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To be clear, if you are white and will be spending all day in the sun, rashguards, broad brimmed hats, and sun blocking sleeves are a very good idea even with sunscreen.
Overall I fully agree with the posters above that safety guidelines regarding the dangers of outdoor activity are fantastically wrong, but you too have a point. You can get an awful lot of skin cancer from the sun, though may take decades for it to show. How serious a problem it is varies from person to person; some can get away with a lifetime of sizzling, others will regret not covering up a little.
I compromise and wear a floppy hat. That's my safety right there.
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Am very white, can work up to a tan such that I can indeed spend all day outside without any accessories and not burn. Some SPF-15 for the first couple of weeks and it's all good. I honestly can't imagine living in such fear that one feels one needs a bunch of crap to safely go outside four months of the year.
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Basically.
In Australia, you can spend 15 minutes unprotected in the sun over Summer as a white person and not get sunburned.
That said, SPF 15 sunscreen/moisturiser is great for general daily regular use. I use it in Winter too if I think I'll be spending more than 15 minutes at a time outside.
Australia is not the world though.
‘Take measures to reduce UV exposure when in the sun’ is actually one of the more reasonable things the CDC has said- as anyone who works outside in Texas(or Australia) can tell you, ‘not taking your shirt off for hours on end in direct sunlight in the summer’ is well worth being mildly more uncomfortable to avoid sunburn.
Hell, blacks who work outside in Texas advise broad brimmed hats and tattoo covers(the local name for detachable sleeves), and they’re the least susceptible to sunburn of anyone. Sunburn and skin cancer are reasonable things to be concerned about and there are reasonable measures to take to reduce them.
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