from Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation, published in fall 2007 by Chelsea Green Books in cooperation with the Foundation for Deep Ecology...
Introduction: Silence is disappearing quickly from environments throughout our modern world, including beaches, national parks, and wilderness areas. Experts warn that this pervasive intrusion is no mere annoyance, but a hazard to our well-being. When they can escape to a quiet place, mounting research suggests that people enjoy saner and healthier lives.
I have been hiking all day in the rugged backcountry of my favorite national park. The stark desert scenery of Utah's sun-drenched Canyonlands is stunning, and I've been drinking it in. I admire an endless azure sky across which cauliflower clouds morph and drift in constant, subtle motion. Narrow canyons called grabens—German for"graves"—invite me to enter secret, slender rooms enclosed by vertical sandstone slabs. In open areas, I admire precariously teetering rocks left for millennia balanced by erosive forces atop rounded pinnacles and pointed spires. I stumble occasionally upon fading artifacts of the ancient ones, including their uncanny petroglyphs, mud-glued granaries, zigzag-adorned pottery, and collapsed masonry shelters. But for me, the pulse-in-the-ear silence of Canyonlands National Park is the most blessed gift of all. The deep, palpable quiet holds everything in its vastness, including the bustling thoughts in my head that gradually melt into an abiding pool of serenity.
During the sixth hour of my hike, while I rest beneath the shade of a gnarled juniper, the screech of a hawk punctures the midday stillness like a warning siren. Within seconds, the redtail's call is drowned out by the grating mechanical buzz of an approaching off-road vehicle (ORV). Unknowingly, I've chosen to take my afternoon siesta less than a mile from Elephant Hill Trail, a tortuous route famous among off-road vehicle enthusiasts for its nearly impossible switchbacks, heart-stopping plunges, and undulating slickrock. As the expensively modified Jeep passes, I hear not only the discharge of its roaring exhaust but also a full-blast symphony of hip-hop music, whooping yells, and raucous laughter. My placid enjoyment of "the most lonesome, most grim bleak barren desolate and savage quarter of the state of Utah," as wilderness defender Edward Abbey once referred to this remote terrain, has been ferociously interrupted.
I come to Canyonlands knowing that the natural beauty of southern Utah is as fragile as it is unique. No place on our planet duplicates this ecosystem. As much as 30 percent of the region's thin soil, for example, arrives as airborne dust. Rich in minerals and nutrients wafted from other continents, it is held in place delicately by bacteria, lichen, and moss that bind the dust particles to existing soils in a sticky, fibrous web. Drive or walk on this cryptobiotic crust and erosion begins, perhaps to continue for decades, or even centuries. I walk carefully, sticking to established trails, sandy washes, or rocky terrain. I keep quiet, the better to hear the elusive natural sounds of this sparsely populated place—and to monitor the equally subtle activity in my mind and soul. I am certain that those who shatter the desert's pristine silence—their ranks include hunters, motorcyclists, ranchers, and oil prospectors as well as ORV enthusiasts—do not consider the quiet they disturb to be a natural resource. Yet silence is as much a part of such environments as their relentless winds, extreme temperatures, and flash floods. Without prevailing quiet, the croaking gossip of the ravens will not be heard, nor the celebratory howl of the coyote and the warning clatter of the rattlesnake. Without the sanctuary offered by such an empty refuge, humans will have no place to escape the din of their civilizations in order to hear themselves think deep thoughts, to contemplate what lies hidden in their hearts, and to experience nature stripped clean of the clutter of human technology.
With a few exceptions, such as thunderstorms and crashing surf, the natural world is a relatively quiet place. For millions of year, Earth evolved without the hullabaloo Homo sapiens now generates. As a result, the sense of hearing of most sentient beings has evolved to pick up such important sounds as mating calls, baby cries, hunting signals, territorial bellows, warning shrieks, and the discreet communiques that bond social or family groups. Overlaid with interfering sound, vital communication among animals may be disrupted or lost altogether. Creatures unable to adapt quickly enough to the new sound scenario are forced to leave, or eventually die out.
Humans who live in traditional ways, such as tribal people or rural farmers, experience noise levels that are generally low in comparison to those endured in cities. Such individuals often speak, work, forage, learn, and play more quietly than urbanites. This contrast may still be experienced by those who move between both worlds, though perhaps not for long. The din of modern civilization now extends well beyond the boundaries of our cities and towns, as new roads and trails expand the reach of ORVs, snowmobiles, sport-utility vehicles, powerboats, helicopters, and other causes of degraded silence. Indeed, even our most remote wilderness areas are no longer immune to the aural impact of our technologies and behaviors.
In 1998, on a visit to fifteen western and midwestern states, professional sound recorder Gordon Hempton found only two areas—the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado—that were free of human-generated sound for at least fifteen consecutive minutes during daylight hours. In most places, Hempton found that "it was difficult to find a noise-free interval that exceeded a minute and a half." Even in remote parts of Montana and the Dakotas, he was chagrined to learn that a resident or visitor was under near-constant exposure to sounds from such sources as aircraft, guns, farm machinery, power plants, traffic, sirens, and cellphones.
Like Hempton, the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology seeks to preserve at least some of Earth's remaining pristine "Soundscapes®." Besides supporting high-quality recordings of such sound-rich environments as wilderness shorelines, mountain valleys, melting glaciers, and alpine meadows, the group also keeps track of some disturbing statistics. For example, it pointed out that in 1999, an animated conversation between typical Americans registered about 65 decibels, up from 55 decibels merely a decade earlier. Since 10 decibels represents a doubling of perceived loudness, this means many of us were talking at twice the volume in 1999 as we were in 1989. Why the change? Escalating background noise was cited as the likely culprit.
As our personal environments become louder, it seems we have little choice but to adjust, by speaking louder and by mentally tuning out unwanted sounds. Scientists warn, however, that the human body and psyche have limits. Our ears do not turn off. The tiny, ultrasensitive hairs of the inner ear that translate the mechanical energy of sound waves into nerve impulses cannot, once damaged, be replaced or repaired. Though preventable, deafness due to sustained noise exposure is irreversible. "Our ears are not made for a noisy world," Jochen Schacht, professor of biological chemistry and otolaryngology at the University of Michigan's Kresge Hearing Research Institute, told an interviewer. "The fact that we're [collectively] losing our hearing is no more surprising than if we were losing our sight by looking at the sun."
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