Login / RegisterIf you're a single guy in Van and you can't find a lady, it's not them. IT'S YOU.
Top ways to scare away your B.C. Hydro smart-meter installer
Kim Stallknecht
There is a lot of controversy surrounding the issue of smart meters in B.C. A quick look at the comments below such articles on this site will fill you in on the myriad concerns troubling home owners and renters who will soon face the installation of the modernized electricity-monitoring devices.
Health, safety, and privacy questions seem to dominate the anxieties shared by many people about the meters, of which 350,000 have been installed by Corix Utilities’ 307 special workers so far, according to B.C. Hydro. That’s 5,000 to 6,000 per day, and counting.
The Green Party of B.C. reported on November 3 that both Corix employees and B.C. Hydro have threatened people with the following if they refuse to allow the installation of smart meters: their power will be cut off; they will be fined; Hydro will take legal action; they will be charged higher rates for power; and they will be charged a fee for every future meter-reading.
In the interests of lightening the mood a bit and perhaps sparking some discussion, I offer the following playful (and, legally, not at all serious in any way) suggestions about how to discourage your future Corix visitor:
6. Disguise the current device as a solar panel and put a fake water pump on the front lawn. They’ll think you’ve gone off the grid.
5. Post a sign warning of a shock hazard because you’ve wired the old meter up to the electrical impulses that sustain Stephen Harper’s thought processes (no, wait, that’s the sign if you want to make sure the new one is installed).
4. Smear the existing meter with red paint to make it seem that a previous installer met a horrible fate. (An old piece of raw steak or liver wouldn't hurt either.)
3. Chain your dog to the old device (even a poodle will do as long as you give it some pit-bull cred by littering your lawn with empty Wildcat beer cans, old copies of Metro and 24 Hours, and Domino’s pizza boxes).
2. Crank to the max, 24-7, the new album by Metallica and Lou Reed. (Shouldn’t you be doing that anyhow?)
And the number-one thing to do to scare away the smart-meter installer:
1. Cover your lawns with old Bill Vander Zalm election signs--they’ll assume the property is abandoned. (If you don’t have any, ask Chris Delaney. I hear he’s been stockpiling them.)
I know a guy that does installs these smart meters, and he's the nicest guy in the world that needed a job and is thrilled to have something he can throw on his resume.
When I confronted him about the controversy he had no real concept of the politics behind it, to him its a paying job. Scaring him wont do anything.
Scare the politicians that took away the BCUC's power to independently review this kind of stuff. *Ahem* BC Liberals
Concepts and theory sounds great, but upon closer inspection:
A. Utility bills are increasing where smart meters are installed, not decreasing.
B. Customer information from smart meters is NOT formatted for customers and does NOT change customer behavior towards conservation.
C. The cost - benefit of smart meters is horrendous and is being promoted to profit the utility companies and their suppliers, not customers or our society or our environment.
D. The Smart Grid does NOT use or require a smart meter on each home. The necessary smart information can be gathered much more efficiently and timely and inexpensively at energy distribution points. (The smart grid does not care or need to know how much power any one home uses.)
E. The vast amount of unnecessary and nearly useless information to be handled and stored may actually raise energy usage.
F. This massive Billions-of-dollars smart meter program will leave NO funds for programs that would truly bring energy saving solutions and the public will not be receptive to real solutions after being burned by these Smart meters.
Must-See 4-minute youtube video on Smart meter privacy violations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8JNFr_j6kdI
Straight, most of the articles I've read on smart meters (Not just your publication) have heavily favoured the "don't-want-it" crowd. I'd be really eager to hear from a proponent of the meters instead of the side that is louder and scarier.
I have read that these smart meters have mercury switches in them that the federal government is scheduled to ban starting next Spring. Installing smart meters will cost BC Hydro more than a billion $ .
The issues of smart meters however, is ver serious. Why spend a billion dollars for something which is not needed except perhaps by Campbell's associates who have the contract to install them.
As to it providing jobs for the installers, if we continue with that line of thinking the guards and soliders involved in "ethnic" cleansing can get a pass also. yes someone will get the job but it doesn't have to be you. Sometimes staying with your principles can cost money.