Green Building Forum - WiFi - should we worry about exposure? Sat, 30 May 2026 19:30:26 +0100 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.0.3 WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144102#Comment_144102 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144102#Comment_144102 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:51:12 +0100 SteamyTea http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17843953]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144107#Comment_144107 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144107#Comment_144107 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:09:10 +0100 nbwilding
Here is a nice visualisation of how the number of media stories regarding things that might kill you compares with the actual number of worldwide confirmed deaths (the number in brackets):

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/mountains-out-of-molehills/]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144109#Comment_144109 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144109#Comment_144109 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:11:53 +0100 Joiner
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/mobile-phones-may-not-harm-health-010626800.html

...says 'Mobile Phones May Not Harm Your Health'

It's the "may" that isn't helpful, being not exactly what you'd call "scientific", unless you've taken on board warnings elsewhere on the forum that, in science, there is no such thing as certainty. :wink:]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144110#Comment_144110 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144110#Comment_144110 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:16:56 +0100 Joiner WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144114#Comment_144114 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144114#Comment_144114 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:33:34 +0100 fostertom Posted By: SteamyTeaAnother study suggest that there is not a problem with radio waves:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17843953" >http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17843953
"because of TV and radio broadcasting, Wi-Fi, and other technological developments, the study said exposure to low-level radio frequency fields was almost universal and continuous."
and this phenomenon has grown steadily from about 1900, prob gathering serious momentum from 1960 (?) on. Before that, nothing but the age-old 'natural' EM radiation regime. If audible, we (all the earth's living things) would have heard a quiet old favourite melodious tune transform into a an ugly cacophony - a deafening discord of major notes; if those could be filtered out, beneath it white noise of all power levels, from deep deep to unimaginably shrill; beneath that the old tune still plugging away.

It's preposterous to imagine that the body/mind is blithely unaffected by all this, just because it doesn't impinge on any of our conscious 5 senses. If this din was readily detectable as, say, smell, it would be completely intolerable, to be eliminated as a public health matter, just as actual bad smells are today without recourse to reams of peer-reviewed science before taking action.

Who's to say that the electromagnetic howl that we've created isn't all-too-detectable to many other living things? To ones we need - bees? - things we eat? How much of their (and our) at-birth stock of homeostatic immune capability has to be devoted to holding off this assault, and how much capability is therefore left to handle the body's more traditional immune tasks? At what shortening age does the immune capability become exhausted?

"concluded that people who were not exposed above UK guideline levels did not experience any detectable symptoms."
During the same period (1900 on, especially 1960 on) cancer incidence has quintupled worldwide and similar for many other health and wellbeing indices. Correlation maybe - but definitely no cause-and-effect? Bugger off - they would say that, wouldn't they, till completely caught out, like the tobacco industry. And that's just the gross effects, let alone the all-pervasive and potent 'subtle' effects (including both the experimental subjects' and the experimenters' Intentionality) that are systematically eliminated as noise by 'scientific/experimental method'.

"very little was known about risks beyond five years, because most people did not use mobile phones until the late 1990s."
Compare with first quote above - this has been going on for decades, a century, and so have major trend-deteriorations in health and wellbeing indices, which far outweigh the counter-trends caused by increased health care in some countries.]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144121#Comment_144121 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144121#Comment_144121 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:50:10 +0100 nbwilding
I think it's that the scare stories would have us believe that we were heading for 65000 deaths in the UK alone.

The things that really kill us are the things we don't hear much about in the media because they are too mundane: 3500 road deaths per year in the UK alone ( around a million worldwide, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index.html)

Don't worry about your wifi, worry about getting behind the wheel!]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144123#Comment_144123 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144123#Comment_144123 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:00:37 +0100 fostertom
Just see it, then be in a position to re-shape it.

That would abs not mean a return to a low-world-population peasant-and-warlord past. We humans are capable of so much when clear-sighted, but only create havoc when self-blinded and defended by fear and vested interest, especially when dressed up as scientific rationalism.]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144127#Comment_144127 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144127#Comment_144127 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:21:44 +0100 nbwilding
And what about the billions of solar neutrinos that pass through our bodies per second? Is it preposterous to believe that the body/mind are unaffected by all this?]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144129#Comment_144129 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144129#Comment_144129 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:36:49 +0100 fostertom
Are we 100% sure these are all just unrelated coincidences, no cause-and-effect? Vast vested interests ride on a 'yes' to that last question. Is Science immune to those vested interests?]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144143#Comment_144143 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144143#Comment_144143 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:56:45 +0100 bot de paille http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change


“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.

He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.

“We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said.
'I made a mistake'
As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144144#Comment_144144 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144144#Comment_144144 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:59:03 +0100 bot de paille http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/219-news-2012/2117-did-exploding-stars-help-life-on-earth-to-thrive

Prof. Svensmark looked back through 500 million years of geological and astronomical data and considered the proximity of the Sun to supernovae as it moves around our Galaxy, the Milky Way. In particular, when the Sun is passing through the spiral arms of the Milky Way, it encounters newly forming clusters of stars. These so-called open clusters, which disperse over time, have a range of ages and sizes and will have started with a small proportion of stars massive enough to explode as supernovae. From the data on open clusters, Prof. Svensmark was able to deduce how the rate at which supernovae exploded near the Solar System varied over time.
Comparing this with the geological record, he found that the changing frequency of nearby supernovae seems to have strongly shaped the conditions for life on Earth. Whenever the Sun and its planets have visited regions of enhanced star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy, where exploding stars are most common, life has prospered. Prof. Svensmark remarks in the paper, "The biosphere seems to contain a reflection of the sky, in that the evolution of life mirrors the evolution of the Galaxy."]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144148#Comment_144148 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144148#Comment_144148 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:25:39 +0100 fostertom WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144161#Comment_144161 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144161#Comment_144161 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:27:31 +0100 bot de paille WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144163#Comment_144163 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144163#Comment_144163 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:37:53 +0100 Joiner
One example he gives of how we assess relative risk is the plane passenger flying off on holiday to Tenerife, gripping the seat in fear of flying and happy when they land on one of the largest volcanos in the world.

http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/NVA2~14~14~32938~124365:Teide-Volcano-Tenerife,-Canary-Isla]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144172#Comment_144172 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144172#Comment_144172 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:23:13 +0100 fostertom WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144174#Comment_144174 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144174#Comment_144174 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:37:22 +0100 jamesingram Posted By: SteamyTeaAnother study suggest that there is not a problem with radio waves:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17843953" rel="nofollow" >http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17843953

interesting, telegraph paper headline to same study said 'Long-term use of mobile phones may cause cancer'
web link uses differnet headline ' 'No evidence' that mobiles cause cancer - but scientists still can't rule it out '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9226041/No-evidence-that-mobiles-cause-cancer-but-scientists-still-cant-rule-it-out.html

funny what you spot at 10 oclock tea, ie. there is no objective truth in the media :cry:]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144182#Comment_144182 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144182#Comment_144182 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:38:24 +0100 JSHarris
All science can ever do is prove something is a risk, or try to provide some evidence as to the level of risk something might pose. It's up to others to interpret that evidence and set safe limits, but even then there are no guarantees that those limits will be truly safe.

Unfortunately (again as I mentioned previously) human beings are totally rubbish as making balanced risk assessments, and more often than not massively overestimate the riskiness of relatively safe things (flying, nuclear power, for example) to health, and underestimate the riskiness of things that pose significant risk to health (horse riding, for example).

We accept that driving kills and injures lots of people every single day, yet if a new power generation technology was to come along and proclaim that it would result in one death a year we'd be up in arms about it.]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144203#Comment_144203 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144203#Comment_144203 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:37:58 +0100 SteamyTea Posted By: jamesingramfunny what you spot at 10 oclock tea, ie. there is no objective truth in the media
Yes I read that too, and the bit about the church chimes being silenced by an 'incomer', upsetting the whole village. Better pop up a windfarm there (am I on the right thread).

As for radio waves and illness, I bet I could plot a chart of global wealth and increases in almost any illness you care to name and it would correlate quite well, actually if I plotted Global CO2 against access to drinking water I bet it would be a 'hockey stick'.
The trick is to find a link between the independent and the dependant variables. This is that the study was doing, the discarded all the rubbish theories, looked at the mechanism of microwave affecting brain tissue, found there is not enough energy to affect the brain, accepted that there is a limit (historical) to the data, said they will keep monitoring it for trends and advised caution with young children using mobiles.
And till it gets twisted and misreported.

'Dog bites man is not much of a story, man bites dog is':wink:]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144212#Comment_144212 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144212#Comment_144212 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:29:51 +0100 fostertom WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144213#Comment_144213 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144213#Comment_144213 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:35:20 +0100 SteamyTea ]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144228#Comment_144228 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144228#Comment_144228 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:21:53 +0100 fostertom WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144233#Comment_144233 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144233#Comment_144233 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:38:14 +0100 SteamyTea ]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144256#Comment_144256 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144256#Comment_144256 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:32:59 +0100 fostertom WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144342#Comment_144342 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144342#Comment_144342 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:01:58 +0100 SteamyTea WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144347#Comment_144347 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144347#Comment_144347 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:28:04 +0100 fostertom WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144438#Comment_144438 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144438#Comment_144438 Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:12:19 +0100 Ed Davies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/apr/27/protesting-mobile-phones-environmental-movement

tl;dr version - studies show that even if there are any effects they're very small, the matter needs to be watched but in the mean time there are more serious things to spend time dealing with.]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144441#Comment_144441 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144441#Comment_144441 Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:05:28 +0100 fostertom Yes, it can be nothing but superstition and ignorance.
It can also point to something that the establishment, however high-principled (as scientists see themselves) has blinded itself to by its adopted filters and blinkers (which, like Scientific/experimental method, may itself have apparently impeccable reason behind it).

Science has gradually adopted the principle that if it's not measurable with repeatability, it may happen, may even have major effect, but it's 'subjective' i.e. not scientific l.e. something that Scientists risk peer-ridicule if they give the time of day to. Even if such subjectivity is major in their everyday life as humans.

Popular flying-against-the-evidence may just be an unformed 'knowing' that less-constrained non-Scientists can feel in their bones, and keep on feeling, whatever Scientists loftily say.

Everyone should keep an open mind, watch and wait. Unfortunately Scientists have this habit of implying that all is known and anyone who speaks against the current 'all' is a fool. That's one reason why people are cynical about Science's high self-regard, and about priesthoods in general.

Paradigms change - and Scientists usually manage to jump ship just in time so they never experience humility resulting from having to own up. So the orthodoxy continues, modified.]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144442#Comment_144442 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144442#Comment_144442 Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:09:44 +0100 nbwilding WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144443#Comment_144443 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144443#Comment_144443 Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:29:10 +0100 Seret Posted By: fostertom
Popular flying-against-the-evidence may just be an unformed 'knowing' that less-constrained non-Scientists can feel in their bones, and keep on feeling, whatever Scientists loftily say.


There's a word for belief in spite of evidence: faith.


Everyone should keep an open mind, watch and wait.


Sure, but at what point do you make your mind up? If you're choosing to ignore the evidence then your opinion will never change, which is hardly what I'd call open-minded.]]> WiFi - should we worry about exposure? https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144445#Comment_144445 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8960&Focus=144445#Comment_144445 Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:07:39 +0100 DamonHD
This is EXACTLY why airily dismissing bits of science that you don't like is silly and dangerous: science is doing its damnedest right or wrong to give you the best possible basis to make a rational judgement, eg of relative risk, and you are sticking your fingers in your ears and going NER NER NER but will still complain when you fall down that manhole.

Get a grip please.

Rgds

Damon]]>