It’s a known problem that “big-money” doesn’t always care about the environment. We all understand about physical pollution (oil in the sea, PM10 in the atmosphere etc), but this one is a little different: The BBC has reported the problems that occur with “frequency pollution”.

Essentially the issue is that the spectrum is finite, and commercial applications are getting priority over the use of the spectrum for remote sensing of the environment. For example, the 23.6-24 GHz band, which has the unique property of being sensitive to water vapour but not to liquid water is now under threat from “car radars”! The article also describes other bands already lost …