Electromagnetic and informational pollution as a co-challenge to air pollution

Abstract

The present focus on air pollution problems in a proper sense (emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants to the atmosphere) detracts, to a certain degree, attention from other growing problems of electromagnetic and informational pollution. At first glance, it appears that these problems are unrelated to the air pollution as such and may require completely different approaches for their solution (or at least, mitigation). We argue that the links between the above problems are more direct than is usually expected. Electromagnetic emissions in specific frequency bands, which are due to the exponentially increasing use of wireless communication technologies such as cell phones, satellite TV broadcasting, etc have selective effects at different elevation levels of the atmosphere and different geographical areas. Such known problems as holes in the ozone layer may be not be entirely due to chemical pollution, but may also be affected by high frequency electromagnetic effects. We discuss thermodynamical and quantum aspects of links between these three forms of pollution in the context of physics of chaotic and self-organizing systems.