Category Archives: noise

Anthropogenic noise pollution is threatening wild spaces

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GR: Earth’s wildlife decline is caused by construction, invasive species, climate change, and many other human impacts. For instance, scientists have shown that the sounds coming from our industry, airplanes, cars, and even our voices are harmful. The story below reports the results of a new study of the effects of sound on wildlife.

“Wild spaces are important for many reasons. For us humans, they give us peace and energy, provide places for recreation and connection with nature, and teach us about the life around us. But wild places are not only necessary for humans – for flora and fauna and the land itself, protected areas are reserves where nature can run its course without as much interference from humans. They provide critical places for the earth to heal itself and resume its organic processes; they also give homes to many endangered species. Yet unfortunately, protected areas may not actually be as protected as their names make them sound. A new study from Buxton et al. looked at the degree to which noise pollution has infiltrated protected areas in the United States, finding that anthropogenic noise doubled background noise levels in a majority of protected areas. Scientists and nature-lovers alike fear that this is affecting habitats that many ecosystems rely on.

“Protected areas include, but are not limited to National Parks. Get a glimpse of the 59 US National Parks in the slide show below.

“Protected areas in the United States cover 14% of the country’s land mass. To determine how noise pollution is affecting these areas, scientists from Colorado State University and the U.S. National Park Service collaborated to measure human-caused sounds from aircraft, highways, industrial, and residential sources. The team listened to countless hours of sound measurements from 492 sites around the country.

Protected areas include marine reserves, such as the Hōlei Sea Arch. Photo Credit: S. Geiger, NPS

“They found that the most noise came from roads, aircraft, human development, and resource extraction. In 63% of U.S. protected areas, anthropogenic noise doubled background sound levels. In 21% there was an even greater impact, causing a 10-fold or more increase in normal background noise. To break that down in more understandable terms, human-caused noise has reduced the area in which natural sounds can be heard by 50-90%. This means that what could be heard at 100 feet away can now only be heard from a distance of 10 to 50 feet.” –Kathryn DeMuth Sullivan (Continue reading: Anthropogenic noise pollution is threatening wild spaces).

Stockholm’s Mayor is a True Leader for the People

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GR:  Reduced air pollution, less noise, increased health, clear skies, and more jobs. All cities could follow Karin. Is there any movement stirring in your city? Read the interview and get ideas for your home town. Oh, for another benefit, there’s saving the planet and all its wonderful plants and animals from the greed of oily politicians and their owners.

“Karin Wanngård, the mayor of Stockholm, rides an electric bike to work each morning — at least when it is not snowing too heavily.

“She also wears second-hand clothing — a trendy move in Stockholm, she says — and eats less meat than she used to. It is all part of her contribution to meeting an ambitious goal she set for her city: eliminating all use of coal, oil and other fossil fuels by 2040.

Karin Wanngård, the mayor of Stockholm, with a bicycle she rides to work most mornings. Credit: Liselotte van der Meijs/REUTERS

“Leadership is really important when you want to make things happen,” said the 41-year-old, who has run Sweden’s capital city since 2014. “You can always have politicians making nice speeches but when it comes to action you need to have leadership.”

“Around the world, cities are increasingly at the forefront of action to curb climate change. Some, like Stockholm, have set ambitious emissions reduction goals, while others have pushed ahead with climate policies despite national policy reversals, such as under President Donald Trump in the United States.

“Increasingly, many of the cities leading on climate change — Paris, Washington, Sydney, Cape Town — are run by women.

Stockholm, Sweden. Credit: vapi photographie/flickr

“In two years, the number of women leading large cities that are at the forefront of climate action has risen from four to 16, according to the C40 Cities network of more than 80 cities committed to addressing climate change, which is organising a conference for women leaders in New York this month.” —Laurie Goering, Thomson Reuters Foundation (Continue reading:  Stockholm’s Mayor is Taking on Climate Change | Climate Central).

Stockholm, Sweden waterfront. Credit: Jordi Escuer/flickr

Traffic noise reduces birds’ response to alarm calls — ScienceDaily

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GR:  The sounds of human voices and machines interfere with wildlife feeding, mating, and response to danger. Just another of the many ways that we are destroying the wildlife and biodiversity of the Earth.

“A new study from The Condor: Ornithological Applications shows that traffic noise makes birds less responsive to alarm calls that would otherwise alert them to dangers such as predators.

“Megan Gall and Jacob Damsky of New York’s Vassar College tested how traffic noise affected the reactions of Black-capped Chickadees and Tufted Titmice to titmouse alarm calls, which warn birds that a predator is nearby. Using speakers set up near feeding platforms baited with bird seed, they recorded the birds’ responses to three different recordings — alarm calls alone, traffic noise alone, and a combination of the two. The traffic noise didn’t deter the birds from feeding, but five times as many birds approached speakers when the researchers played alarm calls on their own compared with when traffic sounds were added.

“There has been lots of work on how anthropogenic noise affects vocal production, but much less on the response of animals to signals in the presence of noise,” says Gall. “Additionally, a lot of this work focuses on song, but we were interested in how noise might affect responses to an anti-predator vocalization. These vocalizations are evoked by the presence of a predator and so are closely linked in time with a particular stimulus.”

“The study’s results suggest that traffic noise can reduce birds’ ability to hear an alarm call, potentially increasing their vulnerability to predators. “Gall and Damsky’s experiment helps us understand how human-caused noise can interfere with the transfer of information among animals in social groups,” according Florida Atlantic University’s Rindy Anderson, an expert in vocal communication in birds who was not involved with the study. “It’s interesting that the birds’ foraging behavior was not affected under any of the playback conditions, which suggests that the behavioral effects were due to the call playbacks being masked by noise, rather than the noise being simply aversive.”–Science Daily (Continue reading:  Traffic noise reduces birds’ response to alarm calls