the sound of silence

Interesting to read a new article in the Globe & Mail newspaper that lives in harmony with my most recent post on this blog. The Globe story is headed “Surround Sound” and opens with, “We have been conditioned to accept a cacophony of sounds – in our cities, in our homes and in our minds. Our world grows louder, decibel by nattering decibel. It doesn’t need to be this way… there is value in the silence that our noise pollution obscures.”
Columnist Michael Harris goes on to write: “In Canada, 80 per cent of us live in cities now and that means urban din. Sirens, traffic, excavators. The roar of a subway and the airplane overhead. It all adds up to an unescapable wave of sound. And this ratcheting of volume is not benign. The World Health Organization warns that urban environments now produce sound levels well above safe limits. In Europe, there are 12,000 premature deaths each year caused by the stress and cardiovascular disease brought on by excess noise.”
Now, I had no idea that noise was a killer. But I do know that escaping the urban prison of sound is one of the reasons I find the Caribbean resorts I visit so relaxing.
Perhaps that idea about Quiet Beaches is more and more appropriate.

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