TECHNOSPHERE AND CYBERSPHERE HARMING THE BIOSPHERE
By Michael W. Fox BVetMed, PhD, DSc, MRCVS
As a veterinarian and advocate of One Health I have regarded informing the public about environmental issues which can harm humans and other animals wild and domesticated as one of my professional responsibilities.
Bill Gate’s and other’s push of atmospheric geoengineering to put various particulate materials into the upper atmosphere to shade the Earth from the sun’s rays to slow down global warming fails to address the fundamental issue of escalating carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane emissions which geoengineering will not rectify. Such shading will reduce plant growth/photosynthesis and therefore reduce the rate and quantity of much needed carbon sequestration by plants and algae to reduce atmospheric CO2. Because of human-driven increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is more CO2 dissolving into the ocean. This acidification. also in lakes, puts shelled-creatures (mollusks, corals) at risk because it erodes their calciferous protective shells.
Geoengineering will reduce ultraviolet solar radiation, a natural viral and bacterial sanitizer, which would mean one less natural element preventing epidemics and pandemics. Also, low-level atmospheric pollution from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and for transportation blocks ultraviolet light and damages lungs and other internal organs, further increasing susceptibility to respiratory diseases such as COVID-19.
It is significant that Elon Musk was named 2021 Person of the Year on the cover of Time magazine because he is one of the innovators capitalizing on the financial benefits of electrifying the biosphere for telecommunications and associated technologies from smart phones to self-driving cars. Many of the satellites circling Earth are his and are beaming non-ionizing radiation to Earth, which I call the Cybersphere component of the Technosphere. The potential of a global high-speed, broad-band internet Cybersphere to cause damage to living systems is the antithesis of what Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin envisioned in his concept of a world-integrating Noosphere created in part by appropriate and safe technologies.
It is enlightened self-interest to utilize the least harmful telecommunications radiofrequencies. But this is not being assured. All involved are Technophiles, the latest anthropocentric and profit-driven mind-set of an elite class virtually beyond reproach through their media control that has the public believing that we can progress without respect or regard for all life on planet Earth.
Our technophilia must be balanced by our biophilia, our innate affinity for Nature, bioethics providing the essential linkage as per my book Bringing Ethics to Life: Global Bioethics for a Humane Society .Nature is not simply a resource, and all materials and species are not ours to exploit and make more useful for various purposes through chemical, biomolecular and genetic engineering. Genetically engineered and patented crop varieties, long promoted by Bill Gates and through his philanthropic “charities,” contribute to climate change as this agri-industrial, fossil-fuel and pesticide dependent commodity crop production strips the soils and grasslands and drained wetlands of carbon-sequestering biodiversity.
This biotechnology applied to animals can range from developing pigs to provide us with replacement organ parts or to serve as models of human diseases, many of which we bring upon ourselves, to test new drugs, and new types of vaccines which are not without potentially harmful side-effects but all highly profitable to investors. The anthropogenic factors contributing to the COVID-19 pandemic have not yet been fully examined, but are considerable as per Rubik, B., & Brown, R. R. (2021). Evidence for a connection between coronavirus disease-19 and exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless communications including 5G. Journal of Clinical and Translational Research, 7(5), 666–681. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8580522/
Some of the Cybersphere’s radiation frequencies being developed are harmful to life on Earth. The limited available safety data and environmental impact assessment determinations for Musk’s Starlink Internet Service are questionable considering the rush to invest and implement this technology, the escalating and predictably non-sustainable energy demands for data storage and transmission and digital currency transactions are major concerns especially in the face of climate change and global warming.
I am concerned about misuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as with every technology; and about the energy needed for data storage and transmission along with associated electropollution hazards. The precautionary principle should not be over-ridden by the profit motive or other means and ends, especially for disinformation purposes. Also, the interfacing of the human bioelectrical field with the electrical fields of AI delivery, monitoring, surveillance, and diagnostic systems raises health-safety issues which need to be addressed. Some forms of non-ionizing radiation and electromagnetic fields can affect physiology, brain function, development, and behavior. (For details see https://drfoxonehealth.com/post/electropollution-existential-threat-to-public-health-and-life-on-earth/). The element of social media addiction which can elevate brain dopamine may be compounded by AI.
In his Mercola Health Newsletter, Dr. Mercola posted this opening salvo waring against AI on April 8th 2023: “ How Artificial Intelligence Could Destroy Human Civilization ChatGPT, the most rapidly adopted tech platform in history, will clearly become an integral part of the globalist control grid. Shortly, it and other chatbots will replace conventional search engines, giving you only one ‘correct’ answer. But that’s just the beginning of the nightmare AI could unleash.”
I do not share such fear-mongering technophobia and question if we yet have a civilization, especially regarding how other species are treated by Homo sapiens. This self-anointed title of “Man the wise” speaks to our arrogance which AI may help rectify. Intelligence is universal and universalizing, in every living cell and all our relationships.
Human freedom and justice and animal liberation will come when we unshackle ourselves from human-centered religious fundamentalism, imperialism and their gods created in man’s own image; from the persecuting judgementalism of moralists; the materialism of mammonists and arrogance of scientific determinism. All these are cognitive states evidencing degrees of empathy-deficit disorder.
Empathic sensitivity is our best template and foundation for bioethical sensibility which could be incorporated in the emergent properties of self-learning AI. As I detail in my book published by the State University of New York press Bringing Life to Ethics, this can lead us to embrace equalitarianism and reverential respect for all life; not just human life, that we need to dedicate to serve and even sacrifice for the common good and the good of the Commons. Our emotional intelligence will help ensure the benefits of AI outweigh the risks. and help support the bioethical bases for the philosophy and praxis of One Health. The innate intelligence of all sentient life on Earth coupled with co-evolved relationships, as between flowering plants and insect, bird and bat/mammal pollinators and seed-dispersers far out measure any AI we may ever engineer; and that should always complement rather than harm this sentient life community that ultimately sustains our own lives and ultimate well-being in body, mind and spirit.
In addition, we now face the realities of public surveillance and recognition technologies, cybercrimes and increased risks to national and business security and personal privacy. These costs, including the disinformation spread by politicized social media, outweigh the benefits of teleconferencing and remote learning. Limiting usages to environmental monitoring and essential information storage and transmission for medical/public health and business, reducing the need to travel for meetings, would be prudent but unlikely since social media, entertainment streaming and competitive gaming effectively engage, addict, mesmerize and ultimately silence the consumer- public. On-line shopping especially at Amazon.com has contributed to the demise of local stores and shopping down-town, now dystopian, violence-ridden shells of poverty, drugs and crime. The carbon footprint of mailing consumer goods and the amount of polluting plastic wrapping and packaging used is morally reprehensible.
It is affirming of the risks of the Cybersphere when the media reported the same month that Time magazine honored Musk that electropollution from 5-G cell towers near airports interfered with altitude detection equipment needed to land safely in bad weather. AT&T and Verizon Communications must postpone their plans to roll out across the U.S. C-Band spectrum for 5G wireless services in early January, 2022, United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby stated after a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing, saying it could delay, divert or cancel about 4% of daily flights and impact hundreds of thousands of passengers.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-airlines-warn-5g-wireless-could-cause-havoc-with-flights-2021-12-15)
. AA fears 5G could affect ‘wide range’ of aircraft systems | 24 Dec 2021 | The FAA issued the broadened safety bulletin on Dec 23rd, outlining new concerns on how 5G networks could impact aviation while stating that it is working with telecom providers to ensure the two can “safely coexist.”.
Migratory birds are certainly not immune to such human-generated electrical interference of their geomagnetic and related neural pathways essential for navigation. Whales and other marine mammals rely on sonar for communication and navigation but they too are at risk from the disrupting consequences to marine life impacted by the military and commercial expansion of technology into the ocean via the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT). For details go to https://stop5ginternational.org/smart-ocean-impacts-of-technology-on-marine-life, where it is stated clearly that “Whereas wireless data transmission on land and in space relies primarily on radio waves (RF/Microwave radiation) and laser, these are less suited for underwater applications. In the ocean, sonar is most often used for carrying data. The Internet of Underwater Things will consist of underwater sensors that communicate with one another and with relay stations on the surface of the water. These stations will in turn communicate with satellites and/or ground-based 4G/5G infrastructure on land.”
Every living cell and being has its own bioelectrical frequency and intensity of field maintaining homeostasis. Human-generated electrical fields and radiation, ionizing and non-ionizing, can disrupt this homoeostasis. This anthropogenic electropollution is contributing to the demise of insects and other creatures as well as affecting plant growth according to several research studies documented in my report on this major contemporary issue on my website, https://drfoxonehealth.com/post/electropollution-existential-threat-to-public-health-and-life-on-earth. . For more documentation visit https://ehtrust.org/science/bees-butterflies-wildlife-research-electromagnetic-fields-environment/
The American Cancer Society’s posting (Microwaves, Radio Waves, and Other Types of Radiofrequency Radiation, May 31, 2016 ( https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposure.html).and noting that the International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified RF exposure as a possible carcinogen, emphasizes that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. National Toxicology Program have not yet formally classified RF radiation as to its cancer-causing potential Also Physicians for Safe Technology. https://mdsafetech.org/environmental-and-wildlife-effects/ and World Health Organization. Electrohypersensitivity Fact Sheet http://www.who.int/peh-emf/publications/facts/fs296/en December 2020, NBC News reported, “‘Havana Syndrome’ likely caused by pulsed microwave energy, government study finds.” See this and the follow-up Dec. 24th 2021 Legal, financial fights mount as ‘Havana Syndrome’ goes …https://www.nbcnews.com › politics › national-security.
In August,2021, a federal court ruled in favor of organizations and petitioners that sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for NOT adequately protecting Americans from wireless radiation exposure. More recently non-profit groups petitioned the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to declare wireless radiation an “imminent” health hazard and start warning the public.
We need no more crude demonstrations of the risks of electrical currents like Thomas Edison’s public frying of an elephant in 1903 whom he electrocuted to prove Nicolas Tesla’s alternating current was dangerous, a ruse to protect his own direct current business investments. Since then, various forms of electrical and electromagnetic radiation have been developed as bioweapons to kill insects, disperse crowds, and for healing and diagnostic purposes, from lasers and defibrillators to x-rays and magnetic resonance imaging. The precautionary principle applied to these medical developments should also be applied to telecommunication systems. Indeed, all such developments should be evaluated from a One Health perspective. (For details see The Concept of One Health Turns Global in 2021: How it was Born - Impakter (https://impakter.com/concept-one-health-global-how-born/)
For a classic examination of how electricity affects our lives for better and for worse, see the book by Arthur Firstenberg, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life. AGB Press, Santa Fe NM 2017.