NOISE POLLUTION
Defining noise in a truly satisfactory way is a complicated issue. In his book The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, R. Murray Schafer offers four different definitions of the word noise. These definitions include: unwanted sound, unmusical sound, any loud sound, and a disturbance in any signalling system. In another text, The Book of Noise, Schafer narrows the field to just one of these definitions, “unwanted sound”. And this is how I would choose to define noise as well. However, while “unwanted sound” seems the most appropriate (sufficiently broad as to encompass the whole spectrum of acoustic aberrations one might want to label as noise) I acknowledge, as Mr. Schafer does, that such a loose and general definition is problematic. Leaving the term with such a broad and subjective definition allows it to be completely open to interpretation – and therein lies the main problem with “noise”: one person's listening pleasure may be another person’s unbearable cacophony.
Unfortunately noise is not just a problem of volume. No. Very quiet sounds can be thought of as noise as well. While we know that loud sounds, those above 85 decibels, can cause short-term hearing loss, temporary threshold shift, and even long-term damage, not all noises fall within this neat parameter. Noise is more a matter of sound quality (an extremely personal experience) and can change from moment to moment. To indicate just how subjective this term is, Schafer points out the special concern given to keep Sundays quiet throughout much of Central Europe. To contrast this he points out that even in other dominantly Christian parts of the world, such a Latin America, religious holidays are almost always loud public occasions – times in which loudspeakers are not only permitted but expected. One could be forgiven for assuming that there would be some unanimity within the highly codified world of a religious community, particularly when it comes to permissible sounds and sound levels; but apparently that's just not the case.
Related to this problem of definition and subjectivity is that it opens up one's personal experience and annoyance to be seen as a kind of personal eccentricity, as being merely in one's head and not definite in any real sense. Because “noise”, according to the aforementioned definition, is a matter of perception and opinion, it's easily interpreted as a choice, as something you may easily ignore or simply relabel. As Barry Truax explains, in a chapter about noise within his book Acoustic Communication, many social myths have been built up around our ability to deal with noise and that we have all kinds of seemingly reasonable rationalizations for noise in all its forms. We justify ambulance sirens and traffic noises, excessive levels in a movie theatre or concert hall, and many others as necessary, desirable, or somehow useful. To counter this, the term "noise pollution" has been developed to help us talk about noise and its propagation. Framing it in this way, as pollution, helps us make clear the destructive effects of gratuitous sound. These effects are serious and fall across the whole spectrum of human experience: effects may be physiological (in the case of hearing loss or, say, boilermaker’s disease); other effects may be psychological (causing stress, fatigue, anxiety, nervousness, and sleep loss); and still others may block, interfere, or alter a signal and thereby interfere with communication.
While I agree with the acousticians, soundscape engineers, and acoustic communication researchers that noise can have tremendously negative consequences – ones that are both blatant and insidiously subtle – I feel there's a overemphasis and overly dramatic representation of noise as a great scourge of all humankind. Both R. Murray Schafer and Barry Truax seem transfixed by noise in the way a televangelist is transfixed by Armageddon. They both offer a lot of information, yet their arguments seem incomplete: heavy on speculation and drama while lacking in scope and evidence. I find both these authors are all too eager to ignore counter evidence and obvious contradictions. For instance, quotes from Schafer’s The Book of Noise (such as “it has been estimated that our technology is raising the sound-level of the average city by a decibel per year” and “in the USA it is estimated that approximately 1,000,000 workers have serious hearing loss due to high noise levels in their places of work”) are not only terribly outdated but the data is dubious to begin with.
To start, the UNESCO Courier, which he quotes in both these cases, makes no reference to the source of their information. Next, the quote about rising decibel levels is highly suspect and likely fraudulent. I could not find any reference to this in the source article – even using search terms such as “technology,” “sound-level,” “decibel,” and “city.” Moreover, it is preposterous to think that the sound-level of Vancouver, for instance, has (or even could) increase by forty-five decibels since the publication of the source article. My understanding of the decibel scale and of the data is that a forty-five decibel increase would represent a city well over 10,000 times louder than it was in 1967. This prediction is like saying that the number of noisemakers (automobiles, aircraft, heavy machinery, power tools, etc…) in the city would double every three years. Of course when we think about this for just a moment it is absurd on its face. According to Statistics Canada census data, found on the city of Vancouver’s website, Vancouver’s population has increased from roughly 410,000 to 580,000 people over the last 45 years. So, for this prediction to have come true, everyone in the city of Vancouver today would have to be riding jackhammers to work, wearing bullhorns around their necks, and building experimental jet engines in their backyards in their downtime. But would that even cover his wild predictions? I’m still not sure it would. Regarding the million people suffering hearing loss, neither Schafer nor his source qualifies the assertion. Who are these people? I think it’s safe to assume that these are workers who acquired hearing damage due to long-term exposure. If the article was published in 1967, these million people likely entered the workplace in the 1940’s or earlier, when awareness, legislation, and workers rights were really in their infancy. Right.
The above problems, however, are just the start of the questionable data and poor predictions that plague Schafer’s work. Of course his concerns over the threats posed by supersonic jets never came to pass. These concerns show short-sightedness and panic not reasonable concern. Not only did a pandemic of supersonic jets never materialize but, for instance, the supersonic trains that did evolve and flourish, those bullet trains constructed and operating today throughout Asia and Europe, have had their sonic booms (the acoustic calamity causing so much anxiety) completely silenced using very elementary design features almost as soon as the problem was discovered. So we can see how, rather than offering real solutions, Schafer seems prone to make unqualified statements and use weak rhetoric to scare people – with statements like:
In 20 years at the present rate of noise increase everyone in the city of Los Angeles would be deaf. And with this we would close the book. No more would we be able to hear the delicate sounds of birds, of water, the breathing of nature or the sounds of our own voices. And music would cease to exist on this planet.
See, he's apocalyptic and melodramatic. Remarks like this are inaccurate, irresponsible, unhelpful, and ultimately unacademic. How can we take seriously anything he says after statements like these? These writings are little more than poorly conceived fear mongering. With even a cursory glance at his source materials this becomes apparent. Schafer seems to have searched for information that supports his desired ends while skipping right over statements to the contrary: such as one from the International Association Against Noise stating that, “[a]chievements during the past ten years in acoustics, sound-proofing techniques, and the introduction of anti-noise regulations have been remarkable.”
Both Schafer and Truax appear unwilling to acknowledge the obvious psychological and social value of people learning to tune-out unwanted sound. Schafer refers to the ancient wisdom of restraint – of Ramadan, Yom Kippur, and Lent – when talking about the modern capacity for consumption and excess; however, he seems to ignore this and other ancient wisdom when it comes to his many concerns around noise. Contemplative traditions have, for thousands of years, taught people to still their minds amidst distraction and to not respond to stimuli in a reactive, moment-to-moment way. I would be willing to surmise that, while noise can cause stress and ill health, the emotional state generated by people who allow themselves to get upset at their neighbours lawnmower, or kids playing in the street, or a motorcycle roaring up the road, causes at least as much ill health and social unrest as actual decibel levels. Having a significantly more, say, Buddhist mindset would undoubtedly alleviate a significant amount of the deleterious affects of much of the noise generated in our environment. What remains after changing mindsets may be remediated by making simple, and cost effective, personal behavioural adjustments. For instance, when walking you may take side streets instead of main thoroughfares where possible; using earplugs or earphones when noisy locations cannot be avoided; turning off or unplugging devices and appliances in the home and workplace that generate needless sounds... Together with a positive and proactive mindset, these actions will eliminate almost all unwanted and problematic sounds in ones day-to-day experience. No?
Furthermore, I would argue that two of the most commonly disruptive sounds, noise-making activities such as yard maintenance and traffic that make up 60% of written noise complaints in the city of Vancouver, are forms of cultural expression and social communication here in North America. Both of these regular sounds are elements of the urban and suburban acoustic community. They are important acoustic cues that connect members of the community and keep the community in touch with itself through shared sounds and the cyclical rhythms they create, and by reflecting community life. As well, for generations now, few other activities communicate allegiance to suburban, middle-class, consumer ideology – and indicate to one’s neighbours a desire to fit in – like being heard (at least as much as seen) using one’s mower, edger, hedge trimmer, leaf blower, and mulcher. Automobiles have a similar place in our society. Their noise is not only acceptable, but also an expected part of people’s lives, very much a kind of admission into adulthood and respectable society. Non-participation in the ritual rush-hour racket-making is seen in many circles as a kind of non-commitment or even direct rejection of Western civilization. Not driving, like not mowing ones lawn – or being seen as preventing or inhibiting others from engaging in these activities, despite the obvious and gratuitous excess and absurdity of both – is an act of rebellion almost akin to treason. These activities and the obnoxious sounds they generate are both a right and a rite – handed down one generation to the next, contained and codified in cacophony. Historically, these are very much wanted sounds; therefore they cannot be defined as noise, can they? I think that a failure to note these points is a failure to understand social and acoustic communication. (And from two key founders of the field.)
It's important to notice how all of the abundant noise noted above is about to change or disappear. Clearly the first half of the twenty-first century promises to be one in which our beloved internal combustion engine (likely the most egregious violator of our general peace and quiet) will be muffled, if not silenced entirely. Even with the meagre changes to the internal combustion engine brought about by companies such as Honda and Toyota and their hybrid engines, automobiles have been mass produced (many of which are rapidly gaining in popularity) that produce dramatically less running noise than their conventional counterparts. With countless other companies moving in the same direction and 100% electric vehicles hitting showrooms around the world – with this technoliogical evolution accelerating due to battery, computer, and manufacturing advances, as well as pressures from world oil prices – the projections of ever-escalating noise levels appears to have been rather short-sighted indeed. Furthermore, these facts, taken into account with ever-growing numbers of transit users, cyclists and pedestrians, and municipal governments promoting these modes over personal automobile use, means the future promises to be a much more quiet place than at any time in the twentieth century.
But is quiet really what we want? Is quieter better? It seems assumed and asserted to be so. Yet, surely quiet isn't inherently good. Our intrepid acoustical leaders neglect to talk about the detrimental effects of the absence of noise and the other positive aspects of what some might mistakenly disregard or overlook as unwanted sound. Countless pre and post-natal class instructors and other early childhood professionals, as well as countless parenting books and magazines, recommend employing noise as a measure to relax distraught babies. They explain that we all develop and mature over a nine-month period in a veritable noise chamber. Our mother’s womb is a very loud and acoustically active space, one to which we all become acclimated and nobody would argue is bad. During this formative time all humans are constantly bombarded with the thumping of the heartbeat, the swooshing of heart valves and arteries, the huff and moan of respiration, the gurgling, growling, and groaning of digestion, the rushing of fluids in and out of the placenta, and the muted trumpeting of mom's vocalizations. Once babies are then thrust into the world, somehow we have this idea that what they want and need is quiet. This is a totally mistaken and nonsensical idea that causes newborns no small amount of grief. “Babies,” the professionals proclaim, “love noise!” Doctors, nurses, midwives, doolas, child psychologists, and seasoned mothers alike implore new parents to run their vacuum cleaners, turn on their hair driers, or even buy white-noise or broadband noise CDs in order to mimic the sounds that have accompanied and comforted baby for its entire life. Could it be that humans find this kind of noise comforting even into adulthood? Could it be, in part, that this is what subconsciously draws us to cities – the virtual wombs we’ve created that gurgle, burp, hiss, moan, cry, hiccup, and fart at us the whole day through? I think these are questions worth investigating, because if the answer is yes to either of these, based on what I’ve read to this point, whole areas of discourse would be turned on their heads.
Like the noise of the womb, Truax and Schafer also neglected to mention another incredibly important noise. They don’t talk about that the once repugnant background hiss associated with short-wave radio interference. They don’t mention that this noise turned out to have an extraterrestrial source. And they neglect to point out that, thanks to the pioneering spirit of Karl Guthe Jansky, listening to this "noise" – to the exclusion of all other sounds and signals – is the science of radio astronomy. A field of science which allows us to accurately map galaxies, investigate blackholes, observe the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, and gives us insight into the nature of Dark Energy. They don’t mention that without this “noise” we would be virtually blind to much of the reality of our universe.
While the two previous examples are tremendously important there is still another way in which noise has proved valuable. Noise also has an incredibly useful tactical application. Noise is one of the most effective non-lethal tools employed by the military and security forces during psychological operations, or “psy-ops.” Psychological operations often use unpleasant, irritating, and simply persistent sounds causing sleep disturbance, fatigue, and stress. This is an example of noise put to a helpful and positive use – one that can limit casualties in times of war or during hostage situations. At a time when we are able to employ all manner of weapon (mechanical, chemical, biological, radiological...) I'm certainly glad we have noise as an alternative.
I won’t fault Schafer for being a son of the 1950’s, but I will fault him for not updating his thinking and his writings. Murray Schafer appears to be working on the kind of rationalism born in the 1950’s. This is where we acquired all of those horrible ideas like “rational economic man” and “top down” organization that has steered us so far astray for decades now in economics, urban planning, politics, and other critical areas. Schafer offers up a thesis, in The Book of Noise, suggesting a link between noise and anarchy. Contrary to what Schafer forwards as his firm but “unstudied correlation” between noise and disorder, physicists like Geoffrey West of Standford University tell us a whole different story – one that actually IS studied. West, and now many others, tell us that, unlike companies, for example, which are highly organized and managed in a top-down fashion, “cities are unruly places, largely immune to the desires of politicians and planners.” Mayors and city officials “can’t tell people where to live or what to do or who to talk to. Cities can’t be managed, and that’s what keeps them so vibrant. They’re just these insane masses of people,” chaotically running about, bumping into each other, sharing ideas and experiences, creating novel associations and organizations. And it’s the freedom of the city that makes it possible and keeps it alive. Directly contrary to Schafers assertion, contemporary research suggests that, effectively, general social disorder is what we’re after; trying to control or avoid it creates worse problems.
Still, there are more unqualified issues regarding noise. In my readings on noise I've found that Barry Truax and R. Murray Schafer both fail to differentiate between what they refer to as undisputed noises (such as traffic and lawnmowers) and those wild, naturally generated sounds (like rainfall, wind, or the ocean). However, these have, in my experience, nearly identical properties. So there seems to be a double standard here. These authors both appear to have a worldview, a bias, “good” and “bad” filters in place, that go largely unarticulated and seems unrelated to the definition of noise they have forwarded. They both imply that all would be right with the acoustic world if we could somehow remove modern anthropogenic sounds that have polluted an otherwise pristine acoustic environment. This sentiment reminds me of anthropologists of yesteryear. This is sentimentalism or romantic primitivism – but in another form. They seem to believe that people at an earlier time or in a more isolated place somehow enjoy a noble and elusive acoustic life that others have lost. I think this idea of a “simpler time” or a “simpler place” never was. If you live near a river, or next to the ocean, or close to a waterfall, or in the arctic, or in a tropical or temperate rainforest – or just about any place people desire to live – there’s going to be ambient noise limiting the acoustic horizon and diminishing what would otherwise be a high fidelity soundscape. These are, like all other sounds, potentially unwanted, potentially damaging to people’s hearing and mental state, and obscuring of other sounds. I have lived in towns surrounded by dense tropical rainforest in which vast populations of insects are so loud, day and night, that whispering or quiet speech is pointless. There too, the daily thunderous rains that are endemic in these tropical regions are, as far as I can tell, largely indistinguishable from many manufactured, mechanical, city sounds that are so derided. Similarly, I have lived in subtropical areas where flocks of cockatoos, lorikeets, and kookaburras almost continuously puncture every public space with squawks, screams, screeches, and wholly maniacal, jeering, caws – some producing vocalizations as loud as 135dB! Are these sounds somehow different from leaf-blowers or garbage trucks? Would anyone argue that these are soundscape engineering problems needing of correction? It seems to me that populations could not have flourished in these places if persistent low decibel noises, broadband noises, and the sudden blasting of the occasional high decibel sounds are as problematic as our authors and their texts make them out to be.
In my mind, the realities noted above make the concerns of these scholars seem rather provincial and require much more explanation. After thinking about their work I'm convinced that a great deal of this worry is, well, just a bunch of noise.
ความคิดเห็น