On Jeff's blue Yoga mat, he inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his mouth, and welcomed the morning with bent legs underneath him and a straight back; he grabbed his ankles and held himself in the shape of a bow. Jeff was learning to develop a strong spine, as to handle any stressful situation in his life. Trying for his third deliberate breath he collapses his pose, "Beep!" "Beeeep," "Beep," "Beep!"
Jeff rises at 6am and hears this obviously blaring warning horn, Monday through Friday. For Jeff, that sound always seems unexpected. He questions why the limit to the city's decibel law isn't reinforced? Why aren't there a driver, driving, and a cohort watching a highly evolved camera that the vast majority of big industries have? Whatever happened to the guys cocked to the side and hanging on to a steel bar from the back of garbage trucks, smiling at children, like in the day? Is this option too expensive for Jeff's big city of Chicago?
Transportation vehicles are the worst offenders of noise pollution.
It's 6:15am and the city garbage trucks are backing up. In reverse, the sound of the horn is heard on an average of 22 times, 5 days a week. The noise pollution problem is especially inauspicious for him and his neighbors; he shares his backyard with thousands of urban dwellers on an entire city block comprised of many buildings on Chicago's lovely northeast side.
The word noise is derived from the Latin term for nausea, yes - nausea.
Jeff thinks about the sounds that he has no control over like: leaf blowers, car horns, car alarms, airplanes, motorcycles, construction trucks backing up and those reversing garbage trucks. Even though intuitively, he knows noise pollution isn't good for anyone's soul.
Everyone has a psyche that reacts to noise differently. We don't see the harmful consequences because there is no immediate cause and effect. Therefore, noise tends to be viewed by many, not as an environmental problem but as a nuisance that we're becoming used to.
Jeff questions, what are we really doing with environmental integrity? All of today's environmental issues have a tremendous amount of value. A growing number of people also feel like we need to look at the meaning of this proliferating pollutant.
The definition of noise as a pollutant is subjective because of the gray area in which an individual considers a sound to be loud or not desired, not expected, not pleasant and/or not wanted. Noise pollution can be defined as something repeatedly heard or not by any person under any circumstance, which may compromise their mental and/or physical health.
The not desired sound outside will stress, stress causes disease. Disease kills us.
He's only come to dread the sound. He's imagined himself running down the stairs as soon as he hears the beeping and having a conversation with the truck driver as soon they step down from their gigantic cab. However, he always changed his mind because they're just performing their jobs and a good job at that and, it's not their fault.
He's even tried walking the two city blocks to the jogging path right next to the glistening Lake Michigan to do his yoga and that also proved fruitless. Because every few minutes he hears the roaring engine of an airplane taking off or landing at one of the worlds busy and getting busier airports.
Sure, it'd be easy to blame owners of these companies - it must be them that carry the burden of guilt. We could just blame the big industries concerned about money and not social responsibility, but it's a cultural thing, so we can't, we're all in this together.
For him, noise pollution takes its toll, he wonders about his neighbors.
But, he thinks, what about the many squirrels, birds, butterflies, rabbits, cats and dogs that also share the immediate surroundings as their home? What's the outcome of harmful noise with those beings?
The cement square beneath his windows is a metaphor for life right now because in the meantime, the welfare of nature in this area has been ignored.
Because of the increasing mass urbanization, the world is hearing more harmful noise.
Noise is measured in decibel units; there are present noise decibel laws but if you go around your neighborhood with a decibel reader that you can buy at Radio Shack, it's obvious that we're constantly breaking these laws and nobody seems to care.
We hear the rapid expansion of O'Hare Airport day and night. Due to lax laws initiated by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, O'Hare is expected to triple the number of loud engines, in the next ten years taking off from what is currently allowed, hundreds of planes an hour, hundreds. Hey, it's getting worse, more runways. Quieter aircraft are being created but aircraft is increasing at such a rate that noise pollution will increase even with the expanding roaring of planes.
He's seen many people moving in and out from his studio windows. He laughs to himself and thinks the condo owners probably have their prospective buyers stay over on Saturday night so they won't have to listen to the "Beep!" until Monday. Do people talk about it as noise pollution? Are we so used to it we don't really notice?
Often we turn on a different noise in our home to hide the problem our world faces outside. Sometimes that doesn't even work because the vibration felt by the human body is omnipresent.
Peace and quiet has become unmanageable. And with the movements towards urbanization, we're facing consequences. Let's be aware of noise pollution and begin to enforce the laws.
