October 2019 MCQSC Update: The Effects of Noise Pollution
An article, Why Everything Is Getting Louder from the Nov. issue of The Atlantic, is fascinating and covers many of the emotional and physical aspects of human responses to aviation noise, even though it is primarily about a different noise problem. The concepts of an "acoustic attack" and “noise is a clever enemy” will resonate with everyone who lives under aircraft flight paths.
Here are a few key quotes -- though we really recommend you read the entire article:
“Noise is never just about sound; it is inseparable from issues of power and powerlessness. It is a violation we can’t control and to which, because of our anatomy, we cannot close ourselves off.
“Noise is a clever enemy. It leaves no trace and vanishes when chased. It’s hard to measure or describe. It is also relative. Sound is when you mow your lawn, noise is when your neighbor mows their lawn, and music is when your neighbor mows your lawn,” says Arjun Shankar, an acoustic consultant.
"The volume at which noise begins to irritate varies depending on the source—we tolerate trains at louder volumes than cars, and cars at louder volumes than planes—and its pitch, or frequency. (Humans can hear sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz, which roughly ranges from the low-frequency thump of subwoofers to the high-frequency buzz of certain crickets.) We are more sensitive to mid-frequency sounds—voices, birdsong, squealing brakes, shrieking infants—and perceive these sounds as louder than they are.
"When regulatory officials evaluate environmental noise—to determine, say, whether to soundproof schools near airport runways—their calculations emphasize the mid-frequency sounds to which our ears are most sensitive and discount the low-frequency sounds (think wind turbines, washing machines, kids galloping upstairs) that have been shown to travel farther and trigger stronger stress responses. “If you actually measured sound using the right metric, you’ll see that you’re harming a lot more people than you think you are,” says Walker, the environmental-health researcher, who is working with communities near flight paths and freeways to rethink how noise is quantified.