[Alpendave]

Just stumble across this video this morning. Really got me as one who really despises electronic sound generating devices on the trail and in the campground. Perhaps I am right when I insist that silence is in fact a fundamental human right.

[CC]

A little irony here in that the maker of this video apparently doesn't think that the background "music" he adds, when viewers are supposed to be hearing the natural sounds of the Hoh, is itself an example of noise pollution.

[Randito]

Silence has tremendous value, as does wilderness. But wilderness as a legal concept didn't exist until legislation was passed in 1964. Similar the right to speak your mind against the government didn't exist until December 15th, 1791 when the 1st amendment was ratified. So a right to silence could be established through legislation -- a heavy pull in the current political environment which is currently debating whether people below the poverty line should have food.

[NightOwl]

You can invent all the “fundamental human rights” you want, but unless you can change the culture and ethos of a society in which people live in a cocoon of noise, propaganda and technology from cradle to grave--to the point where they even bring that cocoon into the wilderness with them--your made up “human rights” aren’t gonna do much good. It's not about law, it's about culture and spirituality. I'm not hubrisitic enough to believe these things can be legislated away. It will take a long time, and maybe the collapse of this whole civilization, to really change things like this, imo. So many environmental issues are like this: you are fighting losing battles against an entire techno-industrial culture and civilization, until it ends.

[Ski]

^ I know of this "quiet place" on the Hoh, and many places in the next watershed to the south that are equally as quiet (provided the flyboys from WINAS aren't directly overhead.) In reality, they are only absolutely silent when there is no wind up in the canopy, which is difficult to find until you get a few hundred yards away from the rivers. It's not necessary to drive all the way out there and hike in miles and miles to find that "place". My back yard is equally silent - generally at night - except when the BNSF and Amtrack lines are rumbling directly beneath me. The noisiest thing here is a set of wind chimes. I'm in the city two blocks from a major arterial. Quiet is where you find it. True, there's no way to "legislate" it. It should be considered, though, that driving great distances from major metropolitan centers and hiking miles and miles should afford one the silence that one would reasonably expect in such a setting. Apparently our friends at the U.S. Navy don't share that view - at least not when it comes to Olympic National Park and the airspace 25 miles due south of where the video above was shot.

[Slugman]

Calling silence a fundamental human right is ludicrous. This is just a crybaby whining about his personal pet peeve. He admits as much in the first post. People talking to each other causes most noise pollution in the wilderness.

[Kim Brown]

It sure is a value in the concept of wilderness areas. I agree it's important. I'm blessed with lots of opportunities for silence. I just got back from Texas, and as my nephew drove me through Dallas from and to DFW, I was struck by the freeways. They're everywhere. Freeways I never even heard of cross crossing all over the place. They have been busy since I Iived there. Looking at a map of that city, I bet there isn't one neighborhood that isn't drowned in freeway noise.

[Logbear]

[Now I Fly]

I have severe tinnitus. For me the concept of silence is water under the bridge. Oh well. Off to the mountains.

[kiliki]