At the risk of committing heresy, I will say that the level of noise and light pollution caused by emergency vehicles is doing more harm than good. During the Obama’s news conference in Trinidad, I couldn’t help but be offended by the blaring background noise contaminating his eloquent responses. Apparently not even the president is immune to the jihad which sirens have waged on peaceful silence throughout the world.
(The sirens chime in at 3:17)
This may seem like a silly topic, but I believe that this continuous state of emergency is having a detrimental effect on the mental well-being of our society.
The current epidemic known as Homeland Security has turned our local police, fire, and medical personnel into a 3-ring circus of honking horns, wild patterns of screeching sirens, and never-ending flashing lights. The pollution to the senses is suffocating. We badly need the restoration of noise and light abatement programs.
A few years ago in Salford, UK families sued local police for making too much of a racket.
Leading councillor John Warmisham is threatening to use environment laws to take drivers to court if they refuse to cut out the racket at a new police station in Pendleton. This would be the first time in Salford that police had faced court charges over alleged noise pollution.
Cllr Warmisham says the sirens are being turned on by officers as soon as they get into cars at the new £4 million station on Belvedere Road. He said: "They haven't even left the car park and the sirens are blaring out, causing untold misery for a quiet residential street, occupied mainly by elderly people.
"Everyone appreciates that the sirens are needed on occasion, but surely some consideration should be given to local residents, who are being disturbed at all hours of the day and night.
Unfortunately, US towns are suffering from the same rotten chorus of sirens.
A generation ago there was resistance to the intrusions of noise. We even had a federally funded EPA noise abatement program. But in the early 80’s Reagan killed the funding.
March 6, 1990
AMERICA is noisier than ever, audiologists say, and the costs may include lost hearing, impaired health, reduced learning ability and antisocial behavior. Noise causes stress, just as crowding and the threat of crime do, said Dr. Alice H. Suter, an audiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. '
Government efforts to reduce the harmful effects of noise have faltered in the last decade. In 1981 the Reagan Administration ordered the termination of the Environmental Protection Agency's noise abatement program, saying the responsibility should rest with local governments, not Washington.
Aside from loss of hearing, noise is suspected of having a variety of physiological effects. Many studies have strongly suggested a link between noise and high blood pressure. Dr. Peterson of the University of Miami established that the blood pressure of rhesus monkeys and other primates rises when the animals are exposed to noise, and blood pressure remains high even after the noise stops.
The audio pollution then was nothing compared to the blather we experience today. In my opinion we should restore funding to noise (and light) abatement.
With regards to flashing lights, Homeland Security has actually created weapons using light which appear to be straight out of "Men in Black". "The Incapacitator" or "Light Grenade" can be used to immobilize a targeted person.
CAN you stop someone in their tracks using nothing but a flashinglight? The US army and the Department of Homeland Security seem to think so. Both are backing the development of a new kind of weapon which amounts to little more than a powerful strobe light. Wielded like a conventional gun, this weapon is designed to trigger "flicker illness" - a condition akin to severe motion sickness - which leaves the target dazed, nauseous or completely immobilised. Its developers suggest it could be just the thing for disabling armed criminals or dispersing a rioting mob.
The Incapacitator is typical of this new kind of weapon. Resembling a chunky flashlight, it contains a closely packed array of powerful multicoloured LEDs instead of a conventional bulb. The light they beam out is bright enough to dazzle, which in itself would make it hard for anyone held in the beam to aim a weapon. But the Incapacitator is far more than just a powerful flashlight, Lieberman says. The differently coloured LEDs are programmed to pulse on and off in a particularsequence and at a particular rate that its manufacturer claims cause disorientation, dizziness and vertigo in around two-thirds of those exposed.
The US army is after something more powerful: a strobing light capable of being mounted on an uncrewed aircraft that will target a threatening mob from a distance of hundreds of metres. Its Research, Development and Engineering Command has awarded a $600,000 contract to Pennsylvania-based Peak Beam Systems, where engineers are modifying a 15-million-candela xenon lamp, which is about 100 times brighter than atypical car headlight. By adding a strobe function and adjusting the frequency and amplitude of the light pulses they plan to produce a device that will immobilise anyone caught within the beam. According to the company's sales director, Will Harcourt, tests of the device by the Office of Customs and Border Protection based in San Diego, California, showed that people were "immobilised and falling down at 500 yards plus".
Is the growth in light and noise pollution contributing to the well-documented increase in stress?