Labours aversion to science

So this week is national Science week and Labour conference. Science week should not just be about getting kids to do science but in this” knowledge” promoting Scientific thinking in society. Alas Labours contributions on the matter is to further the cause of mythology and falsehoods for electoral gain. On the 23th of October this press release came out from Labour’s Joe Costello. Costello objects to 20-metre mast in Phibsborough. This is possibly one of the worst most ignorant of science releases ever.

First off.

“The impact of such telecommunications masts on public health is uncertain

Every single survey ever carried out on the issue of mobile phone masts have shown that there is no effect on health. WHO here Danish study of over 420,000 people here. Not exactly uncertain. The reason is very very simple. It is basic Physics inverse square law. (I have written about this before using a 10 meter high mast for calculations). Indeed the higher the mast the safer that would be. or the reasons outlined in my other post. On the height of the mast Mr Costello has this to say.

Apart from the safety concerns for the area, the 20 metre structure will be an eyesore.

Emm….. it gets worse.

Now what is more likely to be damaging to health is the fact that handsets next the head of people might be dangerous.With young people vulnerable. (again see calculations). So how do we make handsets safer. We get them to emit less power. The power they emit is dictated by the closeness of the mast. i.e if you are near a mast it only admits low power to get to the mast, if the mast is far away it needs more power to get to the mast.

So to sum up what Mr Costello wants to do is actually to damage the health of the people in the area. Isn’t great how scientific knowledge is so appreciated by politicians in Ireland. They may talk the talk but they sure as hell don’t listen.