Clamor (eBook)

How Noise Took Over the World - and How We Can Take It Back

Chris Berdik (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
272 Seiten
W. W. Norton & Company (Verlag)
9781324007005 (ISBN)

Infos

A May 2025 Next Big Idea Club Must-Read BookAn eye- (and ear-) opening investigation into how our ever-noisier world affects our health, our well-being, and our planet.Early-morning jackhammering from construction down the block. The dull roar of jets flying overhead. Your office mates phone conversations. We are surrounded by noise, but it is a problem many of us shrug off once the immediate annoyance passes. Yet as gifted science journalist Chris Berdik explains in Clamor, noise can have serious health effects, disrupting our sleep, ratcheting up our stress, and destroying our concentration. As he argues, it is one of the most pervasive, yet underacknowledged, pollutants in our daily livesone that we neglect, both individually and systemically, at our perilDrawing on extensive research and original reporting, Berdik shows how a too-limited understanding of noise, focused on loud sounds and decibel counts, has undermined a century of noise-control efforts and obscured the full toll noise exacts on us and the environment. Chronic exposure to noise that falls below decibel-based thresholdssometimes even below our conscious awarenessis linked to spikes in the risk of heart disease and other serious health ailments that contribute to premature death. Noisy classrooms hinder developing minds and delay cognitive milestones. In forests and in the depths of the ocean, a cacophony of manmade sound disrupts the natural soundscape, threatening animals capacity to communicate, hunt, and flee predators.Yet in the battle against noise, sound doesnt have to be our enemy: Berdik introduces us to the researchers, rock stars, architects, and many others who are finding surprising ways to make our world sound not only less bad, but better. Rising above the ever-increasing racket, Clamor is an urgentand ultimately inspiringcall to finally take noise seriously and harness sounds great potential.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 20.5.2025
• Zusatzinfo: 1 black-and-white illustration
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Mechanik
• Schlagworte: acoustic vibrations • decibels • environmental justice • hearing loss • Hearing Protection • Housing equity • natural world • noise-canceling • Noise Pollution • Public Health • Sleep improvement • Soundscapes • toxic sound
• ISBN-13: 9781324007005 / 9781324007005