Is there really even much public paranoia? I've never heard of anyone that refuses to use a cell phone because of perceived risk, other than the tiny few people who try to sue claiming that cell phones or cell towers caused cancer or a rash. At worst, I imagine many people probably think there's an extremely small negligible risk.

In my experience cell phones and microwaves ovens are thought by the random public member to be carcinogenic. Never mind that some of these people smoke heavily and binge drink. Heck there is a more logical basis to suspect flame grilling to be cancer causing than mobiles. There is no escaping the damn thing, life causes cancer.

Not to mention smart meters - those new radio based power meters that contact the utility to digitally report electrical usage. Our electrical utility is poised to install them in BC and publications are dirtying the water with paranoia like this: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/08/09/SmartMeterSkeptic/ and http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110808/bc...

Paranoia like this from the original WHO doc http://www.magdahavas.com/2010/12/02/are-smart-meters-safe/

and then there's whole orgs worried they're gonna get cancer http://stopsmartmeters.org/2011/08/11/smart-meters-not-green...

One random dude handed me a pamphlet about stopping the smart meters, citing that it was 10 feet from his head when he slept and that he'd have to find a new home if they actually install it.

I feel like I'm watching people make themselves crazy with panic over something that has little science to back it up.

In my neighborhood, many people are protesting WiFi and new cell towers near their kids' schools. And then there are the people who are "allergic" to WiFi.

When I first installed wi-fi in my house in 2001, one of my friends declared (jokingly) that he would be wearing tin-foil underpants when visiting. While he was joking, he was the kind of person who easily believes things they are told, and lets go of beliefs slowly. He did say he would never install it in his own house.

Yes, there is a widespread belief amongst the general public that wi-fi and mobile phones are dangerous.

I wouldn't call it mass hysteria, but yeah there's paranoia. I was in a doctor's office recently (a doctor specializing in "holistic" medicine) where there was a sign in the waiting room asking people to turn off their cell phones because it interferes with the nervous system. With all this radiation messing up our nervous system, no wonder we're all crazy (and have been from prehistoric times)

I mean - if your "doctor's" waiting room has a sign saying that, I think it's time to find another doctor.

The sun puts out amazing power (roughly one kilowatt per square meter), but most of that power is in the visible spectrum. As a black body, only a tiny fraction of that power would be emitted at frequencies used by mobiles. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find hard figures, so I so I can't directly compare mobile phone power output with sun exposure at identical frequencies. Does anyone have a good number?

I don't think you used black body in a way that makes sense to your point. Could you clarify? That is, it is true the sun is (approximately) a black body radiator but I am unclear how that supports what you are trying to say.

Ionizing radiation is the main cancer culprit and you can be sure the sun emits far more such radiation - mainly in the form of UV rays - than your cell phone. Which is at frequency levels below visible - mainly microwaves I think.

> Ionizing radiation is the main cancer culprit and you can be sure the sun emits far more such radiation - mainly in the form of UV rays - than your cell phone. Which is at frequency levels below visible - mainly microwaves I think.

I thought you were mixing them up at first, but re-reading you did get it right. To clarify, in case anyone else got confused too:

UV is just above the visible spectrum in frequency.

Microwaves are below infrared, below visible.

(from Wikipedia) "Radiation on the short-wavelength [high frequency] end of the electromagnetic spectrum—high-frequency ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays—is ionizing, due to its composition of high-energy photons. Lower-energy radiation, such as visible light, infrared, microwaves, and radio waves, are not ionizing. The latter types of low-energy non-ionizing radiation may damage molecules, but the effect is generally indistinguishable from the effects of simple heating."

See here the EM spectrum for reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EM_Spectrum_Properties_edi...

It is claimed that mobile phone risks are insignificant compared to the risks of the sun, because the sun puts out way more radiation. However, risks may depend on power and frequency of the radiation (while it is true that ionizing radiation causes cancer, one can't rule out cancer effects at other, non-ionizong frequencies through unknown mechanisms). If it can be shown the sun puts out much less mobile-phone like radiation than your phone, then the conparison is not really valid. Put another way, the question is, "will I be exposed to more mobile-phone like radiation (1.8 Ghz) from a five minute call, or from standing in the sun for five minutes?" I tried to use a blackbody model of the sun to answer this, but I failed.

There's also effects of the heat given off by the phone heating your head, but I ignore that.

> one can't rule out cancer effects at other, non-ionizong frequencies through unknown mechanisms

Well, you can. That's the whole point.

You pose the hypothesis "unknown mechanisms in non-ionizing radiation cause cancer". Then you do the research, and then when you don't find the cancer effects, you rule out these "unknown mechanisms".

That's science.

> There's also effects of the heat given off by the phone heating your head, but I ignore that.

And so does everybody else, because heat doesn't cause cancer.

Additionally, the phone heats your head? Citation? And not just "well it's microwaves so it probably heats things around it by some billion-thousandth of a degree", but an actual citation of mobile phone radiation heating your head, preferably in a manner that is still somewhat significant when compared to the tiny temperature fluctuations caused by natural cell processes (as, you know, if a mitochondria generates more heat than a nearby phone, the point is probably moot, no?).

http://www.mate.tue.nl/mate/pdfs/2037.pdf mentions 0.1 degree centigrade. That is measurable, but not something to be concerned about.

It would not surprise me if the temperature raise due to incepreased thermal insulation when using a mobile phone where higher than that 0.1 degree.

The sun puts more infrared radiation on your head. And while I have not looked it up or done any calculations, I suspect that if you integrate over total exposure (watts/m^2) to microwave radiation per unit time on your head, for the average person, the sun will come out on top over the mobile. Especially those near the equator. And since you can't hold all variables as equal we can likely usually find two people where phone + sun is equal but phone or sun exposure for the other person is more. So I argue for many persons we can find another who is doing okay whose total microwave power absorption from sun is equal to that of our person's sun and mobile exposure.

My comment isn't necessarily directed at the same frequencies as electronic devices. It's just directed to people who think electronic devices are dangerous, but pay little attention to a known danger - ie, the sun. If you asked the average person on the street if the sun's rays were dangerous radiation, I wonder what answers you'd get.

And don't forget there are millions of people lining up every day to actually pay money to submit their body to uv radiation in tanning booths. The dangers are pretty well known now, but they're still around.

All I'm saying is that, like most paranoias, from sharks to terrorists and mobile phones along the way, the risk ratio is skewed when fantasy and imagination takes over cold hard facts.

To be fair, all forms of invisible rays/waves can be dangerous in large enough quantities. I figure the fact that they are potentially harmful combined with their strange and invisible nature causes the uninformed to freak out disproportionately. Reference the Californias who were afraid radiation from Fukushima would kill them.

They're not very low powered though. 3 watts in the low GHz band is very penetrative and can heat very deep inside an object, like a human brain. The sun doesn't penetrate that way.

Can it? From what I've read it will only raise the temperature of the skin and skull by a fraction of a degree, far less than that absorbed from sunlight. The brain is very sensitive to temperature changes and even a bit more than a couple degrees above normal would be very noticeable damage wise - so if your brain cells were being fried the effects would be very visible.

Note too that exercise also raises brain temp but your brain is quite able to regulate its temperature under normal conditions (e.g. no certain drugs or overly hot).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_heal...

People are usually aware of the Sun's effect on their body but they don't know much about radiations emitted by cell phones, hence the paranoia.