The Guardian

How to minimize your 'noise footprint' | Paige Towers

Noise pollution is an environmental and public health crisis. Here are some simple steps to fight back
A passenger plane passes over a residential house near Heathrow airport in west London. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

The modern world is too loud. Noise pollution wreaks havoc on the behavioral patterns and stress levels of wildlife. Ecosystems shift in the wake of chronic noise: seed dispersers, pollinators and their predators avoid the clamor, thus changing the landscape of plants and trees. And, as the New Yorker reported earlier this month, all this human-made noise is responsible for a public health crisis for humans, too – causing hearing damage, high blood pressure, heart disease, low birth weight, and disrupted sleep on a mass scale.

The takeaway? We are literally

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