BOOK: One Square Inch of Silence.Byline: Kristine Morris - - One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World By Gordon Hempton and John Grossman Free Press, $26.00 - " One Square Inch of Silence is more than a book; it is a place in the Hoh Rain Forest The Hoh Rain Forest is one of the few temperate rain forests in the world, and is also the largest. It is located on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington state, USA. Within Olympic National Park, the forest is protected from commercial exploitation. , part of Olympic National Park Olympic National Park National park, northwestern Washington, U.S. Established in 1938 to preserve the Olympic Mountains and their forests and wildlife, it covers 1,442 sq mi (3,735 sq km); it includes a strip of Pacific Northwest shoreline geographically separated from the - arguably ar·gu·a·ble adj. 1. Open to argument: an arguable question, still unresolved. 2. That can be argued plausibly; defensible in argument: three arguable points of law. the quietest place in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. ," says Gordon Hempton, who has traveled the world as an acoustic ecologist, creating Emmy award-winning recordings of natural sounds. The extinction of natural soundscapes is of great concern to him. "Noise is quickly becoming a modern plague found nearly everywhere and often at unsafe levels. Noise has become so prevalent that it's taken for granted Adj. 1. taken for granted - evident without proof or argument; "an axiomatic truth"; "we hold these truths to be self-evident" axiomatic, self-evident obvious - easily perceived by the senses or grasped by the mind; "obvious errors" ," the author states, noting that although noise disrupts people's ability to sleep, to learn, to have moments of rest and quiet reflection, and to restore themselves to health (has anyone ever gotten really good rest in a hospital?), noise does not receive the attention given to other environmental concerns. The continued existence of silence, even in its last refuge, is precarious; there is currently no protection for silent places that would keep them free from the intrusion of human noise, thus making silence more endangered than animals or plants on the endangered species endangered species, any plant or animal species whose ability to survive and reproduce has been jeopardized by human activities. In 1999 the U.S. government, in accordance with the U.S. list. - Hempton and co-author John Grossman visited Washington, DC, to present their case for the preservation of quiet. While there, they met a woman who lives near Reagan International Airport who, in the three weeks that flights over the city were prohibited following 9/11, heard for the first time the sounds of her neighbors in their homes. "I heard my community," she said. "And it went on for three weeks. And when the planes resumed flying and the quiet stopped, I cried." |
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