Have you noticed the dull whistle of the air conditioning, or perhaps a faint buzz of power lines that follows you down the sidewalk?
The air is full of noise, and it just keeps getting worse.
“Everything Is Getting Louder,” proclaims a recent headline in the Atlantic. The article documents the many deaths that have resulted from noise complaints, starting with the gods opting to exterminate the raucous human race in The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Humans are making the world very noisy, but human bodies are particularly bad at adapting to it. “Large-scale studies show that if the din keeps up — over days, months, years — noise exposure increases your risk of high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and heart attacks, as well as strokes, diabetes, dementia, and depression,” writes Bianca Bosker.
But humans aren’t the only ones who suffer. Environmentalists in Washington state are joining a push to keep their corner of the country quiet, as noise pollution has harmed animals from grizzlies to orcas. Busy roads discourage songbirds, and boat traffic can wreck a marine mammal’s sonar. Lawmakers across the United States have discussed bills or incentives to protect wildlife by keeping habitats quiet.
Decades ago, author Norton Juster illustrated our distaste for discord with the awful Dynne, a cacophonous character in Juster’s classic children’s book. “So wherever the noise is, that’s where you’ll find me,” explains the Dynne, a figure so obnoxious you can almost hear him screaming from the pages of The Phantom Tollbooth.
Now, as the weather turns and more leaves tumble to the ground, cities across the country, including Berkeley, California, and Washington, D.C., will remind citizens of their bans on leaf blowers. And whether it’s via the neighbor who hates raking or the construction tools clanging near your house, you’ll likely hear the awful din emerging around you.
We often find ourselves in the midst of too much noise, and we regularly welcome quiet, even if silence gets harder to hear.
As one character in The Phantom Tollbooth observes, “There is no such illness as lack of noise.”
