Photo credit: Ollie Craig
by Arline L. Bronzaft, Ph.D., Board of Directors, GrowNYC, Co-founder, The Quiet Coalition, and Honorary Chair, Quiet American Skies
“Light and noise pollution ‘are neglected health hazards,’ say peers” is the headline of the Guardian article that informs us that the UK Parliament is calling for the “creation of advisory groups to tackle the pollutants which may increase risk of heart disease and premature death.”
The article goes on to say that the science and technology committee of the House of Lords says light and noise pollution are “poorly understood and poorly regulated.” Furthermore, these pollutants are described as being especially disruptive of sleep and this loss of sleep can impact the UK economy. To deal with noise pollution, Parliament has called for an expert advisory committee similar to the one that already exists for air pollution. Parliament has also called for a group to assess what healthy light exposure should look like so that appropriate guidelines can be set up.
Parliament believes that these advisory committees will bring better coordination between different departments and local government, which will enable them to better tackle the pollutants.
Author Linda Geddes notes that global heating has been affecting all of us and the Guardian will continue to cover climate change, highlighting how important the issue is to the publication.
Kudos to Parliament for highlighting the dangers of noise pollution to our health and quality of life and for calling for activities to “tackle noise pollution.” I would ask every reader to send this post to their congressperson and urge them to learn more about Parliament’s actions re: curbing noise. Hopefully, this might lead Congress to get more involved in reducing noise pollution in the United States. I would also compliment Parliament for their overall interest in environmental pollutants.
