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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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In Our View: Solitude and Blessed Silence

Study shows the west is a quieter region compared to east's population density

The Columbian
Published:

Shhhh. Quiet for a moment. Did you hear that? Was it a babbling brook? Or maybe the wind blowing through the trees? Or perhaps the dulcet tones of a western meadowlark?

OK, OK, you likely did not hear those sweet sounds while sitting at your desk or hunching over the breakfast table reading this. And you probably wouldn’t hear them even if you stepped outside and held your breath with ears at full attention. The world we inhabit is filled with a cacophony of automobiles and airplanes overhead and, oh, we don’t know, leaf blowers. To quote noted philosopher The Grinch, “And then, oh the noise, oh the noise, noise, noise, noise!”

Yes, even in relatively remote Clark County (well, it’s remote compared with Multnomah County), our cities are besieged by noise. And yet, we remain thankful that we don’t live in, say, Dallas. Or Chicago. Or almost any place in the eastern half of the United States.

That is the conclusion that can be drawn from a study by the National Park Service. Researchers carried out 1.5 million hours of acoustical monitoring throughout the country and devised a map that demonstrates noise levels across the United States on a typical summer day. With noisy spots showing up as bright areas and quiet spots represented by a calming blue, the picture reveals a divide down the middle of the country, with the west being relatively free of incessant noise pollution (the map can be found at http://tinyurl.com/mn4tqdy).

Scientists might chalk this up to the fact that the eastern half of the United States has much more population density than the West; we prefer to think that we’re the strong, silent type out here. We also prefer to think that we enjoy our quiet once in a while. As Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

So, consider us creative. Still, there are some scientific benefits to the study. As the San Jose Mercury News reported: “Human noise and light are creating fundamental changes in ecological communities — changing the density, diversity, and dependencies of bird species that are biological barometers of the natural world.” There are human impacts, as well, as the Daily Mail of London noted in a headline: “Headphone-wearing millennials are deaf to the sounds of nature — and missing out on their calming effects.”

The point is that there are benefits to silence and to the sounds of the natural world around us, something that we descendents of pioneers seem to know intuitively. At Muir Woods National Monument near San Francisco, for example, rangers have gone so far as to post “please be quiet” signs to try to stem the babel from ringing cellphones and iPods.

Much of this desire for quiet is ingrained. As Kurt M. Fristrup of the National Park Service said, “Our deep ancestors were anxious. We were not the fastest or best armed, and there were a lot of top predators to pay attention to. When we’re in a cluttered soundscape, we know we’ve lost our surveillance capacity.”

Which points out another benefit of living in Clark County. Whether residing in Vancouver or Camas or Battle Ground, we’re never more than a couple minutes from peace and quiet. From the babbling brooks and the western meadowlarks. From what Euripides was talking about when he said, “The good and the wise lead quiet lives.”

Good? Wise? We’ll take that description. Along with a little solitude.

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