BarkingDogs.net
Section One:
Quieting Your Own Dog
Section Two:
Personally Silencing Your Neighbor's Dogs
Section Three:
The Barking Laws and the Courts
Section Four:
To Quiet Your Home Town
Section Five:
The Noise Activist's Guide
Section Six:
More Info on Chronic Barking
Section Seven:
The Harm Done
Section Eight:
The Cause of the World's Chronic Barking and Biting Epidemics
Section Nine:
The Cure for the Barking Epidemic and All of Our Dog Related Problems
Section Ten:
The Barking Dog News
Section Eleven:
Barking Dogs YouTube
Sec Twelve:
Barking Dogs Facebook
Sec Thirteen:
The Barking Dogs Bulletin Board
Sec Fourteen:
About This Website
Sec Fifteen:
The Kitchen Sink
which is the Harm section of barkingdogs.net
Why You Should Take the Time to Disseminate the Poster to Those Who Need to See It
These days, every educated person is aware of the dangers of smoking tobacco. In fact, the acceptance of the dangers of smoking has become so ingrained in all of us that it is easy for us to forget that it was not that long ago when few people saw any problem with lighting up, and those who deduced the peril for themselves and tried to alert the public to the danger were dismissed as the-sky-is-falling extremists who were simply imagining a problem, if not outright attempting to manufacture one where none existed.
We see much the same phenomena today as those in the know about noise struggle to get the message out to an extremely skeptical and ill-informed public. So certainly there is a strong parallel between what anti-noise activists are encountering today and what the early anti-smoking advocates experienced in their day.
However, as far as smoking is concerned in the states, in the late nineteen-fifties the feds saved the day when the decision was made at the highest levels of government to publicize, disseminate, and promote what was then brand new, just completed research that for the first time showed an incontrovertible link between smoking and ill health.
Unfortunately, that is where the parallel ends, because, when it comes to noise, government is not going to be sounding the alarm and leading the charge like they did with smoking, not any time soon, anyway. Not in the U. S. or in Australia, or anywhere else for that matter.
The research has been completed and the data is in. As a result, we now know that, just as smoking can foster illness, chronic noise force-fed into a residential dwelling can devastate a family's quality of life as it chips away at their well being, destroying their health over time and all too often, in the end, leaving someone saddled with a lethal illness.
However, unlike the nineteen-fifties when the American government took the lead in spreading the word on the dangers of smoking, our modern day leaders have become hopelessly beholden to the same pro-noise special interest groups that, starting back in 1972, worked a series of tricky moves in which, for all practical purposes, they succeeded in actually making it illegal for Americans to regulate most types of noise.
As a consequence of that and the resultant de facto suppression of noise-related information, there followed in the U.S. a sort of acoustic dark age in which research withered and information relating to the dangers of noise exposure consistently failed to be disseminated to the noise-battered masses of our very loud nation. As a result, in the U.S., one rarely encounters an American lawmaker who has any idea whatsoever that noise, persistently force-fed into one's living space over time, might in any way represent a danger to the residents who dwell therein.
In contrast to lawmakers in America, the governing fathers of Australia do tend to be aware of the dangers of noise, even though that knowledge appears to be nowhere reflected in the few pathetically anemic, flatly ineffective anti-noise laws they have managed to pass over the years.
Hence, the problem Down under and the problem down home differ. We Americans need to educate our politicians and then get them moving, while the Aussies just need to find a way to make their leaders act on that of which they are already, for the most part, aware. One can only assume that in all other places the people are dealing with some combination of the two problems. Certainly when it comes to noise, governments everywhere have failed to fulfill their responsibility to ensure the public health.
However, after you expose them to the Symptoms and Side Effects poster, the lawmakers of America will no longer be able to say that they didn't know, and the leaders of Australia will no longer be able to claim that they did not appreciate the need to move quickly forward with effective anti-noise legislation, just as the movers and shakers at all points in-between will find it that much more difficult to remain inactive after years of research, condensed into one meticulously crafted page has been placed before them for their evaluation, by someone who has been injured by noise, who is waiting for an explanation for their inaction.
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that, when it comes to the noise epidemic, government is not going to lead us out of danger from in front. Rather, our leaders must be educated and prodded into action from behind. So place the truth in front of them, and remind them that, above all else, they have a sacred obligation to protect the pubic health, because when you do that, it makes it so much more difficult for them to continue to do nothing.
To view the Symptoms and Side Effects of Noise poster
To purchase large or laminated copies of the Symptoms and Side Effects poster
This page is part of the Noise Chart portion of Section Seven:
which is the Harm section of barkingdogs.net