If industry cannot or will not design for quiet, the public may have to change its life-style, and forego some of the convenience and speed purchases that help degrade the environment. We may have to return to the use of hand-operated appliances in place of machines.
Industry should take the initiative to design for quiet without waiting for legislation and proof of a market. The motivation is the preservation of the human environment.
In the United States we are still waiting for the necessary legislation. The pitifully few ordinances wither for lack of enforcement. First and foremost we need to develop a climate for noise abatement. If we succeed in doing this, pressure for enforcement will be as child's play.
It is not enough to build a better mouse trap; it must be promoted. It is not enough for the noise victims and the enlightened to know the dangers of unregulated noise. Noise must be made visible. As the Europeans told me, if people could see decibels, silence would be the order of the day.
It is not easy to convey an image of noise which will move the public to demand abatement. Fishermen get upset if a lake is polluted; the housewife can see soot and relate pollution to her laundry bill; chemical pollution is understandable to most. But noise is an abstraction, its noxious qualities difficult to demonstrate. Set against the conveniences and symbols of progress, arguments of environmental and personal degradation appear puny, at first. Education on behalf of noise abatement must be given top priority.
A simple technique, but of far-reaching value, is to ask your local radio and TV stations to broadcast volume-turndown messages after 11:00 p.m. As a matter of fact, try to get nighttime announcers to promote sleep-protection from whatever source.
Coordinate your anti-noise campaigns with an enforcement drive. Arouse the public to support anti-noise regulations. The AICB encourages its member organizations to conduct national anti-noise campaigns. Such noise abatement weeks, sponsored in cooperation with government, have taken place in Copenhagen, Rome, and Cordoba, Argentina, to name a few of the major cities. As part of such programs, the French noise abatement group has awarded Palms of Silence to government officials who have undertaken noise abatement actions. Austria has an annual "Noise-free Week."
Success will vary, depending upon the goals, the preparation, and the cooperation. Cordoba (population 600,000) has a staff of five men trained in the city university's acoustic laboratory. Although its first "Silence Week" brought only temporary relief, it did lay the groundwork for the eventual development of Argentina's first Noise Abatement Council, as well as improvements in municipal anti-noise regulations.
All things being equal, it is better to show than to tell. At Baden-Baden, delegates were taken on a tour of the "Quiet Zone," the largest such within a city. This was followed by a demonstration of silenced and non-silenced equipment. Hearing is believing.
Interconnect the areas of noise stress. Never forget that unlike the other "pollutants" noise hits people in small pockets. Individuals in one building may vary in their awareness of a noise problem emanating from the street outside, or even from a given neighbor. The people in center-city or quiet suburbs may be indifferent to the lot of the people living near jetports. The people living near jetports not only are indifferent to center-city residents, they would want them to install STOLports and heliports, anything to reduce the hellish noise exposure near the airports. Educational programs must be designed to reach out to this disconnected noise-stressed population.
Do not be afraid to use humor: the public is becoming enured to tales of unrelieved suffering. Britain's John Connell, a public relations man by profession, encourages a wry statement of the problem, and the press responds. One of my favorite cartoons, published in Punch, depicts a suicide hurtling down a tall building, screaming at the top of his lungs. However, he is a considerate soul at heart, and as he passes the third-floor window of the Noise Abatement Society he dutifully muffles his screams, opening up fortissimo for the balance of the trip.
Sponsor meetings, symposia, and conferences. Locate specialists in medicine, engineering, and the humanities who have something constructive to say about noise abatement.
One suggestion for making noise visible is associated with something I saw in Copenhagen shortly after the end of its occupation by the Nazis. There were no signs of torture and executions. None, except that scattered through the city were small evergreen crosses, marking the sites where some patriotic Dane had paid the price of Hitler's progress.
To alert the public to the needless suffering and the hazards of the tyranny of noise, symbols should be erected at each construction site, in each neighborhood under air assault, in front of each dwelling impacted by neighboring air conditioning systems or noisy neighbors.