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Garlic Farmer Wards Off High-Speed Internet
DocVM writes "A Nova Scotia farmer is opposing the construction of a microwave tower for fear it will eventually mutate his organic garlic crop.
Lenny Levine, who has been planting and harvesting garlic by hand on his Annapolis Valley land since the 1970s, is afraid his organic crop could be irradiated if EastLink builds a microwave tower for wireless high-speed internet access a few hundred meters from his farm."
Scientific ignorance from the organic produce industry? Really? That's just so shocking.
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Indeed!
On top of it, the radiation is 60,000 times less than the the allowed limit for organic farms. (Wasn't even aware there was such a thing.)
Until the farmer loses, that town is stuck on dial-up. Now, that's a travesty.
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except for people like thi, it won't be ok. He will perceive it's a problem and any normal crop behavior that is negative in nature will get blamed on the towers waves.
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Just taking the wacky green agenda to its extreme boundary. If anything vegatables and milk should be intentionally irradated as is commonly done in Europe to: A > Reduce food borne illness B > Save enormous amounts of money on chilling food at the grocery store Planet saved and less medical costs, illnesses, don't tell Washington DC they are now expendable !
You know, I wish people using that argument (or variants thereof) actually knew what they're talking about. No offense.
The Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere are only really transparent to a very narrow band of frequencies. As you go up in the UV range or lower into IR, actually less and less of it gets to ground level.
And let's put it this way: If enough microwave radiation from the Sun got to the Earth to be comparable to a cell phone tower, you couldn't actually use a cell phone. Because the white noise from the sun would not only give the tower a crap signal-to-noise ratio, but would be hundreds of decibels stronger than the milliwatts emitted by the phone itself or received by it in some places.
So no, it's not. Not in the same frequencies and/or not as much.
Yes, the "OMG, the crops will mutate" scare is incredibly stupid anyway. But countering it with the equally bogus "OMG, the sun already does the same", doesn't really debunk it.
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He didn't say he didn't want any radiation of any kind - he just didn't want any MORE radiation that the tower would surely bring. I don't think that is idiotic.
Where I question his judgment is looking at the amount of radiation that the tower would introduce - the article says 60,000 x lower than the legal limit for organic food. Seems he is a bit more careful that I am. But I'm not sure that makes him an idiot.
Also these type of microwave towers are very directional - so very little radiation would be directed anywhere but the intended direction.
No, he's an idiot. Microwaves don't alter DNA, and the amount of all radiation hitting his plants is only going to be increased an infinitesimal amount. He's a fucking moron who knows nothing about various kinds of radiation, their effects on organic matter, but either because he wants to get on the news or because he truly is so fucking stupid, he's likely causing his neighbors to find more expensive means of high speed Internet.
Quite frankly, if I was his neighbor, I'd sue the moron.
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Getting rid of the microwave, while not stopping the cancerous growth, may very well have served as a placebo for helping with her overall health. Sometimes results are more important than the method, and if she thinks this is helping her, more power to her.
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For the expense of an alternative form of high speed, based upon the fact that his objections are pure bullshit.
You'd file a civil suit over this? I don't see how you would win. Maybe the Canadian legal system is different (which is where he lives), but I'm pretty sure it would go nowhere.
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To be fair, I'm doing exactly the same thing...
Except he's claiming that complexity of word definitions create ignorance...
and you're pointing out that only the ignorant are confused by complexity in word definitions.
The article is full of the sort of howlers [...]. Where do we start? "Shakes up the molecules" - clearly the phrasing of a person well versed in the concept of ionizing radiation! I'll use wi-fi all day and you can sit next to some cobalt 58 and we'll see what person's molecules get "shaken up" more.
We are talking about microwave radiation. Microwave radiation cooks food by "shaking" the molecules (of water). Of course that isn't going to cause genetic mutation. Yes the guy is an idiot, but if you're going to get into name calling, try to get your own facts right.
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Two things: the irradiation you are talking about is done after harvest, right? (Not that this farmer isn't being silly, the amount of radiation will be mostly harmless, and since the main reproductive and sustenance parts of garlic are under ground, his crop will have some shielding).
You can't irradiate something with a microwave tower. This guy's a nutter.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
No one is exempt from stupidity and certainly not ignorance. No man can know all things let he be a God among men.
I've met the brightest that Harvard graduated and they thought you could get the swine flu from eating pork.
I work with a Yale man that couldn't replace his air filter in his car.
I've worked with two former NASA engineers and a Ballistic Warhead designer from UDLP that couldn't install an electrical outlet in thier home.
Ignorance is relative people. How many of you know when to harvest garlic? When you put down your fertilizer? How many days do you let alfalfa dry between cutting and baling? Know how to shoe a horse? How about stitch a wound? At what rate should you run the reverse rehometer to prevent scaling on a polymer test?
There is a difference between stupidity and ignorance. You can mock stupidity till you are blue in the face; just make damn sure you know the difference between the two or all you will accomplish is proving how big of a jackass you are.
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Yeah, it's the Farmer's Land, not the government's, so in order for anyone to force this guy to put a tower, it would seem to me that they'd have to violate his right against unreasonable siezure of property.
The tower is going on the neighbor's property, and it's the neighbor who'll be receiving the rent payments.
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alter != irradiate. Microwaves heat things and that's about all. I'm tired of morons freaking out over 60W microwave towers because it might possibly raise their garlic .01C and other morons who can't tell irradiate apart from alter.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
The technology has also been proven dangerous, why do you think microwave ovens have switches built in to turn the oven off when the door is opened? Would you step in a human scaled one and let someone turn it on?
Two words: power density.
An average consumer microwave oven has at least 600W of microwave power confined inside a tiny box. If you open the door, you are likely standing in front of it which would give you a fair amount of microwave exposure.
The microwave transmitter referred to in the TFA is likely to only transmit at up to a few watts using a directional antenna in the open air, and you are not likely to ever be standing right in front of it.
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