

and I would have liked free Wi-Fi. I did not know this was even being floated as a possibility.