Over the last few weeks, a bit of a storm has erupted over Airtel's applications to spackle the island with the masts required to run the island's third mobile phone network. Naturally there's some serious questions to be answered about these potential eyesores, why they are necessary and why they couldn't share existing sites.
However, lately the furore has largely focused on health implications. Most recently on Tuesday, Mr Roger Coghill rolled in to the island to give a talk at St Martin's Community Centre which has been widely and uncritically reported in the media. The Press proclaims him to be an 'electromagnetic energy expert' and a 'research scientist', and BBC Guernsey never miss an opportunity to point out that he is 'Cambridge-educated'.
But dig a little deeper, and it seems things are not quite what they appear.
As the Press notes (nearly) correctly, Coghill became quite prominent in 1998 when he published independent research arguing that RF emissions from mobile phones damage the immune system, and attempted a private prosecution against a mobile dealer arguing that under the Consumer Protection Act he should be displaying warning labels on phone packaging.
Coghill lost the case. His research was not published in any peer-reviewed journal, and as such represented nothing more than his opinion. More importantly, it was not corroborated by other peer-reviewed studies. But that didn't stop both the case and the research generating a huge amount of media interest: Coghill was cited 119 times in the media between 1998 and 2003, fuelling considerable public fear over the safety of mobile phones.
Around the same time, Coghill set up Coghill Research Laboratories. For the last ten years, he has been conducting research there into the effects of magnetism, electric fields and non-ionising radiation on living tissue.
Coghill has published very few papers in peer-reviewed journals (especially if you don't count papers in European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics, a journal set up by Medcross Group which in turn was founded by... er... Roger Coghill). Of those which have, none effectively demonstrate a causal link between EMR (electromagnetic radiation) and negative health effects.
Nor do any of them provide evidence for the health benefits of Coghill's products, peddled via his website. These consist of a variety of alternative therapy books, highly dubious 'therapeutic' pendants and bracelets, mobile phone shields, and the modestly-named 'Coghill SuperMagnet', which is... er... a magnet. It's a very expensive magnet though, so it must be good at... whatever it does...
So what? The guy's a bit iffy - but there's still lots of research to indicate there are risks from mobiles, right?
Well, it is true that even though we know a lot more than we did 20 years ago, mobile phone masts are still not guaranteed to be safe. Millions of pounds are being poured into epidemiological studies to continue to examine the long-term effects of mobile phone emissions, and rightly so.
But with each study which comes up negative, with the benefit of ever longer case histories to examine, and with each literature review which whittles out the chaff from the previous studies, the odds that we will discover any health risks in a future study get smaller and smaller.
Despite this increasing body of evidence, surveys conducted in Europe, the UK and the US generally indicate that about 3% of the population suffers from a condition known as 'electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome' (EHS). This is a recognised condition with symptoms like stress, nausea, headaches and joint pain. The problem for scientists is that it is not known what causes EHS. A number of 'provocation studies' have been conducted into this - basically subjects who claim to have EHS are tested to see how the presence or absence of a mobile phone signal affects their symptoms.
One such study was published by Essex University yesterday and made headline news nationally. In fact there have been more than 30 similar studies published in the past. Most of these gave similar negative results to the Essex study - the few that didn't were either demonstrably flawed, couldn't be repeated even by the same researchers, or had mutually contradictory results.
However, what the provocation studies do show is that although EHS is not caused by the presence of mobile phone signals, subjects are afflicted with EHS when they believe that a signal is present.
Many media outlets have reported this result as saying that EHS is 'all in the mind', but that's not helpful because it belittles the very real and sometimes debilitating effects of EHS - a bit like dismissing depression as being 'all in the mind'. Though other causes of EHS cannot be ruled out, the most plausible explanation is that many subjects suffering from EHS are experiencing the consequences of anxiety brought on by their own fear of 'electrosmog'.
Coghill believes (or at least says he believes) that mobile companies are engaged in a conspiracy to fund biased studies, stymie true research, and cover up the true dangers of mobile technology. True, a lot of research into mobile phone risks is sponsored by mobile phone companies, but that's why there is a scientific peer-review process. What would Coghill be saying if the mobile companies refused to fund this research?
In reality, campaigners such as Coghill are always poised on the sidelines to pump the media with misinformation over any health scare, justified or not, and the media's blind acceptance of their authority converts this into public fear. Whilst Coghill reaps the rewards and boosts his notoriety, the well-being of around 2 million EHS sufferers in Britain alone is in jeopardy.
Acknowledgement: Apart from Coghill's own website, this astonishing thread on the James Randi Educational Foundation forum proved to be an absolute mine of references and links which proved thoroughly useful in researching this post, largely provided by the man himself.
Friday 27 July 2007
Saturday 21 July 2007
Bottled out
As I blogged a month or so ago, I'm a bit of a recycling cynic, at least as far as Guernsey's present strategy is concerned. This week the Press joined the party with their article about the bazillion tons of glass, carefully sorted and posted into the green bins by enviro-conscious consumers, and collected and crushed at taxpayers' expense.
After all that work, this multi-coloured crushed glass is now being stockpiled at Longue Hougue and is very possibly destined for landfill after all, because the product of the process is basically worthless. When you think about the insane cost of producing all this crushed glass, largely borne by those who in good faith have gone to great efforts to 'do their bit', you can't help but feel a little bit let down.
The fact that the glass can't be used as aggregate because it hasn't been finely crushed enough is reasonably amusing, but probably beside the point. The point being, what was the point anyway? The Press referred to using glass as aggregate as 'down-cycling'. I think that's something of an understatement.
If we don't use glass as aggregate, then instead we use rock. When rock is quarried, it leaves a hole in the ground which we can use to dump rubbish (like... er... glass). Why go to the trouble of crushing and processing glass to use as an aggregate if it's easier just to use rock (the crushing of which Ronez has down to a fine art), and then dump the glass where the rock came from?
All we've really achieved is to divert a relatively tiny amount of inert waste away from Mont Cuet, but it looks like that was all we would ever have achieved anyway. Even if the glass can be used as aggregate, that's not what any green-minded recycler would really call recycling.
Recycling is supposed to help the environment by reducing energy and resources consumed. What we're doing with this glass doesn't achieve that. In fact all it will achieve is to fractionally extend the lifespan of the tip, and in turn all that will really achieve is to give the States an extra month or so to dither around and put off having to make any difficult decisions about how we should manage our waste.
After all that work, this multi-coloured crushed glass is now being stockpiled at Longue Hougue and is very possibly destined for landfill after all, because the product of the process is basically worthless. When you think about the insane cost of producing all this crushed glass, largely borne by those who in good faith have gone to great efforts to 'do their bit', you can't help but feel a little bit let down.
The fact that the glass can't be used as aggregate because it hasn't been finely crushed enough is reasonably amusing, but probably beside the point. The point being, what was the point anyway? The Press referred to using glass as aggregate as 'down-cycling'. I think that's something of an understatement.
If we don't use glass as aggregate, then instead we use rock. When rock is quarried, it leaves a hole in the ground which we can use to dump rubbish (like... er... glass). Why go to the trouble of crushing and processing glass to use as an aggregate if it's easier just to use rock (the crushing of which Ronez has down to a fine art), and then dump the glass where the rock came from?
All we've really achieved is to divert a relatively tiny amount of inert waste away from Mont Cuet, but it looks like that was all we would ever have achieved anyway. Even if the glass can be used as aggregate, that's not what any green-minded recycler would really call recycling.
Recycling is supposed to help the environment by reducing energy and resources consumed. What we're doing with this glass doesn't achieve that. In fact all it will achieve is to fractionally extend the lifespan of the tip, and in turn all that will really achieve is to give the States an extra month or so to dither around and put off having to make any difficult decisions about how we should manage our waste.
Saturday 14 July 2007
Guernsey 2.0
The times are a-changing. BBC Radio Guernsey has recently dropped the 'Radio' from its name to reflect its 'multimedia' status (mostly because many people now listen online - not a seismic shift exactly but it's a great start). The Guernsey Press's archives are now available, so you can find out all about great historic u-turns. They are even on the verge of figuring out what a blog is. Soon, Rock Candy will be launched (apparently some kind of contributor-written online magazine - could be great, could be awful, we'll find out soon...) And WhyGuernsey, home of the new Guernsey enlightenment, have seen the light themselves and made their forums readable by guests and therefore, more importantly, indexable by Google.
We can now get stacks of local factomation online which just a couple of years ago would have involved making a trip to the Priaulx Library. People from outside the island wanting to get a snapshot of Guernsey life have it all laid out for them in full gory detail.
But if everyone from the traditional media down to the casual WhyGuernsey mud-slinger is embracing the Internet, why is the States of Guernsey's website so abysmal?
Just three weeks ago or so, the Treasury dropped a leaflet on everyone's doormat explaining how the new 'tax on real property' system will work. Some people who have opted out of junk mailings won't receive it, and some people who are affected might own property in Guernsey but live overseas, so they won't have one either.
Still, that's no biggie because they can get the information from the States website, can't then? Well, maybe some enterprising reader of this post can let me have the URL in a comment, but I can't find it anywhere, either by navigating the site (a maze of twisty passages all alike if ever I saw one), or by using the site search.
I've also been told that the Government Business Plan is there somewhere, but I can't find that either, despite being told by various politicians that this is a document of fundamental importance and the subject of the July States debate.
How can we expect Guernsey to have a presence on the international stage when the island's flagship official website is such a joke? Why aren't the politicians who fret about public apathy doing something about this?
The site urgently needs professional attention. Aside from publishing the Billets, what's there at the moment achieves very little more than paying lip-service to the notion that the States ought to have a website.
Sure, replacing it is going to cost money - but a little investment could go a long way in reducing civil servant time spent handling questions which could easily be answered online. And what price to ensure that the casual Google searcher gets Guernsey facts from the elected government, and not Guernsey mud from WhyGuernsey?
We can now get stacks of local factomation online which just a couple of years ago would have involved making a trip to the Priaulx Library. People from outside the island wanting to get a snapshot of Guernsey life have it all laid out for them in full gory detail.
But if everyone from the traditional media down to the casual WhyGuernsey mud-slinger is embracing the Internet, why is the States of Guernsey's website so abysmal?
Just three weeks ago or so, the Treasury dropped a leaflet on everyone's doormat explaining how the new 'tax on real property' system will work. Some people who have opted out of junk mailings won't receive it, and some people who are affected might own property in Guernsey but live overseas, so they won't have one either.
Still, that's no biggie because they can get the information from the States website, can't then? Well, maybe some enterprising reader of this post can let me have the URL in a comment, but I can't find it anywhere, either by navigating the site (a maze of twisty passages all alike if ever I saw one), or by using the site search.
I've also been told that the Government Business Plan is there somewhere, but I can't find that either, despite being told by various politicians that this is a document of fundamental importance and the subject of the July States debate.
How can we expect Guernsey to have a presence on the international stage when the island's flagship official website is such a joke? Why aren't the politicians who fret about public apathy doing something about this?
The site urgently needs professional attention. Aside from publishing the Billets, what's there at the moment achieves very little more than paying lip-service to the notion that the States ought to have a website.
Sure, replacing it is going to cost money - but a little investment could go a long way in reducing civil servant time spent handling questions which could easily be answered online. And what price to ensure that the casual Google searcher gets Guernsey facts from the elected government, and not Guernsey mud from WhyGuernsey?
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