This statement is incorrect and is based on a misinterpretation: “Indeed, people are exposed to quintillion times more radiation – that’s 18 zeros – today compared to 10 years ago.”
I know where she got it. It’s from a film, “Generation Zapped”, in which researcher Olle Johansson was quoted. When I heard his original statement – something like “in the last ten years, this radiation has increased a quintillion-fold” – it didn’t sound right so I wrote Olle and asked him to clarify.
The way it was expressed, it sounded like the change had occurred within the past 10 years. What he meant was to compare the levels in the past ten years with naturally occurring levels – such as before electrification began. He is not a native speaker of English, although he is quite fluent, and I think that is why the original statement was not clear for what he intended.
The amount of change in non-ionizing radiation to which we have been exposed within the past 10 years, that is, this year as compared with ten years ago, according to one researcher I queried, has probably been in the double digits. Perhaps ten-fold.
Marne Glaser
Chicago, Ill.
