Last Tree Laws Massachusetts

We support all actions to place people and the environment before profits.

Big News! We are pivoting to prepare to gather signatures in 2024 to put a law on the MA ballot for voters to decide to pass. We are delaying due to obstacles that hindered success in 2023, so we need to focus on building our network and connections now for 2024 and for community support. We need more petitioning support across Massachusetts, donations, and help, including simple promises to get a petition just for oneself – please join our email listserve! Petitions on the 2024 table include:

• Privacy
• Fair & Accountable Legislature
• Radiation Limits (see discussion below)

Thank you to everyone who collected in 2023 for the heart-warming support and wonderful community!

If you have petitions for 2023, you can still report numbers – please do, here. You can still collect signatures, but TO focus on education and Local connections. For INITIATIVE PETITION INSTRUCTIONS, OR to REPORT, Click here & see EVENTS. To Print Petitions, Click here. Please mail in petitions, too, using regular USPS mail for numbers.

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For next year our petitions will and must be revised, so we will be asking for feedback, which can be provided online here. Because gathering signatures is hard, petitioning will depend on how well we can organize, our numbers, funds, the quality of the revision, and state approval of our petition. We are starting now to organize, and will be sharing how to help on our site, email listserve, in meetings, etc.

Our radiation limits petition is crucial, though it now will and must be revised. We need hard-wired infrastructure and alternatives to wireless, because our current wireless exposures are dangerous. Because some are unaware of how radiofrequency radiation (RFR) like wireless is harmful, below is a brief explanation. In addition, steps to reduce such exposures at home are listed online here.

The most well-known effect of RFR is cancer. Recently retired, former leaders of key, relevant research programs at the US National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, including Linda Birnbaum, Ronald Melnick, and Christopher Portier, have shared how radiofrequency radiation (RFR), which includes wireless radiation, promotes cancer. Cancer and tumors may take decades to develop, but youth are more vulnerable due to their biology and early exposures – symptoms may appear too late with glioblastoma.

Extensive research shows more immediate harms include:

• harm to wildlife, including plants, animals, and insects,
• pathogenic changes in bacteria, yeast, and soil,
• male & female infertility,
• miscarriage or ‘spontaneous’ abortion,
• fetal damage (read the discussion of the last link here – it is devastating),
• immune alterations,
• weight gain,
• diabetes,
• brain damage,
• short-term memory loss,
• mood disorders,
• dementia & neurological damage, and
• neurological symptoms such as:
  • headaches, nausea, dizziness, muscle pain, fatigue, nose bleeds, skin reactivity – and noticeable sensitivity.

Why hasn’t government acted? The FCC is an industry-influenced failure, ignoring 2019 and 2021 court rulings to address the real-world environmental & public health impacts; ignoring widespread health, environmental, and scientific opposition to 5G & satellites; and continuing to auction more 5G wireless frequencies than in 2G to 4G combined all while deregulating installations. Now we risk losing local control of antenna siting as industry pushes bills through the federal legislature. Why? Unlike highly regulated wires, antennas allow new markets, higher prices, and greater surveillance.

Of course, industry avoids limits by lying about safety, lying about the wireless vs. wired costs, lying about environmental costs, and using pricey marketing & ‘science’ to drown out experts.

Yes, industry can reduce the amount of radiation from wireless antennas, as France proved when they banned the Apple iPhone12 until Apple issued a software update to reduce radiation emissions. Industry can do much more. Truthfully, reducing radiation may fail to help, for science has not found a safe level of exposure. We know wires are safer, and we need to use wires.

Safer exposures are not just about reducing the density or ‘amount’ of radiation that has risen with auctions of new wireless frequencies such as for 5G, because biological activity is caused by characteristics like resonance, polarization, frequency, and modulation. 5G technology is particularly biologically active, because of factors like resonance, polarization, and modulation. Mainstream scientists in the field are worried current guidelines fail to safely regulate and account for 5G signal characteristics to even prevent basic harm like microwave heating. Our 2023 proposal includes some recommendations from experts in the field to attempt to regulate wireless, but the science is complicated and hard to regulate. Wires are known to be safe, and are always a safer choice.

We must limit our radiation exposures, because our ability to fight lessens as our health declines from new technologies – in particular women and the elderly. Powerful cell tower antennas, called ‘small cells’, are being placed on utility poles near our homes on utility poles. These provide low quality, cheap telecommunications and IT service, in order for industry to avoid maintaining existing wires even as industry continues to pocket subsidies for wired maintenance. In Boston, street antennas were already installed in 2017, and 5G technologies have been or are being deployed such as in Fenway.

Radiation exposure from antennas is logarithmic, which means exponentially more powerful near the antenna. For this reason, our wireless devices and routers result in powerful exposure comparable to or stronger than near cell towers. Children, the elderly, and women are especially vulnerable. Yes, you can take steps for personal protection.

In addition, the 2023 proposal is about limiting radiation exposures at the lower end of the spectrum such as fields emitted by electricity – frequencies that are also emitted by cellphones. At one time, electricity commonly emitted just 1 frequency: 60 hertz (USA) or 50 hertz (other countries). Today, as a consequence of ubiquitous inverters and ‘wall warts‘, our electrical grid emits many other pulsing and transient frequencies (also termed poor power quality), all of which are more biologically disruptive than a single, smooth sine wave. By law, the electrical grid should only use 60 hertz, and it is feasible but it costs a money – in some cases little, in other cases more.

At the same time, the installation of large alternative energy projects and their high-voltage cables can result in unusually strong radiation – from 300 to 1000+ milligauss – when childhood cancers are associated with fields of 3 milligauss (0.3 microtesla or 0.3 uT) and when these risks rise as dose increases. Conventionally, home exposures average less than a milligauss, so any chronic exposure above 1 milligauss is high (see Table S-2). However, consultants from product defense companies like Gradient or Exponent often sign off on these excessive field exposures.

In 2022, under Maura Healey’s office of the attorney general, only a few suggestions for change were given regarding our petition to limit these types of radiation exposures. The office also suggested combining two different proposals – one to hard-wire schools, libraries, etc., and another to reduce the amount of radiation from antennas and technological devices.

In 2023 when we submitted our proposals the industry was actively involved in complaining, very shrill, and it appears very effective with what we perceived as self-serving critique. The industry suggested requiring hard-wired schools, reducing product radiation, and educating consumers covered too much ground, and threatened that communications would cease. When the attorney general’s office under Andrea Campbell denied the petition, we filed successfully with the Supreme Court to collect signatures. However, in order to make this effort worthwhile, we must collect the signatures.

Criticisms of the CTIA (telecommunications lobby) were hard for us to follow. For example, the CTIA felt educating the public and medical providers was outside the realm of reducing radiation exposures – seriously?

We know not everyone wants us to succeed, and that petition initiatives are tough and expensive. We know many people are already struggling and thus struggle to even order or print a petition. We must rely on you. Please sign up to get a petition for your family and friends, please make a small donation, and help us to make a difference.

All proposals can be amended by legislators. For this reason, we need to keep in touch FOR lobbying. Please join our email list here!

For printable handouts, click here.

TO HELP FUND THE SIGNATURE DRIVE, CLICK HERE.