Institute for Inquiry

Electromagnetic fields have been described as the 'newest, biggest, manmade environment.' What are electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and how are they created? What are the differences between EMFs that occur naturally and those generated by high voltage lines, household appliances, cellular antenna, WiFi/WiMax, or pulsed, phased-array radar? Does life have a bio-electrical basis? How sensitive are young, growing, and aging bodies to today's EMF 'soup'?
Most of us have neither thought about nor imagined the electromagnetic spectrum/airwaves as a fabric of energies in which viruses, bacteria, plants, animals, and humans function. Nor have we thought about changing the EMFs around us through broadcast radio and tv, household appliances, and radar in the 20th century; or through cellular antenna, WiFi and WiMax in the 21st.
EMFs are invisible, inaudible, intangible, odorless, and tasteless. Yet, research shows EMF as biologically active at every level of life's organization, and across species. Migratory birds can be disoriented by EMF exposures in research labs. Human EMF exposures appear to have an association with leukemia, miscarriages, and several neuro-degenerative diseases. How much exposure is too much? Of what kind? For what and for whom?
Between 1982–2007, the number of cell phone owners rocketed from just a few persons to nearly 3 billion. Today, 72% of American households use wireless technologies. The U.S. wireless industry's revenues in the first six months of 2006 amounted to $60.5 billion; making it comparable to Egypt's national economy, 46th in the world. The U.S. military is currently developing new EMF-weaponry and surveillance systems for land, sea, air, and space. Millions are spent annually in Washington to protect and advance industry interests. Regulatory bodies dealing with airwaves (FCC), product health and safety issues (FDA), and environmental impacts (EPA), rely upon safety standards that an emerging scientific consensus believes inadequate for non-ionizing radiation in a wireless age.
Public and private funding for EMF technology-related research is almost exclusively aimed at growing an economic sector of products, procedures, services, and jobs. Relatively little has been done to advance understanding of how life lives within varying electromagnetic fields, or what kinds of changes we are creating within the biological world and within human cultures.
Most personalized wireless technologies explode potentials for listening to music, conversing, researching and sharing information, finding entertainment, getting work done, or buying and selling online. What does it mean to live in a hybridized reality, where the real and virtual take place simultaneously, each seamlessly shaping the other? How is the inner and outer life of a child or young adult changing? How are relationships within the living world changing? How does the repertoire of knowledge in place-based cultures stand out? Is life on earth becoming more or less diverse; more or less alive ? What new explorations, considerations, and choices are before us?

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