Will our grandchildren look back, 50 years from now, at a time when human beings ate other animals as one in which their grandparents were “complicit in a bloodbath of unnecessary suffering”, a horror show of unremitting violence that is “wholly unimaginable” to them?

That’s the intriguing premise of Carnage, a new feature-length BBC film which depicts a 2067 utopia where humans no longer raise animals for consumption.

Carnage is a mockumentary, written and directed by comedian Simon Amstell, but let’s contemplate its premise seriously for a moment. Is a ‘post-meat’ world possible? Could we manage a transition to a society where farmed animals are liberated and granted equal status, free to live equally among humans?

There are some good reasons why this is an unlikely vision of the future. For a start, the number of animals slaughtered globally is on the increase. Although this includes hunting, poaching, and unwanted pets, by far the biggest point of interaction between humans and other animals is industrial farming.

The statistics are staggering: at least 55 billion animals are killed by the global farming industry each year, and this figure is growing every year. Despite marketing tales of animal welfare and ‘happy meat‘, factory farming means violence, discomfort and suffering on an enormous scale.

This is why Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, a history of the human race, calls our treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms “perhaps the worst crime in history”.

Never mind the meat – just keep the blood off my plate!

If we turn to consumers’ willingness to eat meat, psychological research in this area appears to cast further doubt on the utopian vision of Carnage. Most people who eat meat express concern in relation to animal welfare, and experience unease when the death or discomfort of animals is associated with the meat on their plate.

Psychologists refer to this tension between beliefs and behaviour as ‘cognitive dissonance’. We want to reduce the discomfort of such dissonance, but human nature means we often seek the easiest ways of doing so.

So rather than changing behaviour, we change our thinking, and develop strategies like minimising the harm of the offending behaviour (animals don’t have the capacity to suffer like we do; they do not matter; they have a good life); or denying one’s responsibility for it (I am doing what everyone does; it is necessary; I was made to eat meat – it is natural).

Dissonance-reduction strategies often lead, paradoxically, to an increase in commitment to ‘morally troublesome behaviour‘ such as eating meat, to justify them. We then have to work harder to reduce dissonance, creating the need to defend one’s behaviour even more vigorously.

This commitment becomes habitual, and part of our shared routines, traditions and social norms. It’s a circular process that can end up with exaggerated and socially-polarised views, reflected perhaps in familiar attempts to publicly ridicule veganism. On this reading of the psychology research, change on the scale envisioned by Carnage seems unlikely.

The path to a world without meat

There are grounds for optimism, however. A first challenge comes from growing health concerns related to eating meat, and an accompanying lifestyle movement that embraces a ‘plant-based diet‘. Meat substitutes are also becoming increasingly sophisticated, as the tech industry recognises the potential market value of alternative protein sources.

This is matched by a resurgent concern for the welfare of nonhuman animals more generally. Examples include successful campaigns against captive orca whales and circus animals, the widespread questioning of the purpose of zoos, and a burgeoning legal movement defending the rights of animals in court.

This trend is strengthened by growing recognition of the emotional, cognitive and social complexity of nonhuman animals.

What might be the biggest factor of all, however, is the impact on the climate. Meat is an inefficient use of resources (as farm animals eat food that could go straight to humans), while cows famously fart out lots of methane.

The UN says the large-scale industrial farming of animals is one of “the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” A global reduction in meat consumption is one of the best ways to fight climate change. And, as pressure for resources rise, so too might cost, leading to less meat eating.

After half a century, could it be possible?

Taken in isolation, none of these trends suggests social change on the scale Carnage imagines. But together, they just might. It is a combination that could explain significant growth in the number of vegetarians and vegans for example.

This increase is especially marked among younger people – an important point to consider in relation to our imagined 50-year trajectory. And let’s face it, the need to do anything we can to collectively reduce carbon emissions and alleviate the worst effects of climate change is only going to become more pressing as we approach 2067.

The German government seems to have recognised this, recently banning meat from all official functions for environmental reasons. These trends suggest the interlocking psychological, social and cultural dynamics that keep us habitually and routinely eating meat might be beginning to loosen.

Films like Carnage also contribute to this unravelling, opening up our imagination to alternative futures. If you watch it, I hope it raises a few laughs, but also offers some (plant-based) food for thought. 

Watch Carnage here.

Matthew Adams is Principal Lecturer in Psychology, University of Brighton.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Will our grandchildren look back, 50 years from now, at a time when human beings ate other animals as one in which their grandparents were “complicit in a bloodbath of unnecessary suffering”, a horror show of unremitting violence that is “wholly unimaginable” to them?

That’s the intriguing premise of Carnage, a new feature-length BBC film which depicts a 2067 utopia where humans no longer raise animals for consumption.

Carnage is a mockumentary, written and directed by comedian Simon Amstell, but let’s contemplate its premise seriously for a moment. Is a ‘post-meat’ world possible? Could we manage a transition to a society where farmed animals are liberated and granted equal status, free to live equally among humans?

There are some good reasons why this is an unlikely vision of the future. For a start, the number of animals slaughtered globally is on the increase. Although this includes hunting, poaching, and unwanted pets, by far the biggest point of interaction between humans and other animals is industrial farming.

The statistics are staggering: at least 55 billion animals are killed by the global farming industry each year, and this figure is growing every year. Despite marketing tales of animal welfare and ‘happy meat‘, factory farming means violence, discomfort and suffering on an enormous scale.

This is why Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, a history of the human race, calls our treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms “perhaps the worst crime in history”.

Never mind the meat – just keep the blood off my plate!

If we turn to consumers’ willingness to eat meat, psychological research in this area appears to cast further doubt on the utopian vision of Carnage. Most people who eat meat express concern in relation to animal welfare, and experience unease when the death or discomfort of animals is associated with the meat on their plate.

Psychologists refer to this tension between beliefs and behaviour as ‘cognitive dissonance’. We want to reduce the discomfort of such dissonance, but human nature means we often seek the easiest ways of doing so.

So rather than changing behaviour, we change our thinking, and develop strategies like minimising the harm of the offending behaviour (animals don’t have the capacity to suffer like we do; they do not matter; they have a good life); or denying one’s responsibility for it (I am doing what everyone does; it is necessary; I was made to eat meat – it is natural).

Dissonance-reduction strategies often lead, paradoxically, to an increase in commitment to ‘morally troublesome behaviour‘ such as eating meat, to justify them. We then have to work harder to reduce dissonance, creating the need to defend one’s behaviour even more vigorously.

This commitment becomes habitual, and part of our shared routines, traditions and social norms. It’s a circular process that can end up with exaggerated and socially-polarised views, reflected perhaps in familiar attempts to publicly ridicule veganism. On this reading of the psychology research, change on the scale envisioned by Carnage seems unlikely.

The path to a world without meat

There are grounds for optimism, however. A first challenge comes from growing health concerns related to eating meat, and an accompanying lifestyle movement that embraces a ‘plant-based diet‘. Meat substitutes are also becoming increasingly sophisticated, as the tech industry recognises the potential market value of alternative protein sources.

This is matched by a resurgent concern for the welfare of nonhuman animals more generally. Examples include successful campaigns against captive orca whales and circus animals, the widespread questioning of the purpose of zoos, and a burgeoning legal movement defending the rights of animals in court.

This trend is strengthened by growing recognition of the emotional, cognitive and social complexity of nonhuman animals.

What might be the biggest factor of all, however, is the impact on the climate. Meat is an inefficient use of resources (as farm animals eat food that could go straight to humans), while cows famously fart out lots of methane.

The UN says the large-scale industrial farming of animals is one of “the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” A global reduction in meat consumption is one of the best ways to fight climate change. And, as pressure for resources rise, so too might cost, leading to less meat eating.

After half a century, could it be possible?

Taken in isolation, none of these trends suggests social change on the scale Carnage imagines. But together, they just might. It is a combination that could explain significant growth in the number of vegetarians and vegans for example.

This increase is especially marked among younger people – an important point to consider in relation to our imagined 50-year trajectory. And let’s face it, the need to do anything we can to collectively reduce carbon emissions and alleviate the worst effects of climate change is only going to become more pressing as we approach 2067.

The German government seems to have recognised this, recently banning meat from all official functions for environmental reasons. These trends suggest the interlocking psychological, social and cultural dynamics that keep us habitually and routinely eating meat might be beginning to loosen.

Films like Carnage also contribute to this unravelling, opening up our imagination to alternative futures. If you watch it, I hope it raises a few laughs, but also offers some (plant-based) food for thought. 

Watch Carnage here.

Matthew Adams is Principal Lecturer in Psychology, University of Brighton.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Plants growing in warmer conditions are tougher and have lower nutritional value to grazing livestock, inhibiting milk and meat yields and raising the amount of methane released by the animals.

That’s because more methane is produced when plants are tougher to digest – an effect of a warmer environment.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, around 25 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over a century, and 85 times stronger over 20 years.

More than 95% of the methane produced by cows comes from their breath through eructation (belching) as they chew the cud.

The findings come in a published a paper today in the journal Biogeosciences by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Frankfurt.

The key finding is a near doubling of ruminant emissions of methane: “Upscaling the GHG footprint of the current livestock inventory to the 2050 projected inventory increases annual GHG emissions from enteric sources from 2.8 to 4.7 GT CO2eq.”

Dr Mark Lee, a research fellow at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew who led the research says; “The vicious cycle we are seeing now is that ruminant livestock such as cattle produce methane which warms our planet.

“This warmer environment alters plants so they are tougher to digest, and so each mouthful spends more time in the animals’ stomach, producing more methane, further warming the planet, and the cycle continues. We need to make changes to livestock diets to make them more environmentally sustainable.”

Harsher climate makes tougher plants

There are several reasons why rising temperatures may make plants tougher for grazing livestock to digest. Plants have adaptations to prevent heat damage, they can flower earlier, have thicker leaves or in some cases, tougher plants can invade into new areas replacing more nutritious species – all of which makes grazing more difficult.

This is a pressing concern, because climate change is likely to make plants tougher for grazing cattle, increasing the amount of methane that the animals breathe out into the atmosphere.

The researchers mapped the regions where methane produced by cattle will increase to the greatest extent as the result of reductions in plant nutritional quality. Methane production is generally expected to increase all around the world, with hotspots identified in North America, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia, where the effects of climate change may be the most severe.

Many of these regions are where livestock farming is growing most rapidly. For example, meat production has increased annually by around 3.4% across Asia, compared with a more modest 1% increase across Europe.

The calculations, write the scientists, “suggested a previously undescribed positive climate change feedback, where elevated temperatures reduce grass nutritive value and correspondingly may increase methane production by 0.9% with a 1C temperature rise and 4.5% with a 5C rise (model average), thus creating an additional climate forcing effect.

“Future methane production increases are expected to be largest in parts of North America, central and eastern Europe and Asia, with the geographical extent of hotspots increasing under a high emissions scenario.”

Act now to limit the damage!

Global meat production has increased rapidly in recent years to meet demand, from 71 million tonnes in 1961 to 318 million tonnes in 2014, a 78% increase in 53 years (FAOSTAT, 2016). Grazing lands have expanded to support this production, particularly across Asia and South America, and now cover 35 million km2; 30% of the Earth’s ice-free surface.

However, livestock are valuable. They are worth in excess of $1.4 trillion to the global economy and livestock farming sustains or employs 1.3 billion people around the world (Thornton, 2010). The upward trend in livestock production and associated GHG emissions are projected to continue in the future and global stocks of cattle, goats and sheep are expected to reach 6.3 billion by 2050 (Steinfeld et al. 2006).

If these rises are to continue then the researchers say it will be necessary to limit the growth of livestock farming in the most rapidly warming regions, and, to avoid significant losses in livestock production efficiency and increases in methane emissions. Other measures, including eating less meat and farming more sustainably, are also essential:

“A global switch in human diets and a transition to more sustainable agricultural practices, as well as a greater prevalence of organic and silvopastoral farming, may reduce our reliance on intensively farmed cattle and other ruminants.

“In countries with high or increasing meat consumption, these measures could reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture and contribute to GHG emissions cuts with an associated improvement in human health.”

And the authors emphasise that we need to start implementing policy measures as soon as possible. “Now is the time to act,” said Dr Lee, “because the demand for meat-rich diets is increasing around the world. Our research has shown that cultivating more nutritious plants may help us to combat the challenges of warmer temperatures.

We are undertaking work at Kew to identify the native forage plants that are associated with high meat and milk production and less methane, attempting to increase their presence on the grazing landscape. We are also developing our models to identify regions where livestock are going to be exposed to reductions in forage quality with greater precision.

It is going to be important to put plans in place to help those countries exposed to the most severe challenges from climate change to adapt to a changing world.”

Oliver Tickell is contributing editor at The Ecologist.

The paper: ‘Forage quality declines with rising temperatures, with implications for livestock production and methane emissions‘ is by Lee, M.A., Davis, A.P., Chagunda, M.G.G., Manning, P. and published in Biogeosciences 14, 1403-1417, doi:10.5194/bg-14-1403-2017.

New research by the University of Exeter shows that increased surface ocean temperatures during the strong 2016 El Niño led to a major coral die-off event in the Maldives, and that this has caused reef growth rates to collapse. They also found that the rates at which some reefs species, in particular parrotfish, are eroding the reefs had increased following this coral die-off event.

Similar magnitudes of coral death have been reported on many other reefs in the region, including on the northern Great Barrier Reef, suggesting similar impacts may be very widespread.

Professor Chris Perry and Dr Kyle Morgan, of the University of Exeter’s Geography department, studied the impact of the 2016 El Niño event at sites in the southern Maldives and found that the event had not only caused widespread coral bleaching, a phenomenon whereby corals expel their photosynthesising algae when stressed by high temperatures, but that this had also led to extensive coral death in all shallow water reef habitats examined.

 “A very major concern now is how quickly these reefs might recover. Recovery from similar past disturbances in the Maldives have taken 10-15 years, but major bleaching events are predicted to become far more frequent than this. If this is the case it could lead to long-term loss of reef growth and so limit the coastal protection and habitat services these reefs presently provide,” Professor Perry said.

“The most alarming aspect of this coral die-off event is that it has led to a rapid and very large decline in the growth rate of the reefs. This in turn has major implications not only for the capacity of these reefs to match any increases in sea-level, but is also likely to lead to a loss of the surface structure of the reefs that is so critical for supporting fish species diversity and abundance.”

Coral reefs are formed by the accumulation of coral skeletons (made of calcium carbonate) that builds up over 100’s to 1000’s of years, forming the complex structures that support a huge diversity of marine life. The so-called ‘carbonate budget’ of a reef, which represents the balance between the rate at which this carbonate is produced by corals and the rate at which it is removed (by biological or physical erosion or chemical dissolution), influences the development of these structures and how fast a reef can grow.

The effect these combined factors was a major decline in the carbonate budgets of these reefs, with an average reduction of 157%. Before the warming event, the reefs had been in a period of rapid growth, but after the period of higher sea temperatures a negative carbonate budget was recorded at all sites. Put simply, the structure of these reefs is now eroding at a faster rate that it is growing. Based on past studies the researchers suggest that given the severity of the bleaching impacts it may take 10 to 15 years for full recovery to occur.

The extent of the 2016 bleaching, which also affected reefs in other parts of the Indian Ocean and Pacific, was so severe that it was subsequently named the ‘Third Global Coral Bleaching Event’.

Dr Kyle Morgan said: “Coral reefs provide a wealth of benefits. They are vital habitats, essential for a vast number of species and they are also important for tourism and food provision. The reduction in carbonate budget threatens these benefits and may well also lead to the structural collapse of reefs. The key issue to consider now is whether, and when, these reefs will recover, both ecologically and in terms of their growth. Based on past trajectories, we predict recovery will take at least a decade, however it all depends on the extent of future warming events and climate change.”

University of Exeter scientists warned there could be further rises in sea temperatures owing to global warming with potentially devastating effects on coral reefs.

Professor Mat Collins, an expert in climate modelling at the University of Exeter, said: “We expect El Niño variability to continue into the future which, when combined with rising temperatures due to global warming, means we will see unprecedented sea temperatures and increasing incidence of coral bleaching.”

More information:

Bleaching drives collapse in reef carbonate budgets and reef growth potential on southern Maldives reefs is published in Scientific Reports (http://www.nature.com/articles/srep40581)

Last year South Africa’s bountiful Wild Coast saw the assassination of Sikhosiphi Rhadebe, activist against proposed dune mining on his homeland. The commemoration of Rhadebe who went by the name Bozooka coincided with this year’s Human Rights day. At least 500 people came to stand together in solidarity to call for an end to violence under the glaring sun of the Wild Coast far off the tarred national roads.

Saluting the deceased Rhadebe, leader of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, gun shots were fired in the air giving a vivid demonstration of the sound of death that was heard on the Wild Coast a year ago. Mark Caruso, CEO of the company that applied for a permit for titanium mining on the Wild Coast had (according to local media) previously bragged in an internal email: “I am enlivened by [the] opportunity to grind all resistance to my presence.”

Violence and mining do not meet spontaneously – they are uncanny bedfellows.

Acclaimed mining scholar Anthony Bebbington calls the choice communities are facing when mining companies approach “Faustian in the extreme”. Companies offer compensation (mostly money) for multiple forms of dispossessions; namely dispossession of “land, territory, landscape and natural resources”. According to Bebbington no matter if mining is to go ahead or not it will irrevocably divide communities over the question. Defying the notion of win-win situations invoked by mining companies’ global examples show that mine-affected communities typically lose while a class of investors, CEOs and some local managers wine and dine on the generous revenues.

Blockadia in the making?

But as the Wild Coast people testify quite a number of activists are not shying away to take on mining Goliaths. Environmental justice activists are putting themselves in the frontlines of a global battle that Naomi Klein calls “Blockadia” – a new conflict zone “cropping up with increasing frequency and intensity wherever extractive projects are attempting to dig and drill, whether for open-pit mines, or gas fracking, or tar sands oil pipelines.” The struggle of Standing Rock is a case in point where indigenous activists faced the heavily armoured police.

But media attention to extractive struggles is rarely that persistent. And even in cases in which the media reports diligently from these conflict zones, time seems to be on the side of mining companies and oil firms. If extractive operations face resistance the nature of mineral resources allows companies to change strategies and come back when resistance is at its weakest.

Death toll of mining

The imbalance of resource also plays to the hands of companies as they have the means to bring delinquents on their side. In an academic paper entitled Conflict and Astroturfing in Niyamgiri, which is very instructive beyond the confines of academia, Romy Kraemer and others tell the story of a young tribal activist who received global attention for his fight against bauxide mining in India. In the cause of the struggle however the company manages to buy the activist out and provide him with a scholarship away from his native land. This is a rather peaceful case if one considers how many violent conflicts are reported around extraction worldwide. Ken Saro-Wiwa who died in the struggle against Shell as well as environmental justice activist Berta Cáceres from Honduras paid with their lives for their vocal oppositions. Their names, just as much as Sikhosiphi Rhadebe’s, echo in the struggles against exploitative extractivism of today.

The number of casualties in operating mines should not be forgotten either. In a single accident in the Turkish coal mine in Soma in 2014, at least 301 miners died in an underground fire. Even in the absence of major accidents miners are pressured to take ever higher risks in anticipation of the ever greater emphasis on production.

Increasingly struggles over mining are fought under environmental banners. The Environmental Atlas mapping of the social and environmental impacts of mining and other invasive developmental projects counts 158 conflicts over coal as well as 105 reported escalations over natural gas – the list is far too long to complete it. To get an overview it is certainly worthwhile to have a look at the globe full of colourful dots marking conflicts in virtually every region of the planet.

Consent or choice?

Is this just another case of the resource curse thesis suggesting that countries with large amounts of mineral endowment are worse off than their resource-poor counterparts? The answer is not that straightforward. In an ideal world communities could decide freely on whether or not they opt for mining in their community. In cases in which they opt in favour of mining communities should benefit from operation at every stage which would require the involvement of local entrepreneurs and schemes to upskill locals (I am still talking about an ideal world). Initiatives such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples demand free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). This might not go far enough as critics argue that “consent” should be replaced by “choice”. This seems easier said than done in the face of cosy relationships between mining capital and elite politicians.

South Africa’s impasse

Let me go back to South Africa where I currently do research on popular mobilization around the extractive industries. According to Corruption Watch, South Africa’s mining industry is at high risk of corrupt practices. Evidence certainly suggests that companies and governing African National Congress (ANC) politicians are working together quite closely.

President Jacob Zuma’s son is heavily and controversially involved in mining ventures. Vice-president Cyril Ramaphosa held large shares of the mining company which saw 34 of its miners shot down in 2012. It is because of these conflicting interests that political economy professor Patrick Bond does not trust South Africa’s decision-makers to oversee mining relations. He likens them to a drunk nephew who “finds the key to the cupboard containing the family jewels, and he takes them all away, then finds a sleazy foreign buyer on the street corner who pays him a small portion of the value of the jewels, at which point the nephew goes to the bottle store and gets the most vile booze available, swigs it down and comes home to the same house, and vomits it all up, passing out and leaving the Auntie to clean up the mess.”

So the challenge will be to become sober about how to manage mining relations in a country in which close to 10 percent GDP comes from mining operations and where countless other sectors are connected to mining. Under the current fast-tracking methodology Phakisa, the South African government is currently embarking on streamlining decision-making processes in mining. To many this sounds like more top-down decision-making at the expense of communities that will have to host mines.

The T-shirts on Human Rights day on the Wild Coast read: “No mining on our land”.

We will see more of those where people’s freedom of choice becomes violated.

This Author

Jasper Finkeldey is a PhD researcher at the University of Essex studying social and environmental impacts of mining in South Africa. He is currently based at the Centre for Civil Society in Durban

Amidst concern over President Trump’s emasculation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and cuts to the USA’s climate research, other ground-breaking areas of environmental research are being ignored.

For well-over a decade, at a cost of $25 million, a US National Toxicology Program study has been assessing the links between the use of mobile phones and rare, though increasing forms of cancer.

Unfortunately, before the results of this study are published, it may be ‘lost’ in the coming cuts.

Donald Trump’s policies are not ‘revolutionary’. They reflect a general opposition by right-wing lobby groups to environmental and social campaigns.

Just like the UK Coalition Government’s ‘Bonfire of the Quangos‘ in 2011/12, Trump’s cuts are aimed at removing any authoritative opposition to the liquidation of the Earth’s last natural resources – irrespective of the costs to human health and the environment.

Who will rid me of these turbulent scientists?

Given the USA’s lead in science and consumer technology, and the novel public health research such innovations generate, Trump’s new budget could have global implications for public health.

The Department for Health and Human Services (DHHS) funds the USA’s leading public health institutes. As part of Trump’s attempt to nullify environmental opposition in the USA, a long-standing objective of the political-right, the DHHS’ budget is being cut by 18%, or about $15.1 billion.

That will have wide-ranging effects on its dependent research agencies.

The National Toxicology Programme, maintained by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is one such example. At present cuts to the NIH, which has seen increases in its funding over recent years, are believed to be around 20% of its budget, roughly $5.8 billion.

Ultimately it is up to the US Congress to decide on the precise level of funding. That in turn depends upon the willingness of the Republican majority to follow Trump’s ‘skinny’ budget proposals.

Concerns about mobile phone radiation

Historically concerns about radio frequency (RF) radiation – and the official claims of safety for mobile phone use – were based on its ‘heating’ effect. Microwaves, like those used in kitchen ovens, heat-up materials as they are absorbed.

The levels of heating caused by mobile phones were so small they were considered insignificant for health. On that basis governments, mobile phone companies, and just about everyone with an interest in mobile communications, claimed that their use entailed no public health risk.

However, even before their use became widespread in the last 10 to 15 years, the ‘heating’ hypothesis was challenged by evidence of health impacts associated with heavy mobile use – including headaches, skin irritation, nausea, and cancer.

Concerns over the ‘non-thermal level’ of health impacts began to arise in the 1990s, but the result of initial scientific reviews was essentially, ‘we don’t know‘.

There was insufficient evidence to assess the risks to human health.

The need for long-term studies

In 1999, the US Food and Drug Administration nominated the effects of mobile phone radiation for research by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP). That was because while mobile phone use had become widespread, little was known the about human health impacts of low level RF radiation exposure.

NTP designed a long-term study where animals would be irradiated by different kinds of mobile phone radiation – to take account of the differing mobile technologies. This was done in a closely controlled environment, so that the effects of mobile radiation could be differentiated from other confounding factors – something that many other studies have failed to do.

The study began, and… nothing; which is the issue with long-term exposure studies – they take time to produce a result.

In the interim various scientists recommended ‘precaution’ in the use of mobile phones. Though governments and the telecommunications industry have ignored that advice.

Category 2B: ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’

Another official study, carried out by the World Health Organization’s Interphone Study Group, published its results in 2010.

Using epidemiological data they concluded there was ‘no increase in risk’ of cancer – although they accepted there may be a weak association with one specific type of cancer, glioma, amongst the heaviest mobile users.

In 2011, contrary to the mollifying statements from the industry, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared that

“the evidence, while still accumulating, is strong enough to support a conclusion and the 2B [possibly carcinogenic to humans] classification. The conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk.”

In response to the IARC statement, the European Environment Agency recommended, “taking a precautionary approach to policy making in this area.”

As yet that call has not been heeded by many EU governments and regulators. And certainly not in the UK, where wireless connectivity is seen as a driver of economic growth.

Wifi and the exponential growth of connectivity

From the 2000s, research widened beyond mobile phones to look at all forms of wireless communication – given that the use of WiFi had become widespread.

Around this time stories began to emerge about ‘electrosensitive’ people who were adversely affected by RF radiation. Sometimes mocking, these articles often claimed ‘no proof‘ – though symptoms were demonstrable, and research studies have shown that some people are able to sense RF radiation within the bounds of statistical certainty.

Again, as with early mobile phone studies, WiFi-related studies produced no certain outcomes for human health – due to the lack of controlled research.

As a result, and without requiring that a safety case be proven, governments and the industry have rolled-out the installation of WiFi across society.

The political bias against ‘precaution’

The difficulty is that studies which produced no clear-cut result tend, on the basis of the precautionary approach, to call for preventative action in advance of certain scientific evidence.

Precautionary action is mandated under United Nations agreements on sustainability, and under European law.

Unfortunately the ‘precautionary principle’ is one of the issues which is toxic to right-wing politicians (especially in the USA). They believe it harms economic growth as it seeks to restrict people’s rights to pollute or damage the environment.

The lack of precautionary action has meant that the use of all kinds of high-frequency communication systems has grown exponentially. Most notably, WiFi. Not only in the home, where we have a ‘choice’ of exposure, but also deliberately installed in public places – often with government support and financing.

Clearly on the ‘thermal’ effects issue, it is true that the effect is insignificant. But the possibility of ‘non-thermal’ mechanisms which are deleterious to human health cannot be excluded.

Given the consistent evidence of some kind of ‘non-thermal’ causal mechanism for health impacts, there is no proof that mobile phones or WiFi systems are safe.

2016: NTP’s results begin to trickle out

Well over a decade after it started the National Toxicology Program’s long-term study started to yield results. In May 2016 the NTP released a draft report on the study’s findings. A review in Science summed-up the results:

“Male rats exposed to cellphone radiation in a large US government study were more likely to develop rare brain and heart cancers, a preliminary analysis has found, adding weight to concerns the ubiquitous devices could pose a health risk to people.”

A more detailed review in Scientific American highlighted the finding of a correlation between exposure to RF radiation and increasing cancer rates in the exposed group of rats.

While accepting the results were not definitive, researchers commented that the use of so many animals over such a long period was significant, and raises serious question about the safety of mobile phones. At the same time sceptics, quite rightly, pointed out that the draft was an incomplete, un-reviewed digest of the findings of the research project.

One, as yet unpublished aspect of the final report will be the description of a mechanism by which ‘non-thermal’ effects might give rise to cancer. For example, by creating breaks in DNA, which, as discovered 20 years ago, can cause mutations which might give rise to cancer.

The NTP’s scientists are currently working toward producing a final report on the study. Last week NTP announced that a research paper would not be published in its own right. Instead a final report would be published in December 2017.

This is why the possible cuts to the NTP’s budget are problematic. They could be used as a pretext for preventing the final publication of the results.

Might there be industry pressure to kill the study?

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has information on their website which states: “Can using a cell phone cause cancer? There is no scientific evidence that provides a definite answer to that question.”

There is also a sidebar entitled: “Why has the information on this page been updated?” That sidebar is the result of a controversy stoked over changes to the original format of the page – which indicated that mobile phone users should take a more cautious approach to their use.

The events surrounding that are outlined in a New York Times article, based on emails released after a freedom of information request, which outlined the pressure applied to the CDC to change its public advice.

One of the groups leading the campaign against warnings on the use of mobile phones was Breitbart – the ‘alt-right’ news site, run at that time by Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

However, there is hope that the results will emerge, somehow. When I put the possibility of the industry pressuring the US government to bury the NTP’s report to Dr. Louis Slesin, the editor of Microwave News, he commented:

“A possible indirect effect is that the Trump administration could hold up the release of the report as a favor to the telecom industry. If that were to happen, I would hope that the report might be leaked – as was the case with those preliminary results we published last May, which prompted the NTP to officially release them a few days later.”

Why the evidence demands precautionary action

Recently a key paper on the effects of mobile phones on cancer rates in Britain had to be corrected. It had used the wrong data. What the new data showed was an increasing incidence of glioma in the UK – one of the cancers highlighted in the NTP’s study, as well as the Interphone study which had dismissed a link to cancer.

Yet the official advice from the UK’s NHS is that “most current research suggests it’s unlikely that radio waves from mobile phones or base stations increase the risk of any health problems.”

There is insufficient research to demonstrate the health effects from mobile phones and, perhaps more significantly due to the longer-term exposure, from WiFi – though evidence of effects does exist.

Yet despite the calls for ‘precaution’ from scientists, year on year, the ‘flux’ of high frequency electromagnetic energy in the environment continues to grow stronger, as use of these systems grows exponentially.

The global mobile phone industry has revenues of around a trillion dollars. And in addition to workplace and home computers, WiFi enables the ‘Internet of Things’ – which is forecast to quadruple in size by 2020 to a market worth $4 billion.

If more definite evidence on the health impacts of mobile communications and WiFi arises over the next few years, will our politicians and regulators be able to stand-up to that kind of economic pressure? – as well as public pressure from addicted mobile users?.

There is a long-standing debate over ‘safety’ in our modern, technological world. In particular, the role of radiation to that overall level of safety. In part that’s because radiation is a ‘involuntary’ risk; by its nature, you have no choice to avoid its hazards if your environment is polluted by it.

The difficulty is that personal choice is removed when public spaces are being deliberately ‘wired’ for wireless communications. Most notably, WiFi in public buildings and on public transport. People may wish to limits their exposure, but society is not allowing that because of its incessant drive towards mobile communications.

As the social and economic pressure for wireless connectivity grows, how are we limit our exposure to RF radiation?

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental researcher and freelance author. He is also the creator of the Free Range Activism Website, FRAW

A fully referenced version of this article is available on FRAW.

My observational skills are lacking. Even after six years of life on a narrowboat, continuously cruising 2,000 miles of mostly rural waterways, I see things I’ve never noticed before. For the first time I have spotted wild crocuses. At least if I have seen them before and known them to be wild, I have forgotten. I always thought crocuses (croci if you insist) were exotic garden plants. I didn’t realise that they have wild counterparts in Britain.

On the towpath in Northamptonshire two or three peep purple here and there through fallen oak leaves in a wooded cutting near mile-long Braunston Tunnel. They seem delicate and fragile and I protect them from a team of strimmer-wielding workmen clearing the towpath. But perhaps these pretty flowers are nothing more than garden escapees after all?

After my protestations to the hard-hatted destroyers, I read in my 1970s’ cloth-bound flower guide that the natural habitat of wild crocus (Crocus neapolitanus) is mountain meadows, not shady towpaths. Wikipedia goes further and tells me my initial instincts were right. Crocuses hail from the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The ‘wild’ ones in the UK must be escapees. Oh well. They are a bright splash of colour and I welcome their presence.

This stretch of canal is also home to a budding yellow bloom. With leafless stems resembling little asparagus spears, the sunny pompoms, like small dandelion flowers, give colour to a boggy patch of towpath. Keen botanists among you may have deduced the plant to be coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) as I learn from my pre-Internet era guidebook, A field guide in colour to wild flowers.

My desire to name the nature I see and hear around me seems to grow with age. Our forebears named plants as they found them, without national consensus, so that some flowers have several names. Coltsfoot (with hoof-shaped leaves, yet to appear) is also known as coughwort and foalswort.

The mention of flowers in literature gives some indication of their decline. In the 1930s, the canal enthusiast and author of Narrow Boat, LTC Rolt, records ‘a boatman’s wife, Mrs Hone’, telling him: ‘In the Spring up ‘leven mile pound you can smell the violets in the banks something lovely as you goes along.’ That eleven mile pound (a distance between locks) is not far from here. I wonder if it still smells of violets in the spring?

In the 19th century, Anne Brontë, in Agnes Grey, writes about wild pansies. Like wild crocus, I wondered if there really were such plants. It turns out the wild pansy, Viola tricolor, has a starring role in Shakespeare’s A midsummer night’s dream. “The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid will make man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees.” I will look out for wild pansies more keenly now I know this magical association with the flower commonly known as Love-in-Idleness.

Such knowledge of names and literary connections seems but a mere indulgence. I would rather learn to appreciate the practical uses of ‘nature’; uses that we have mostly forgotten. Even our much-maligned Neanderthal ancestors knew which plants could be used as medicine. Recent studies of plant DNA found in the dental plaque on the teeth of a Neanderthal male who lived over 40,000 years ago show that he chewed poplar bark to help alleviate the pain of a dental abscess. Poplar bark contains salicylic acid, the active ingredient of aspirin.

If we made more use of plants we might care more for their habitats. We might not trash our waysides with litter if we thought of the plants growing there as our larders and medicine cabinets. (Dog poo bags hanging from branches does rather diminish the appeal of harvesting food or medicine from hedgerows it has to be said.)

Sometimes the common name gives us a clue to an ancient remedy, barely remembered. Coltsfoot is also known as coughwort. An extract from its leaves is still used as a flavour in medicinal coltsfoot rock made by a Yorkshire sweet company. Stockleys Sweets also suggests that the leaves can be smoked to alleviate asthma. As the plant has been found to contain high levels of liver-damaging alkaloids, you might want to moderate your consumption.

Before taking to life afloat, I imagined I would live well from my abundant natural larder and perhaps even heal myself with herbal infusions. I pictured hunting for rabbits with ferrets and gathering baskets of wild salad and berries. Autumn is the season of fruitfulness and fungi but now, springtime, is when waysides become rich again with greens and flowers.

In previous springs, I have picked and cooked St John’s mushrooms, made elderflower fritters and nibbled hawthorn leaves but that diet would barely provide the calories required to unwrap a chocolate bar. Forager extraordinaire Fergus Drennan has lived for weeks at a time solely on wild food and documented his diet in a column for this magazine. He aspires to spend a year living solely on wild food. This week he has been leaching the tannins out of 30kg acorns in a stream and tapping sap from 20 birch trees. I should meet him. As for my natural medicine cabinet, I now know a remedy for a tickly throat and it’s available from a sweet shop.

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