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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Noise pollution kills
20:51 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
By Adriana Stuijt – see original story on http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267835
February 23 2009 – DOKKUM, The Netherlands. Noise pollution is rapidly becoming a major killer in the Netherlands. Some 17-million people are crammed into a water-logged land surface of 33,883 sq km and 7,643 sq km of busy waterways, living inside a bubble of relentless, massive noise.
Authorities say a full 600 people a year die from stress-related diseases caused only by sleep deprivation due to the country's overwhelming noise pollution.
Some 5,5-million people -- more than one-third of the entire population -- frequently report serious stress- and sleep deprivation from the inescapable bubble of loud noise which surrounds the entire country. It arrives in people's homes from everywhere: traffic by road, sea, river and air, and low-frequency sonar waves which travel easily through the Dutch soil from passing military and civilian seagoing ships.
A full 700,000 people in The Netherlands have to live so close to constant noise pollution sources that they report interrupted sleep 80% of the time, year in, year out. see
Water-logged soil: the perfect amplifier
The problem gets worse every year, residents report. The water-logged Dutch soil - more than two-thirds has been reclaimed from the sea and river basins -- has the same sound-carrying abilities as does water:
And it's not only the noise itself, but also the vibrations which often cause homes and apartment buildings to crack and start resonating like huge sound-boxes, picking up traffic noise often from kilometres away. Similar problems are also reported by residents in other reclaimed land areas in neighbouring countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Northern Germany. here
Low Frequency Sound deadliest of all
The future looks even grimmer. A new source of noise pollution worse than anything they ever experienced before, has been added to this deadly mix. And this also causes inexplicable panic attacks among the Dutch, especially those living within 20km of the ocean: a constant low-frequency hum from passing naval and merchant ships. see
These low-frequency sound vibrations -- heard by the human ear as a deeply resonating, constant hum -- are caused by sonar- and underwater-communication equipment installed on passing naval- and merchant ships. Dutch residents report being awakened by this hum even when they live 20km inland. In the past, nuisance from LF-sound could be solved quite easily once it was located: it was usually caused by ventilators, heating pumps, transformers and air-conditioners.
However over the past few years, many residents living near the oceans also report hearing it from military and civilian ships - and there's nothing they can do about that.
Most of this noise-pollution is caused by the military -- for instance the US Navy has plans to introduce the Low Frequency Active Sonar it in 80% of the worlds oceans. The new submarine detection system is in fact the new 'untouchable' pet of the world's navies and environmental campaigners seem helpless to stop them.
The navy just love LFA -- used at 100 to 1000 Hz, the noise-waves travel great distances and detect quiet submarines in even the most shallow water. It uses 'intense sound at levels in the range of 235 decibels or greater. This is the perfect pitch to travel long distances through even the most shallow water along coastlines to detect 'quiet' submarines. And it's also the most unnatural and hardest sound yet produced in the world's oceans. see
Moreover, LFA waves do not stop travelling once they hit land -- in water-logged soil such as in The Netherlands, the LFA waves keep right on going, slicing like hot knives through butter. And they might well be causing a massive new health threat for millions of Europeans, even when they live 20km inland.
Over the past few years, there are frequent reports in the Dutch news media of mysterious, deep humming coming from the ground, with residents and authorities unable to locate this sleep-depriving hum from any land-sources.
Dangerous to whales -- and humans
At the moment, Green Peace and other environmentalist groups only seem to be concerned about the devastating effect this LFS-sonar will have on whales and dolphins - as well they should, as these rolling sound waves expose marine mammals to noise pollution at a level 200 billion times greater than that which is known to disturb and even injure them.
However, it might also be important to note that human beings also are mammals... and millions who live in water-logged environments like the Netherlands, are beginning to suffer just as much from these new infernal noise machines. see
Sleep-deprived zombies...
One resident in nearby Grimbergen, in the northern-most province of Groningen, not very far from the northerly European merchant lanes, reported this week that when he and his wife moved there nineteen years earlier, the place was 'dead-silent' at night.'
However a year ago, the couple started waking up from a deeply annoying, constant hum which seemed to come from deep underground. They started wandering the streets, increasingly desperate to find the source: could it be that new municipal water-pump, or the microwave mast on top of the school half a kilometre away?
They didn't know but checked every new machine which had been installed in the area over the previous year: starting with their own new central heating system, moving on to the municipality's water-purification plant and talking to local authorities. The official reaction was disbelief: they were just imagining things, they heard. So they asked the local plumber to crawl into the basement. He also heard this constant hum, and was just as puzzled by it.
For the entire past year this couple have not had one uninterrupted night's sleep. "I often walk like a zombie through the house... I become more and more depressed and irritated from this constant, deep hum,' the unnamed resident wrote in the Volkskrant newspaper. They hear it day and night. And moving away any time soon is out of the question: the waiting lists for housing are very long and moving is cumbersome business in The Netherlands. see
Buzz-bikes, rowdy neighbours:
To make matters even worse -- if all the traffic noise from the air, the sea and the rivers, and all the new electronics-buzzing isn't bad enough -- the Dutch also are very loud neighbours themselves. The country's spirit of 'traditional tolerance' extends to tolerating exceedingly loud music and bikes without mufflers from their own offspring, for instance... These rambunctious, much-indulged and often very loud Dutch kids often are one cause of major friction in many neighbourhoods, especially on Sundays.
"Violence-related problems in the personal sphere' are reported as one of the main sources for violence between neighbours by Dutch police - and more than 90%of this violence is caused by friction over noise-pollution, i.e. yobbish behaviour, between neighbours.Sometimes, entire neighbourhoods can erupt in sudden protests over one specific source of particularly annoying noise if the authorities don't react quickly enough to try and solve such problems. see
- The central authorities often aren't very helpful either: now they even allow clay-pigeon shoots on the country's only remaining 'quiet spot', the Veluwe nature reserve, despite many protests from surrounding residents and nature lovers. see
59 decibels
A maximum sound-level of 59 decibels was legally set as the 'comfort level' for residents living near high-traffic areas throughout the Netherlands. Thus by law, all new roads must have sound walls around residential areas to deflect the traffic noise if it can be determined that the noise-pollution would exceed 59 decibels.
However many Dutch residents have over the past few years, reported registering much higher noise levels inside their homes 24 hours a day - on all days except Sundays. And this noise pollution is recorded in all the towns, even inside homes protected by sound walls.
This dramatic growth in noise pollution is also becoming a serious public health problem.
Health-authorities report that an annual 300,000 Dutch residents become so ill from this sleep-deprivation, that they develop chronic illnesses and psychiatric problems.
Some 600 people a year die from high blood pressure and cardiac arrest caused only by sleep-deprivation and stress from chronic, overwhelming noise-pollution, doctors are reporting.
Yet there is no official central government department attempt to reduce this growing tsunami of mechanical and low-frequency electronic noise, keeping millions of citizens from getting a decent night's sleep in The Netherlands. Also see my previous report here
In fact, the Dutch government is at the moment, considering replacing its fleet of aging F16 military jet fighters, and is looking at two candidates without worrying about the increased noise pollution these machines would cause: the Swedish Gripen and the Joint Strike Fighter of Lockheed-Martin.
Dokkum harbour might look peaceful, but just like the rest of the Netherlands, there's a constant mechanical noise residents have to live with. With the UK, this is the most overcrowded country in Europe. Picture by Adriana Stuijt
The villagers near the military airport of Leeuwarden had to start investigating the noise-pollution potential of these jet fighters themselves. And discovered that they would have to endure a 20,6 decibel increase in sound pollution from the proposed the Joint Strike Fighter.
Residents in The Netherlands thus have had to become very militant before the authorities will pay attention to their complaints. Constant pressure by action groups is the only way to force the authorities to consider the noise-pollution levels of the new jet fighters, and to ban all night-flights. Citizens must be on constant guard to prevent new plans which would add to their noise-pollution stress levels - otherwise the authorities will simply allow more and more noisy machines into their sound-bubbles.
Even the most benign, peace loving residents around Schiphol international airport near Amsterdam have all become very militant over the years, fighting for their rights to get an uninterrupted night of sleep. These residents know that they must never let their guard down; they must remain a constant thorn in the side of the authorities
- At the moment residents around Schiphol are fighting against plans to add another runway, and the authorities also are still refusing to ban all night-flights.
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Brain scans to replace job interviews within five years
By Adriana Stuijt
- See original article with video here:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267849
February 23 2009 – ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands. MRI scans for candidates in top jobs such as bank directors could soon become part of the job-application package, says Erasmus University researcher Prof Willem Verbeke of Rotterdam. He's confident brain scans will replace job interviews within 5 years.
Prof. Verbeke heads the department of neuro-economics, (NSIM), at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He predicts in an interview with Good Morning Netherlands radio station that employers demanding compulsory brain scans from their job applicants will soon become the most normal thing in the world -- in fact within five years' time', he believes.
Financial chaos by psychopathic behaviour:
Especially after the economic fiascos which are plunging the world into recession, a great deal of interest is being shown by the economic sector in their neuro-testing job application scheme, which is now being developed and tested, he said. Neuro-economics is a new research field, combining economics, psychology, genetics and neuro-science.
One of the most important developments in this field are the use of EEGs and MRI-scans to determine the suitability of candidates for specific jobs, he said. It's been known for the past thirty years that one can determine human psychological disabilities such as autism and psychopathic tendencies in brain-scans, he said. However exact guidelines are only now being developed for practical applications in industry and the economic field by his department.
While brain-scanning their volunteers, the Erasmus University researchers can identify exactly to which extent people react 'spontaneously', i.e. subconsciously, to specific social interactions - such as financial trading on the stock market or shop personnel interacting with customers.
Thus they could also test job applicants for important posts such as bank directors and financial institutions to determine whether they are even suitable -- or whether they have psychopathic tendencies which would exclude them from such jobs.
"In a brain scan one can see what people notice spontaneously, such as sales personnel interacting with customers,' he said.
They have already discovered that people with slight autism, for instance, are totally unable to notice that customers may be responding negatively towards specific suggestions they make.
Bank directors:
He even named one specific person, the director of a large bank in the Netherlands, who "clearly didn't notice that people were shocked by his comments during press interviews'. Such slightly autistic persons would be far better suited for jobs where they have to have high levels of concentration and don't need to interact with people muvh -- 'for instance by placing them in university research jobs or computer-technology.'
Psychopathic behaviour in bank CEOs:
Even more important, he felt, was to establish psychopathic behaviour in job-applications - as people which were determined to have psychotic reactions as seen on their brainscans, ' would be totally unsuitable for leading jobs such as a bank director or the CEO of a multinational trading company.
"We noticed from the scans that psychopaths are overly-emphatic towards people, but at the same time also don't understand why people do specific things. This creates a high level of fear and suspicion in such psychopathic individuals, and this often drives them to have to 'stay ahead of people scheming against them'.
"This can be particularly dangerous in people who hold very responsible positions, such as CEOs of financial institutions.' He again mentioned one person's name whose financial manipulations in New York have caused financial ruin for many millions of people and banks worldwide.
Verbeke said that -- especially after recent discoveries in the international financial world that some important people had clearly been totally unsuitable for holding responsible positions -- it will become the most normal thing in the world for companies to want brainscans from their job-applicants, similar to the physical health-checks now often also undertaken.
"If I wanted someone to become a company director, I would most certainly first want a brain-scan to make sure he wasn't harbouring psychopathic or autistic tendencies', Verbeke said.
Dutch legal expert Guus van Vos however said that at the moment it was still not allowed under Dutch privacy laws to demand brainscans as part of job applications..
"By law right now, if you haven't done anything wrong which could lead to authorities believing that you might have a neorological problem, you can't undergo such a brainscan to determine your psychological abilities', Van Vos said.
Verbeke said the law was designed 'before brain-scans even existed' and that this would undoubtedly be addressed eventually.
He said his research department was now establishing up the exact neuro-scientific guidelines amongst a great many volunteers to develop a brain-scan screening programme for job-applicants.
"It's very interesting for us to establish exactly how the brain works during economic decision-making,' says Verbeke.
"Economic decisions, such as those made by sales professionals and financial institutions, often aren't only based on rational but also on emotional decision making.
"However the emotional part is largely subconscious. That's why we use the fMRI to investigate this subconscious thinking- and emotional-processes http://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/nieuws/detail/article/663/