Life
On the spectrum of electromagnetic waves, just a small portion of wavelengths is responsible for nearly all life on Earth.
- Lions use visible light to see their prey.
- Bees detect ultraviolet reflections that guide them to flowers.
- Plants convert visible light energy into chemical fuel using chlorophyll.
- Animals and humans eat plants and metabolize that stored solar energy.
- Infrared radiation warms the Earth and helps regulate cellular activity in our bodies.
- Blue light during the day helps synchronize our circadian rhythm.
- Ultraviolet light enables the skin to produce vitamin D, essential for bone and immune health.
Biology is designed to respond to these EMFs.
Magnetic Fields
EMFs include both electric and magnetic fields—magnetic fields are produced whenever electrical current flows. The Earth itself is a giant magnet, and many forms of life have a remarkable sensitivity to its magnetic field, using it to navigate across vast distances. How they feel it, we don’t fully understand. It’s not like there’s an organ in their brain with a floating magnetized needle spinning freely in a fluid.
Humans don’t “feel” magnetic fields in an obvious way, but magnetism, like light, can interact with living systems in subtle ways.
Ionizing EMF
As we advance in the spectrum beyond light, the waves grow more energetic…and dangerous. Too much ultraviolet light can burn our skin, but that’s gentle compared to the intensity of ionizing radiation. At these extreme frequencies, the waves have enough energy to knock electrons out of atoms, break chemical bonds, and injure living tissue.
X-rays and gamma rays are used to treat cancer. This is one case where destructive energy can be put to good use, but only with extreme care. X-rays are also used diagnostically to see inside our bodies, but we learned the hard way that it needed to be minimized. We used to think it was harmless. Now we use x-rays with very sensitive equipment so that the exposure is very brief.
Controversy
Do the frequencies below infrared impact biology? Yes, but at what power? Microwave ovens run at 2.45 gigahertz (GHz) and can cook meat. WiFi and bluetooth run at the same frequency, but we live among them every day (different signal strength).
The impact of radio frequency EMFs is controversial…why?
Well, it depends on who you ask. Tech giants that sell you convenience downplay the impact at every opportunity. Many communication companies would barely exist without wireless transmission. These entities have sponsored research, and the results can be generally summarized as “we don’t know for sure, so let’s not rush to conclusions.”
Independent scientists have been documenting biological impacts of EMF energy for many years. The data is available. The effects range from curious to concerning, but for our purposes, it’s enough to recognize that the biological impact can be measured.
It can’t be that bad
The claim that the lower frequency EMFs are “perfectly safe” is optimistic, but it requires you to believe that all EMFs on the spectrum are either essential to life or biologically destructive…except the radio frequencies—once you get below infrared, the EMF just becomes inert and harmless (except when they are in microwave ovens, of course). Right?
Optimistic, yes. Still, a reasonable person will notice that billions of people operate daily in a sea of radio frequencies and electric / magnetic fields. They seem to be generally ok…so...EMFs can’t be that bad? How can we put this all into perspective?
Irritants
If you are trying to reconcile how something could be potentially harmful, yet millions seem unaffected, just think of EMFs as biological irritants.
Mold, dust, artificial colors, pesticides—these are all recognized irritants, yet millions of people function okay despite them. But not everyone. Some seriously struggle in the presence of these environmental stressors.
Even if we are healthy, there is a limit to how much irritant we will permit into our life. How much FD&C Red No. 3 is enough?
