Posted on 06/19/2008 1:44:33 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Purchasers of hybrid vehicles, which are subsidized by the federal government and championed by environmental activists as a way to reduce gasoline consumption, are trading in their vehicles because of health fears concerning electromagnetic fields created by the hybrid batteries, says John Dale Dunn, a policy advisor for the American Council on Science and Health.
As noted in an April 27 article in the New York Times:
Some hybrid vehicle owners are complaining of a variety of health problems allegedly caused by strong electromagnetic currents from the cars' batteries. Reported ailments and concerns include rising blood pressure, drowsiness behind the wheel and higher leukemia risks. Various agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, acknowledge the potential hazards of long-term exposure to a strong electromagnetic field (E.M.F.), and have done studies on the association of cancer risks with living near high-voltage utility lines. Drivers who have given up their hybrids have reportedly documented "dangerously high" electromagnetic fields, leading them to conclude driving the vehicles is not worth risking blood for oil. This issue illustrates the double standard regarding environmental activists, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
"Environmental activists routinely use the Precautionary Principle as a weapon against technologies and products they do not like," Burnett explains. "They assert that until and unless a product they oppose can be definitively proven to be safe, the product must be banned. Now, however, when consumers and some scientists assert that one of the activists' pet products may be causing serious health harms, the activists act like they have never heard of the Precautionary Principle."
Source: John Dale Dunn, "Hybrid Vehicle Owners Report Adverse Health Effects," Heartland Institute, July 1, 2008; and Jim Motavalli, "Fear, but Few Facts, on Hybrid Risk," New York Times, April 27, 2008.
For text:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23393
For Times text:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/automobiles/27EMF.html
For more on Environment Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=31
Not really...
Indeed!
So would the Demons!!
Makes you think about what cell phones are doing to our brains!!!!
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=V94shlqPlSI&feature=related
There’s a fuel-price ‘sticker-shock treatment’ undercurrent here that unfortunately goes way beyond assault, to battery.
higher leukemia risks!
An engineer at my company lived in a neighborhood where the poser company wanted to raise the voltage on the lines to make up for the increased draw. The neighborhood was all in a tizzy about the "cancer risks [associated] with living near high-voltage utility lines". So naturally they turned to their resident engineer who goes out and borrows a Gauss meter and goes around taking readings to measure the EM strength around high tension lines.
The result was that you receive more EM radiation in front of a CRT than from standing directly beneath 160kV power lines. Being reasonable people, the neighbors shut up and allowed the power company to do as they wanted.
Doesn’t surprise me. A CRT won’t hurt you unless there is something seriously wrong with it. I don’t know which of my posts you were replying to. In one of my posts, I talked about getting too close to your microwave. That is generally safe, the way they are constructed. However, if there is leakage from the microwave, that could be a different matter. Don’t mess with the insulation.
They say that the thing that gives off the strongest electromagnetic waves is an electric razor, though. It’s interesting that you never hear anyone demanding that those be pulled off the market.
It’s generally the new things that people try to make an issue out of, because they don’t understand them. When they put the first electrical wires in the home before the turn of the 20th Century, there were urban legends about leakage from these wires being hazardous.
The cell phone idea is one that is also a matter of pure ignorance. The electromagnetic waves from cell phones are going to go thru your brain whether you have it pressed up against your ear or not. In fact, they will go thru your brain even if you don’t have a cell phone at all, because so many other people do have cell phones. There was a time when cell phones were made in such a way that a greater amount of the radiation was aimed toward the caller than it is these days. But even that wouldn’t have done any damage. Generally speaking, radio waves are just not energetic enough to damage human cells.
If you call it “radio waves,” people think that’s no problem. Call it “electromagnetic radiation,” though, and they go nuts.
Thanks Spirit of Allegiance for the ping here.
Thanks neverdem for these (and the link in the next post):
Putting Up The ‘For Shale’ Sign
IBD | June 13, 2008
Posted on 06/13/2008 5:45:45 PM PDT by Kaslin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2030875/posts
Inventors: Solar Dish Could Revolutionize Energy Production
LiveScience.com | Jun 19, 2008 | LiveScience Staff
Posted on 06/19/2008 10:58:18 PM PDT by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2033745/posts
We’re Not Addicts! - The case for energy abundance and diversity.
National Review Online | June 19, 2008 | Clifford D. May
Posted on 06/19/2008 8:10:44 PM PDT by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2033704/posts
It's the word... RADIATION!!!
Conservative hybrid driver here....
My Escape hybrid averages 37 mpg (calculated at the pump...every which way I can figure it..backing out all the hidden expense...I am saving about $150 a month in gas over the Ford Explorer it replaced...factor in the smaller car payment and I am saving $200 overall per month.
Like I said in another post, under the right financial and driving circumstances hybrids do make sense. All that does go out the window tho if the battery dies on me before I trade it in.
I have become a very green conservative only becuase it leaves more green in my wallet.
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