Smart Meters Are Part Of Agenda 21 - And Response (9)

Smart Meters are digital meters the utilities (electric, gas, water) are using to replace our current mechanical meters.  Both types of meters look almost identical.  In a mechanical meter, a rotating wheel calculates energy usage and a smart meter uses a digital read out.  That’s where the similarity ends. The difference is that the smart meter is dangerous to our health and an invasion of our privacy. 
            

Smart meters are sometimes referred to as interval or time-of-use meters.  That’s because they transmit how much energy you are using and at what time of day.  With a smart meter on your home or property, your kilowatt hours will be billed at different rates during different times of the day.  

In her article, Mary Hendry of Lakeland, Fla. writes:  “Basically, you can't cook, bathe, run the washer or dryer, have heat or air conditioning until after 9 at night, or you are spending too much on electricity. If a mom is trying to keep the electric bill down, I see her bedtime being around 2 a.m. most nights.”  She explains that with her utility company, the three main time categories are on-peak, mid-peak and off-peak. Also, holidays and weekends get the lowest rates all of the time and that peak time is almost twice as expensive as off-peak.

There are already hundreds of thousands of cases against various utility companies because of the deleterious health effects of smart meters.  The symptoms and illnesses range from nausea, vomiting and tinnitus to heart arrhythmia and cancer due to the radio frequency waves and electromagnetic frequency they emit.  In fact, studies done on the same kind of waves emitted by smart meters show them to be equal to a level two carcinogenic.  

The Federal Communication Commission has ruled that smart meters are safe based on their studies of “thermal” exposure.  However, smart meters emit “non-thermal” radiation which is much higher in power density and more harmful than thermal emissions.  Because of the risks they pose, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has called for a “…moratorium on smart meter installation until the serious public health issues can be resolved.”

Smart meters may be “smart” but they are not private.  Once a smart meter is attached to a home, it can tell how many people live in the house, when they get up, when they go to bed and when they aren’t home.  It can tell how many showers they take and loads of laundry they do, how often they use the microwave and how much and what kind of TV they watch.  The information gathered from your house is sent to a neighborhood smart meter which then wirelessly transmits your information to a municipal network and to the national network which is the Smart Grid.  

“Privacy and cybersecurity are among the greatest challenges in implementing the smart grid,“ said Nick Sinai, energy and environment director at the FCC.  Eventually the utilities will control how much energy you use and when and be able to shut off “smart chip”-equipped appliances remotely. 

Smart meters are a tool of Agenda 21 and not to be tolerated.  Agenda 21 is a UN game plan for radical transformation of the global society.  Think “Sustainable Development” and Obamacare.  Then there’s Cap and Trade, that Obama still desperately wants, which will allow the government to have a vice-like grip on how Americans live.  As part of this, the electrical companies are installing “smart monitoring systems” to track usage of energy by residents.  This represents only one area of control, but a critical one, as the Obama administration attempts to restrict individual rights.

There is a lot you can and must do to stop smart meters.  First of all, call your utility company and refuse, refuse, refuse to have one installed on your residence or property.  Your utility may tell you that smart meters are mandated by the federal government but in fact, they are not.  According to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the utilities may “offer” them and install them “upon customer request” but not force them on you are they’re already doing.  Inform your utility in writing of your refusal for health and privacy concerns.  Put a weather-proofed do not install smart meter sign next to your mechanical meter.  Become educated and aware of smart meters. 

(PS…Smart meters are not UL approved which are required of other appliances.  This is because the federal government has waived that requirement for the utilities.) 
 
Sharon Peker
Chattanooga Tea Party

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Biff Loman

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Mrs. Peker says "Smart meters are sometimes referred to as interval or time-of-use meters.  That’s because they transmit how much energy you are using and at what time of day.  With a smart meter on your home or property, your kilowatt hours will be billed at different rates during different times of the day."

Hixson

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Although Sharon Peker identifies herself as Chattanooga Tea Party, her views on the Smart Grid are personal and do not represent the views of the Tea Party movement. 

The Tea Party is focused strictly on government fiscal responsibility and accountability, and Constitutional adherement.
 
Bill McGee
Chattanooga 

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I for one, am happy to see that this issue is being brought to the attention to unaware Americans.  I believe in the U.S. Consitution and the liberties it provides to Americans.  I've done my own research, and Ms. Peker did a great job explaining some of the adverse health affects Smart Meters can cause, which cannot be dismissed.  

I also believe this is another case of a "slippery slope" where government and big business can intrude in our personal lives.  For those of you not familiar with "Agenda 21"- simply google it.  It is a UN sponsored program, which basically would eventually take away private property, and tell Americans how to live our lives, where to live our lives, and what mode of transporation we can use.  No, this is not what the founders intended for us.  

Do your own research on both "Smart Meters" and "Agenda 21," then make your own decisions.  But you have the right to know what is happening in our community and in our country and the biased media no longer can be trusted to keep us informed.
 
The so called "Smart Meter" is just a tool to keep track of energy used, at what times and for what purposes.  I'm sure they will find a way to use that information to line their pockets with more of our hard earned money at some point in the future.  I'll even take it a step further, and say they will more than likely try to "alot" each household with so much energy at some point in the future. We can and must let EPB know we do not want a "Smart Meter" on our homes. You have the right to refuse- at least for now.  If they have already installed one, demand it to be replaced with the old meter.
 
I am not a conspiricy theorist, but I see too much big corrupt government everywhere, locally and nationally, intruding in our lives.  Time to say "enough" and get back to living as our founders intended.  Keep in mind, that "We the People" own the politicians- we hire them, and we can fire them. Time to clean house, folks.
  
Debbie Davis-Peck

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Whether you admit it ot even like it, Agenda 21 with all its tentacles is real and is here now. Incorporation of technologies such as Smart Meters are part of the infrastructure to implement Agenda 21.

Technology is neutral, neither good or bad. It can be used for good or otherwise. Smart Meters have some attractive features. They allow remote reading of meters which can save the distributor on having to send a person to record power usage. They also allow the distributor to shut power off when someone does not pay their electric bills. Smart Meters also offer tamper resistance and elimitate many traditional means of stealing power. These are all good. When used to record your power usage, usually monthly, to ensure proper billing, Smart Meters seem like a good thing.

However, this technology can easily be set up to record and monitor electrical usage on a more frequent basis, such as hourly. In today's world of computers and databases, it's easy to comprehend this is not a hard task. In fact, just as a demonstration, EPB actually has recorded usage on an hourly basis to demonstrate the technology. Perhaps the individual providing the initial response is not aware that TVA is today pushing a rate structure where users are charged a different rate depending on the hour of the day. Now to me, if you can know how my electrical demand on an hourly basis, it seems just possible that someone could coorelate that to when residents are home, if they have certain usage habits or even if they have guests.

I believe only someone out of touch with the reality that's going on around them and clueless of the full intent of Agenda 21 could so impolitely disregard the message being offered in the original article. Seems to me a prudent person does not accept these things at face value. Wake up and realize this is not utopia.

Robert Hays

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Mr. Nelson, while I wholly believe in free-market principles, utilities have been anything but. Free market does not include surreptitiously installing a Smart Meter on one's home by mandate and without my permission.  We should have a choice as to whether or not we want to surrender to the tentacles of Agenda 21's sustainability invasion of rights and privacy.
 
I hope people realize the control that EPB will be able to have once their Smart Grid is fully active.  A colleague of mine from France learned the hard way about new appliances with Smart Chips.  Her new washer and dryer are turned off from 6-10 p.m. each night.  As a working mother of two small children, it has been an incomprehensible annoyance.
 
Residents need to become more aware of what local, state and national governments are trying to force upon them without their general knowledge.  Ms. Peker's article was spot on and all of her points can be well-documented with minimal research.
 
Karen Chastain

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I'll also say that one thing she is passionate about is the freedoms the Constitution has afforded us, and it's any erosion in those that would cause her to speak out. She's certainly not one to try to counter free enterprise, being a small business owner herself. She's not one to read the first article online and run saying "The sky is falling" and she's not one to want a lot of attention. 

I think the key here is for reasonable and rational people to take a serious look at the facts and then decide for yourself, rather than make inflammatory personal comments. No one is looking for the next network sound bite here; all Sharon is looking to do, I believe, is present facts on a serious issue so that serious individuals can make a more informed decision. 

I for one will definitely look into those facts, as I know the person presenting them has no larger agenda.

Frank Krueger

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In this time of economic turmoil, the last thing we need to do lose jobs in Chattanooga.  Countless jobs are being terminated with these meters that no one seems to care about.  I've heard nothing from the media.  

Every meter in the EPB network must be read manually by an employee every month.  This person is rarely directly employed by EPB, but rather by companies like Pike Electric, Hayes Network, and more.  As these meters get installed, less meter readers are needed.  

They are not directly being fired by EPB, but their dismissal is a direct result of your "Smart" meter. 

Save a job, refuse the Smart Grid.

Robert T. Johnson
Hixson

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The people with complaints here should move to the wilderness, stop using the internet, stop using cellphones, basically stop using any technology whatsoever.

The smart meters can communicate to the host once every 15 minutes.  They are not in constant communication and are on the outside of your home.  In my home I have trouble getting wireless to the other side of my house from my router that is indoors, and it is constantly running.  You mean to tell me that something that is transmitting data for approximately 100 seconds each day (based on EPB's website) and is on the outside of my home is somehow going to make me sick?  I guess I'd better quit carrying a cellphone, or using it right next to my brain for that matter, if I'm that concerned about radio frequencies impacting my health.

Also, the EPB website states that if you have smart appliances in your home you can allow EPB to monitor them.  You have to give them permission.  Further, time of day power pricing is optional, not mandatory, and will always be that way.  If you want just a flat rate, EPB will bill you that way.

I'll take power outages limited to one minute instead of 15, a couple hours instead of all day, and a couple days instead of a few weeks if it means putting a smart meter on my home (which I have by the way, and I haven't been sick once).

Take a look at EPB's website, it has a pretty clear FAQ section on their smart meters, which debunks most of the information seen here.

As for Mr. Johnson's complaint about lost jobs, should we eliminate ATMs and bring back bank tellers, go back to hand harvesting crops, and manually operate printing presses in order to create more jobs?

Frank Shepard

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We have all grown to trust  the UL label on everything we put in or around our homes. Everything we plug in has been tested and checked in case something goes wrong that we won't get the sort through the ashes to find whats left.

I can't even begin to guess why we jumped to the use of Smart Meters that were not UL approved to supply power to our house that has UL approved items inside… I'm sure there is money behind it somewhere

Makes all the sense that we outlaw mercury because of the dangers and then we import CFL lamps from China that have mercury in them and we can't even dispose of them in a normal manner.

Maybe before we jump into the smart grid so fast we need to check that we have looked at all the options.

Med Dement