Meet the Greenhouse Gas Hog Coming to Your Neighborhood
5G Infrastructure’s Energy Consumption Is no Solution for Climate Change
August 27, 2024, the County Board of Supervisors adopted the 2030 Climate Action Plan. The Action Plan was developed by stakeholders over many meetings and months with the goal to mobilize the community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent below 2018 levels.
Climate scientists tell us that what is at stake is the collapse of our climate if greenhouse-gas production continues to escalate. Action steps delineated by the Climate Action Plan include powering our homes and businesses with solar panels; incentivizing electric bike, electric car, and mass transit usage; transitioning our county fleet to zero emission vehicles; expanding public and private charging stations; as well as reducing our use of non-recyclable and non-compostable single-use items. However, they neglected to address the massive increase in energy consumption by the installation of small cell 5G infrastructure.
According to Dexter Johnson in the IEEE Spectrum magazine, “A lurking threat behind the promise of 5G delivering up to 1,000 times as much data as today’s networks is that 5G could also consume up to 1,000 times as much energy.” According to a French High Climate Council report: “Behind each byte we have mining and metal processing, oil extraction and petrochemicals, manufacturing and intermediate transports, public works … and power generation with coal and gas.”
February 4, 2025, six months after the County Board of Supervisors adopted the 2030 Climate Action Plan, they will be asked to give free reign to the telecoms to blanket your neighborhood with small cell antennas when they are called to vote on the amendments to our County Wireless Ordinance. These amendments remove all restrictions from the placement of wireless facilities, therefore the telecoms can install 89 cell antennas for every one that is actually needed, including a few feet of your bedroom.
What should be a no brainer, the board has committed to a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions. Therefore, they must vote no on February 4 to the telecom amendments or they will obliterate any possibility of meeting the county’s emission reduction goals.
What Safe Technology for Santa Barbara County members have gathered after listening to and meeting with the Planning Commissioners and staff who wrote the 11/26/2024 amended wireless ordinance is a flawed interpretation of the FCC rules. The explanation given is we have shot clocks to meet; therefore, “our hands are tied.” A euphemism we have heard many times before from our local officials. What they may not understand is that their hands are not tied when it comes to safety, notification, setbacks, inspections, monitoring, and much more. Applications can be denied based on safety and environmental impact. It is the local municipalities’ job to regulate cell towers.
When you consider the energy consumption of small cell wireless installation on greenhouse-gas emissions’ potential impact on our climate, one could easily argue, to protect environment, we need the power to limit the number of antennas that are installed and support instead the green alternative, called fiber optics to the premises, which our tax dollars have already funded.
How do we do that? There are many wireless ordinances within our state that have done just that that Santa Barbara County can draw on, such as Malibu, Encinitas, Mill Valley, Palo Alto, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma, and Petaluma, which have protections in their wireless ordinances with clear restrictions, in compliance with federal law. For example, we could require the applicant to prove the need for another small cell tower by documenting six months of dropped calls.
The question then remains: Does Santa Barbara County want to mitigate the forces at work that are propelling Climate Change or will we roll over to the telecoms? The answer to that question will become more clear on February 4, 2025, during the Board of Supervisors meeting.
Residents, we ask you to please show up February 4 and make your voice heard. County Board of Supervisors, we ask you to vote no on the proposed amendments to the Wireless Ordinance and require your planners to review the upgrade that Safe Technology for Santa Barbara County and our legal experts will provide to show how to codify legal and FCC compliant protective measures.
For more information contact:SafeTechSBC@gmail.com
http://emfsafetynetwork.org/safe-technology-for-santa-barbara-take-action/
https://www.facebook.com/SafeTechSBC/