Awais Nayyar
11-11-19
Benjamin Swett
Noise Pollution
INTRODUCTION:
An old riddle asked, ‘What comes with a carriage and goes with a carriage, is of no use to the carriage and yet the carriage cannot move without it?’ The answer: ‘A noise.’ Noise is something that is annoying and unwanted to your ears and it can be deadly to some extent. Noise Pollution is getting extreme in America, especially in the cities of New York, California, etc. Noise pollution is not just affecting the environment but it is also affecting human life,in my essay I want to talk about what noise pollution does to us and what can be done to get control over it. Noise pollution has necessitated the city’s Department of Environmental Protection to consider noise pollution in New York a major concern which needs to be given major attention in order to come up with a solution to the problem and ensure it is controlled. The city’s noise pollution can be seen to be very annoying. It has resulted to temporary hearing loss which has been a major contribution to stress and sleep loss for many residents in the city. Over a long period of time of exposure to noise pollution, it has led to permanent damage to people’s health and it has long term effects which should be taken seriously and we all should educate people around us so we as a nation unite together and take this issue in our hands and get control over it.
Effects:
An article from the New York Times “New York Becomes the City That Never Shuts Up” by Ween, Hu, a citizen who’s disturb by city’s traffic, especially traffic noise. He’s not happy and he consider noise as a big issue for him like other thousands of citizens. Author thinks that the reason for that is the over population in the city as it says “As the city grows more crowded, with a record 8.5 million residents” (Hu etal.) and there is an increase in those numbers in everyday bases. And no one literally no one is talking about this issue. It is big like other pollution, it kills you slowly and internally. The city’s noise pollution can be seen to be very annoying. It has resulted to temporary hearing loss which has been a major contribution to stress and sleep loss for many residents in the city. Over a long period of time of exposure to noise pollution, it has led to permanent damage to people’s health. It has also been particularly limiting to business as the noises affect the day to day operations of various businesses as it causes a disturbance. If you look around everyone is complaining about this, because it’s big it is killing thousands and many are losing their hearing. Like in the article it says “Noise is the No. 1 complaint,” said City Councilman Ben Kallos, who represents the Upper East Side and has been inundated with hundreds of noise complaints in the past year alone. “We need to take this problem seriously — take it head on without excuses and give every New Yorker the peace and quiet they need.” and there is another quotation in the article which says “I’ve had two years of absolute violation of my right to peace and quiet,” said Mr. McIntosh that seems really critical right? Thousands of people are going through this every day from traffic noise to air traffic, sirens, dogs barking, drilling etc. Noise specifically hit ears and cause damages that we can not imagine. In an article “Effects of Noise on Hearing” by William W. Clark, talks about the effects of noise on human hearing, he briefly explains every bit of it and what does it do to our ears. Exposing to high level sound can be deadly and can cause hearing loss. In the article it explains that when someone is exposed to high level sound like gun short or something else, it generates high pitch sound that stretches the inner ear tissue so much that it eventually tear them apart and that causes hearing loss. In the article “High-level, short duration exposures exceeding 140 dB can stretch the delicate inner ear tissues beyond their elastic limits, then rip or tear them apart. This type of damage—acoustic trauma—occurs rapidly and results in an immediate, permanent hearing loss.”(Clark etal, Page#158). People working in the military or those who served in the military have more chances of being exposed to high level sounds and they been seen having hearing loss. Fire from the gun and sound from the explosives produces high pitch of sound which can easily damage normal human’s ear. Noise also have effects on humans physically, it can damage the heart and brain, which are the most important parts of the human body and by damaging them means damaging the whole body. In the article ”Environmental Noise Pollution in the United States: Developing an effective public health response” is a well organized scholarly article which talks about the effects of noise pollution on human health. This article was published online on 5th December, 2013. Author includes Monica S.Hammer, Tracy K. Swinbum and Richard L. Neitzer starts with introduction of Noise pollution, its effects on humans and most importantly unseriousness shown by our government. In the starting of the article they show how chronic noise causes a wide variety of adverse health effects, which include sleeplessness, noise induced hearing loss(NIHL),and higher risk of diabetes. Noise pollution also damage heart and nervous system at whole. And with that said they tell how sleeplessness is associated with increased levels of stress and blood pressure. Like in the article “Disorder sleep is associated with increased levels of stress hormones. Microarousals appear to be associated with the increased lipids and cortisol levels, and feed into the same pathway of disorder sleep, even priming the neuroendocrine stress response in some individuals to be more at risk for disordered sleep such as depression.”(Hammer etal.) This quotation from the article shows how noise can affect your overall life and can be considered as very harmful and dangerous. In the other part of the article they explain the exposure and sources of noise in which it mainly describes what amount of sound is bad for an individual for a specific amount of time and in the other part, sources were discussed in which traffic, air transportation and construction was listed and music and unwanted sound can also affect the heath.
Source of Noise Pollution:
Noise Pollution is a way bigger problem than we think and seriousness should be shown by everyone in order to control it. In the article “Noise Is New York City’s Biggest Civic Complaint. Researchers Are Trying To Help Turn It Down” the author Robin Young and Karyn Medzon explains one of the biggest issues in the New York City (Noise pollution). The article asserts that, due to the dense population of traffic cause increases in the noise pollution. Other heavy transportation like airplanes and helicopters are playing their important role to maximize it. In the article they talk about the organization called SONYC (Sound of New York City) and their goal is to monitor, analyze and mitigate urban noise pollution in New York City. They place sensors around the city having a microphone and chip that detect the sound and frequency of sound which collect information about different kinds of noise pollution including drilling, sirens, dogs bark, and car horns. They will provide this information to the city agencies so they help to control and help New Yorkers from noise pollution. The article mostly deals with noise sensor, how to improve them and what steps should be taken to reduce that.
Noise is hurting and it will have long lasting effects on someone’s life. Subway noise is also another major contribution of noise pollution in the city of New York. The Department of Environmental Protection has no control over the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which is one of the biggest polluters of noise in the city. The Metropolitan Transit Authority can be seen to be untouchable which is only seen to concentrate on making money at the expense of the people’s freedom of a noise free environment and city. As much as the Metropolitan Transit Authority has improved track conditions over the last few years with the main aim of taking control and reducing serious noise hazards, subways are still a great source of noise pollution from the shrieking brakes and screeching wheels certainly at the curves. In another article “Noise Levels Associated With New York City’s Mass Transit Systems” by Richard Neitzel, Robyn R. M. Gershon, Marina Zeltser, Allison Canton,and Muhammad Akram. This article specifically talks about New York transit and type of noise and what level of noise is generated from there. They provide with tables explaining the noise in decibels and what level of noise is dangerous for humans. They used noise dosimetry to measure time-integrated noise levels in a representative sample of New York City mass transit systems (subways, buses, ferries, tramway, and commuter railways) aboard transit vehicles and at vehicle boarding platforms or terminals during June and July 2007. And after getting results from all these places, they concluded that the amount of noise generated is considered dangerous for normal ears. In the article it stated that “MTA subways had the highest maximum noise levels on average (90.4 dBA). The highest Lmax level among all platform measurements was at an MTA subway station (102.1 dBA), followed closely by a bus stop measurement (101.6 dBA). The 2 highest Lmax levels among all vehicle measurements were on an MTA subway car (97.8 dBA) and a bus (96.8 dBA). Lmax noise levels were on average about 2 dBA higher at platforms and terminals than in vehicles for 2 transit types (commuter rail and buses) and 1 to 5 dBA lower for the other transit types.” it shows that the level of noise at subways is way deadly for humans and in the end of the article they give suggestions on how to reduce noise pollution especially in the Subways and local transit places. It suggested that the subway’s infrastructure should be maintained, use of quieter equipment and tutorials should be shown to people to educate them and guide the importance of getting rid of it.
Solutions:
We already discussed how bad noise pollution is for human health and it can have long lasting and deadly effects as explained in the essay but for every problem there is a solution, for this problem the solution starts from ourselves, we should check us first if we are doing something that causes noise pollution or contribute to it, for example busting loud music and disturbing neighbours, using loud car silencers, honking for no reason etc.There are solution of getting safe from noise pollution and some suggested to live away from heavy traffic area and near airports, because it causes most of the damage, avoid listening to loud music, avoid jobs with regular exposure to elevated sound levels and many more. People should be educated about this issue and it starts from school, students should be given lectures and invite hearing professionals who can relate real life experiences that will help deliver the message to students. Awaring patience how to keep yourself away and safe from Noise. “Physicians can help patients at risk for hearing loss by teaching them to avoid exposure to unwanted noise and to become judicious consumers of desired sounds. For example, physicians can recommend that patients avoid other noisy activities on the day of a rock concert. Research has shown that rest periods interspersed with an otherwise hazardous exposure can reduce auditory damage.”(Clark etal.) Individuals should wear hearing protection whenever they are exposed to loud sounds and remember that the most effective type of plug or muff is the one that is actually used. Most individuals will find foam earplugs the protection of choice, because they are cheap, comfortable, disposable, and readily commercially available. Some advice to keep the windows closed during day time so home’s environment should be kept peaceful. “A simple mechanism to reduce noise pollution in our daily lives is just to close the windows. The amount of noise the outside world produces is unbelievable, especially in heavily populated areas. If, however, there is a full heatwave and keeping the window open is a necessity, you still have options.” (Adam Y, etal,).
Conclusion:
After reading all these scholarly articles and newspaper articles I came to the conclusion that many no profitable agencies are working to gather information from all over New York City. Organizations like SONYC they gather different kinds of noise by putting their devices all over the city and by then provide this info with the agencies working for NY state so they can resolve the issue. In the other scholarly article they use noise dosimeter to get the level of noise at NY transits. The information was collected in dBs and they come up with the conclusion that mostly subways have deadly level of noise around 90dBs which can easily make someone deaf. In other articles they mostly target the increasing population and traffic as the main reason for the noise pollution in NYC. With all this they also provide with the solutions, how we can control it some suggested that Subways infrastructure should be maintained and quieter equipment should be used at night. Other suggested that the government should raise awareness all over the country to get control over it and what should we do as a citizen to maintain the sound level around us. And it does have major effects on human life. It can damage the heart and people can get a heart attack by exposing to noise pollution. It damages your brain and has highly risk of boosting your blood pressure. Sleeplessness at nights can cause anxiety and tension which ruins health as a whole. So people should avoid places where there are high risk of exposing to deadly sound like to bars and parties etc. And government should do something like make tutorials and educate people to how to keep themselves safe and healthy.
Work Cited
Neitzel, Richard et al. “Noise levels associated with New York City’s mass transit systems.” American journal of public health vol. 99,8 (2009): 1393-9. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.138297 Accessed 29 Oct, 2019.
Hu,Winnie “ New York Becomes the City That Never Shuts Up” July 19, 2017 www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/nyregion/new-york-becomes-the-city-that-never-shuts-up.html Accessed 23 Sep, 2019.
Young,Robin & Miller,Karyn “Noise Is New York City’s Biggest Civic Complaint. Researchers Are Trying To Help Turn It Down” May 29, 2019. www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/05/29/nyc-sound-noise-sonyc-project, Accessed 15 Sep, 2019.
Hammer, Monica S, et al. “Environmental Noise Pollution in the United States: Developing an Effective Public Health Response.” Environmental Health Perspectives, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Feb. 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3915267/. Accessed Oct,16. 2019
Clark, William W. “Effects of Noise on Hearing.” JAMA, American Medical Association, 5 May 1999, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1718638. Accessed 10 Nov, 2019.
Owen, D. (2019). Is Noise Pollution the Next Big Public-Health Crisis?The New Yorker. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/13/is-noise-pollution-the-next-big-public-health-crisis Accessed 11 Nov. 2019.
Y, Adam. “What Is Noise Pollution and How to Fight It?” Krisp, 21 May 2019, /krisp.ai/blog/fighting-noise-pollution/. Accessed 10 Nov, 2019.
Reflection
My Essay is about Noise pollution, it’s effects on humans, it’s sources and how we can get control over it. While writing this essay I had a few questions in my mind and one of them was why i am writing about noise pollution and is this really big that people can relate to it but then I remembered my professor talking about this and he was frustrated with noise of helicopter from his neighbourhood. So that thing clicked in my mind and I start thinking that there are many more who live in New York City who are in same conditions as we are. Giving my own example, living near Laguardia airport is not easy and it’s not peaceful under any circumstances so i can relate with this and understand people’s feelings who goes through this everyday. I work in a retail store in Time Square and I won’t lie that it’s busy all the time, so my owner play super loud music to attract customers and sometimes customers complain about it but we can not do anything about it, it’s so bad and frustrating that I want to quit my job. So my main audience would be all New Yorkers and everyone else who are tired of Noise and want to know more about Noise pollution. I had a lot of fun while writing this essay, it was so informative and interesting that it increases my knowledge greatly. But by saying that doesn’t mean it was easy, it was really time consuming and time management was the hardest part, to carry this with all other things made me more responsible. One thing i want to mention here is that I didn’t include the interview in my essay, I tried my best to get someone to interview with the help of the professor Swett and I am really grateful that i have a professor like him, who is always there to help you, and help to do things in a better way but I tried to contact a non profitable organization called SONYC and email some of their officials, those who work under this organization but nobody responded, I feel bad that I didn’t complete my essay. There was not a model essay which I followed but i talked to Professor what I was thinking to do and he gave me some ideas how to organize my essay and do it in a professional way and i tried to follow that. And comparing my writing from August till now, there is a lot of difference, the biggest is I am myself while writing it and i express myself more now. I know what kind of information I need and what essay demands from me. but I think I’m still learning and hope I learn more things from Professor Swett and develop my skills in writing and improve anything i need to.
