Somehow or other the public must become aware of the significance of technological innovation before such innovations are locked-in to the environment. No sooner do we hear about an SST or V/STOL than they seem to become commercial realities. It is encouraging that the mass media are slowly starting to provide quick communication so necessary to spark the needed debates and analyses. Not only are news stories describing what is happening, editorials are pressing for curbs and control. Network TV is starting to inform the public about the dangers of amplified music and New York's and Tokyo's noise problems. Local TV stations, at least in New York, Philadelphia, and a few other cities are producing noise pollution panel shows and documentaries. Newsweek, Time, Life, Fortune, Esquire, Playboy and the Readers Digest now recognize noise pollution as part of the urban crisis.
The first "popular" national presentation of noise abatement took place on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Carson and his production staff deserve credit for demonstrating before millions of viewers the feasibility of noise control.
An unexpected dividend of that appearance may make noise abatement a household word. Actress Phyllis Newman, who was the next guest after the noise abatement segment, interjected her noise problems. and she and Carson discussed their personal noise hangups. Perhaps in the future celebrities on the widely-watched talk shows will discuss noise and similar environmental problems to which they are exposed, even as you and I.
Celebrities cannot do the job alone, and it is encouraging to report there is a trickle of volunteers in noise abatement work, people who will help with the day-to-day operations of an office. Citizens for a Quieter City, with its sometimes-less-than-shoestring budget, would not have been able to function without the year's help of Mary Coughlin, a senior citizen who remembered her shorthand and typing; Anne Cavanaugh, who came for one week to "type some cards" and stayed for seven months until called away by marriage; Elizabeth Meffen, and Irene Ebeling, to mention a few.
Citizen movements, unless adequately financed, depend heavily on this type of participation. It is promising that noise victims are realizing they can help themselves, and others, by channeling some of their protest energy into helping an organized noise abatement operation.
It is promising too that some noise victims are reacting with directness. For example, when highway crews worked around the clock to complete a section of interstate highway near the University of Minnesota, indignant citizens telephoned the president of the construction company at four o'clock in the morning. He had not even known of their months of complaints about not being able to sleep at night. The victory they won was cessation of the project from midnight to 5:00 A.M.