Dear editor,
Holiday Monday was awesome because we were together with our grandson at Goose Spit on Labour Day to get sandy and play.
The waves were lapping gently, the seagulls crying, and a familiar buzz was in the air.
The Cessna 182 cadet glider tow planes were flying at low elevation, in their 70 decibel, Doppler Effected, whining circles overhead. The whole time we were there. The little boy was sad; perhaps because grandpa was anxious and crying?
Researchers using drones to monitor collared black bears have found that the persistent percussion soundwave noise induced in the subject black bears produces higher heart rates; what scientists might call Ursus Americanus hypertension (www.popsci.com/bears-hate-drones).
The Wright Brothers initiated human generated airborne percussion sound waves only a century ago. A pinprick in geological, evolutionary, or even Newtonian time. That’s why Kahneman says we are “non-adapted to chronic loud noise.” Perhaps black bears too?
So the bears and me and probably even the birds, bees, and almost all human beings - excepting those around here who accept the physics of flight but not the physics of noise - are not evolved yet to deal with chronic loud noise.
Like a black bear, my heart rate goes up with the constant buzzing. The consequences of hypertension in adult humans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertension) are much better understood than the effects of noise on black bears, bees, birds and little boys.
The negative health effects of noise on human adults include heart attacks, strokes and annoyance behaviours, and are so well studied and documented that any mayor, MP, MLA or commander who isn’t cognizant of this, is a scientific Mr. Magoo.
Be sure Winston Churchill’s local fools, will “stumble on the truth and dust themselves off,” blindly scoff, and be off flying more loud circles soon.
Steve W. Hodge
Comox