The Tyranny of Noise

Robert Alex Baron

Part IV — Chapter 9 — Promises, Promises

Chapter 9 — Promises, Promises

Without commitment, noise abatement is a possibility, not a probability. At the time this book was being written, few scientists, few manufacturers, and few lawmakers believed that noise abatement warranted a place on mankind's shopping list. Whether or not the straws in the wind discussed in this chapter are to be precursors of action will depend upon how effectively the informed can convince the insensitive and the indifferent that there is a noise problem.

Will noise abatement ride in on the coattails of the new movement for environmental quality? This will depend upon the longrun success of that movement, and how seriously its leaders take noise as a factor in the environment.

There is a chance that noise abatement will benefit from the new attempt to humanize science and technology, to inculcate new attitudes toward human beings which would require that they be spared the stress and cruelty of noxious noise exposure.

Bruited around in some scientific circles is the novel concept that the ultimate purpose of life might be man himself. At the 75th Anniversary celebration of that citadel of science, the California Institute of Technology, scientists told fellow scientists to base their standards on moral, cultural, and spiritual values. "Somehow people must be made to expand their sense of loyalty and responsibility to include a larger share of the human race," said one speaker. The scientists were urged to start feeling for the human beings who would be living in the environments they are changing.

The physicist and the engineer, at their technical and professional society meetings, in the pages of their technical and professional society meetings, in the pages of their professional and trade magazines, are being made to realize they have ignored the human being as a receiver of noise. "If engineers were asked to describe a human being they probably would depict a creature without ears...Engineers should refuse to specify materials and equipment for residences, office buildings, hospitals and schools that will not allow human beings to function in peace and quiet," said an article in the March 1969 issue of Consulting Engineer. It would have impressed me more were I not its author. Nevertheless, it is significant that the concerned citizen was invited by this magazine to express his views.

Engineer published Congressman Kupferman's challenge to the excuse that noise is a necessary price of industrial and economic progress. That idea, he said, "is as antiquated as is the belief contaminated water and a polluted atmosphere must also accompany civilization's advances."

An editorial in Product Engineering (July 29, 1968) reminded the conscientious engineer that "In the products he designs in his professional career, he can fight as hard for quiet in lawn mowers and all the rest as he fights for efficiency, durability, and safety."

One even finds thinkers in the think tanks telling their associates that their future role should be serving the total community without concern for the manufacturer or for profit.