As you d rive down the road in your motor vehicle, you often pay more attention to what is ahead of you than what is behind. One of the most important following factors to take note of is your vehicle’s exhaust puffing out of your tailpipe … because of this, your vehicle is often blamed for causing air pollution. Your vehicle is also to blame for another less-known type of pollution – noise pollution.
Simply stated, “noise pollution” is defined as excessive sound, whether this be caused by vehicle engines, outdoor concerts, car alarms, jackhammers and so on. Even people shouting at each other or a dog barking could be considered as noise pollution. Human ears are delicate and can be easily damaged by increased volumes of sound. Other negative effects of noise pollution include stress, insomnia, deafness and hypertension.
What is interesting to note is how noise pollution also adversely affects animals in many of the same ways as humans. Animals seek more peaceful habitats and escape noisy environments, often not knowing where they are going to. Tragically, the journey may end in disaster as proven by the deaths of beached whales, brought on by the noise of military sonar.
Steps to protect our Earth and our planet’s residents – whether human or animal - from noise pollution have been slow coming. Excessive noise was long considered as a public nuisance rather than any kind of potentially serious environmental issue. The situation has been improving, however, over the past three decades. While city regulations do often restrict greater noise from occurring overnight, it remains as an individual’s responsibility to report this concern to the proper authorities and many simply do not know who to call. You can begin by negotiating with your noisy neighbour but certainly familiarize yourself with the proper department to phone, should anything get vastly out of hand.
While we continue to learn more about noise pollution, we must work harder to curb this. It is we who create the noise; it is we who must hush the noise.
