STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW — "Selects: Noise Pollution: Arrrgh!" Original Air Date: September 6, 2025 Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant

Episode Overview

This deep-dive episode explores the overlooked but significant issue of noise pollution—what it is, how it's measured, its surprisingly harmful impacts on humans and wildlife, and why even minor reductions can bring big health benefits. With their trademark blend of wit, curiosity, and offbeat tangents, Josh and Chuck break down the science, share landmark studies, kvetch about leaf blowers, and advocate for collective action—while acknowledging that laws haven’t kept up with research.

Main Themes & Purpose

• Definition and Nature of Noise Pollution: Outlines what noise pollution is, how it’s different from other sounds, and the subjective nature of “unwanted sound.”
• Health and Societal Impacts: Goes beyond hearing loss to explore systemic effects, from heart disease to learning delays in children.
• Noise Pollution’s Impact on the Environment: Unpacks what noise does to animals, especially marine life and migratory birds.
• (Lack of) Policy Responses: Discusses how regulations initially started strong in the 1970s (U.S.) but later faltered, and why meaningful change is hard.
• Everyday Relevance: The episode is peppered with relatable, funny examples—leaf blowers, loud concerts, city life—making a compelling case for why this hidden pollutant matters to everyone.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Getting Old & Noise Intolerance (02:25–07:20)

• Josh and Chuck open with anecdotes on math mistakes and joke about turning into grumpy old men complaining about noise.
• Generational Differences: Discuss how children seem to take noise for granted while adults become more sensitive.
  • “Unless it’s something that really bothers them, it’s just part of life.” – Chuck (05:03)
• Hypothesis: As you age, you learn that it doesn’t have to be this way—and you start to resent it.

2. Decibels: The Basics (07:33–10:00)

• Decibel Origins:
  • Decibel (dB) = 1/10 of a bel (named after Alexander Graham Bell).
  • "A decibel … is the lowest, the smallest difference that humans can detect." — Josh (08:05)
  • Loudness is logarithmic, not linear—100 dB is not twice as loud as 50 dB.
    • “An airplane is 100,000 times louder than a normal conversation if it reaches 120 decibels.” – Josh (10:34)
• Volume Reference Points:
  • Conversation: 60 dB.
  • Cars: 70–90 dB.
  • Pain threshold: ~120–140 dB.

3. What Is “Noise” Anyway? (12:43–14:24)

• Noise is Subjective, but with Limits:
  • Technically defined as “unwanted sound,” but what’s unwanted varies.
  • Example: Rock concert vs. space shuttle launch—context matters (15:28).
• Human-Caused Distinction:
  • Researchers generally define noise as human-caused—nature sounds like waterfalls or waves are not counted (14:41).

4. Types of Noise Pollution (16:33–18:40)

• Industrial: Continuous, unvarying hums and machinery noise.
• Intermittent: Trains, planes, sirens, revving leaf blowers—“one of the worst sounds for us.”
  • "They just rev in this arrhythmic pattern that your brain… is just giving its all to try to find a pattern in." – Josh (17:37)
• Community: Lawn mowers, music, fireworks, general “people” noise.

5. Health Impacts – Beyond Hearing Loss (22:48–31:44)

• Hearing Damage: Traditional loss vs. “hidden hearing loss” (damaged neurons, not detectable by hearing tests).

• Fight-or-Flight Trigger:

  • Noise triggers the same stress pathways as, e.g., facing a bear. Adrenaline, cortisol spike.
    • “Your amygdala...is gonna send that same distress signal to the hypothalamus.” – Chuck (24:46)

• Chronic Health Consequences:

  • Linked to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, cognitive delays in children, and even low birth weights.
  • Key Study: 10 dB increase in aircraft noise = 28% rise in anxiety medication, 25% higher depression (29:13).

• Sleep Disruption:

  • Even if you “get used to it,” noise disrupts sleep, impacts the endothelium (blood vessel lining), raising risk of heart attacks and more.

  “After one night of being exposed while you're sleeping to something like train sounds, your endothelium starts suffering.” – Josh (30:56)

6. Landmark Studies: Children & Surroundings (33:00–36:47)

• 1970s New York Studies:
  • Kids in noisy classrooms (near subway) were 11 months behind in reading compared to their quieter peers; the gap closed after acoustic dampening was added.
  • Bridges Apartments (Manhattan): Persistent traffic noise led to lower academic performance.
• WHO Reports:
  • 2011: At least 1 million healthy years of life lost annually in Europe to noise.
  • 2018: Raised to 1.8 million.
  • Recent research: 3% of night-time sudden cardiac deaths could be from nighttime aircraft noise.

7. Wildlife Impacts (42:02–47:25)

• Whales & Shipping:
  • Stress hormone levels in right whales in Bay of Fundy dropped when shipping stopped post-9/11.
  • “Shipping is probably humans’ noisiest marine endeavor that we do all the time.” – Josh (42:53)
• The Phantom Road Study (2012):
  • Road traffic noise played in the wild led 25%+ of the birds to leave; those who remained lost weight needed for migration.
• Marine Life:
  • Noise from seismic air guns, sonar, and ships disrupts marine mammals, possibly causing strandings.
    • “It just drives them out of the water, which sounds bonkers…” – Josh (46:26)

8. Policy and Regulation: Why We’re Stuck (47:25–52:42)

• Early US regulation (1970s): Several federal acts, OSHA standards, Office of Noise Abatement and Control (ONAC).
• But: 1980s deregulation (Reagan era) removed federal authority, left noise control to states and cities—most did little.
  • “...the Office of Noise and Abatement Control on paper still exists, but Congress said, you know, let’s just not fund them anymore.” – Chuck (48:06)
• Local noise ordinances focus on “nuisance” issues (parties, lawn crews).
• Federal preemption: Air and rail traffic, etc., can’t be regulated by local authority—even when communities suffer.

9. Mitigation & Solutions (52:42–56:45)

• Barriers & Landscaping: Planting trees/shrubs near roads or railways can reduce noise.

• Building Design: Use of acoustic insulation and soundproofing.

• Tech Fixes:

  • Shipping: Redesign engines/propellers, buffer ship engines from hulls for quieter operation.
    • “Maersk...spent $100 million bucks to do just 11 of its ships...They have 740 ships. They've done 11.” – Chuck (54:52)
  • Wind Farms: Adding perforated pipes to muffle underwater pile driving noise.

• Regulatory Action: Strengthen muffler and leaf-blower regulations, enforce noise level limits.

• Ecosystem Strategy: Noise mitigation is “low-hanging fruit” to help stabilize marine life while tackling larger problems like climate change.

  “There’s some really easy stuff we can do, like even rerouting shipping lanes is one thing we can do. And...it will actually stabilize marine ecosystems and marine life so that it will buy us a little time while we're figuring out much trickier stuff like ocean acidification." – Josh (55:56)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Decibels:
  • "I never thought of the fact that a decibel was a tenth of a bell, which is named, and it's got deci right there...a bell is named after Alexander Graham Bell." – Chuck (07:33)
• On Leaf Blowers:
  • “Again, [the leaf blower] is the worst thing that anyone's ever invented.” – Josh (17:37)
• On Personal Vulnerability:
  • “Even if your sleep isn’t disturbed… the noise is still affecting you while you’re sleeping because again, your ear never turns off.” – Josh (29:48)
• On Public Policy:
  • “We had the start, Chuck. We started out like we were going to almost immediately. When we realized how bad noise pollution was in the 70s, we started to do something about it. And the federal government passed...huge acts.” – Josh (47:09)
• On Collective Solutions:
  • “The noise pollution we’re contributing to marine ecosystems in particular is just such low hanging fruit that there’s no reason we shouldn’t do this.” – Josh (55:56)

Memorable Tangents

• Math with Kids: Chuck’s daughter asks him simple math questions as she falls asleep, prompting a reflection on learning and how our brains change with age (03:16).
• Wild Stallions/Bill & Ted: The misspelled episode doc “NOIZE POLLUSHUN” sounds like a metal band, “a good name for a made-up band in a movie” (04:16).
• Brown Noise: A lively discussion on using white, brown, and “chrome” noise to help sleep, with jokes about bodily functions and the band Ween (27:04–28:12).
• Pandemic Birdsong: Anecdotes from Spring 2020 when city traffic stopped and birds took over the soundscape (44:12).

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:25 — Hosts joke about getting old and noise intolerance.
• 07:33 — How decibels work and what they measure.
• 12:43 — Defining “noise” as unwanted/human-made sound.
• 16:33 — Industrial, intermittent, and community noise categories.
• 22:48 — Health impacts of chronic and acute noise exposure.
• 29:13 — Landmark studies: medication use, depression rates, physiological stress, sleep disruption.
• 33:00 — 1970s New York noise studies: academic impacts on children.
• 36:47 — WHO global burden estimates (DALYs lost).
• 42:02 — Wildlife: whales, “phantom road,” adverse marine impacts.
• 47:25 — Policy, regulatory rollback, and why local authorities can’t fix everything.
• 52:42 — Practical, technical, and regulatory solutions.
• 55:56 — Low-hanging fruit: shifting shipping lanes, greening, noise abatement benefits all.

Final Thoughts

Chuck and Josh frame noise pollution as a legitimate public health and ecological threat, and a form of pollution just as real as trash or chemicals. Despite its invisibility (or perhaps because of it), it rarely gets the attention or regulation it deserves—even as another million or more healthy years are lost annually.

If you take away one thing: Major reductions in noise pollution—at home, in cities, and at sea—are easily achievable, would protect human health, and would give ecosystems a crucial breather. But this “low-hanging fruit” will require both awareness and action.

Stuff You Should Know turns a topic most people tune out into something everyone will want to rethink—and maybe start wearing earplugs at Dinosaur Jr. shows.

For more resources and information:

• World Health Organization: Environmental Noise Guidelines
• CDC: Noise-Induced Hearing Loss
• Recent studies on urban noise and sleep quality
• See also SYSK episodes on jackhammers, marine biology, animal navigation

(Summary by [Podcast Summarizer AI], using host tone and direct quotes for accuracy and engagement.)