But not too late for 4. Urgent action needed to prevent worst-case climate change scenarios and limit repercussions of abrupt runaway climate change..... OR, that's what I used to think, 5+ years ago; NOW I think it is indeed too late; we're f'd. Tipping points have tipped. Positive feedback effects in play. Bring on the methane. Abrupt climate change on the horizon. Exponential changes will escalate. Homo sapiens may not survive the current on-going 6th mass extinction.
This article identifies and explains six things that most citizens around the world, although particularly those in developed countries, need to understand about climate change in light of the most recent climate change science. These six things are:
The enormous magnitude of GHG emissions reductions needed to prevent catastrophic warming.
The speed of GHG emissions reductions needed to prevent catastrophic warming.
No nation may either legally or morally use national self-interest alone as justification for their failure to fully meet their obligation under the UNFCCC.
No nation may either legally or morally use scientific uncertainty as justification for their failure to fully meet their obligations under the UNFCCC.
Developed countries must legally, morally, and practically more aggressively reduce their GHG emissions than developing countries
Developed countries must legally, morally, and practically help finance mitigation and adaptation programs in poor developing countries.
The need for broad understanding among civil society of these issues follows from several recent scientific reports on climate change. For instance, on October 8, 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a Special Report on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures. This landmark report, along with several additional recent scientific studies published in the last few months including a paper published by the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences on July 21, 2018, Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene by Steffen et.al., and a paper published in mid-August of this year in Nature Communications by Anthony et. al., 21st-Century Modeled Permafrost Carbon Emissions Accelerated by Abrupt Thaw Beneath, lead to the conclusion that the international community is facing an urgent existential crisis that threatens life on Earth. Preventing this catastrophe requires the entire international community at all levels of government (national, state, regional, and local) to engage immediately in an unprecedented effort to rapidly reduce GHG emissions to net zero in the next few decades.
Although the October IPCC report on 1.5 degrees C warming received some significant notice in the US media, the recent US elections on November 6th in which climate change played only a very minor role at best, demonstrates a startling lack of understanding about the enormity and urgency of the climate threat facing the international community. Because of the immense ramp-up of programs and efforts needed to reduce the staggering threat of climate change depends on broad understanding of the scale of the problem facing the human race, and given the apparent ignorance of most citizens about the magnitude and urgency of the climate change crisis and other issues discussed in this paper, concerned citizens need to mount an aggressive educational program to inform civil society about aspects of the climate change threat that appear to be poorly understood. These issues include the following:
1. The Immense Magnitude of GHG Reductions Urgently Needed to Prevent Catastrophic Warming
The IPCC Special Report concludes that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. This is so because to limit warming to 1.5 C, CO2 emissions would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050 according to the IPCC Special Report. This means if global CO2 emissions have not fallen to net zero levels by 2050, any remaining emissions would need to balanced by removing CO2 from the air.
The Steffen et. al. paper also describes how the positive feedbacks depicted in the following graphic, once triggered could initiate other feedbacks creating a cascade of positive feedbacks, each of which could speed up the warming which is already causing great harm and suffering around the world. The paper claims this mechanism could make life on much of the Earth uninhabitable which could lead to social collapse on the global scale and ultimately to warming increases that human reductions of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions alone would not prevent additional warming until the global system reached a new temperature equilibrium at much higher temperatures than the human race has ever experienced. In other words, cascading positive feedbacks in the climate system could result in humans losing control over reducing disastrous warming.
The Steffen et.al paper also explains how human-induced warming of slightly over 1.0 degrees C is already rapidly approaching levels that may trigger positive climate feedbacks which could greatly accelerate the warming already plaguing the world by causing record floods, deadly heat waves, droughts, increasing tropical diseases, forest fires, more intense and damaging storms, sea level rise, coral bleaching, acidification of oceans, all of which are contributing to increasing the number of refugees which are destabilizing governments around the world.
The Anthony et.al paper also explains that, contrary to common assumptions previously made by many in the international community that positive feedbacks in the climate system that could cause abrupt temperature increases would not likely be triggered if warming could be limited to below 2 C above pre-industrial levels, positive feedbacks could be initiated between current temperatures which have risen slightly above 1.1 C and 2 C. Moreover, the additional warming caused by these feedbacks could initiate other feedbacks creating a cascade of positive feedbacks, each of which could speed up the warming which is already causing great harm and suffering around the world, phenomena which threaten life on earth.
For these reasons, citizens around the world need to understand the urgent need to reduce GHG emissions to net zero as soon as possible.
2. The Speed of GHG Reductions Needed to Prevent Catastrophic Warming.
Every day that nations fail to reduce their GHG emissions to levels required of them to achieve a warming limit goal such as 2 degrees C makes the problem worse because the carbon budgets for the whole world that must constrain global emissions to achieve any warming limit goal shrink as emissions continue. Therefore, the speed that nations reduce their GHG emissions reductions is as important as the magnitude of the reductions identified by any national GHG reduction commitment. For this reason, any national commitment on climate change should not only identify the amount of GHG emissions that will be reduced by a certain date, but also the reduction pathway by which these reductions will be achieved.
The following illustration depicts two different GHG reduction pathways for reaching zero emissions by 2050. Although the curve on the top achieves zero GHG emissions at the same time as the curve on the bottom, total emissions during the period are much greater following the emissions reductions pathway under the top curve compared to total emissions under the bottom curve because the lower curve pathway more quickly reduces emissions. Citizens need to understand that waiting to reduce GHG emissions makes the problem worse because waiting consumes more of any shrinking carbon budget that must constrain global emissions to achieve any warming limit goal.
3. No Nation may either Legally or Morally use National Self-interest Alone as Justification for Their Failure to Fully Meet Their Obligations under the UNFCCC.
Because GHG emissions from every country mix rapidly in the atmosphere, all nations’ emissions are contributing to rising atmospheric GHG concentrations thus harming people and ecological systems on which life depends all over the world. The above illustration depicts that the atmosphere is analogous to a bathtub in that it has limited volume and that all nations emitting GHGs are raising atmospheric concentration of GHGs to its current concentration of approximately 407 ppm CO2 (the second line from the bottom in the above bathtub) which level is already causing enormous harm in many vulnerable countries while threatening the entire world if the atmospheric GHG concentration is raised to levels which trip positive feedbacks discussed above (represented by the upper line in the above bathtub). Thus high-emitting countries such as the US may not formulate their climate change policies on the basis of costs and benefits to itself alone. Particularly those nations that are emitting high levels of GHGs must acknowledge and respond to the devastating climate change harms they are already contributing to in other countries and particularly harms to poor people and nations that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts. Thus in the United States, for instance, the Trump administration’s justification for withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on the basis of “putting US interests first ” is ethically indefensible and tragic because of the damage the Trump climate change policy will cause outside the United States.
The following illustration depicts nations emitting high levels of GHG in red in the top half of the illustration while those countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts are indicated in red in the bottom half of the illustration.
For this reason, as a matter of law, given that nations under the UNFCCC agreed to stabilize GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. (UNFCCC, Art. 2), a nation may not fail to reduce its GHG emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions based on the cost to it because it has ethical and legal duties to other nations not to harm them.
4. Scientific Uncertainty is Not a Legally or Morally Defensible Justification for Not Adopting Aggressive Climate Change Policy Responses.
Although opponents of climate change policies have justified their opposition on the basis of scientific uncertainty, and despite the fact that the most prestigious scientific organizations have expressly stated their conclusions about the enormous threat of climate change with increasingly higher levels of scientific probability for over 40 years, scientific uncertainty is not a justifiable response for any nation’s unwillingness to adopt climate change policies as a matter of law or morally.
Under international law, including the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, Art. 3.3) which states in relevant part “where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty may not be used as a reason for postponing such measures,” and the “no harm principle”, a principle of customary international law recognized in the Preamble to the UNFCCC, nations may not legally use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for failing to take action to prevent dangerous climate change.
Also as we explained previously in 2008 in The Ethical Duty to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Face of Scientific Uncertainty, nations also have had a strong moral responsibility to take action to reduce the threat of climate change once it was scientifically understood that GHG emissions could cause serious harms even if the harms had not been proven with high degrees of scientific certainty.
Given, that numerous reputable scientific organizations beginning in the late 1970s, including the US National Academies of Sciences, (See Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy) and five reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change beginning in 1990 (See IPCC report timeline) have concluded with increasing levels of certainty that human activities are dangerously threatening people and ecological systems on which life depends, nations have been on strong notice for over four decades that human activities responsible for GHG emissions are dangerous to the human community, thus nations have been on notice about the dangers of climate change for over 40 years and therefore may not legally or morally use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for failing to adopt climate change policies that will reduce their GHG emissions to levels required of them to prevent dangerous climate change.
5. High Emitting Developed Countries, Including the United States, Must Reduce GHG Emissions More Aggressively than Other Countries as a Matter of Law and Practically to Prevent Dangerous Climate Change.
Hiigh-emitting nations have a legal duty under the UNFCCC to reduce their GHG emissions faster than lower emitting nations because they agreed to:
[P]rotect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof. (UNFCCC, 1992, Art 3.1)
These principles were re-committed to in the Paris Agreement , Art 2.2 which provides that:
This Agreement will be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.
Thus under law, high emitting nations, such as the US, have a legal duty under the concept of “equity” to reduce its GHG emissions more rapidly than most other nations. Although there is reasonable disagreement among nations about what “equity” requires of them, formulate its ghg emissions reduction target on the basis of equity is not only required by its legal obligations under the UNFCCC, practically the US and other high emitting nations must reduce their GHG emissions by much greater amounts and faster than poor developing nations because if they don’t the poorer nations will have to reduce their GHG emissions almost immediately to near zero CO2 so that global emissions don’t exceed the carbon budget available to prevent a warming limit such as 2 degrees C from being exceeded,
There is a basic set of shared ethical principles and precedents that apply to the climate problem…[and] such principles… can put bounds on the plausible interpretation of equity in the burden sharing context…[and] are important in establishing what may be reasonably required of different actors. (IPCC, 2014, AR5, WG III, Ch. 4, pg .317 )
The IPCC went on to say:
these equity principles can be understood to comprise four key dimensions: responsibility, capacity, equality and the right to sustainable development (IPCC, , AR5, WG III, Ch 4, p. 318).
As a matter of law, therefore, high-emitting countries such as the United States must reduce its GHG emissions to safe levels based on equity at faster levels than other countries as any reasonable interpretation of equity would require the US to make much larger and more rapid GHG reductions than almost all other nations given that the United States (under the concept of responsibility) emitted 5,011,687 metric kilotons (kt) of CO2 equivalent emissions in 2016, second only to China’s 10,432,741 kt CO2. (Netherlands Environmental Agency), also under the concept of responsibility the United States has emitted a greater amount of cumulative CO2 emissions, that is 29.3% of global CO2 emissions between 1850 and 2002, while China emitted 7.6% during the same period, (WRI, Cumulative Emissions) making the US much more responsible for raising atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to the current level of approximately 406 ppm than any country. Also, under the concept of equality given the US is responsible for 15.56 metric tons per capita CO2 emissions which is more than twice as much as China’s 7.45 metric tons per capita in 2016 (World Bank), as a matter of equity the US must reduce its GHG emissions much more rapidly and steeply than almost all countries.
The following illustration demonstrates why high-emitting nations must also practically reduce emissions more aggressively than other nations because it can be seen that if the high emitting nations such as China, the EU, and USA, depicted near the bottom of the illustration, don’t reduce GHG emissions much faster than the rest of the world, and if the international community is going to be restrained by the emissions reduction pathway needed to achieve a warming limit goal, such as the 2 degee C pathway depicted in the illustration, then there is quickly nothing left for the rest of the world. Therefore, high-emitting nations must more aggressively reduce their emissions than lower emitting nations not only as a matter of law but also to retain any hope for the international community to achieve warming limit goals agreed to in the Paris Agreement of as close as possible to 1.5 degrees C but no greater than 2 degrees C.
6. Developed Nations Have a Legal and Moral Duty to Provide Financial Resources to Assist Developing Nartions with both Mitigation and Adaptation Programs and this Financial Assistance is also Practically Indespensible to Prevent Climate-induced Harms in all Countries.
Under the UNFCCC, developed country Parties agreed to provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties in implementing the objectives of the Convention (UNFCCC, Article 4, §3). The Paris Agreement also provides that the developed countries shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.(Paris Agreement, Art, 9.1)
Financial support of developing nation’s mitigation obligations under the UNFCCC mitigations is not only legally required under the UNFCCC but also practically important because large-scale investments are required to significantly reduce emissions and dangerous climate change will not likely be avoided unless developing nations reduce their GHG emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions. Financial support for developing nations by developed nations is also both legally and ethically required to meet the adaptation needs of developing countries, as significant financial resources are needed by many vulnerable countries to adapt to the adverse climate change.
Climate impacts, such as sea-level rise and more frequent droughts and floods, are already having devastating effects on communities and individuals in developing countries. These impacts on developing countries are already affecting developed nations because, for instance, between 2008 and 2011, approximately 87 million people were displaced due to extreme weather events which is causing a mass migration of refugees which is destabilizing many developed nations, particularly in Europe. (Climate Change in Developing Countries, Government of Canada) According to the World Health Organization, climate change is expected to contribute to approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress. (World Health Organization, Climate and Health) .
Developing countries are the most impacted by climate change. This is due to many factors, including the economic importance of climate-sensitive sectors for these countries (e.g. agriculture) and the limited financial and human capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change. (Climate Change in Developing Countries, Government of Canada). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that by 2030, up to 122 million more people could be forced into extreme poverty due to the effects of climate change—many of them women. (Conflicts Fueled by Climate Change, The Guardian.)
Because climate change is already destabilizing developed countries due to refugees who are fleeing vulnerable areas of poor developing nations that have become inhabitable due to climate change-induced droughts, floods, loss of drinking water, and rising seas, if developed nations do not help finance climate change adaptation programs in developing countries, they will experience growing conflict and stress caused by vulnerable people and refugees in developing countries who are both creating conflicts in their countries and in developed countries they have or are seeking to enter. .
The following illustration depicts the number of refugees who are fleeing or who have fled climate change.
For this reason, developed country financing assistance for emissions reduction and adaptation programs in developing countries is not only legally required but practically necessary to reduce climate change-induced problems and conflicts in developed countries.
By: Donald A. Brown Scholar in Residence and Professor Widener University Commonwealth Law School dabrown57@gmail.com
Three papers have been recently published that lead to the conclusion that human-induced climate change poses a much more urgent and serious threat to life on Earth than many have thought who have been relying primarily on the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This paper first reviews these papers and then examines the ethical questions by the issues discussed in these papers.
I. The Three Papers
On July 31, 2018, a paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which should create a shiver of fear in all humans everywhere. The paper, Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene by Steffen et.al., explains how human-induced warming is rapidly approaching levels that may trigger positive climate feedbacks which could greatly accelerate the warming already plaguing the world by causing record floods, deadly heat waves and droughts, increasing tropical diseases, forest fires, more intense and damaging storms, sea level rise, coral bleaching, and acidification of oceans, all of which are contributing to increasing the number of refugees which are destabilizing governments around the world. This paper explains that, contrary to common assumptions made by many in the international community that positive feedbacks in the climate system that could cause abrupt temperature increases would not likely be triggered if warming could be limited to 2 C above pre-industrial levels, positive feedbacks could be initiated between current temperatures and 2 C. Moreover, once triggered the additional warming caused by these feedbacks could initiate other feedbacks creating a cascade of positive feedbacks, each of which could speed up the warming which is already causing great harm and suffering around the world. The paper claims this mechanism could make life on much of the Earth uninhabitable which could lead to social collapse on the global scale and ultimately to warming increases that human reductions of greenhouse gases (ghg) emissions alone would not prevent until the global system reached a new temperature equilibrium at much higher temperatures than the human race has ever experienced. In other words, cascading positive feedbacks in the climate system could result in humans losing control over preventing disastrous warming.
Another recent paper published in mid-August in Nature Communications by Anthony et. al., 21st-Century Modeled Permafrost Carbon Emissions Accelerated by Abrupt Thaw Beneath Lakes, concludes that models used to predict climate impacts have failed to incorporate abrupt carbon feedback from permafrost decay that recent evidence has revealed is now possible happening. In fact, the paper claims that early stages of processes that lead to permafrost degradation are already underway, a phenomenon which leads to release of dangerous amounts of methane and CO2. This paper further concludes that carbon emissions from melting permafrost could increase soil carbon emissions by 125–190% compared to gradual thaw alone.
This paper summarizes major conclusions from a third recent paper which analyzes IPCC’s consistent underestimation of climate change impacts. This paper, What Lies Beneath: On the Understatement of Existential Climate Risk, (hereinafter “WLB”), recently published by the Breakthrough Institute, claims both that the risks posed by climate change are far greater than is evident from the conclusions of IPCC and examines why IPCC has frequently underestimated threats from climate change.
The WLB report also further concludes that climate change is now an existential risk to humanity, that is an adverse outcome that could either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and dramatically curtail its potential. (WLB, p.13)
Although the WLB report acknowledges IPCC has done “critical, indispensable work of the highest standard in pulling together a periodic consensus of what must be the most exhaustive scientific investigation in world history” however, the IPCC process suffers from all of the dangers of consensus-building in such a wide-ranging and complex arena. (WLB, p. 5) The report also attributes the overly "conservative" conclusions of the IPCC to the consensus building nature that IPCC must follow to get governments to approve IPCC final reports and to IPCC’s following scientific norms that condemn speculation. (WLB. p. 5) As a result, the report concludes that much of the climate research on which IPCC has relied has tended to underplay climate risks and as a result, IPCC has exhibited preferences for "conservative" estimates of climate change impacts. (WLB, p. 5) This practice the WLB reports labels as “scholarly reticence.” (WLB, p. 5)
This WLB report further claims that climate science has succumbed to the norm followed by most physical sciences to refrain from any speculation that cannot be grounded in empirically determined probability calculations. This epistemic norm, the report claims, is not well-suited to guide predictions about very scientifically complex matters such as earth system dynamics. The report calls this approach the Probability Obsession of science which is not well suited to predict future states of complex systems about matters for which there are no historical antecedents. (WLB, p. 2) [actually, there are historical precedents, but the models are not consistent with those episodes in paleoclimate record of abrupt climate change]
The WLB report also notes that a conservative approach to climate science began to dominate and as a result, the planetary future has become a hostage to national economic "self-interest" [I wouldn't say self-interest but short-sightedness or ideological blindness]. Thus, the paper claims it became “alarmist” to claim the climate change is an existential threat to life on earth. (WLB, p.4)
The report further notes that although “a fast emergency-scale transition to a post-fossil fuel world is absolutely necessary to address climate change…. yet this is excluded from consideration by policymakers because it is considered to be too disruptive.” And so the paper claims “we have a policy failure of epic proportions.” (WLB, p. 4)
The WLB report further notes that although it has widely been reported that if the ghg emissions reductions commitments or Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) made by governments so far under the Paris Agreement are complied with, the Earth’s temperature is expected to rise to 3 - 4 C by 2100 without taking into account “long-term” carbon cycle feedbacks. (WLB, p.15) Yet if the positive feedbacks are fully considered, the temperature path defined by the NDCs could result in around 5° C of warming by 2100 according to a MIT study. (WLB, p.13) Yet, the report claims that even if warming reaches 3° C, most of Bangladesh and Florida would drown, while major coastal cities – Shanghai, Legos, Mumbai – would be swamped likely creating larger flows of climate refugees. Most regions of the world would see a significant drop in food production and an increasing number of extreme weather events, whether heat waves, floods or storms. (WLB, p.13)
The WLB report concludes warming of 4°C or more could reduce the global human population by 80% or 90%, and the World Bank reports “there is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C temperature rise would be possible.” Quoting Professor Kevin Anderson, the report claims a 4°C future “is incompatible with an organized global community and is likely to be beyond adaptation by the majority of people.” (WLB, p. 14)
The WLB report also claims that the often-quoted prediction of likely temperature increases if current NDCs are complied with of approximately 3° C rise does not take into account the considerable risk that self-reinforcing feedback loops could be triggered when certain thresholds are reached leading to an ever-increasing rise in temperature. These potential thresholds include the melting of the Arctic permafrost releasing methane into the atmosphere, forest dieback releasing carbon currently stored in the Amazon and boreal forests, with the melting of polar ice caps that would no longer reflect the light and heat from the sun. (WLB, p. 14)
The report cites a recent study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center found that if global temperature rose to 4° C that extreme heat waves with “apparent temperatures” peeking over 55 C (131 F) will begin to regularly affect many densely populated parts of the world, forcing much activity in the modern industrial world to stop. (WLB, p.14)
The paper claims that one study found that even a 2° C warming “would double the land area subject to deadly heat and expose 48% of the population to deadly heat.” (WLB, p.14)
According to the WLB report, a 4° C warming by 2100 would subject 47% of the land area and almost 74% of the world population to deadly heat which could pose existential risks to humans and mammals alike unless massive adaptation measures are implemented. (WLB, p.14)
The WLB paper also explains how IPCC’s understatements of likely climate change impacts affect what is generally claimed among climate policy-makers about elements of climate science including climate models, climate tipping points, climate sensitivity, carbon budgets, permafrost and carbon cycles, arctic sea ice, polar ice-mass loss, and sea-level rise. The following summarizes some of the main paper’s conclusions on these matters, although we recommend that interested parties read the WLB’s full description of these issues. The full paper also should be consulted for footnote sources of the following conclusions.
Climate Models
Climate modeling is at the core of the work by IPCC, and in developing future emission and warming scenarios a 2007 report by the US Center for Strategic and International Studies Center for New American Security recognized the that: “Recent observations indicate the projections from climate models have been too conservative,” and “the effects of climate change are unfolding faster and more dramatically than expected,” and, “multiple lines of evidence support the position that the 2007 IPCC reports’ projections of impacts are systematically biased low.” (WLB, p.18) For instance, the paper concludes:
The models used to project future warming either omit or do not account for uncertainty in potentially important positive feedbacks that could amplify warming (e.g., release of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost, reduced ocean and terrestrial CO2 removal from the atmosphere, and there is some evidence that such feedbacks may already be occurring in response to the present warming trend. Hence, climate models may underestimate the degree of warming from a given amount of greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere by human activities alone. Additionally, recent observations of climate system responses to warming (e.g. changes in global ice cover, sea level rise, tropical storm activity) suggest that IPCC models underestimate the responsiveness of some aspects of the climate system to a given amount of warming. (WLB, p.18)
Climate models simply omit emissions from warming permafrost, but we know that is the wrong answer because this tacitly assumes that these emissions are zero and we know that’s not right. (WLB, p.18)
The WLB report characterizes IPCC reports as presenting “detailed, quantified (numerical) modelling results - such as feedbacks that the models account for in a descriptive non-quantified form. Sea-levels, polar ice sheets, and some carbon-cycle are three examples. Because policymakers and the media are often drawn to the headline numbers, this approach results in less attention being given to the most devastating, high-end, non-linear and difficult to quantify [possible] outcomes.” (WLB, p. 19).
The WLB report concludes about this tendency: “The emphasis on consensus in IPCC reports has put the spotlight on expected outcomes which then become anchored via numerical estimates in the minds of policymakers.” (WLB, p. 19)
The WLB report also notes that one of the problems with IPCC is the strong desire to rely on physical models. (WLB, p. 20)
Tipping Points
A tipping point may be understood as the passing of a critical threshold in the earth climate systems component – such as major ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, the polar ice sheet, and the terrestrial and ocean carbon stores – which produces a steep change in the system. (WLB, p. 21) Progress toward a tipping point is often driven by positive feedbacks, in which a change in the component leads to further changes that eventually “feedback” onto the original component to amplify the effect. A classic case is global warming is the ice-albedo feedback, or decreases in the area of polar ice change surface reflexivity, trapping more heat, producing further sea ice loss. (WLB, p. 21)
In some cases, passing one threshold will trigger further threshold events, for example, where substantial greenhouse gas releases from polar permafrost carbon stores increase warming, releasing even more permafrost carbon in a positive feedback, but also pushing other systems, such as polar ice sheets past their threshold point. (WLB, p. 21)
In a period of rapid warming, most major tipping points, once crossed are irreversible in human time frames, principally due to the longevity of atmospheric CO2 (a thousand years). (WLB, p. 21)
Climate models are not yet good at dealing with tipping points. (WLB, p.21) This is partly due to the nature of tipping points, where particularly complex confluence of factors abruptly change the climate system characteristics and drive it into a different state. (WLB, p.21) To model this, all the contributing factors and their forces have to be well identified, as well as their particular interactions, plus the interactions between tipping points. (WLB, p.21) Some researchers say that “complex, nonlinear systems typically shift between alternative states in an abrupt, rather than the smooth, changes, a challenge that the climate models have not yet been able to adequately meet. (WLB, p. 21)
Risks associated with tipping points increase disproportionately as temperature increases from 1° C to 2° C and become high above 3° C. Yet political negotiations have consistently disregarded the high-end scenarios that could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate change. (WLB, p. 21)
IPCC has published few projections regarding tipping-point thresholds, nor emphasized the importance of building robust risk-management assessments of them in absence of adequate quantitative data. (WLB, p. 210)
The world is currently completely unprepared to envision and even less deal with the consequences of catastrophic climate change. (WLB, p. 21)
Climate Sensitivity
Climate sensitivity is the amount by which the global average temperature will rise due to a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, at equilibrium. IPCC reports a focus on what is generally called equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). The 2007 IPCC report gave a best estimate of climate sensitivity of 3° C and said it is likely to be in the range 2° C to 4.5° C. (WLB, p. 22)
The 2014 IPCC report says that “no best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given, because of lack of agreement on values across lines of evidence and studies” and only gives a range of 1.5° C to 4.5° C. (WLB, p. 22)
The IPCC reports fail to mention that the ECS measure omits key “long-term” feedbacks that a rise in the planet’s temperature can trigger. (WLB, p. 22) These include the permafrost feedback, other changes in the terrestrial carbon cycle, a decrease in the ocean’s carbon-sink efficiency, and the melting of polar ice sheets creating a cold ocean-surface layer underneath that accelerates the melting of ice shelves and hastens the rate of ice-mass loss. (WLB, p. 22)
There is a wide range of literature that suggests that climate sensitivity which includes these feeedbacks-known as Earth System Sensitivity (ESS), is 4-6 C. (WLB, p. 22).
Long-term feedbacks have already begun to appear on short time frames, climate-carbon cycle coupling is expected to add carbon to the atmosphere as the climate warms, although the magnitude of feedback is uncertain. (WLB, p. 22)
Conclusions about climate sensitivity should take into account that:
Biogeochemical feedbacks (such as less efficient land-ocean sinks, including permafrost loss) effectively increases carbon emissions to 2100 by about 20% and can enhance warming by up to 0.5°C, compared to the baseline scenario. (WLB, p. 23) Warming has been projected to increase methane emissions from wetlands by 0 – 100% compared with present-day wetland methane emissions. A 50% increase in wetland methane emissions by 2100 is expected in response to high-end warming of 4.1 – 5°C which could add at least another 0.5°C warming. (WLB, p. 23) It is important to use high-end climate sensitivity because some studies have suggested the climate models have underestimated three major positive climate feedbacks: positive ice albedo feedback from the retreat of Arctic sea ice; positive cloud albedo feedbacks from retreating storm track clouds in mid-latitudes, and positive albedo feedback by the next phase (water and ice) clouds. When these are taken into account the ECS is more than 40% higher than the IPCC mid-figure, at 4.5 to 4.7° C. (WLB, p. 23)
Some recent research concludes that climate sensitivity is higher in warmer, interglacial periods (such as present) and lower in colder glacial periods. Based on a study of glacial cycles and temperatures over the last 100, 000 years one study concludes that in warmer periods climate sensitivity is 4.88 C. (WLB, p. 23) The higher figure would mean that an atmospheric concentration 450 ppm CO2, a figure that current trends will reach in 5 years, would be around 3 C in rather than the 2 C number bandied about in policy making circles. (WLB, p. 23)
Carbon Budgets
A carbon budget is the estimate of the total future human-caused ghg emissions in tons of CO2 or CO2 equivalent, that would be consistent with limiting warming to a specific figure, such as
1.5 C or 2 C with a given risk of exceeding the target such as 50%, 33%, or a 10% chance. (WLB, p. 24)
Carbon budgets are usually based on mid-term climate sensitivity numbers of around 3 C. (WLB, p. 22)
Yet there are reasons to believe climate sensitivity is closer to 4 C. In fact, as we have seen, climate sensitivity may be between 4-6 C. (WLB, p. 22)
Carbon budgets are routinely proposed that have a substantial and unacceptable risk of exceeding specified targets and hence entail large and unmanageable risks of failure., (WLB, p. 24)
Research in 2017 the compared role climate models used by IPCC with models that are “observationally informed” produce 15% more warming by 2100 than IPCC claims and therefore supports the conclusion that carbon budgets should be reduced by 15% for the 2C target. (WLB, p. 24)
The IPCC reports fail to say that once projected emissions from future food production and deforestation are taken into account there is no carbon budget for fossil-fuel emissions for a 2C target. (WLB, p. 24).
There are also problems with carbon budgets which incorporate “overshoot” scenarios, in which warming exceeds the target before being cooled by carbon drawdown. (WLB, p.24) Pam Pearson, Dir. of International Cryo-sphere Climate Initiative, said that most cryo-sphere thresholds are determined by peak temperatures, and the length of time spent at the peak warning rather than “later decreasing temperatures after the peak are largely irrelevant, especially with higher temperatures and longer duration peaks.” Thus “overshoot scenarios” which are now becoming the norm in policymaking hold much greater risks. (WLB, p. 24)
Permafrost and the Carbon Cycle
The failure to adequately consider long-term feedbacks in IPCC models, and hence in projections of future warming, lies at the heart of the problem with the IPCC reporting process. (IPCC, p.25) Over century time-scales, amplifying feedbacks may ultimately contribute 28-68% of total warming, yet they comprise only 1-7% of current warming. (WLB, p. 25)
The land sink (storage capacity) for CO2 appears much smaller than is currently factored into some climate models. Thus future patterns of warming may be distinctly different from past patterns making it difficult to predict future warming by relying on past observations. (WLB, p. 25)
Soil Carbon. A 2016 study concluded that a soil carbon cycle feedback “has not been incorporated into computer models used to project future climate change, raising the possibility that such models are underestimating the amount of warming that is likely to occur. (WLB, p. 24) The projected loss of soil carbon from climate change is a potentially large but highly uncertain feedback to warming, however, there is likely to be strong carbon-climate feedbacks from colder northern soils. (WLB, p.24)
Forests. At the moment about one-third of human-caused CO2 emissions are absorbed by trees and other plants. But rapid climate warming and unusual rainfall patterns are jeopardizing many of the world’s trees, due to more frequent droughts, pest outbreaks, and fires. (WLB, p. 25) This is starting to have profound effects on the Earth’s carbon cycle. (WLB, p. 25) In 2009 researchers found that 2° C of warming could cut in half the carbon sink of tropical rainforests. Some tropical forests – in the Congo and Southeast Asia – have already shifted to a net carbon source. The tropics are now a net carbon source with losses owing to deforestation and reductions in carbon density within standing forests being double that of gains resulting from forest growth. Other work has projected a long-term, self-reinforcing carbon feedback from mid-latitude forests to the climate system as the world warms. (WLB, p. 25)
There has been an observed decline in the Amazon carbon sink. Negative synergies between deforestation, climate change, and widespread use of fire indicate a tipping point for the Amazon system to flip to non-forest ecosystems in eastern, southern, and central Amazonia at 20 – 25% deforestation. Researchers say that severe droughts of 2005, 2010 and 2015-16 could well represent the first flickers of this ecological tipping point and say the whole system is oscillating. (WLB, p.25)
Permafrost. The world’s permafrost holds 1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, more than twice the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. On land it covers an area of 15,000,000 km². The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere on earth, and some permafrost degradation is already occurring. Large-scale tundra wildfires in 2012 added to the concern, as have localized methane outbursts. (WLB, p. 25)
The 2007 IPCC assessment on permafrost did not venture beyond saying “changes in snow ice and frozen ground have with high confidence increase the number and size of glacial lakes, increased ground instability in mountain and other permafrost regions and led to changes in some Arctic and in Antarctic ecosystems. It reported with high confidence that methane emissions from tundra and permafrost have accelerated in the past two decades and are likely to accelerate further. It offered no projections regarding permafrost melts. (WLB, p.25).
The effect of the permafrost’s carbon feedback has not been included in the IPCC scenarios including the 2014 report. (WLB, p. 26). This is despite clear evidence that “the permafrost carbon feedback would change the Arctic from a carbon sink to a source after the mid-2020s and is strong enough to cancel 42 – 88% of the total global land sink. (WLB, p. 26)
In 2012, researchers found that, for the 2100 median forecasts, there would be a 0.23 – 0.27°C of extra warming due to permafrost feedbacks. Some researchers consider that 1.5°C appears to be something of a “tipping point” for extensive permafrost thaw. (WLB, p.26)
A 2014 study estimated that up to 205 billion tonnes equivalent of CO2 could be released due to melting permafrost. This would cause up to 0.5° C extra warming for the high emission scenario and up to 0.15° C of extra warming for the 2° C scenario. The authors say that; “climate projections in the IPCC Fifth Assessment report, and any emissions targets based on these projections, do not adequately account for emissions from thawing permafrost and the effect of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate. (WLB, p.26)
Recently attention has turned to the question of the stability of large methane hydrate stores below the ocean floor on the shallow East Siberian Arctic shelf. (Methane hydrates are cage-like lattices of ice within which methane molecules are trapped). (WLB, p. 26)
These stores are protected from the warmer ocean temperatures above by a layer of frozen sub-sea permafrost. The concern is that warmer water could create taliks (areas of unfrozen permafrost) through which large-scale methane emissions from the hydrates could escape into the water column above and into the atmosphere. (WLB, p. 26)
A deceptively optimistic picture is painted when the potential impacts from the degradation of permafrost and methane hydrates are underplayed. (WLB, p. 26)
Arctic Sea-Ice
IPCC has consistently underestimated the rate of Arctic sea ice melt. (WLB, p.27)
Arctic sea ice is thinning faster than every IPCC climate projection, tipping points have been crossed for sea ice free summer conditions, and today scientists say an ice-free Arctic summer could be just years away, not many decades. (WLB, p. 27)
The loss of sea ice reduces the reflectivity of the planet and adds to warming but this feedback is not fully incorporated into models in circumstances where the rate of sea-ice loss is more rapid than expected in the models, as is occurring now. (WLB, p.27) To keep global temperature increase below 2 C, global CO2 emissions would need to reach zero 5-15 years earlier and the carbon budget would need to be reduced by 20-51% to offset this additional source of warming. (WLB, p. 27)
Because climate models are missing key real-world interactions and generally have been poor at dealing with the rate of Arctic sea ice retreat, expert elicitation’s play a role in considering whether the Arctic has passed a very significant and dangerous tipping point. But the IPCC has done none of this. (WLB, p.27)
Polar Ice-Mass Loss
2001 IPCC report said little change in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet is expected over the next 50-100 years. (WLB, p. 28)
Greenland Ice Sheet
The 2007 IPCC report said there were “uncertainties in the full effects of ice sheet flow” and a suggestion that “partial loss of ice sheet on polar land could imply meters of sea-level rise… Such changes are projected to occur over millennial time scales.” The reality is very different. (WLB, p. 28)
IPCC said in 2007 that current models suggest virtually complete elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a resulting contribution to sea-level rise of about 7 meters if global warming were sustained for millennia in excess of 1.9 to 4.60 C relative to pre-industrial values. (WLB, p. 28) This was despite that two 2006 studies found that the Greenland ice cap “may be melting three times faster than indicated by previous measurements, warning that we are close to being close to being committed to a collapse of the Greenland ice cap and reports that rising Arctic regional temperatures are already at “ the threshold beyond which glaciologists think the [Greenland] ice sheet may be doomed.” (WLB, p. 28)
In 2012 then NASA climate science chief James Hansen told Bloomberg that: “our greatest concern is that the loss of Arctic sea ice creates a great threat of passing over two other tipping points – the potential instability of the Greenland Ice Sheet and methane hydrates…These latter two tipping points would have consequences that are practically irreversible on time scales of relevance to humanity.’ On this very grave threat, IPCC is mute. (WLB, p. 29)
Antarctic Ice Sheet
The 2007 IPCC assessment proffered: “Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and gain mass due to increased snowfall.” (WLB, p. 29) However, the net loss of ice mass could occur if dynamical ice discharge dominates the ice sheet mass balance. Reality and new research would soon undermine this one-sided reliance by IPCC on models with poor cryosphere performance. (WLB, p. 29)
By the 2014 IPCC assessment, the story was: “Based on current understanding from observations, physical understanding, and modeling, only the collapse of the marine-based sectors of the Antarctic ice sheet, if initiated could cause global mean sea level to be substantially above the likely range during the 21st Century.” (WLB, p. 29) There is medium confidence that the additional contribution would not exceed several tenths of a meter of sea-level rise during the 21st Century. And “abrupt and irreversible ice loss from the Antarctic is sheet is possible, but current evidence and understanding is insufficient to make a quantitative assessment.” This was another blunder. Observations of accelerating ice mass in West Antarctic were well established by this time. (WLB, p. 29) It is likely that the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has already been destabilized. (WLB, p. 29) Ice retreat is unstoppable for current conditions, and no acceleration in climate change is necessary to trigger the collapse of the rest of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which comes with a 3-5 meter sea level rise. (WLB, p. 29), Such an event would displace millions of people worldwide. (WLB, p. 29)
In 2016, another significant study concluded that: “Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a meter of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 meters by 2500.” Compare this to the IPCC report, just a year earlier, that Antarctica’s contribution to sea levels “ would not exceed several tenths of a meter…during this century. ” (WLB, p. 29) As well, partial deglaciation of the East Antarctic ice sheet is likely for the current level of atmospheric CO2 contributing ten meters or more of sea-level rise in the longer run, and five meters in the first 200 years. (WLB, p. 29)
A 2018 study showed that ocean-driven melting has caused rates of ice-loss from West Antarctica to triple from 53 + or – 29 billion to 159 + or – 26 billion tons per year from 1992 to 2017. (WLB, p. 29) Forty percent of the total mass loss over that period has occurred in the last and five years, suggesting a recent and significant acceleration in the loss rate. (WLB, p. 29)
Over the same period, ice-shelf collapse had increased the rate of ice loss from the Antarctic Peninsula almost five-fold from 7 + or – 13 billion to 33 + or- 16 billion tonnes per year. (WLB, p. 29)
Sea Level Rise
In the 2001 assessment report, the IPCC projected a sea-level rise of 2 millimeters per year. By 2007, the researchers found that the range of the 2001 predictions were lower than the actual rise. Satellite data had shown that sea levels had risen by an average of 3.3 millimeters per year between 1993 and 2006. (WLB, p. 30) IPCC did not use this data to revise its projections. (WLB, p. 30) James Hansen warned of “scientific reticence” in regard to ice sheet stability and sea-level rise. (WLB, p. 30) In 2008, the US Geological Survey warned that sea-level rise could top 1.5 meters by the end of the century. And by the end of 2009, various studies offered drastically higher projections than IPCC. (WLB, p. 30) The Australian government identified research that estimated sea level rise range from 0.5 to 2.0 meters by 2100. (WLB, p. 30) Yet in 2014, IPCC reported a smaller figure (0.55 meters compared to 0.59 meters in 2007) despite mounting evidence of polar ice-mass loss. (WLB, p. 30) Noting inconsistent evidence, IPCC said that the probability of specific levels above the likely range cannot be evaluated. (WLB, p. 30)
An NOAA sea level report in August of 2017 recommends a revised worst-case sea level scenario of 2.5 meters by 2100, 5.5 meters by 2150, and 9.7 meters by 2200. (WLB, p. 31)
Today the discussion among experts is for sea-level rise in this century of at least one meter, and perhaps in excess of two meters. (WLB, p. 31)
Goals Abandoned
The WLB report claims that the warming levels already reached at approximately 1.10C are already “dangerous” and that future warming would need to be limited to 1.20 C to save the Great Barrier Reef. (WLB. p. 37) Therefore, the WLB report concludes that the UNFCCC process has already abandoned the goals of the UNFCCC of “preventing dangerous interference with the climate system.” The report also argues that other key goals of the UNFCCC including that “food production is not threatened’’ and “achieving reductions in a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change” have been abandoned for all practical purposes.”
Conclusion - Ethical Issues Raised by IPCC’s Consistent Underestimation of Climate Change Impacts.
A. Failure to Apply a Precautionary Science
As we have seen, the “What Lies Beneath” Report attributes IPCC’s consistent underestimation of climate change impacts to both the consensus process that IPCC follows in which governments must approve aspects of final IPCC reports and to IPCC’s following norms often followed by scientists which eschew making any claims that cannot be supported by empirically tested observations.
As we have claimed before in Ethicsandclimate.org, there is a potential conflict between IPCC’s mission to synthesize the peer-reviewed climate change scientific literature, which normally requires adequate levels of scientific proof before drawing conclusions, and the precautionary principle stated in article 3 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which requires governments to act despite scientific uncertainties. A precautionary science would identify all scientifically plausible impacts, not only those impacts that can be identified with high levels of scientific certainty or impacts about which quantitative probability statements derived from empirical observations can be stated. If the precautionary principle is to be taken seriously then decision-makers should be informed about all potentially dangerous impacts even if quantitative probability statements about these impacts can’t be derived from observations of how a physical system works. Since the UNFCCC expressly adopted the precautionary principle, a strong case can be made that IPCC should identify all scientifically plausible impacts. If it were to do this, IPCC should, of course, be clear that some impacts are less certain than others.
Identifying all scientifically plausible climate impacts is also required as a matter of ethics once there is a reasonable basis for concluding that certain human behavior is dangerous to others.
Who should have the burden of proof and how much proof should be required to satisfy the burden of proof in the face of scientific uncertainty about dangerous behavior are fundamentally ethical questions, not ‘value-neutral’ scientific matters, yet scientists are rarely trained in ethical reasoning and very rarely spot the ethical issues raised by decisions about dangerous human behavior that must be made in the face of scientific uncertainty. Given that the potential harms from climate change include an existential threat to life on Earth, as a matter of ethics,those who claim that scientific uncertainty is justification for not taking strong action to reduce the threat of climate change should have the burden of proof of demonstrating with very high levels of proof that ghg emissions levels are safe.
Ethics would require higher levels of proof of those who are engaged in dangerous behavior to prove their behavior is safe in proportion to how potentially dangerous the behavior is especially for harms to others who have not consented to be harmed and for behaviors that become more dangerous the longer one waits to reduce the uncertainty. Given that climate change actually threatens life on Earth including billions of people who have not consented to put at risk, and given that waiting to reduce ghg emissions makes the problem more threatening, ethics would shift the burden of proof to those who are most responsible for raising ghg emissions to prove with very high levels of proof that human emissions of ghg are safe even if there is some uncertainty about the amount of warming that different levels of ghg emissions will cause. For this reason, the problem created by IPCC’s underestimation of climate change impacts may not be exclusively the fault of IPCC. The problem may also be the fault of policymakers who fail to respond to the enormous potential harms entailed by human-induced warming by demanding that opponents of climate change policies shoulder the burden of proof by demonstrating with high levels of proof that ghg emissions will not cause serious harms.
This website includes many articles which explain why policymakers and citizens have a strong duty to reduce ghg emissions in the face of some scientific uncertainty about climate change impacts. See, for example:
Policymakers have a vital need for scientists to explain all scientifically plausible harms that may result from human activities even if the magnitude and creation of potential harms are uncertain. In fulfilling these responsibilities, scientists may not ignore potential harms because they are unable to determine probabilities about the likelihood of their occurrence based on empirical observations. Yet because scientists often follow the epistemic norms of their science when engaged in scientific research which usually require adequate levels of proof before making causal claims, policymakers need to be clear when interacting with scientists that their policymaking responsibilities require that they, the policymakers, protect citizens from all plausible harms. Therefore policymakers need scientists to identify all scientifically plausible harms. Because IPCC’s mission is to synthesize the existing peer-reviewed climate science, which very likely does not include scientific conclusions about plausible harms partly based on speculation, IPCC cannot fulfill the role of science that policymakers need when policymakers are seeking to protect citizens from all plausible harms, namely to inform humanity about all plausible climate change impacts. Thus, there is a basic conflict between IPCC’s mission of synthesizing peer-reviewed climate change science and providing policy-makers with information about all scientifically plausible climate change impacts.
This need of policy-makers to understand all plausible harms creates an enormous challenge for mainstream scientific institutions which usually rely on peer-review in which scientists normally review scientific claims by comparing claims to empirically tested observations which are the ground of the scientific enterprise. Yet, as Hans Jonas explained in The Imperative of Responsibility, In Search of an Ethics in a Technological Age, the power of modern technology to create catastrophic harms such as those harms now foreseeable from human-induced climate change, ethics requires that policy-makers approach these matters with a “heuristics of fear,” replacing the former “projections of hope” that traditionally guided policy (Jonas, 1984, p.x), Yet, mainstream science is often uncomfortable with conclusions not grounded in scientific observations. If this is so, ethics requires that IPCC’s mandate be amended to synthesize scientifically plausible conclusions about climate change outcomes.
B. The Ethical Bankruptcy of Arguments Which Demand High Levels of Certainty Before Taking Action to Reduce the Threat of Climate Change
The WLB report also claims that quoting a 2014 article in the Guardian increasing evidence ‘that policy summaries on climate impacts and mitigation by the IPCC were significantly “diluted under political pressure from some of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, including Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil, and the United States.” (WLB. p. 34)
The WLB report consistently argues that the remedy to IPCC’s tendency to underestimate climate impacts is to allow or require more speculation about uncertain but plausible climate impacts. However, those governments that seek to restrict discussion of all impacts to those that have been proven with relatively high levels of proof would likely argue that speculation could lead to an overstatement of climate impacts. Yet following a precautionary science that identifies all plausible climate change impacts including those that have been based on speculation can guard against overstating the seriousness of climate impacts by allowing those who claim that the plausible impacts have been overstated to provide reasons for their claims so that policymakers can judge whether some of the plausible but not fully proven impacts are arbitrary or without any plausible scientific support. This would place the burden of proving harm appropriately, as a matter of ethics, on the parties that seek to justify continuing dangerous behavior.
Nations which have demanded high levels of proof before reducing their contributions to climate change have failed to abide by their ethical and legal duties to not harm others and not abide by the “precautionary principle” which they agreed to UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.
C. Ethical Problems with Economics Arguments Against Climate Change Policies
The WLB report also claims that some governments have advocated policies that would not be sufficient to achieve the goals of the UNFCCC to prevent dangerous climate change because they thought policies that achieve safer levels of warming “were too economically disruptive.” (WLB, p. 39). This report claims that in so doing, “policymakers are complicit today in destroying the very conditions which make life possible.” (WLB, p. 39) Further, the WLB report claims “There is no greater crime against humanity.” (WLB, p. 39)
An ethical analysis of those nations that refuse to adopt policies that may be necessary to prevent catastrophic harm on the basis of their economic interest would also strongly condemn these nations as deeply morally bankrupt.
5G: Great risk for EU, U.S. and International Health! Compelling Evidence for Eight Distinct Types of Great Harm Caused by Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Exposures and the Mechanism that Causes Them.
Martin L. Pall, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences Washington State University
In search of evidence, 214 juveniles in Sendai between the ages of five and 18 were administered MRI brain scans over a period of three years. Youths who regularly utilized the internet, as opposed to those who did not, showed impaired development in the volume of the cerebral cortex in all major areas of their brains. The latter group also showed a similar shortfall in the volume of white matter that transmits data via the nerve cells.
From this, Kawashima concludes that use of the internet and/or smartphones not only reduces a child’s academic performance, but even more alarming, negatively affects overall brain development.
As the children’s brains were not subjected to actual forensic autopsies, Kawashima can only speculate on the degree of damage, but is convinced that follow-up studies will provide more valid evidence.
As a practical cure, or at least a partial cure, Kawashima believes that reading books is effective. Unfortunately, however, growing numbers of today’s children cannot concentrate on something for more than five minutes at a time, making reading books a struggle.
Of course, more evidence is needed, but add this to the hundreds of other studies claiming that cell phones are damned dangerous. (Related: The NSA is Still Spying On Your Cell Phone. But then again, so is Google and Facebook – Admin)
We’re mass-producing functional idiots. Neuroplasticity is mapping the brain’s neural pathways too – in negative ways. By using the Internet, memory recall is impaired, and cognative skills are diminished. Technologists don’t care, nor do they want us to accept the hundreds of negative studies on what cell phones, cell towers, and Internet usage (“screen culture”) does to humans. But I’ve been investigating this topic myself and believe this is all related to the decline in society, discourse, reasoning, ability to discern facts from fiction, and probably most importantly, the horrible lapse in moral judgement.
Technology is killing us. Technology is killing the biosphere. The extraction of rare-earth metals, slave labor, cycle of addiction and waste cycle of cell phones is well known, but it doesn’t stop there. This goes on and on and on. Watch “The Hidden Life Of Garbage“. We don’t seem to be able to get much of anything right without ruining everything else.
It’s no wonder we are totally unlike our ancestors now. We’ve poisoned the air, water, soil, space and even our own brains. We’re so distracted, disconnected, poisoned and polluted that we can’t seem to fully grasp what we have done to ourselves even when we use our best ‘technology’ and most advanced science and obtain the most accurate measurements. We read about what we’ve done, but we don’t really seem to grasp it, and we keep on doing it anyway.
Obviously, something drastic needs to happen. But these calls for fundamental changes on how we live on this planet, how we treat each other, how we poison the world, consistently fall on deaf ears.
Biological Effects for 5G Frequencies, in the Low- (0.6 GHz – 3.7 GHz); Mid- (3.7GHz – 24 GHz); and High-band frequencies (24 GHz and higher); i.e., millimeter waves:
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: The most critical regions of a child’s head absorb two to ten times more RF EMF than adults. Current exposure limits assume the anatomy of U.S. military recruits. Accountable, independent groups should revise U.S. exposure limits, using anatomically-based models.
Physics in Medicine and Biology: The external shape of the head and the distribution of different tissues within the head plays a significant role in RF EMF energy absorption, based on examining anatomical models exposed to radiation at 900, 1800 and 2450 MHz.
Pathophysiology: Scientific reviews after 1986, that are used as a basis for radiation exposure standards, excluded scientists with expertise in the health effects from non-thermal doses of cell phone signals. (Link to full study)
European Journal of Oncology: Irregular heartbeat (tachycardia) and other autonomic nervous system effects result from non-thermal signal from cordless phone (2.4 GHz; 0.01 to 0.8 µW/cm2) in a double-blind study, far below exposure safety standards for the U.S. and Canada (i.e., 1,000 µW/cm2).
Vienna Medical University: Current guidelines don’t protect the public. Austrian cell phone providers are excluded from coverage by “Austrian Social Insurance for Occupational Risks” due to health risks caused by regulatory exclusion of biological responses to non-thermal radio frequency electromagnetic fields.
Pathophysiology: Existing safety standards are obsolete because they are based solely on thermal effects from acute exposures. The rapidly expanding development of new wireless technologies and the long latency for the development of such serious diseases as brain cancers means that failure to take immediate action to reduce risks may result in an epidemic of potentially fatal diseases in the future… Taking action to reduce exposures is imperative, especially for the fetus and children. (Link to full study)
National Toxicology Program (U.S.): Unequivocal evidence of heart cancer from GSM-modulated cell phone RFR at 900 MHz in male lab rats after 2 year exposure. Equivocal associations also found between RFR exposure and malignant (and non-malignant) tumors of the brain, adrenal gland, prostate gland, pituitary gland, and pancreas.
National Toxicology Program (U.S.): Equivocal evidence found after two years of exposure to GSM-modulated cell phone RFR at 1.8 GHz in lab mice, which was significantly associated with lymphoma and liver cancer.
PLOS One: RF-EMR (1.8 GHz, 0.4 W/kg to 27.5 W/kg) induced oxidative stress in human sperm, damaging DNA. These effects correlate with poor fertility, increased miscarriage, childhood cancer, and morbidity in the offspring.
Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics: Low-intensity microwave radiation (900 MHz and 1800 MHz, 30 days, 2 hours/day, 5 days/week, 0.5953 and 0.5835 mW/kg.) correlates with learning and memory disturbances by altering rat brain chemistry.
Dose-Response: Exposure to RF-EMFs within a narrow level of irradiation (i.e., “exposure window” theory) makes E. coli and Listeria resistant to antibiotics when tested with 900 MHz mobile phone-simulated radiation, and 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi router signals.
Mutation Research: 2.45 GHz has excessive mutagenic potential at the prescribed “safe limit”.
Environmental Research Journal: Large-scale lifetime study of 2,448 rats exposed to mobile phone RF EMF field equal to emissions from a 1.8 GHz cell phone base station. The resulting brain and heart tumors are identical to those observed in epidemiological studies on cell phone users. This, combined with the US National Toxicology Program’s study provide sufficient evidence to call for the reevaluation of IARC conclusions regarding the carcinogenic potential of RFR in humans.
Bioelectromagnetics: Increased DNA single- and double-strand breaks in rat brain cells is associated with acute exposure to pulsed 2450-MHz radio frequency electromagnetic radiation at 2 mW/cm2. Melatonin appears to block this damage.
Radiation Research: Abnormal chromosomal division observed in human-hamster hybrid cells after exposure to radiation in the terahertz frequency band (0.106 THz; 0.043 to 4.3 mW/cm2; 30 minute exposure)
Journal of Radiation Research: After in utero exposure to 9.417-GHz radiation, male mouse offspring demonstrated decreased learning and memory, while females were not affected in learning and memory, suggesting that microwave exposure produces gender-dependent effects.
Radiation Research: Human lymphatic system white blood cells experience genomic instability after exposure to radiation in the terahertz frequency band (0.1 THz; 0.031 mW/cm2; 2 and 24 hour exposure). Effects attributed to radiation-induced low-frequency collective vibrational modes of proteins and DNA. This exposure may increase cancer risk.
PLOS One: Fifteen minute exposure to 3G mobile phone signals associated with significant changes in the alpha, slowbeta, fastbeta, and gamma bands of electroencephalogram recordings when cell phone is placed on the ear. EEG readings not affected when cell phone is placed on the chest. Test was single-blind, cross-over (1.9291 to 1.9397 GHz; 15 minute exposure; 0.69 W/kg).
Bioelectromagnetics: Fluorescent protein changes occur in E-coli biosensor cells exposed to non-thermal radiation (1500, 2000, and 2300 GHz; 1.4 W/cm2)
Supreme Court of California: Wireless telephone service companies need to obtain permits to install and maintain lines and equipment in public rights-of-way.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: 2.45-Gz wireless devices induce oxidative stress and proliferation through cytosolic Ca²⁺ influx in human leukemia cancer cells.
International Journal of Toxicology: Chronic low-intensity 900 to 2450 MHz microwave exposure correlated with DNA damage in rat brains, declined cognitive function, and elevated heat specific proteins.
Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry: Brains of 2 week old mice are very sensitive to 10 GHz microwave exposure, causing impairment to spatial memory, enzyme activity, and histopathology.
Journal of Cellular Biochemistry: Heat shock proteins appear in fruit flies after exposure to non-thermal radiation (900 and 1,900 MHz; 1.4 W/kg) from a multi-band cell phone. Study provides biomarkers that provide a basis for realistic mobile phone safety guidelines.
Bioelectromagnetics: 2450 MHz exposure associated with a marked increase in chromosome aberrations and fragments.
Bioelectromagnetics: Low-intensity microwave exposure increases single-strand DNA breaks in rat brain cells.
Health Physics: “International Council on 5-G Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection guidelines may lead to permanent tissue damage after even short exposures”
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Weak exposure to cell phone radiation at 5G frequencies causes physiological and/or morphological impacts on maize, roselle, pea, fenugreek, duckweeds, tomato, onions and mung beans. They’re especially sensitive to frequencies between 800 to 1500 MHz; 1500 to 2400 MHz; and 3500 to 8000 MHz.
Planta (France): Cell phone radiation is perceived by plants as an injurious stimulus, based on tomato plants exposed to low level electromagnetic fields for 10 minutes (900 MHz, 5 V m−1). The plants quickly displayed genetic evidence after exposure, consistent with wound response.
Romanian Journal of Biophysics: Maize seedlings exposed to cell phone radiation (935.2-960.2 MHz, 0.07-0.15 mW/cm²) had significantly increased germination and growth rates. Photosynthetic pigments, total soluble sugar and total carbohydrates were positively affected by HF EMF exposure.
Plant, Cell, and Environment: Wild tomato plants exposed to RF EMF (900 MHz, 5 V/m, 10 minutes) evoked rapid and substantial accumulation of biochemicals similar to wound response.
Bioelectromagnetics: Flax seedlings exposed for 2 hours to 105 GHz results in epidermal meristems (actively dividing groups of cells), similar to GSM cell phone radiation exposure.
Physics in Medicine and Biology: Yeast cells exposed to non-thermal levels of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation (200-350 GHz, 2.5 hours) had significant differences in growth between exposed and control yeast microcolonies.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: Exposure to 10 GHz microwave radiation decreased the ability of mice to learn, which coincided with decreased protein levels in the brain.
International Journal of Oncology: “International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection” is dominated by industry-loyalists with serious conflicts of interest, resulting in little or nothing being done to reduce exposure and educate people on health hazards from RF radiation.
“Biological Effect of Millimeter Radiowaves” CIA-Declassified Russian Research: “Millimeter waves caused changes in the body manifested in structural alterations in the skin and internal organs, qualitative and quantitative changes in the blood and bone marrow composition, and changes of the conditioned reflex activity.”
Bioelectromagnetics: Skin exposure to low intensity millimeter waves caused the release of endogenous opioids, transporting them in the bloodstream to all parts of the body.
Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy: DNA damage in rat testes associated with long-term exposure to 2.4 GHz RF radiation from Wi-Fi.
Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy: Pulse modulated radio-frequency radiation exposure of 900 MHz and 1.8 GHz increases permeability of the blood-brain barrier in male rats, but not in female rats.
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology: Biological effects of millimeter waves potentially include antibiotic resistant bacteria, but also offer potential new therapeutic practices, and food protection technologies.
Environmental Research: Sweat ducts in skin form a helical antenna that is tuned to 5-G radio-waves, leading to a high specific absorption rate. Recommend against unrestricted use of sub-THz technologies for communication, before evaluating the possible consequences for public health.
Environmental Research: The addition of high frequency 5G radiation to the complex mix of lower frequencies, will contribute to a negative public health outcome from physical and mental health perspectives.
Neurotoxicology: Low intensity microwave radiation at 900, 1800 and 2450 MHz induces oxidative stress, inflammatory response and DNA damage in rat brain via frequency-dependent effects.
Physiology and Behavior: 2.856GHz microwave exposure could cause dose-dependent long-term impairment of spatial learning, memory, and hippocampal structure injuries.
Biomedical Environmental Sciences: Hippocampus can be injured by long-term microwave exposure, which might result in impairment of cognitive function due to neurotransmitter disruption
International Journal of Radiation Biology: Acute exposure to EMF at 2450-MHz causes single- and double-strand DNA breaks in rat brain cells, that occurred 4 hours after exposure.
Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics: Exposure to 2.45 GHz microwave radiation at 5 or 25 W kg−1 is twice as effective as 27 MHz radiofrequency radiation in inducing cell cycle alteration.
25th European Microwave Conference (1995): Low-level exposure to non-thermal 2.45 GHz microwave radiation significantly increases cell wall permeability, resulting in hemoglobin loss.
Environmental Health: New Zealand youth will be at elevated risk of brain tumors by their mid-teens, based on their reported phone usage, and findings of the Interphone and Hardell-group studies.
Oncology Letters: Among eleven thousand radiofrequency radiation measurements throughout Stockholm, Sweden in 2017, all exceeded the target level of 30-60 µW/m2criteria established for non-thermal exposure, according to the BioInitiative Report. Exposure levels will increase with 5G service
Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering: Statistically significant rise in the sensitivity of Klebsiella pneumonia to different antibiotics after 4.5 hours of exposure to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi radiation, followed by a fall after 8 hours of exposure.
Indian Journal of Experimental Biology: Oxidative stress due to 900 MHz and 1.8 GHz microwave exposure associated with cognitive impairment and inflammation in rat brain.
Reviews on Environmental Health: “Chronic multi-system illness” correlates electromagnetic hypersensitivity to 3 MHz-300 GHz, with headaches, concentration difficulties, sleep problems, depression, lack of energy, fatigue, and flu-like symptoms.
Fertility and Sterility: Use of laptop computers connected to internet through Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz, non-thermal effect) decreases human sperm motility and increases sperm DNA fragmentation
Journal of Pediatric Urology: Radiofrequency waves emitted from conventional Wi-Fi devices poses potential effect on both fertility and the integrity of sperm cells.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Long-term exposure of 2.4 GHz RF emitted from Wi-Fi (2420 μW/kg, 1 g average) affects some of the reproductive parameters of male rats. We suggest Wi-Fi users avoid long-term exposure to RF emissions from Wi-Fi equipment.
Scientific Reports: At constant power densities, the absorbed RF EMF at 2–120 GHz increases as exposure shifts to higher frequencies, in honey bees, locust, beetles, and Australian stingless bees.
Journal of Insect Conservation: Wild pollinators on Greek islands exposed to 800 MHz to 2.6 GHZ cell phone towers experienced: a) Decreasing abundance of wild pollinators living above ground, and b) Increasing abundance for underground-nesting wild bees/bee flies.
Open Ophthalmology Journal: Exposure of bovine eye lenses to 1.1 GHz, 2.22 mW microwaves caused a reversible decrease in lens optical quality accompanied by irreversible morphological and biochemical damage to the lens epithelial cell layer.
Bioelectromagnetics: Four fold increase in DNA damage and micronuclei induction in human blood cells exposed to cell phone radiation (837 TDMA/CDMA, and 1909.8 MHz GSM, 5.0 W/kg minimum exposure; 24 hour exposure to each of four cell phone types).
Biological effects for the current typical “Smart Meter”/wireless cell phone frequencies in Fairbanks – i.e., a range around 900 MHz:
Annals of Science: Since 1928, scientists who identify non-thermal biological effects from RF EMF bear the “burden of proof”, see Pages 326 and 349. Yet the UN’s telecom-industry-dominated “radiation protection” NGO negligently dismisses extensive and convincing evidence of biological harm from non-thermal RF EMF exposure.
Experimental Oncology: Significant biological effects occur after short-term (e.g. only a few minutes) and/or extremely weak microwave exposure, several orders of magnitude below current standards. The currently used “thermal” assessment of microwave exposure hazards is neither safe, nor appropriate.
Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association: In 1974, the US allowed 10 to 1,000 times the acceptable RF EMF exposure as Poland and the (former) U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia – see Table 1. Non-thermal or specific effects from RF EMF are more difficult to detect than those caused by thermal exposure.
Fertility and Sterility: Human semen exposed to radiation from a cell phone (850 MHz; 1 Watt; SAR 1.46 W/kg; 1–40 μW/cm2; non-thermal; 60 minute exposure) showed a significant decrease in sperm motility and viability. Keeping the cell phone in a trouser pocket in talk mode may negatively affect spermatozoa and impair male fertility.
Fertility and Sterility: Use of cell phones decrease the semen quality in men by decreasing the sperm count, motility, viability, and normal morphology. The decrease in sperm parameters depends on duration of daily exposure to cell phones, independent of initial semen quality.
International Journal of Neuroscience: A 900 MHz cell phone, emitting 3–4 watts adjacent to the ear and brain, induces abnormally slow electroencephalogram waves in the delta band of awake people. This pattern is pathological in awake subjects – (i.e., note similarities to the EEG of sleeping demential patients). After turning off the phone, the pattern progressively decreased in amplitude, disappearing in ten minutes.
Environment International: Pooled studies suggest that mobile phone exposure negatively affects sperm quality.
British Medical Journal (BMJ): Advocacy scientists and journalists who claim there is “no evidence” of health effects from electromagnetic fields and microwaves are misleading the public. Publication lists 50 scientists who counter these misleading claims.
Pathophysiology: EMFs disturb immune function through stimulation of various allergic and inflammatory responses, undermining tissue repair processes. This increases risks for cancer, DNA damage, and neurological effects, which can occur at exposure levels significantly below current safety limits.
Electronic Physician: The results of this study and International Commission of Non Ionization Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) reports showed the people who spend more than 50 minutes a day using a cell phone could have early dementia or other thermal damage due to the burning of glucose in the brain.
Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences: Chronic radiation at 900 to 950 MHz decreased seizure thresholds in mice significantly. Continued and prolonged contact with mobile phone radiation might increase human risk of seizure attacks and should be limited.
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics: Significantly reduced numbers of immature eggs found in the ovaries in the offspring of pregnant rats kept in polypropylene cages with mobile phones placed beneath the cage during their entire pregnancy. Exposure was 11.75 hours in standby mode, followed by 15 minutes in talk mode.
Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics: The biological effects of RF EMF (at 960 MHz) are not limited to “thermal effects”. There was a significant change in cell proliferation between non-thermal exposure at either 39 or 35 degrees C, and non-exposed control cells.
Urological Research: Rats confined in plexiglas cages with cellular phone 0.5 cm under the cages, were exposed 2 hours/day for 1 month, 0.14 W/kg. Microscopic evaluation revealed significant changes in the testes of rats testes exposed to cell phones in speech mode.
BioMed Research International: Nearly 100% of studies employing real mobile phone exposures reveal adverse effects, which include associations to brain tumors, declines in animal populations, and symptoms of un-wellness.
Environmental Health Perspectives: Interpreting studies on the health effects of radio frequency radiation should take financial sponsorship into account. In multivariate logistic regression analysis of studies funded by the telecommunication industry, the only factor that strongly predicted the reporting of statistically significant effects was whether or not the study was funded exclusively by industry. The role of the funding source in the design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of the study needs to be revealed.
Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure: Children are at greater risk than adults when exposed to any carcinogen, and they absorb more microwave radiation than adults. The exposure limit for laptop computers and tablets is set when devices are tested 20 cm away from the body. Belgium, France, India and other technologically sophisticated governments are passing laws and/or issuing warnings about children’s use of wireless devices.
Toxicology Letters: Non-thermal RF-EMF ultrafine particles (i.e., under 0.1 microns) that are produced by combustion processes and emissions from wireless communication devices like mobile phones. These particles can be internalized by white blood cells, increasing free radical release.
Physics in Medicine and Biology: The geometry of a child’s head significantly increases mobile phone EMF absorption in the brain, eye, cortex, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. Children have especially high bone marrow conductivity, greatly increasing EMF absorption.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Specific absorption rate for people with metal-framed spectacles and metallic implants can exceed ANSI/IEEE standards in: a) Adults while using mobile phones at 900 MHz, and in b) Children while using mobile phones at 2100 MHz.
Physics in Medicine and Biology: Specific absorption rates increase by factors of 400–700 in tissue surfaces adjacent to metallic implants, i.e., pins and rings near mobile phones. Increases were greatest when implants were on the skin, and had a resonance length or diameter, when exposed to 900 or 1800 MHz cell phones. Specific absorption rates averaged over 1 and 10 gram masses increased by factors of 3 and 2, respectively. At typical power levels of mobile phones the enhancement is unlikely to be problematic.
Himalayan Physics: EMF radiated from mobile phones were two times higher during speaking that listening. During contact with the base station, the field was much higher than the 42 V/m that is the limit specified by the ICN/RP. It must be noted that, a max SAR value of 10.8 W/kg gives rise to a temperature rise in the brain of about 0.931 deg C.
La Medicina Del Lavoro (Occupation Medicine – Italian): Uncertainties complicate preventive examinations that protect European Union healthcare workers operating MRI equipment, at non-thermal exposures to 10 to 1,000 HZ, and RF EMF at 1 MHz to 300 MHz. Observed symptoms include reversible arrhythmia (possibly leading to ventricular fibrillation); decreased working memory and eye-hand coordination; and changes in blood pressure/heart-rate. NOTE: See industry criticism of the EU’s occupational health regulation (i.e., Directive 2004/40/EC).
Joint Publications Research Service (U.S./U.S.S.R., 1974): The U.S. once recognized non-thermal biological effects of RF EMF, including changes in: body weight; arterial pressure; reproductive function; central nervous system; and electromyography (muscle control signals). Reference Page 13, Table 1 “Experimental Studies on the Biological Effects of Very Low Intensity Microwaves (150 μW/cm2)”. Also reference Page 41, Table 1, distances for signal to reach 1 or 10 μW/cm2, for millimeter and centimeter waves. Safe distances range from 1,200 to 3,800 meters.
Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Significant correlation between cell phone signal strength and decreased perceptual accuracy/headaches, between 20 and 600 meters from cell phone towers in Vienna and Carinthia, Austria (900 MHz, average 20 to 50 μW/m2, maximum 4.1 mW/m2). Cell phone towers should be located to minimize neighbors’ exposure.
Environmental Reviews (Canadian Science Publishing): Hard and fast setbacks are difficult to recommend in all circumstances. Deployment of base stations should be kept as efficient as possible to avoid exposure of the public to unnecessary high levels of RFR. As a general guideline, cell base stations should not be located less than 1500 ft (about 500 meters) from the population, and at a height of about 150 ft (about 50 meters).
International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health: Increased prevalence of adverse neurobehavioral symptoms or cancer in populations living closer than 500 meters from cell phone towers, despite exposure levels within international safety guidelines
Science of the Total Environment: Mortality rate from neoplasia was 34.76 per 10,000 inhabitants within 500 meters of cell phone towers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Outside of these areas, neoplasia deaths were significantly reduced. The largest density power was 40.78 μW/cm2, and the smallest was 0.04 μW/cm2.
Environmental Medicine Society (German): Cancer cases increased significantly among people living within 400 meters of a new cell phone tower (935 MHz) in Naila, Germany. Cancer rates close to the tower increased by a factor of 3.11 during the second five year period of the cell phone tower’s operation, and 1.26 during the first five-year period. Cancer patients near the new tower fell ill on average, 8 years earlier.
International Journal of Cancer Prevention: Population living within 350 meters of a 850 MHz, 1500 watt cell phone tower in Netanya, Israel experienced a 4 fold cancer increase (i.e., carcinoma of the breast, ovary, lung, kidney, bone, and Hodgkin’s disease). Obvious potentially confounding variables were ruled out.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Residents living within 80 meters of cell phone towers have significantly more DNA damage and antioxidants in peripheral blood lymphocytes, compared to residents 300 meters from cell phone towers. Study funded by the Government of India, and New Delhi.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Statistically significant genetic damage in blood leukocytes in residents living within 300 meters of a 800–2200 MHz cell phone tower in Punjab, India. The power density in the area within 300 m from the base station exceeded permissive limits.
Pathology Biology (France): Distance from cell phone base station correlates with: a) Fatigue to a distance of 200 to 300 meters; b) Headaches, sleep disturbances, and feelings of discomfort at distances up to 200 meters; c) Irritability, depressive tendencies, and lowering of libido up to 100 meters; and d) Nausea, loss of appetite, visual disturbances at distances to 10 meters. Symptoms significantly more common for women, and older subjects. Human occupancy should exceed 300 meters from cell phone base stations. (Full text link: Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine)
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Residents of Isfahan, Iran had significantly elevated nausea, headache, dizziness, irritability, discomfort, nervousness, depression, sleep disturbance, memory loss and lowered libido if they live closer than 300 meters from mobile phone base station antennas. Suggest locating base station antennas at least 300 meters from populations. (Publication “retracted” due to overlap with the following “Diyala Journal of Medicine” study)
Occupational and Environmental Medicine (Diyala Journal of Medicine): Residents of Baquba, Iraq had significantly elevated headaches, fatigue, sleep disturbances, irritability, feeling of discomfort, dizziness, and cardiovascular problems if they lived closer than 100 meters to mobile phone base stations. Advisable to locate cellular phone base stations further than 300 meters from population centers as a precautionary measure, to minimize neighbors’ exposure.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: La Ñora, Murcia, Spain residents had statistically significant exposure-response associations between RFR intensity and fatigue, irritability, headaches, nausea, loss of appetite, sleeping disorder, depressive tendency, feeling of discomfort, difficulty in concentration, loss of memory, visual disorder, dizziness and cardiovascular problems. Severity of the symptoms lessen at distances exceeding 250 meters from the antenna, once exposures drop below 0.1 µW/cm2, i.e., far below the Spanish and European “safety standard” of 450 µW/cm2 at frequencies of 900 MHz.
Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine: Risk factors for pregnant women in Beijing who suffered spontaneous abortions include living within 100 meters of a cell phone tower.
Saudi Medical Journal: Fetal and neonatal heart rate increases, and cardiac output decreases when pregnant women in Cairo Egypt were exposed to non-thermal radiation from a 900 MHz cell phone, held on the right side of the head, in dialing mode, for 3 cycles of 10 minutes on/10 minutes off.
Scientific Reports: The increased risk of miscarriage is associated with high magnetic frequencies, it was consistently observed regardless of the sources of high magnetic frequencies. The association was much stronger if magnetic frequencies are measured on a typical day of participants’ pregnancies.
American Journal of Epidemiology: Pregnancies of mothers reporting radio- and microwave-frequency electromagnetic radiation use 6 months prior to the pregnancy or during the first trimester were more likely to result in miscarriage. Miscarriage risk increases with the level of exposure.
Pathology Biology (France): Age correlates with sensitivity of subjects living within 100 meters of cell phone base stations. Locations facing the antennas are the worst position for experiencing symptoms studied.
Oncology Letters: Excessive radiation exposure measured in a Stockholm apartment located 12 meters from cell phone antennas on the roof of an adjacent building.
Neurotoxicology: The prevalence of neuropsychiatric effects such as headache, memory changes, dizziness, tremors, depressive symptoms, and sleep disturbance were significantly higher among Menoufiya, Egypt residents in buildings adjacent to roof-mounted cell phone antennas (Exposure during study 0.002 to 0.0067 mW/cm2; Egyptian maximum permissible exposure limits = 0.008 mW/cm2 for continuous exposure; 0.4 mW/cm2 for intermittent exposure).
Occupational Medicine (Polish): Survey revealed that people living in the vicinity of base stations report circulatory system problems, sleep disturbances, irritability, depression, blurred vision, concentration difficulties, nausea, lack of appetite, headache and vertigo.
Environmental Medicine Society (German): Elevated levels of stress hormones (adrenaline, noradrenaline), and lowered dopamine and PEA levels found in the urine of residents during the first 6 months of activating the first cell tower in Rimbach, Germany. The cell tower’s activation also correlated with increases in sleep problems, headache, vertigo, concentration problems, and allergies. Elevated stress hormone levels persisted throughout the first 1.5 years of this experiment.
Scientific Reports: First experimental evidence (in mice) of neuropathology due to in-utero cellular telephone radiation.
PLOS One: Simultaneous exposure to lead and RF from mobile phone use was associated with increased ADHD symptom risk.
Epidemiology: Exposure to cell phones prenatally-and, to a lesser degree, postnatally-was associated with behavioral difficulties such as emotional and hyperactivity problems around the age of school entry
Journal of Laryngology and Otology: Inner ear cellular structural damage in rats caused by radiofrequency radiation exposure during development.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: 900 MHz radiation emitted from mobile/cellular phones can be an agent to alter some biomolecules such as protein
Scientific Reports: First direct evidence for neurological effects of RF-EMF exposure (835-MHz; 4.0 W/kg SAR; 5 h daily for 12 weeks), including changes in neurotransmitter levels in the mouse brain and in the level of difficulty of locomotor recovery after MPTP treatment.
Bioelectromagnetics: The genotoxic effect of electromagnetic radiation (830 MHz, 1.6 to 8.8 W/kg) on human peripheral blood lymphocytes is elicited via a non-thermal pathway. Result is a major “somatic mutation”, leading to genomic instability that can result in cancer.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Four week exposure to 1.8 GHz RF EMF in adolescent male mice correlates with increased anxiety, based on significant decreases after RF exposure of γ-aminobutyric acid and aspartic acid in the brain.
Brain Research: Lab rats with prenatal exposure to RF EMF (900 MHz; 2 W/kg; 0.6 to 1.4 mW/cm2; 60 minutes/day) have decreased brain cells in the region responsible for episodic memories, and spontaneous exploration of novel environments.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Among 62 studies that investigated the effects of RF EMF fields on spatial memory and place learning, published between 1993 and 2019, twenty one studies reported significant impairments or deficits, while four studies reported beneficial consequences.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: (1) The difference between ELF-EMF-exposed and control cells as well as the ‘effect size’ due to ELF-EMF exposure were biologically small (although statistically significant) with very few exceptions. (2) At certain ELF-EMF exposure conditions there was a statistically significant increase in genetic damage assessed from some end-points. (3) The mean indices for chromosomal aberrations and micronuclei end-points in ELF-EMF-exposed and control cells were within the spontaneous levels reported in historical database. (4) Considerable evidence for publication bias was found in the meta-analysis.
Pakistan Journal of Zoology: 22 healthy fertile male volunteers, ages 20-35 years, were recruited from Faisalabad, Pakistan. The mean fast progressive sperm percentage and non-motile percentage were significantly (lower (4.28%) and higher (4.06%), respectively) in the group group exposed to 900 MHz to 1.800 GHz cell phone radiation, compared to un-exposed group.
Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine: Duration of exposure to the waves emitted by the GSM cell phones associated with higher percentage of sperm cells of abnormal morphology, and a decrease in the percentage of sperm cells in vital progressing motility. The 15% of married couples in Poland with fertility problems may have causes including exposure to chemicals, ionizing radiation, stress, and EMF.
Radiation Research: Genetically cancer-prone lab mice had 2.4 times the cancer rate of unexposed mice, after being exposed (900 MHz; pulse repetition frequency 217 Hz; 2.6-13 W/m2; 0.008-4.2 W/kg, averaging 0.13-1.4 W/kg).
International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health: Eighty-five percent of the people who consulted public authorities about RF EMF symptoms were unsatisfied with responses. Consultation with self-help groups or building ecologists usually fulfilled expectations.
Clinical Biochemistry: Long term exposure to RF EMF (950 MHz; per ICNIRP-guidelines for limiting EMF to non-thermal exposure) caused reduction in female plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone, serum cortisol, thyroid hormones (especially T3), serum prolactin, and testosterone levels. Need to educate public about the hazardous outcomes of long term exposure to RFR. (Full text link)
Pathophysiology: Swedish youth who began using either cordless or mobile phones regularly before age 20 have greater than a fourfold increased risk of ipsilateral glioma. Pregnant women should keep cellphones away from their abdomen and men who wish to become fathers should not keep these phones on while in their pocket. (Full text link)
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Use of wireless phones for 20+ years reduced survival rates for cancer patients with glioma (nervous system cancer) and astrocytoma (brain cancer). RF-EMF should be regarded as a human carcinogen.
International Journal of Oncology: Glioma (malignant tumor of nervous system) risk associated with use of mobile or cordless phones. Risk increases with latency time, cumulative use in hours, and was highest in subjects with first use before the age of 20. (Link to full study)
Anatomy and Cell Biology: The reproductive capacity of neural stem cells is significantly affected by cell phone radiation exposure (900-MHz, 2.287 W/kg, duration 0, 15, 30, and 120 minutes). A significant decrease in neural stem cell clusters and cluster diameters was observed as exposure time increases.
Environmental Health Perspectives: Stem cells react to more radio frequencies than other cells, thus they should be analyzed when validating: a) Cancer risk, and b) Safe mobile communication signals. Stem cells were the most affected cells in this study, at cell phone frequencies of 915 MHz and 1.947 GHz.
Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering: Human stem cell viability and proliferation rates were significantly reduced for stem cells that develop into connective tissues, bones, blood, and the lymph system, after exposure to cell phone RF EMF (GSM 900 MHz; 0.795 and 2 W/kg; 354.6 µW/cm2) – i.e., a non-thermal exposure.
Scientific Reports: Development of mouse embryonic neural stem cells were impaired by exposure to RF-EMF (1800 MHz; 4 W/kg; 3 day exposure). Results identify a potentially hazardous effect of RF-EMF exposure on brain development at lower intensities over longer exposure times. More attention should be given to the potential adverse effects of RF-EMF exposure on brain development.
Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine: Both the pathophysiological (i.e., single-strand DNA breaks in cells) and therapeutic (bone growth) effects associated with non-thermal EMF effects in humans and higher animals is based on voltage-gated calcium channels.
Reviews on Environmental Health: Hundreds of studies show non-thermal exposure to microwaves induces negative biological impacts, contradicting the assumptions of a Canadian “Safety” Panel. Problems repeatedly associated with non-thermal exposure include: cancer; broken DNA; male/female infertility; sleep disruption; heart problems (i.e., tachycardia, arrhythmia, sudden cardiac death); diverse neuropsychiatric effects including depression; and oxidative stress. Voltage-gated calcium channel activation induces biological impacts at non-thermal RF EMF levels.
BioMed Research International: Glioma (i.e., a nervous system malignant tumor) is caused by radio frequency radiation. Revision of current guidelines for exposure to RF radiation is needed.
Brain and Behavior: Mobile phone radiation induces chemical changes in the brain which are associated with memory deficits.
Pathophysiology: Elevated risk for malignant melanoma in the head and neck region among cell phone users who started using cell phones before the age of 20 years.
Pathophysiology: Consistent pattern of an increased risk for glioma and acoustic neuroma after at least 10 years of mobile phone use. The current standard for exposure to microwaves during mobile phone use is not safe for long-term exposure and needs to be revised.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Among 100 currently available peer-reviewed studies dealing with oxidative effects of low-intensity radio frequency radiation, 93 identified oxidative effects. Cancer and non-cancer pathologies are among the results.
Archives of Environmental Health: Correlation between melanoma incidence and the number of FM radio (i.e. frequency modulated – 87.5-108 MHz) transmitters. Melanoma is associated with exposure to frequency modulated broadcasting.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Melanoma, breast, and other cancers significantly associated with the density of FM broadcasting (i.e. frequency modulated – 87.5-108 MHz transmitters) in the European countries examined
Medical Science Monitor: The rapid rise in melanoma skin cancer after 1955 correlates with the rollout of FM/TV broadcasting (i.e. frequency modulated transmitters). Disturbance of cell repair mechanisms by body-resonant electromagnetic fields amplifies carcinogenic effects resulting from cell damage by UV solar radiation.
European Journal of Cancer Prevention: Strong association between cancer risk and the use of horizontally polarized FM broadcasting radiation (i.e. frequency modulated – 87.5-108 MHz). This information should form the basis for initiating relevant corrective actions by responsible authorities.
American Journal of Epidemiology: Children who reside within 2 km of the nearest AM radio transmitter are significantly more likely to develop leukemia, as compared with children residing over 20 km from AM radio transmitters. (300 kHz to 3 GHz; 0.2 to 4 V/M) (Full text link)
American Journal of Epidemiology: Male mortality and childhood leukemia risks significantly declined with increasing distance from Rome, Italy radio and TV station transmitters (100 kHz to 300 GHz).
Cancers: Strong correlations between: a) Wavelength of the FM band (i.e., 87–108 MHz), b) Timeline for rapid increases in FM radio and TV broadcasting in Nordic countries, c) The human body’s geometry and ability to absorb radiation, and d) Cancer.
American Journal of Epidemiology: Increasing distance from British radio and TV transmitters significantly correlates with declining risks for adult leukemia, skin, and bladder cancers.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Exponential increase in Estonia’s melanoma rate, as predicted in 2002, was confirmed in 2016. Projected medical impacts were based on Nordic data applied to the roll-out of FM broadcasting after Estonia’s independence from the U.S.S.R.
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology: Radiation from cell phones, laptops, Wi-Fi and microwave ovens may contributes to male infertility. In-vitro and in-vivo studies suggest RF-EMF exposure negatively affects sperm quality.
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology: The maximum acceptable exposure limit should be lowered for cellular phones. Non-thermal RF-EMW from commercially available cell phones might affect the fertilizing potential of spermatozoa.
Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine: Data indicates serious hazards related to overuse of cell phones, and thus illustrate detrimental potential effects of microwaves on the brain that appear to lead to the development of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Journal of Cellular Physiology: Association between childhood cancers, particularly leukemia and brain cancer, and exposure to low- and high-frequency EMF suggested a causal role of 900 MHz EMFs.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Elementary school students exposed to higher RF-EMFR from nearby cell phone base stations have significantly higher rates of HbA1c (glycated hemoglobin). Their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes mellitus is significantly higher than students in elementary schools located over 1 KM from cell phone base stations.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Cell phone radiation elevated blood glucose in a Type 1 diabetic patient, affecting glucose transport proteins/ion channels, insulin conformational changes, and oxidative stress.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: Talking on a mobile phone for 15 or 30 min significantly increased single-strand DNA breaks in cells of hair roots close to the phone. Significantly more damage resulted after 30 min than after 15 min of phone use
Journal of Psychosomatic Research: Patient management strategy should distinguish between patients with electromagnetic hypersensitivity symptoms (i.e., anxiety, depression, somatization, exhaustion, and stress) and patients with symptoms related to specific EMF sources.
Lancet: Resting blood pressure increases during exposure to RF EMF from a cell phone (i.e., Non-thermal), 900 MHz, 2 Watt, 217 Hz.
Reviews on Environmental Health: Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is an EMF-related health problem that warrants a new designation under the “International Classification of Diseases”.
Neurological Sciences: Mobile phone radiation could affect emotionality of rats without affecting general locomotion.
Epidemiology: Miscarriage risk correlates with increasing exposure to magnetic fields above 16 milligauss.
Clinics (Sao Paulo): Non-thermal exposure to radiation from GSM cell phones (0.9/1.8 GHz, 1 hour/day for 28 days) induces oxidative stress and reduces sperm motility in rats
American Journal of Mens Health: Male teenage student cognitive function declines with increasing levels of cell phone base station radiation exposure in schools.
Industrial Health: Calls on a cell phone appear to alter the heart rate in healthy subjects.
Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology: Damaging effects of nonionizing radiation result from the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and subsequent radical formation and from direct damage to cellular macromolecules including DNA. Depression, memory status, insomnia, and hair loss, were significantly associated with exposure to EMR.
Toxicology and Industrial Health: Maternal exposure to mobile phones adversely affects the cognitive performance of both female and male offspring rats using behavioral and electrophysiological techniques.
Archives of Medical Research: Immature rats exposed to 900-MHz electromagnetic fields suffer irreversible oxidative damage in the major lymphoid organs, polymorphonuclear leukocytes and plasma.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: Prenatal exposure of rat kidneys to 900 MHz EMF resulted in increased total kidney volume and decreased the numbers of glomeruli. Melatonin and omega-3 prevented adverse effects of EMF on the kidneys.
Bioelectromagnetics: 915 MHz cell phone radiation affects expression of genes in rat brain cells.
Mutation Research: Single and double DNA strand breaks occurred after RF-EMF exposure (1800 MHz; 1.2 and 2 W/kg; different modulations; 4, 16 and 24 hour exposure; intermittent 5 min on/10 min off or continuous wave). The induced DNA damage was not based on thermal effects.
International Journal of Andrology: Significant genotoxic effect on epididymal spermatozoa (i.e., sperm after development in testes) in mice exposed to low power RF EMF (900 MHz; 90 mW/kg – i.e., non-thermal exposure; 12 hours/day; for 7 days).
Journal of Andrology: Sperm from men using mobile phones is less concentrated, has decreased motility (particularly rapid progressive motility), and decreased viability. These abnormalities seem to be directly related to the duration of mobile phone use.
First International Journal of Andrology: Cell phone use negatively affects sperm quality in men. Patients using cell phones had significantly higher testosterone and lower luteinising hormone levels than those who did not use cell phones.
Archives of Andrology: Cell phone possession and the daily transmission time correlated: a) Negatively with the proportion of rapid progressive motile sperm, and b) Positively with the proportion of slow progressive motile sperm. The prolonged use of cell phones may have negative effects on the sperm motility characteristics. (See full text of study)
Indian Journal of Experimental Biology: A significant decrease in total sperm count along with increased cell death in male rats exposed to RF EMF (2 hours/day, 35 days, 0.9 W/kg). Decrease in sperm count and an increase in apoptosis may be causative factor due to mobile radiation exposure leading to infertility.
Brain Research: 900 MHz electromagnetic fields cause blood-brain barrier damage and cognitive impairment in rats
Mutation Research: 900MHz radiofrequency fields cause mitochondrial DNA and oxidative damage.
National Toxicology Program: Increased malignant schwannomas and cardiomyopathy found in the hearts of rats after exposure to increasing levels of radiofrequency radiation at and above allowable limits for cell phone emissions.
Bioelectromagnetics: Intermittent exposure to cell phone electromagnetic fields causes small short- and medium-term effects on cerebral blood circulation and heart rate.
Metabolic Brain Disease: Exposure to cell phone electromagnetic radiation, vibration, and ringtone produced a significant effect on anxiety-like behavior and oxidative stress in rats.
Journal of Plant Signaling and Behavior: The proportion of plant cells directly interacting with EMF radiation at the organism/environment interface is much higher in plants than it is in animals, making them especially suited to study EMF effects on life. An organism’s general architecture is of primary importance for its ability to perceive electromagnetic radiation.
Science of the Total Environment: Significant differences found between the damaged side of trees that face a phone mast and the opposite side, as well as differences between the exposed side of damaged trees and all other groups of trees in both sides. Thus, we found that side differences in measured values of power flux density corresponded to side differences in damage.
BioMed Research International: Exposure to high frequency electromagnetic fields damages plants at the cellular, molecular, and entire organism scales. Metabolic activities are modified, gene expression is altered, and growth is reduced.
Journal of Trace and Microphobe Techniques: Flax is well suited for studying the effects of electromagnetic radiation. Calcium-deprived seedlings flax seedlings exposed for 2 hours to the radiation from a GSM telephone 0.9 GHz (i.e., at non-thermal levels) respond similarly to a minute of cold shock exposure.
Journal of Plant Signaling and Behavior: Plants undergo physiological modification after exposure to RF EMF. The energy status of plant cells (i.e., as characterized by ATP and AEC) rapidly declines after exposure to RF EMF.
Journal of Plant Signaling and Behavior: An organism’s general architecture is of primary importance for its ability to perceive electromagnetic radiation. The proportion of plant cells directly interacting with EMF radiation at the organism/environment interface is much higher in plants than it is in animals, making them especially suited to study EMF effects on life.
Journal of Biosciences: Cell phone radiation causes biochemical changes that impair the early growth of mung bean seedlings.
Environmental Health Perspectives: Highly significant evidence of neuronal damage in the cortex, hippocampus, and basal ganglia in the brains of rats exposed for 2 hours to mobile phone RF EMF (915 MHz; 0.24. 2.4, and 24 W/m2; 2 mW/kg, 20 mW/kg, and 200 mW/kg). This is the first evidence of neuronal damage from non-thermal RF EMF.
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health: Studies with duration that exceeds expected latency period are consistently finding an increased cancer risk associated with mobile phone use.
Surgical Neurology: Epidemiological evidence suggests a link between prolonged cell phone usage and the development of brain tumors on the side of the head that an individual uses for cell phone calls.
Surgical Neurology: Short term studies that find no association between cell phone usage and cancer miss the problem. Incorporating cell phone billing records for the 10 years prior addresses the long latency time for RF EMF health effects.
Epidemiology: Increased acoustic neuroma risk associated with mobile phone usage of at least 10 years.
Occupational Environmental Medicine: Mobile phone use for 10 or more years yields a consistent pattern of increased risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma
Bratislava Medical Journal (Russian): One hour per day exposure to a 900 MHz cell phone, with a power density of 146.60 µW/cm2, induced oxidative stress in rat brains, resulting in altered behavioral performance.
Radiation Biology Ecology (Russian): Based on biological effects observed in rats exposed to cell phone radiation at 900 MHz, a power density of 25 µW/cm2 (or 250 mW/m2) is recommended as the threshold for observable radio-frequency biological impacts. (FFF Editor’s Note: By comparison the US safety standard allows a 40-fold higher exposure, i.e., 10 W/m2).
Radiation Biology Ecology (Russian): Exposure of rats to low-intensity 900 MHz frequency electromagnetic fields cause changes in their energetic metabolism, regardless of whether the exposure was for 2 hours, or a fraction of 2 hours.
Differentiation – Research in Biological Diversity: GSM mobile phone radiation (900 MHz, 1-hour non-thermal exposure) facilitates development of brain cancer, by increasing blood-brain barrier permeability due to likely accumulation of brain tissue damage.
Reproductive Health: Non-thermal RF-EMF (900 MHz, 0.66 W/kg, 2 hours/day, for 50 days) triggers death of rat sperm, resulting in male infertility.
Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics: 3G mobile phone radiation affects the brain function and causes several neurological disorders.
Medscape General Medicine: Cellular telephone use is associated with an increased risk of brain tumors in area with highest exposure.
Experimental Oncology: Revised safety limits needed to mitigate the human brain’s exposure to excessive mobile phone radiation.
Journal of the American Medical Association: Brain glucose metabolism increases in the region closest to the antenna during 50-minute cell phone exposure – effects remain unknown.
Environment International: Decline in memory performance over one year associated with duration of wireless phone use.
Pathophysiology: Short-term memory in mice is affected by mobile phone radiation
Reviews on Environmental Health: Long-term exposure to EMF is a risk factor for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and male infertility… Treatment should focus on the prevention or reduction of EMF exposure.
Neurology: Electromagnetic field exposure is etiologically associated (i.e. cause demonstrated) with the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease.
Hellenic Journal of Nuclear Medicine: Mobile phone use has a significant negative impact on the working memory performance of human participants.
Pathophysiology: Existing EMF public safety limits are inadequate to protect public health. New public safety limits, as well as limits on further deployment of untested technologies, are warranted.
Scientific Reports: Electromagnetic radiation at 835 MHz and 4.0 W/kg induced demyelination, hyperactivity, and autophagy in mice – demyelination commonly results in multiple sclerosis. Note the FCC limit for cell phone radiation is 1.6 W/kg.
Bioelectromagnetics: Lymphocytes exposed to 50 Hz magnetic fields and 915 MHz microwaves can induce comparable responses, both in healthy and hypersensitive donors. Effects are similar to stress response induced by heat shock.
Scientific Reports: Radiation from cell phones at 800-1900 MHz causes neuropathology in the offspring of pregnant mice.
Scientific Reports: Brainstem auditory circuits can be affected by 1850 MHz electromagnetic fields shortly after birth.
Journal of International Medical Research: Microwave exposure produces non-thermal effects at the cellular and molecular levels that correlate with damage to lens tissues in the eye, and may be cataractogenic.
Reviews on Environmental Health: Existing standards for radiofrequency exposure are inadequate… The cost of doing nothing will result in many young people developing cancer.
Pathophysiology: Rat blood-brain barrier has increased permeability at 7 and 14 days after 2 hours of exposure to non-thermal radiation from 900 MHz cell phones.
Practical Veterinary Surgeon (German): Dairy cows in close proximity to new TV and radio antennas (87 MHz to 18.7 GHz) had significantly reduced milk production, reduced their grazing time to a few minutes before “taking cover” from the antennas, and suffered conjunctivitis. An afflicted cow was moved 20 km from the antennas, the cow returned to normal, but problems quickly recurred when the cow was returned to the new antennas. After publicizing this case, other farmers reported similar results.
Science of the Total Environment: RF EMF exposure near cell phone towers alters insect/bird receptor organs that orient them with the earth’s magnetic field. Wildlife implications near cell phone towers in urban, natural, and protected areas.
Science of the Total Environment: Effects of radio transmitters on animals include reduced survival, decreased productivity, changes in behavior and movement patterns and a biased sex ratio. Electromagnetic radiation produced by radio transmitters has not been considered so far in research.
Apidologie (Biology of Insects): Increased mortality among 8 day old honey bees when exposed to 13.56 MHz and 868 MHz. Recommend limiting honeybees to 2 hours per day exposure to radio waves.
Journal of Apicultural Research: DNA damage increased significantly in honey bee larvae exposed to RF-EMF at 900 MHz a with modulating field level (80% AM 1 kHz sinus) at 23 V/m.
Journal of Research in Agriculture and Animal Science: Two working cell phones kept in test colonies caused significant decrease in colony strength, honey stores, pollen reserves, number of foragers returning to their hives, egg laying capacity of queens, and disturbed the navigational skills of foragers.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Ants exposed to 900 MHz at 1.6 mW/m² had significantly deteriorated responses to trail/area-marking/alarm pheromones, and ability for social food collection.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: GSM 900 MHz radiation may have a disastrous impact on a wide range of insects relying on olfactory and/or visual memory – especially bees.
Journal of Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Protozoan exposed to a GSM 900 MHz 2 watt cell phone had defective cellular membranes, moving more slowly. Altered physiology included problems with cytopharynx, pulse vesicles, cilia, and trichocysts.
Toxicology International: Cell phone in talk mode placed in beehives initially reduces motor activity of the worker bees, followed by mass migration of bees toward the “talk mode” cell phone. There was an initial rise in the concentration of biomolecules including proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids.
Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research (India): The behavioral pattern of honey bees alters when they are in close proximity to mobile phones and towers. Electromagnetic radiation exposure provides a better explanation for colony collapse disorder than other theories.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: GSM 900 MHz and 1.8 GHz mobile phone antennas decreased fruit fly reproductive capacity due to cell death induction. Cell phone bioactivity was evident at exposure intensities down to 1 μW/cm2, with maximum bioactivity at 10 μW/cm2, about 20-30 cm from the mobile phone antenna.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Common frog tadpoles had 90% mortality at exposure levels from cell phone tower radiation 140 meters away, with 1.8 to 3.5 V/m. Tadpole mortality was 4.2% for those protected from cell tower radiation by a Faraday cage.
Science of the Total Environment: Documented effects of radio transmitters on animals include reduced survival, decreased productivity, changes in behavior and movement patterns and a biased sex ratio. Laboratory scientists investigating the orientation of animals know they have to shield the place where experiments are performed to prevent interference from man-made radiation, as anthropogenic signals may distort the results.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Significant declines observed in the mean House Sparrow density of Valladolid, Spain, correlating with the areas having the highest electric field strength.
Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering: Frogs exposed to 900 MHz radiation from a Nokia 1616 cellular phone, 15 cm from the receiver, experience altered patterns of muscle extraction.
Toxicology: Newts exposed to pulsed electromagnetic field had abnormal regeneration of limbs after amputation. Problems include loss of a digit, fused carpals, and long bone defects.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: GSM 900 MHz and 1.8 GHz mobile phones decreased biological activity in fruit flies. Both types of radiation were found to decrease significantly and non thermally the insect’s reproductive capacity, but GSM 900 MHz seems to be even more bioactive than DCS 1800 MHz.
Biology and Medicine: It is justified to conclude that RF-EMF radiation exposure can change neurotransmitter functions, blood-brain barrier, morphology, electrophysiology, cellular metabolism, calcium efflux, and gene and protein expression in certain types of cells even at lower intensities.
Indian Journal of Experimental Biology: Regular and long term use of microwave devices (mobile phone, microwave oven) at domestic levels can have negative impact on the brain – and cause neurodegenerative diseases.
Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Increased risk of glioma in long-term mobile phone users with high RF exposure (800–900 MHz and 1800–1900 MHz) and much smaller, increases in meningioma risk.
Medical Hypotheses: RF EMF has the potential to temporally modulate the nervous system, particularly when populations of neurons are required to act together. This modulation may be completely harmless for the fully developed nervous system of an adult. For an infant, this same temporal disruption might act to severely delay or disrupt vital calibration processes.
Journal of Neurosciences in Rural Practice: Mobile phones may cause significant increases in the frequency of seizures in epileptic children, brain tumors and high blood pressure. In addition, mobile phones can cause discomfort, lack of concentration, dizziness, warming of the ear, and burning skin.
Child Development: Symptoms of retarded memory, learning, cognition, attention, and behavioral problems have been reported in numerous studies. They manifest as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, as a result of EMF and RFR exposures.
Environment International: Weak pattern of lower mean cognition scores among children in relation to high frequency maternal prenatal cell phone use.
Systematic and Applied Acarology: Ticks exposed to 900 MHz RF-EMF below the proposed limit for public exposure to mobile phone base stations induces and immediate tick locomotor response, and significantly greater movement in the presence of the RF-EMF.
Experimental Oncology: Exposure of developing quail embryos to extremely low intensity RF-EMR from GSM 900 MHz leads to a significant oxidative damage to DNA in embryo cells. Oxidative changes may lead to pathologies up to oncogenic transformation of cells.
Clinical and Investigative Medicine: Inner ear problems correlate with 1800 MHz, simulated cell phone signal, applied to adult rabbits for 15 min daily for 7 days. Recommend preventing potential hazardous effects of RF EMF in humans.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Abundance of house sparrows reduced by long-term exposure to increasing radiation from 900 MHz and 1.8 GHz cell phone base stations.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Significant house sparrow population declines in European urban centers correlate with EMF field strengths at frequencies between 1 MHz and 3 GHz.
International Research Journal: Gauriya sparrow population declines correlate with increasing RF EMF exposure to cell phone towers in Bhopal, Nagpur, Jablpur, Ujjain, Gwaliar, Chhindwara, Indore, and Betul (India).
Journal of Insect Behavior: At a cell phone exposure of 1.5 V/m, i.e., the legally allowed level in Brussels: a) Trail following ability of ants became less efficient, b) Alarm pheromone response had lower quality, and c) Their locomotion slightly changed. Ants can be considered “bioindicators”.
Biomedical Research: Exposure to 900 MHz from 2 Watt cell phones increased the mortality in chicken embryos. Mortality correlates with power density at the egg location and duration of exposure.
FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau: FCC mitigation of bird deaths associated with communication towers limited to bird/tower collisions. Biological effects of electromagnetic fields not considered.
Biotelemetry: Bird feathers are receptors of microwave fields. Microwave power radiation patterns indicate a substantial increase in the microwave power collected in the forward direction. Effect potentially influences bird behavior.
Journal of the Royal Society – Interface: Avian magnetic compass works only in a narrow functional window. Radio-frequency fields in the MHz range disrupt the birds’ orientation. Birds were not able to adjust to radio-frequency fields.
Brain Stimulation: Sleep characteristics recorded by EEG show an interaction between RF EMF at 900 MHz and the renormalization of cortical excitability during sleep. There’s an apparent negative impact on normal improvements in sleep-dependent performance.
Physiological Chemistry and Physics: Ten human volunteers had temporary changes in their behavior and brain waves, based on EEG after exposure to power densities well below 10 µW/m2, after exposure (0.1 to 960 MHz, and 8.5 to 9.6 GHz pulse-modulated waves; 10-12 W/cm2 and 10-15 W/cm2; 50 minute duration). Constructive and destructive interference patterns from standing waves within the skull may interact with bioelectric generators in the brain.
Clinical Neurophysiology: Exposure to an active mobile phone (900 MHz; Three 20 minute exposures) affects neural functions in humans, altering both resting EEG patterns and the evoked neural response to auditory stimuli, with a number of these changes occurring as a function of exposure duration.
Australasian Physical & Engineering Sciences in Medicine: Mobile phone in talk-mode caused significant difference in the full-power mode trial in the EEG alpha and beta bands. Statistical analysis of EEG rhythms revealed significant differences in 7 of the 32 distinct frequencies overall.
NeuroReport: Exposure during waking hours to radiation from a cell phone (900 MHz; 30 minutes; at 1 W/kg) outlasts the waking period. Eelectroencephalogram readings during non-rapid eye movement sleep increased significantly, in the 9.75-11.25 Hz and 12.5-13.25 Hz bands.
Journal of Advanced Research: Adverse effect of non-thermal RF EMF exposure (900 MHz, at 0.025 mW/cm2, 1 hour/day, for 1 month) was observed in the physiology of rat brains. REM sleep was significantly delayed, based on EEG measurements.
Journal of Neurophysiology: The alpha band electroencephalogram was significantly affected in volunteers exposed to (non-thermal) radiation from a cell phone, GSM 900 MHz, for 26 minutes. Test design was a double-blind, counterbalanced, crossover study.
Bioelectromagnetics: The alpha band of an electroencephalogram shows significantly increased brain activity, when cell phones are activated on the heads of volunteers in a double blind counterbalanced crossover designed test. The alpha brain-wave pattern typically correlates with a “wandering mind“, or “internal thoughts” and “sleep”. Increased alpha readings also correlated with the side of the head exposed to the activated cell phone.
Neuroscience Letters: Sleep onset, as measured by electroencephalogram sleepiness rankings, is significantly delayed after exposure to 900 MHz cell phone signals in the talk mode. Cell phone signals in the listen and stand-by modes produced significantly less sleep onset delays.
Frontiers in Neuroscience: The elevated brain activity recorded by electroencephalograms during and after cell phone usage can be reduced by chips that are advertised to provide protective effects when they’re attached to mobile phone surfaces.
Journal of Sleep Research: Electroencephalograms during sleep revealed dose-dependent effects during non-REM sleep, along with decelerated reaction speed, after exposure to cell phone-like signals. Specific absorption rates were: 0.0 W/kg; 0.2 W/kg; or 5 W/kg; in a double-blind, crossover designed test.
Journal of Sleep Research: Study of randomized, double‐blind, crossover design shows brain physiology is affected by both RF EMF (900 MHz; 2 W/kg; 30 minutes) and pulsed magnetic fields. Both non‐rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement sleep are affected.
Journal of Sleep Research: Brain physiology altered significantly by pulse‐modulated RF EMF (900 MHz; 2 W/kg; pulse modulated at 14 Hz or 217 Hz; 30 minute exposure; before an 8 hour sleep period). Modulation frequency within a physiological range may be sufficient to induce these effects. Study design was partially balanced, randomized double‐blind crossover.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: The RF EMF emitted by mobile phones affects brain oscillatory responses during cognitive processing in children, as measured by electroencephalogram.
International Journal of Radiation Biology: Exposure to the RF EMF emitted by cellular phones modulates the responses of EEG oscillatory activity at approximately 8 Hz, while cognitive processes are ongoing.
PLOS One: Chronic low-intensity exposure of rats to RF-EMF (900 MHz, 1 V.m−1) for five weeks was associated with a shift in thermal preference towards 1.6 degree C warmer ambient temperature, and a greater total sleep time, based on EEG readings.
Bioelectromagnetics: The thermal preference of squirrel monkeys exposed to HF EMF (2,450 MHz, for 10 minutes, at 6 to 8 mW/cm2 power density) shifted towards significantly cooler ambient temperatures.
Neuroscience Letters (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services): Relatively short-term exposure to cell phone radiofrequency emissions can increases the normal death of cells derived from the brain, and neurons appear to be more sensitive to this effect than other nervous system cells.
Bioelectromagnetics: Under extended exposure conditions, RF signals at an average SAR of at least 5.0 W/kg are capable of inducing chromosomal damage in human lymphocytes.
Microwave Review (2005 – Russian) later Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine (2009): Because non-thermal microwaves affect not only brain cells, but also blood cells, skin and fibroblasts, stem cells, reproductive organs and sperm quality, hands-free cell phones cannot minimize all adverse health effects. Identification of signals and frequency channels/bands for mobile communication, which do not affect human cells, is needed as a high priority task for the development of safe mobile communication.
Environmental Health Perspectives: Singapore residents had significantly more headaches as their hand held cell phone usage increased. Prevalence of headache reduced more than 20% among those who used hands-free cellular devices.
Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering: Maternal exposure to EMF in mothers with dental amalgam fillings may cause elevated levels of mercury and trigger an increase in autism rates.
Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering: Mercury released from dental amalgam fillings is significantly accelerated by exposure to cell phone RF-EMFs and MRI (typical RF EMF 12 to 300 MHz). The RF EMF resonates in the tiny spaces between teeth, producing “hot spots” with rapidly expanding gas bubbles that accelerate amalgam microleakage.
Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences: MRI and microwave radiation emitted from mobile phones significantly release mercury from dental amalgam restoration.
International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Significant difference between urinary mercury in the exposed and control group, 72 hrs after MRI (typical RF EMF 12 to 300 MHz), illustrates the noxious effect of exposure to strong magnetic fields, and release of mercury from dental amalgam fillings.
Reviews on Environmental Health: Exposure to electromagnetic fields on the release of mercury from dental amalgam fillings indicates that pregnant women with dental amalgam fillings should limit their exposure to electromagnetic fields to prevent toxic effects of mercury in their fetuses.
Journal of Head and Neck Imaging: MRI (typical RF EMF 12 to 300 MHz) is not completely safe for patients with amalgam restorations. The resulting EMF enhances diffusion of mercury into the body.
PLOS One: Exposure to RF EMF (835 MHZ, at 4.0 W/kg SAR, for 5 h daily) significantly reduced neurotransmitters in the cerebral cortex in the brains of lab mice.
Miscellaneous peer-reviewed research on EMF exposures to non-radio frequency electromagnetic fields:
Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine: EMF exposure was found to alter the reproductive endocrine hormones, gonadal function, embryonic development, pregnancy, and fetal development. At the cellular level, an increase in free radicals may mediate the effect of EMFs and lead to cell growth inhibition, protein mis-folding, and DNA breaks.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: “Type 3 diabetes”, as defined in this study, requires improving power quality (i.e., eliminating “dirty electricity”) in patients’ homes, schools, and work environments. Exposure to radio frequencies, ranging from kHz to GHz, need to be minimized.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Postpartum death rate for lab mice exposed to an MRI at days 9 and 12 after gestation increased from 8% to 38%. Sperm production reduced up to 44% in adult mice exposed to MRI on day 12 after gestation.
Journal of Pineal Research: 60-Hz magnetic fields induced single- and double-strand DNA breaks in rat brain cells, which can be mitigated by injecting melatonin or PBN, since both efficiently scavenge free radicals induced by 60-Hz EMF.
OncoTargets and Therapy: Bone mineral density levels of L1–L4 vertebrae and femur were significantly lower in electrical workers.
American Journal of Industrial Medicine: OSHA noted increased incidence cancers of the testes, blood, brain, eye, and skin among police officers working with traffic radar. Among 22,197 officers employed by 83 Ontario (Canada) police departments, there are statistically significant rates of testicular and skin cancers.
Environment International: Apparent cancer cluster at a police detachment in coastal British Columbia. Among 174 current and former employees, 16 cancer cases reported. Potentially associated with police traffic radar.
American Journal of Epidemiology: Twofold increase in mortality from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) among Danish electrical workers’ estimated exposure to 50-Hz EMF. The excess mortality seems to be associated with above-average exposure to ELF EMF.
Journal of the American Medical Association – Pediatrics: A more than 3.5-fold increased rate of asthma occurs in children when mothers have more than 2.0 milligauss magnetic frequency exposure during their pregnancy, when compared to the children of mothers who had less than 0.3 milligauss magnetic frequency exposure during their pregnancy.
Canadian Institutes of Health Research: EMF between 500 Hz and 800 Hz correlate with intracerebral macroelectrodes in an epileptic patient; they occurred primarily in association with the seizure. EMF above 500 Hz possibly reflects facilitation of ictogenic neuronal hypersynchronization.
Boston Medical Center Neurology: Elevated occupational low frequency EMF exposure associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease. Based on previous published studies, the results likely pertain to the general population.
Mutation Research: Higher frequency of chromosome lesions in irradiated cells. Microwave radiation causes changes in the synthesis and structure of DNA molecules.
British Medical Journal (BMJ): Distance from home address at birth to the nearest high voltage overhead power line revealed an association with childhood leukemia. Apparent risk extends to 600 meters.
International Journal of Epidemiology: Available epidemiological evidence suggests an association between occupational exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields and Alzheimer’s disease.
Internal Medicine Journal: The risk of lymphoproliferative or myeloproliferative disorders were elevated 3-fold among adults who had lived within 300 meters of a high voltage power line during their first 15 years of life; and was elevated 5-fold for those who had lived within the same distance aged 0–5 years.
Epidemiology: Association between magnetic fields and leukemia in children with Down syndrome suggests the possibility of a causal role for magnetic fields in the etiology of leukemia among Downs syndrome patients – who have a 20-fold higher risk of leukemia.
Epidemiology: Increased risk of childhood leukemia among children whose mothers were exposed to the highest occupational levels of ELF-MF during pregnancy
Epidemiology: Miscarriage risk increases with the level of magnetic field exposure, with a threshold around 16 milligauss (mG)
French National Academy of Pharmacy: Risk of childhood leukemia associated with extremely low frequency EMF in the home when chronic exposure exceeds 0.4 μT.
American Journal of Epidemiology: Electrical wiring configurations with high current was noted in Colorado in 1976–1977 near the homes of children who developed cancer, as compared to the homes of control children. Unproven correlation may be AC magnetic fields.
British Journal of Cancer: The suggested association between exposure to 50–60 Hz magnetic fields and childhood leukemia found the 0.8% of children exposed to ≥ 0.4 μT had a significantly elevated leukemia risk that’s unlikely due to random variability.
Epidemiology: Risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia was elevated in children who used electric blankets, or children whose mothers used electric blankets or mattress pads during pregnancy.
American Journal of Public Health: Epidemiologic studies showing correlations between residential magnetic field exposure and childhood leukemia identify a consistent risk that cannot be explained by random variation.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine: Cleaning “dirty electricity” electromagnetic fields reduces asthma, ADD/ADHD, MS, chronic fatigue syndrome, and electromagnetic hypersensitivity symptoms.
Bioelectromagnetics: Acute exposure to 60 Hz magnetic fields caused a dose-dependent increase in DNA strand breaks in brain cells of rats.
Environmental Health Perspectives: Acute exposure to a 60-Hz magnetic field increases free radical formation in brain cells, leading to DNA strand breaks and cell death.
Scientific Reports: Extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (50 Hz) impair the cognitive and motor abilities of honey bees.
Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering: Exposure to short-wavelength visible light emitted from smartphones and tablets can increase the proliferation of staphylococcus aureus.
Medical Hypotheses: RFR exposure to firehouse/vehicle radios account for some of the increased health risks among firefighters. Respiratory diseases are typically not elevated among firefighters, despite their inhaled carcinogen exposure.
Peer reviewed research specific to “smart meters”:
New Zealand Medical Journal: The relationship between public health and the radio frequency emissions from cellphone technology, WiFi and electrical smart meters is scientifically and ethically flawed.
Bioelectromagnetics: Smart meter power density is 15 mW/m2. NOTE: This greatly exceeds the “scientific benchmark” for the onset of possible health risks, beginning at 30 to 60 µW/m2. (FFF Editor’s Note: This is a safety standard established by the Bioelectromagnetics Society‘s spinoff group, which investigates EMF safety, under the Bioinitiative Working Group.)
Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy: A reasonable suspicion of risk exists based on clear evidence of bioeffects at environmentally relevant levels. Prolonged exposures may reasonably be presumed to result in health impacts. A precautionary limit should be adopted for outdoor, cumulative RF exposure.
* Government and industry-loyalists (i.e., lobbyists, executives, lawyers, PR-reps, and technical staff) who are uncomfortable with, or wish to dismiss the credibility of the peer-reviewed journals cited above, should look up the the definition of “sarcasm“. The compiler of peer-reviewed evidence is a retired North Slope oil industry engineer, Ed Davis. During his career, he hiked and flew to the base of many microwave relay towers along the Trans Alaska Pipeline, then researched the associated hazards in industry trade journals and peer-reviewed studies. Ed and his allies are NOT seeking to eliminate all electromagnetic fields from Fairbanks. Instead, this website illustrates the the end result of a government that was mostly, “of/by/for the people” – until recently. We’ve tragically morphed into a country that’s mostly “of the corporation; by the corporation; and for the corporation” – i.e., in this case, regulators seek to maximize corporate profits at almost any societal cost. Industry-loyalists are asked to do their job before dismissing the cited peer-reviewed research. Faithfully replicate the test methods used in these studies, then honestly look for the identified effects.
