EMF's Natural Versus Man-made in the Non-ionizing Spectral Region

In less than a century very few people realize how much and how quickly we have changed the non-ionizing electromagnetic environment we live in. Most of the changes have happened in the last 30 years. Now, all living things are subject to million of times more radiation than 50 years ago. For billions of years, the electromagnetic environment was virtually "silent" in the spectral region below visible light which was the most abundant source of electromagnetic energy. We will never be able to experience this peaceful world again Nature's sources of oscillating low frequency EMFs are few and extremely weak; the only sources are the sun, distant radio stars and other cosmic RF sources, and the terrestrial sources originating from lightning primarily in the tropics. Even the sun can not be considered a strong source of energy in the non-ionizing spectral region, making natural ambient levels so low that the possibilities of biological or even health effects are negligible [ref.1]. We will never experience that "quiet" world again. The greatest changes have all come after World War II with a trend towards the use of higher energy radio waves for long-distance communication and electronic devices of all types. Since then nearly every human action has involved an electrical appliance, and today we are all awash in a sea of artificial electromagnetic energies living species have never experienced before. The human species has changed its electromagnetic exposures more than any other aspect of the environment. For example, with the explosion in radio and TV broadcasting stations, radio telephone networks, cordless phones and cell phones, the density of radio waves and microwaves around us is now many millions of times higher than the natural levels in the same spectral region. Fig. 10: Exponential growth in background non-ionizing radiation. Grave concern was expressed by the European Parliament after a series of hearings on the matter of RF/MW frequency EMF health effects (Resolution B3-0280/92): "Thus in the frequency range 100 kHz to 300 GHz, 50 years ago it was scarcely possible to measure 10 pW/cm2 (10-12 W/cm2) on the ground in our countries. Today, depending on the location, values one million to one thousand million times higher are recorded because of the explosion of telecommunications". The same applies to ELF fields produced by the dozens of electrical appliances owned by each household in the industrialized world and the power lines feeding those devices. Industrialized countries in North America , Western Europe and China emit so much ELF energy that it can be sensed by satellites in space. Perhaps even more important than the increase in EMF densities, most man made EMFs differ in one important aspect from natural EMFs: man made sources radiate constant, regular oscillations or pulses of electromagnetic energy with distinct properties, whereas natural sources of EMFs are oscillating at random with mixed, irregular frequencies and amplitudes. For example, AC powered devices emit highly regular, sinusoidal ELF fields at a constant amplitude and frequency of 50 Hz (Europe) or 60 Hz (North America), and digital cell phones expose the heads of users to pulses of microwave, with carrier wave frequencies of around 900 or 1800 megahertz and modulation frequencies of 11, 22, 50 or 217 Hz. To watch a video on the dangers of EMF's go to http://www.emfnews.org/chipcategory.html .