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Noise Pollution
From WikiVerde
Noise pollution or Sound pollution is essentially, a distressing and offensive sound that is created by humans or machines. This sound contributes largely to the disruption of the various human and animal activities and minimizes the happiness and peace quotient of the environment in general.
The Monster Emerges
It is the rapid, unchecked, technological and infrastructural development that lies at the heart of the emergence of the monster of sound pollution. Transportation systems are reputed to cause the largest chunk of sound pollution world-wide. Not only is this monster propagated by the sounds of the motor vehicle, but it also finds wings through the noise made by air crafts. What’s more the screeching and various other sounds emitted by trains is another major cause of sound pollution.
Other ways that this monster emerges to take its toll on the public and the environment are through poor urban planning. The location of residential building and industrial units near each other is a manifestation of poor urban planning. Other common sources of sound pollutions include office equipment, factory machinery, house-hold appliances, and loud audio entertainment systems, amongst various others.
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Harmful to Humans
It must be understood that noise pollution not only affects the health of a person but the behavior as well. It has a physiological as well as physiological effect on humans and animals as well.
The Associated Behavioral Problems
Noise pollution goes a long way in increasing the stress levels of an individual. A person harried by constant noise may get excessively annoyed, which might result in excessive amounts of aggression and hypertension. These psychological problems lead to various physical problems like tinnitus and hearing loss. Moreover, high incidences of hypertension and stress would trigger memory loss, panic attacks, and lead to bouts of severe depression.
The Associated Physical Problems
Noise and Sound induced hearing loss is the result of chronic exposure to high decibel irritant sound or noise. It is a fact that on being exposed to chronic occupational noise, older males demonstrate a significant reduction in hearing sensitivity as compared to their peers who have not been exposed to such noise.
Study conducted by experts also showed that even if you are chronically exposed to mild levels of noise from the environment, you still are liable to suffer from hearing loss. Apart from the loss in hearing, a person might suffer from cardiovascular effects, if exposed to high decibel sound. Moreover, if exposed to moderate levels of sound, your blood pressure is sure to increase by a few points as result of stress and vasoconstriction.
As can be seen, the monster of sound pollution affects us in myriad of ways, which are all detrimental to our health. It will take hold of you without you even realizing it and the problem is that only concerted efforts can help in this regard and not your own individual effort to keep sound pollution at bay.
Harmful to the Environment
The environment here refers to the green and living environment that must be protected at all costs. Animals are also a part of this environment and are affected, as much as humans, by sound pollution. It increases their mortality rate as it changes the delicate balance that exists in nature with regards to avoiding predators or detection of preys. Sound pollution interferes in the basic model of communication that is used by various animals to communicate, especially, when it comes to navigation and reproduction.
Even in animals, over exposure to high levels of irritant sound can lead to a permanent loss of hearing! In fact their ears are more sensitive to sound than ours and hence, are more susceptible to hearing ailments. Will you like living in a habitat that is hampered by noise from all sides? Well, animals wouldn’t like to either, and this is one of the main reasons why we are increasingly seeing cases of the reduction of usable habitat for animals and various endangered species.
There have been cases, wherein, noise pollution has caused the death of certain species of mammals like the increase in beached whales. In this case the culprit may be the high decibel sounds used in military sonar.
Controlling Noise Pollution
As people realize the harmful effects of sound pollution, they have come up with various strategies to negate or control its effect. The noise of the roadways is being brought under control by limiting vehicular speed, limiting the use of heavy duty vehicle in or near residential neighborhoods, using advanced traffic control systems that help in the flow of smooth traffic, amongst various other sound minimizing techniques.
Efforts are on to even control the noise made by aircraft to a certain extent. This is achieved by using quieter jet engines, designed to make as little sound as possible. The urban sound levels have seen a noticeable reduction as result of the use of such engines. Moreover, governments have now recognized the need for addressing this problem as an environment related problem and not just like a problem that has nuisance value.
Various laws have been enacted that are enforced by the municipality. Having said that, one can also say that enough has not been done to combat the monster called noise pollution! People still do not take the threat of this kind of pollution in a serious manner. Many countries have no laws or concerted efforts that would decrease sound pollution in one way or another.
At the end of the day, people, animals, and the environment must have a legal right to peace and quiet. If anyone or anything disturbs this right, then they must be able to resort to legal action against the said persons or thing. Not for anything is sound pollution called the new age monster. More than anything else it is a result of man’s continuous attempts at developing infrastructure and technology. These activities will undoubtedly increase in the coming years, which do not bode well for humans or the environment.
