- Playing
- Temporary Hearing Loss
- From
- Paolo Pietropaolo
Gordon Hempton is the founder of onesquareinch.org, dedicated to the preservation of one square inch of perfect natural silence at the heart of Olympic National Park in WA. He knows a lot about listening, and a lot about natural silence. I interviewed Hempton about society's relationship with noise.
I mixed his words from that conversation together with recordings of human-created sounds and natural environments to create this sound-rich piece about the noise & the environment for broadcast on CBC Radio's "The Bottom Line with David Suzuki".
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Piece Description
Gordon Hempton is the founder of onesquareinch.org, dedicated to the preservation of one square inch of perfect natural silence at the heart of Olympic National Park in WA. He knows a lot about listening, and a lot about natural silence. I interviewed Hempton about society's relationship with noise.
I mixed his words from that conversation together with recordings of human-created sounds and natural environments to create this sound-rich piece about the noise & the environment for broadcast on CBC Radio's "The Bottom Line with David Suzuki".
Broadcast History
First broadcast on CBC Radio, July 4, 2010, on the program "The Bottom Line with David Suzuki"
Timing and Cues
PIECE BEGINS-
(sound fades up on natural forest ambience)
IN: “When we compare the decibel values of modern life...”
OUT: “Our temporary hearing loss is all part of the message that will get us there.”Ac
Last word @6:31
(subway train door closes with chime; fade out on subway train ambience)
Intro and Outro
INTRO:We live in a loud world.
In cities, even when it’s supposedly quiet, we’re surrounded by a background hum, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
And even if you live in the countryside, it’s relatively loud. Think of your fridge - your air conditioner - your computer - your car.
Gordon Hempton is an acoustic ecologist. He’s been recording the sounds of nature for almost 30 years.
According to Hempton, there are no places left on Earth that are free of human-caused noise 100 per cent of the time.
That’s why he’s created One Square Inch of Silence, in Washington State’s Olympic National Park. It’s officially the quietest place in the United States.
Hempton says that as a result of all this noise, we’ve forgotten how to listen.
It’s as though we’re suffering from a collective hearing loss.
He thinks there’s a cure, though - and that cure might hold an important message for us.
OUTRO:That was acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. Hempton maintains One Square Inch of Silence in Olympic National Park, in the state of Washington. It’s the quietest place in the United States.
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Shirley Peroutka
Posted on November 09, 2011 at 10:51 AM | Permalink
A must hear!
Very nicely put together piece, relevant and resonant.