If for whatever reason you cannot take overt action, don't give yourself an ulcer. Make photographs of the noisemaker and the noise source and throw darts at them. Or make up your own "coloring book":
This is the Smith Family. They've lived in noisy cities all their lives. They don't mind—anymore. They are deaf now. They can't hear music, birds chirping, the wind in the trees.
They can barely hear speech. Color them a sad color.
This is a bureaucrat.
He awards contracts. He doesn't bother to include "quiet" specifications. He lives where it is quiet.
When he leaves government, he hopes to work for the noisemaker. Color his heart indifferent gray.
Once people become committed to fighting noise, the question of goals must come up. There is no absolute answer, no inflexible decibel level to permit. Nevertheless, between the current acoustic anarchy and the ideal, there is room for an initial step that offers better than a modicum of protection. Somehow or other we managed to select that first highway speed limit, modifying it with experience.
In 1966, after Baden-Baden noise congress, I had the opportunity to be the guest of an eminent European acoustician, a man responsible for some of the most progressive noise criteria on the Continent. I had a question for him.
"How do you arrive at decibel levels for your noise laws?"
This great scientist, who is also a great humanitarian, looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, and replied: "I pick a number."
He quickly continued when he saw my startled reaction.
"Yes, I pick a number. Once we have a starting level, through experience, from the reaction of the noisemakers and the public, we can make the necessary revisions. I have been using this system for many years, and not only has it worked for my country, my criteria are used as the basis for similar legislation in other countries in Europe."
A thoughtful society acts to provide at the very least an environment which is aurally comfortable, free of excessive annoyance and physiological harm. There should be an immediate goal of protecting the sleep of all, but certainly the ill, the aged, the mother and child at home. There must be "oases of quiet." Night workers who sleep during the day need a quiet bedroom.
Concern for privacy is a manifestation of a relatively sophisticated, thoughtful society. Primitive man and people living under dictatorships fail to enjoy privacy. (The dictator, of course, is surrounded by privacy.) Home must provide more than shelter from rain and cold. The right to privacy, rest, and sleep must not be left to the discretion of Pan Am, GM, and the neighbors.
From mankind's point of view all machines to which human beings are exposed should be designed for quiet operation. All enclosures in which humans live, work, or play must be designed—or redesigned—to keep out noise intrusion.
Stated as a set of principles, the goal of noise abatement is:
- The man-made environment is to be adapted to the needs of living creatures, not the reverse.
- Human considerations are to come before economic considerations.
- Noise exposure is to be in moderation. Undue stress on physiological and psychological processes is not to be tolerated.
- Machines, like well-mannered children and servants, are to be seen and not heard.
- Noise abatement is to be recognized as an ideal, a point of orientation in decision-making. Like democracy, the ideal may never be achievable, but it helps create a framework in which society can function for the best interests of man as a social and political animal.
Once noise abatement in the human interest is adopted as policy, the details will fall into place. The first step in that direction is to erase all preconceived notions of who is responsible for what, and the narrow view that only specialists have the basic answers to human problems. The President of the United States should appoint a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the entire sphere of occupational noise, its members not connected in any way with industry or the military. We must put an end to the tyranny of the "expert" as the man who sets all the rules. It is for the public to determine the goals for a quieter environment.
The Federal government should convene a National Congress of Parties of Interest. The three elements of this Congress would be government, the public, and commerce and industry.
After basic preparation, each of the three groups should convene separately to hammer out the details. Government, on its part, should convene a National Congress of Governments.
At this meeting the three levels of government—local, state, and Federal—would thrash out an over-all program for noise abatement. The details of guidelines, codes, enforcement and research needs would be spelled out and a plan evolved for providing all government units with the necessary testing facilities without unnecessary duplication. A permanent Intergovernment Noise Abatement Council would be established to act as liaison within government, and to represent government at the final Congress of Parties of Interest.
At this ultimate Congress all should agree on and adopt a Noise Index. To arrive at this Index, an arbitrary baseline would be developed from an analysis of noise in the natural environment. To this "ideal" would be added the increments to account for the unavoidable, and the desirable sounds of living and working together. No sound-producing product or piece of equipment would be allowed into the environment which could destroy the intent of these guidelines. In evaluating the noise emission of a given product, account would be taken of the other noise emissions that would co-exist with the product in question. It makes no sense to set a given decibel limit for a single motor vehicle without acknowledging that a highway or a city will be exposed to millions of such vehicles.
No machine should be permitted that as a normal function of its operation destroys sleep, the ability to converse, or rest, or that causes repeated abnormal physiological changes within the body. Common sense will be necessary. A machine that will not operate during the night will not have to be as quiet; by the same token, a machine that operates both day and night will have to be designed to operate as if it always operated at night.