
From beached whales to human heart disease, noise pollution is worse than we thought. Jessica Wynn sounds the alarm here on Skeptical Sunday! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss: Noise pollution is significantly more harmful than commonly recognized, contributing to approximately 48,000 new cases of heart disease in Europe annually and ranking second only to air pollution as the most harmful environmental exposure to public health. The impact on wildlife is severe — noise pollution disrupts animal communication, breeding patterns, and navigation, particularly affecting marine life. For example, increased shipping noise has led to whale beachings and is threatening species like the Narwhal with extinction. Noise pollution disproportionately affects low-income communities, who often live near flight paths, highways, and factories, with limited options for relocation despite the serious health impacts. The US has largely abandoned federal noise control efforts since 1981 when the Reagan administration defunded the Office of Noise Abatement and Control, leaving communities without comprehensive protection against harmful noise levels. There are several effective ways individuals and communities can take action against noise pollution: supporting local noise ordinances, using quieter electric alternatives to gas-powered equipment, incorporating sound barriers in construction projects, and being mindful of our own noise contributions. Small changes in our daily habits can help create quieter, healthier environments for everyone. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know! Connect with Jessica Wynn and subscribe to her newsletter: Between the Lines! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1079 If you love listening to this show as much as we love making it, would you please peruse and reply to our Membership Survey here? And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is noise pollution and why is it important?
Welcome, Jessica.
Hey, Jordan. I hope this episode serves as a public service announcement to ban leaf blowers everywhere.
Yes, they are the worst. The number of times that they have interrupted a podcast are countless. And don't even get me started on the airplanes and the barking dogs and the motorcycles.
Oh, yeah. Noise pollution is everywhere. We adapt to and normalize the sounds of life without realizing the negative impacts it's having on our health and the environment. And humans really underestimate what life's noise is doing to our brains and bodies.
So it's not just the neighbor's music keeping me up at night. It's the annoying headache that comes along with it. But how does that actually affect the environment itself?
Well, sounds are a huge part of the environment, right? Like you might not hear that tree fall in the forest, but the sound of it definitely disturbs some wildlife. Acoustic biologists study this all the time.
Acoustic biologists. That sounds cool. What do they do exactly?
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Chapter 2: How does noise pollution affect wildlife?
Acoustic biology is the study of the crucial role sound plays in how animals, including humans, interact with their environment. For instance, a deciduous forest sounds different from a pine forest, and those sounds change with the seasons. It's like each environment has its own unique soundtrack. There's this fascinating professor at Dartmouth, and she just studies crickets specifically.
And she says this world of sound, it's something we're only just beginning to understand. It's like trying to understand a foreign language with just a few words.
Crickets. I thought they were just kind of nature's way of providing ambient noise when I'm camping, but maybe they're trying to tell me something. I don't know.
I think so. She's dedicated her life to the sounds they make, but it's not just the crickets. They're just part of a much larger picture. The whole ecosystem has its own symphony, and noise pollution disrupts that symphony, affecting animal communications, behavior, even their breed patterns.
I can vouch for the fact that when my roommates had their music too loud, it definitely affected my breeding patterns as well. That's okay.
You're not alone. Even the heartbeat of caterpillars speeds up when exposed to loud sounds. I mean, noise adversely affects all wildlife on land and in the sea.
I didn't even realize caterpillars had hearts. I thought, just figured, whatever.
They have the thing that becomes blood.
Okay, so how bad can this actually be? My neighbor blaring music at 3 a.m. It's not affecting the fish or whatever, is it?
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Chapter 3: What are the health impacts of noise pollution on humans?
yelling to your neighbors down the road all day and that's like how you live your entire life it would be hard when some idiot is jackhammering on the corner and riding their cool guy motorcycle at max volume look for reproduction too i too like to focus at the task at hand i don't need noise interrupting my flow either i get it if somebody's screaming something yeah that's right your performance won't be as good probably that's right
In Mumbai, there's a lot of studies there. It's just populated so loud. And so bioacoustics are heavily studied there. They're gauging the impact noise pollution has on vocal behaviors in the populations. And they will do so much to be heard. Like they'll sing in a higher pitch. They will delay nesting because mating calls are hard to hear over our low frequency human noise.
And some studies are showing that noise pollution prevents birds from learning their species typical songs altogether. They just might never mate.
Oh, poor birds. It all makes sense. It's like they're trying to outsmart the noise, but it's causing all sorts of other problems. Sounds like incel birds are on the rise. Again, sadly, I can relate.
Oh, Jordan. I don't know about that, but we see similar impacts on any animal observed.
I don't know if noise is what's creating human incels, but a 2020 study in the UK found that bat activity and their feeding behavior are negatively affected by traffic noise. And this makes sense because bats use echolocation.
I see. So the bats started the pandemic to shut us up so they could navigate better, which is really smart, actually.
Maybe.
Yeah. Citation needed.
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Chapter 4: How does noise pollution contribute to climate change?
That's not fair.
Yeah, except if you live downtown and they have this doorknob cholera.
Nobody goes downtown.
True.
Yeah, it's loud. And there's a neuroscientist, Seth Horowitz, and he'll explain that vibration sensitivity is found even in really simple life forms. So it's critical for our survival, whether it's detecting predators or finding food. Our brains evolved to be incredibly sensitive to sound because it's such a crucial source of information. So That's why we don't go downtown.
The sounds of Skid Row are not very appealing.
That's the reason. Not because I'm getting accosted by somebody who's trying to sell me batteries that they just stole from a 7-Eleven. So sound is like some kind of super-powered communication channel for the brain?
Yeah. In a way, sound travels through almost anything, right? Air, water, even the ground. So when we talk about hearing and sound, we are really focusing on the vibrations. So even deaf animals are affected. You go to a concert, you feel that in your chest when there's like heavy bass. It penetrates everything, everywhere. And it's processed by the brain much faster than visual information.
Yes, light travels faster than sound, but Horowitz says our brains hear things 20 to 100 times faster than we see them.
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Chapter 5: What actions can we take to combat noise pollution?
Are you relaxing though? It's jolting your adrenaline and you're probably trying to mask out all the noise pollution that might cover your EDM. So scientists see that, surprise, surprise, constant exposure to noise does the opposite and it messes with your body's stress hormones.
Ah, so I'm essentially engaging in stressful stress reduction. That's great.
We all are, right? It's basic biology, though. When someone experiences a stressful noise, the body's amygdala sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus, which then signals the adrenal glands to release adrenaline and causes a stress response.
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You can find the course at 6minutenetworking.com. And again, it's all free. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. So when I turn the volume all the way up to run a smooth, effortless five-minute mile, hypothetically, I'm actually not reducing stress.
No studies suggest that. And it just might be my observation, but I do the same thing. I blast music with a fast beat and it definitely increases my pace when I'm running. But that's probably because the stress response that the noise creates, it's turning on that fight or flight mode and we're already running. So we'll have to do more research on the connection between music and exercise.
Yeah, it's so complicated. I can feel relaxed by a certain song at home, but the same music live obviously would pump me up. I guess you can't deny the power of music, but I don't necessarily know how to harness it, right? I think I'm relaxing, but I'm just stressing myself out or making myself work harder. I don't know what's going on.
Yeah, I mean, and there's different parts of our brain processing it. We might really like this song, but there's a part of our brain that just is hearing noise and wondering what's wrong. Listening to music has so many variables, but stress, anxiety, other mental health problems, they're linked to not just music, but all the sounds of life.
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Chapter 6: How does sound influence human emotions and behavior?
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's that saxophone solo played on a music box.
Yeah, that kind of culture would never have lasted in the house I grew up in where we all shared one bathroom.
Maybe you needed that. Maybe you needed that more than them.
I don't know. It causes a lot of laughs in the house. I mean, when we examine why we feel that way, why we do that, though, it's not that mysterious. We have this finite amount of attention to divide between vision and hearing to make decisions. And so when we turn down the radio in the car, we see better.
I don't know, I guess when you have music playing in the bathroom, you can focus on what you're doing.
Maybe you could relax certain sphincters more. Yeah, just like, all right, no one can hear me, so I don't have to worry about the noise and just release.
You can relax more. Yeah, maybe. What we're doing is either way, if we're turning it up or down, we're just adjusting the noise pollution in our immediate environment. So those beached whales, they're starting to make a lot more sense of how they can get confused. And when noise pollution is out of our control and makes it difficult to sleep, then there's this domino effect.
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Chapter 7: What are the surprising effects of noise on birds and other animals?
Do you have that? I do have it. Yeah, I've had it for a long time. I love that app, actually.
Oh, yeah. It's so fun to pull it out and just see where you're at. Because sometimes I think something is so loud. And it's not. It's just disrupted this quiet place. Vice versa, if you're somewhere loud and you're used to it, you're like, oh, shit, this is a lot louder than I thought. So it depends on what we are doing or concentrating on when noise happens.
Yes, I have that app. I can recommend it. We'll link to it in the show notes. I love that there's a little scale that shows how loud your environment is and what it compares to. So it'll be like you're in a place that's as loud as a lawnmower or a jet engine or a It's like a soft breeze. And yeah, it is interesting because you'll think, gosh, it's so loud in here, but it's really not.
You just want it more quiet. Or you'll think like, oh, this isn't so bad. And it's no, your ears are filling with fluid or something because it's been so stinking loud for the last half an hour. It's like you can sit in here for 20 more minutes before you suffer temporary slash permanent hearing damage. And you're like, I'm going to get the check and leave.
I really wish I'd been more aware of this stuff growing up. So many dumb things, right? I'd go to work without earplugs and I'd just be like, God, it's so loud, my head hurts. Or I'd mow the lawn every weekend and I'd be like, this lawnmower is so loud. And I'd drown out the loud sound of the mower by cranking up my earbuds as loud as I could.
And these are not like insulated, sound-isolating earbuds. They were just like Sony plastic whatevers. So I just basically made them louder than the lawnmower. I cannot imagine that was good for me, aside from inhaling gasoline fumes for three hours every single weekend coming from a small mower that doesn't purify or whatever.
So we are all basically setting ourselves up for a lifetime of like, what? What did you say? That's going to get old so fast.
It's a huge issue, you know, and it's pieces of the puzzle of who we are.
But noise pollution is actually the number one cause of hearing loss worldwide. It surpasses age-related hearing loss. So the next time someone says, turn it down, they could be saving you from a future of What'd you say? What?
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Chapter 8: How does urban noise impact our daily lives?
I know, but when you're a kid, it sounds so good loud.
Yeah, true, true story.
I think we're safe maybe at the levels we're working at right now with our headphones, but I don't know. 50% of teachers, they experience vocal damage because they're talking over classroom noise.
Well, I'm sure I contributed to that for a few teachers as well. I used to get yelled at constantly for talking. My voice is, the voice you hear now, which is loud and clear, was always loud and clear. And I wasn't always able to moderate it as a kid. And I was always the voice the teacher could hear and understand above everyone else's. So I got yelled at constantly for that.
It sounds like our classrooms actually needed a good acoustics upgrade. Tile floors, glass walls, concrete walls, cinder block, whatever it was, not ideal.
Yeah, muting the student's mic during the pandemic was probably a blessing for a lot of teachers.
Oh, the class clown? I can just mute this person?
They can never talk?
Yes, please.
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