[sustran] BBC Series: The Noisy Ape

[Todd Edelman]

BBC World Service has produced a four-part series called "The Noisy Ape":

Excerpt from the introduction: "Mankind has spent the entire last 
century making itself louder. A great deal louder. But why? And what are 
the consequences? .... in the last century alone the lower threshold of 
human hearing has gone up by four decibels. This may not look much until 
you realise that this means a 66% deterioration in hearing quiet sounds!"

***

The third part aired this week, but you can listen to all four at the 
website: 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/129_noisy_ape/index.shtml>

Every show has a list of links below of groups or projects which are 
referred to in that part of the series. There is discussion of oil 
exploration killing whales and noisy stereos, and actually many of the 
anti-noise groups focus on these extreme things, rather that what other 
groups say is also very damaging, e.g. traffic sound levels promoting 
learning problems in school children. Indeed, the third programme refers 
to a new law which will come into effect in NYC in July 2007, which more 
strictly enforces noise violations from music, construction, car alarms 
(more than 10db in the day; 7db in the night) over the "ambient noise 
level". So, since the ambient level includes individual automobile 
traffic, it seems like the "elephant in the room" is being ignored... by 
some at least.

Clearly there are some groups here which should join our efforts, come 
to our conferences, and so on, and I hope people have the chance to 
visit the various links and invite the people on-board...

- T

-- 
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Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory

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