Take Back Your Power, the award-winning documentary on smart meters will screen in Whakatane on Friday August 29.
Details are below:
Date: Friday 29th AUGUST
Time: 6.30-8.30pm
VENUE: Eastbay REAP, Pyne Street, Whakatane
Cost: Koha towards refreshments
Copies of DVD for sale at $16 each
Join us for an action-oriented screening of Take Back Your Power.
Come to our sparking discussion about how we can save energy, save
money and not endanger our health.
A few words of introduction about the film, written by the organiser, Pip Norvell are below:
[NB: If you would like to be in touch with the organiser, please email through the Contact form at this link www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/contact-us/ and your email address will be passed along to her if you request this.]
TAKE BACK YOUR POWER is a feature length documentary from the USA about Smart Meters and takes us on a journey “investigating the erosion of rights…” Smart Meters are electronic electricity meters that measure and record electricity consumption and transmit this information back to the retailer (reference 1 – see below for reference list), and the claim is that they will significantly reduce our impact on Climate Change, amongst other things (2).
REVIEW
The film has melodramatic pseudo-science moments and creepy menacing music, but don’t be misled – there is a serious case to be answered about the safety of yet another Radio Frequency EMF-emitting device attached permanently to the side of your house.
I have never given so much of my time to researching one film topic; I wanted to establish the relevence of the Smart Meter industry to a NZ audience, discovering on the way that our retailer had attached one without our consent, and despite current NZ safety guidelines (3)(4), less than one meter from a young person’s head when he sleeps.
I have been in touch with others in NZ seeking to avoid Smart Meters (5)(6), read countless scientific documents, and contacted several retailers – exposing the retailers in this situation is not my intention. They have attempted to be helpful, and stand to lose customers, possibly, through no fault of their own. They are not the ones making money from the deployment of smart meters in most cases (7). The ‘safety’ information they have been feeding me has been supplied to them by Government agencies (8)(4) relying on industry-funded research (3)(9) using out-dated and inadequate US standards (10)(16).
The Government’s activity on the issue has been to establish a Forum “to advance the development of smart electricity networks in New Zealand” (13) and to remove barriers (14) to the roll out. This is being hailed by nearly all Political Parties as of benefit to the Environment, the customers and the wallet (15). Only one Party, the Democrats for Social Credit (11) is calling for an immediate moratorium “until the technology is proven to not be a risk to health, and until home owners are given a choice about whether or not they are willing to admit the smart grid into their homes.”
Over one million smart meters have already been installed in NZ. This drive has been fuelled by a directive from the Electricity Agency to certify meters before April 2015, even though analogue meters are “by no means inaccurate”(12). The Agency says “All residential meters installed prior to October 1999 have certification that expires on 1 April 2015. To ensure that they operate accurately, all these meters need to be recertified before that date. Many retailers are using this as an opportunity to update metering technology, rather than having existing meters recertified.”
I can see that there is a relentless drive to replace every single meter in NZ (and the world..) as soon as possible, and for plausibly good reasons, but what if…? What if they are not safe? (17)(18) What if they do increase the risk of your house burning down? What if they do enable data hackers or ‘the industry’ to spy on you through your appliances? What if….?
Please come and see this film. Inform yourselves. Find out which retailers will give you a choice, and what you can do if you don’t want the smart meter you didn’t realise you had. Take Back Your Power!
Best Regards,
Pip Norvell
REFERENCES
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter and https://www.ea.govt.nz/operations/retail/metering/advanced-metering/
2. http://energy.about.com/od/metering/a/Pros-And-Cons-Of-Smart-Meters.htm
3. http://www.epecentre.ac.nz/docs/media/ARC_Full_Final_02.pdf (page 16);
4. http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/electric-magnetic-fields-your-health.pdf (page 20)
5. https://www.facebook.com/groups/453123721454384/ -Smart Meter Free Families in NZ FB Group
6. https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/ and http://smartmeterpowerstruggle.wordpress.com/ for collated information
7. https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/electricity-rights – Question under “Meters’ heading about ownership.
8. https://www.ea.govt.nz/– Electricity Agency
9. http://www.arcinnovations.com/smart-meters-get-the-safety-nod – Arc Innovations, Meridian
10.http://www.takebackyourpower.net/news/2014/03/27/us-department-of-interior-attacks-fccs-exposure-standards-out-of-date-and-inapplicable/
11.http://democrats.org.nz/News/NewsItem/tabid/119/ArticleId/1218/Stop-Smart-Meters.aspx#.U9Nsc0Bj1EJ
12.https://www.ea.govt.nz/operations/retail/metering/metering-installation/ Item 40
13.https://www.national.org.nz/news/news/media-releases/detail/2014/03/20/smart-grid-forum-members-announced
14.http://www.med.govt.nz/sectors-industries/energy/electricity/new-zealand-smart-grid-forum/view
15.https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/2014-election-questionnaire/
16.http://www.emfacts.com/2014/03/a-critique-of-the-new-zealand-report-health-and-safety-aspects-of-electricity-smart-meters/
17.http://www.organicnz.org.nz/node/653
18.http://sagereports.com/smart-meter-rf/?p=368
THIS SCREENING MADE POSSIBLE BY GENEROUS SPONSORSHIP FROM
East Bay REAP
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