Noise – Your Enemy? Or Your Friend?

In the twentieth century, natural quiet—or, rather, the absence of radios and car horns and the presence of honking geese and howling wolves—became central to the conservation movement and the creation of natural parks. One founder of the Wilderness Society suggested in 1932 that designated wild areas would “interest the folks in the inexpensive joys of nature in lieu of the jarring jams of jazz.”