Electronic smog 'is disrupting nature on a massive scale'

[DogPoundPup]

New study blames mobile phone masts and power lines for collapse of bee colonies and decline in sparrows

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/electronic-smog-is-disrupting-nature-on-a-massive-scale-921711.html
Sunday, 7 September 2008

Mobile phones, Wi-Fi systems, electric power lines and similar sources of "electrosmog" are disrupting nature on a massive scale, causing birds and bees to lose their bearings, fail to reproduce and die, a conference will be told this week.

Dr Ulrich Warnke – who has been researching the effects of man-made electrical fields on wildlife for more than 30 years – will tell the conference, organised by the Radiation Research Trust at the Royal Society in London, that "an unprecedented dense mesh of artificial magnetic, electrical and electromagnetic fields" has been generated, overwhelming the "natural system of information" on which the species rely.

He believes this could be responsible for the disappearance of bees in Europe and the US in what is known as colony collapse disorder, for the decline of the house sparrow, whose numbers have fallen by half in Britain over the past 30 years, and that it could also interfere with bird migration.

Dr Warnke, a lecturer at the University of Saarland, in Germany, adds that the world's natural electrical and magnetic fields have had a "decisive hand in the evolution of species". Over millions of years they learned to use them to work out where they were, the time of day, and the approach of bad weather.

[Newsjock]

1. And before you know it ...

... we'll be limited to doing only Warp 5.

[HeresyLives]

2. Same stuff they came out with

when it was radio and TV. :rofl:

[angstlessk]

3. I would like some links to the naysayers regarding radio waves...then years latter

tv..you got any? I was gonna google, but then thought...why spend my time proving your point...that's your job!

[HeresyLives]

5. I was around then.

Everything is gonna kill us. Except it doesn't.

The earth has a far stronger field than anything we can put out. :rofl:

[angstlessk]

7. you were around when radio was introduced?? wow you must be older

than mcsame!! that rolly polly laughing icon...can you spell anything except ;rofl;?

[HeresyLives]

8. No, my parents & gparents were tho.

I was around when TV was introduced. Same problems were warned about then. We were also told how far away to sit, and that you had to have a light on in the room.

Heavens, you were even supposed to read a book with a light over your left shoulder, never your right.

But then people figured the sheer speed and wind resistance in cars would kill people if they went over 30mph. And that using the right foot for braking and gas would shorten our right legs.

Every new technology brings out the doomsayers.

:rofl:

[angstlessk]

9. sugah you are an extremist....you need to get another smilie

something that might make you look more credible...no links..just a rofl smilie and a bunch of words...ARE YOU SARAH PALIN???

[HeresyLives]

10. I don't understand the hostility.

Even the article says the idea is nonsense.

I am not your 'sugah' and I'm not an extremist, I've simply lived long enough to see technophobia over and over again. We aren't going back to the caves, so move on with your life and stop attacking people.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Can't speak for the USA

but in the UK bee colony collapse is more likely to be caused by the varroa mite and loss of sparrows , which the article also mentions , by loss of habitat. Most probably due to the hundred or so year old hedge in my garden , my buddlejas trees and bushes etc and my neighbours holly trees we've got a quite amazing number of sparrows.

Loss of bees is also thought to be due to loss of natural farm habitat for them too.

[lynnertic]

6. The bees are dying from an insecticide that Bayer sells.

Germany's banned the substance and I'm not sure (read about it here at DU) but France is planning to ban a whole class of insecticides related to it -- nicotinoids IIRC.