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COSTING THE EARTH
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Costing the Earth tells stories which touch all our lives, looking at man's effect on the environment and at how the environment reacts. It questions accepted truths, challenges the people in charge and reports on progress towards improving the world we live in.
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Contact Costing the Earth |
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LISTEN AGAIN 30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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'Costing the Earth confronts accepted views on the environment. I think the programme consistently manages to get the real story and tell it in a way that makes people care.'
Miriam O'Reilly
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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Noise is a constant in our twenty four hour society. Thousands of people move home each year to try to get away from it. It can make us ill and even kill us. The World Health Organisation views it as a major health issue and has determined that people are more prone to heart attacks and accidents if they live with constant noise. Similarly, children’s cognitive learning abilities have been found to be impaired if they live or go to school near to any of Europe’s main airports.
Yet some experts say that noise does not get the same attention as other major environmental issues such as fly tipping or pollution. Nargis Kayani is an independent environmental health consultant who feels strongly that noise nuisance should be addressed in the same way as other anti-social behaviours.
“The government’s advice on dealing with noisy neighbours” she says “is to knock on their door and try and sort it out with a cup of tea. Well if you lived next door to a drug dealer, they wouldn’t tell you to do that, so why do they do it with noise? I find it insulting.”
There are strict laws already in place, but they can be difficult to enforce and in some instances they will have little practical effect.
So what should the government be aiming for in its Noise Strategy due in 2007?
The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has been carrying out noise mapping exercises around the country to identify the noise hotspots where money can be invested to alleviate the problems. However, acoustics experts say that the chances of reducing noise significantly are slim. They say things have got as quiet as they are going to get. Cars are quieter than in the past, as are domestic appliances like washing machines and lawmowers, but what actually counts is the quality of the sound not the decibel level. At the University of Salford, Miriam hears how reducing the level of a lawnmower doesn’t actually make much difference to how the ear perceives the sound.
The future, they say, is all in “positive soundscapes” and research is being done at the University to find out what sounds people want to live with and how they can be incorporated into future building projects. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to find more creative ways to manage the noise in our environment. In several schools having an inbuilt “Quiet Place” complete with rainforest sounds and soft lighting has produced startlingly positive results in helping children behave more calmly and learn better.
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