Listening ahead to 2009

One Square Inch of Silence has continued to expand and attract wide spread public support. What began less than four years ago on Earth Day 2005 by a single person, has now touched the lives of millions, thanks to newspaper, magazine, and television coverage. Media outlets as far away as Italy, Germany, and France have spread the news of One Square Inch and its pioneering role in preserving endangered natural silence.

It is my hope that Olympic National Park will indeed be recognized as the “Listener’s Yosemite”, a place of profound aural solitude. In 2008, Olympic Park received a new park superintendent, Karen Gustin, and a new General Management Plan that will guide the park’s development for more than a decade. However, its soundscape and the park’s extraordinary natural quiet are scarcely recognized and no natural quiet or soundscape management plans exist. There’s not even a sound level meter on hand; not one dollar in its budget slated to protect this valuable natural resource. It will be up to public outcry to protect this last great quiet place.

One Square Inch of Silence now has a Board of Directors and is in the process of filing for 501-C3 non-profit, tax-exempt status. It is the subject of an upcoming book, also called One Square Inch of Silence, due out in March 2009 from Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster. In it, you can visit One Square Inch through text, images, and audio CD and also experience the extraordinary wonder that is the Hoh Rain Forest. You’ll then travel with me across America on an historic sound safari, as I listen to the land and Americans I meet, in search of vanishing silence and the impact of ever spreading man-made noise. Finally, my co-author John Grossmann and I meet with government officials in Washington, D.C. to press for a One Square Inch of Silence-spearheaded campaign to preserve natural quiet. In 2009, we hope that Washington Senator Maria Cantwell will introduce legislation into the 111th session of Congress to designate a 20-mile radius no flight zone over One Square Inch, helping to federally sanction the world’s first quiet sanctuary.

Meanwhile, the FAA seems to be routing more and more flights directly over Olympic National Park. On December 10, 2008, jet noise broke the natural quiet and then continued for more than 30 minutes—a disappointing “record” in my years of monitoring and also a reminder that unless action is taken soon we will lose this treasure forever.

Please speak out for silence by supporting the One Square Inch Foundation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 7:44 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “Listening ahead to 2009”

Daniel Guiney Says:

March 6th, 2009 at 7:13 pm

My daughter, Kelley Guiney, of Everette, told me about your web site and your work. Good luck and I”ll be checking in from time to time watching your progress and making noise about your efforts.
I’ll also be ordering your CD.
Patrick Murphy Says:

March 29th, 2009 at 10:35 pm

Just bought your book today (March 29 2009) and read it all the way through nonstop. Very informative and inspiring. It is wonderful to “hear” through the ears of someone who notices subtle details that city people like myself overlook. I will literally never hear my environment the same.

Like you, I grew up around Washington. I lived for a while in Rosslyn, directly under National Airport’s flight path. That was something else! It is disheartening to hear about your walk along the C&O Canal, and how the intruding sounds increased as you got closer to Washington.

Is there an acoustic equivalent to the International Dark Sky Association?
Doug Grinbergs Says:

March 31st, 2009 at 11:58 pm

April 29 is 14th Annual International Noise Awareness Day. People who care about aviation noise in the national parks could take the opportunity to make a fuss with the new Secretary of the Interior Kan Salazar, as well as the FAA and DOT. We can also help raise awareness of the NPS Natural Sounds Program and its activities (in Colorado).
Dennis Paul Hastings Says:

April 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm

No comments. Amazing. I think that one of the greatest problems with our modern world is the fact that we cannot get away from noises that are mechanical and/or industrial in nature. I am an ardent outdoorsman and one of my greatest loves are the sounds of nature, and even the silence of nature. I know a couple of places around Mt. Adams that are perfectly silent at times. Some people, I have found, are unsettled by this, but I have been known to hike in the wilderness by myself, for days, and I find this activity enthralling.

It is a sad testament to our helplessness to all of the noise that one of my favorite ‘must have’ items is a small bag of hi-tech earplugs. If I won the lottery I would give generously to this foundation, guaranteed. thankyou for your efforts and for the artistic expose of that one thing that is almost gone from the modern world… silence.
Keith L. Becker Says:

April 14th, 2009 at 7:45 am

Greetings.
Nay though I say, tis not silence. It’s that delicious quiet of the sort of place where, if a shrew some feet away russles some duff, you’ll hear it. If a cone falls some many yards away, you’ll hear it brush the bowes along its way to meet the forest floor.
It has made my morning, and perhaps my day to hear Gordon on Carl’s mightyfine Portland Oregon radio show, that now I know some one is on about some thing that I’ve thought about and wished I could do for years.
We should have acoustic equivalents of the International Dark Sky Association.
Now some memories (Death Vally night) are geting in here, so, lest I diggress egriegiously (never mind my spelling skills, ya’ll) I’ll key off.
Thank You Gordon, and all your associates, for all that you’re doing.
K.
ed spargo Says:

April 22nd, 2009 at 7:06 am

gordon: the faa probably routed those flights over olympic just to show who’s boss. they can take our silence away anytime, anyplace. crestone, colo residents told me that several years ago, the airforce made a point of using the local ridge for low altitude training, when dozens of uninhabited sites existed, to “teach those dirty hippies&spaced out gurus a lesson”

doug grinberg: are you coloradan? im in denver. is there a colo org for this cause? if not, lets start one!
Alan Gregory Says:

May 9th, 2009 at 1:39 pm

I couldn’t help but purchase a copy of your book the moment I saw it. The “nature silence” day I remember the most at present is the first Saturday after 9/11. I was on active duty at the time at Langley Air Force Base in southeastern Virginia and knew quite well by the afternoon of the disaster that regular commercial airline traffic was grounded for at least another week. After three nights of working the night shift, I managed to gain enough free off-duty time to visit a favorite natural area of mine, the 1115,000-acre Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge two hours away from Norfolk, Va. I remember well my morning hike that day along the 4.5-mile Washington Ditch trail to Lake Drummond, one of only two natural lakes in all of Va. By this time in my Air Force career, I knew quite well that the refuge was under the approach and takeoff patterns for the Norfolk airport as well as Oceana Naval Air Station. But on this day, not a single aircraft, military or civilian, flew over. It was a wonderful sound, not having to hear the “noise” of jet aircraft climbing to cruise altitude while passing overhead. The only sounds I heard that day were wild, free-living sounds — of songbirds, an barred owl, and tundra swans on the surface of the 3,000-acre lake. Ironic that a tragedy spurred this new-found silence.
Dan Abbott Says:

May 28th, 2009 at 5:06 am

Don’t you think it’s a bit selfish to try to stop airplanes from flying in the big blue sky when silence can be obtained with an inexpensive set of earplugs? Put to yourself in a pilot’s seat and try to keep up with all the regulations that are out there already. Is this the land of the free or is it the land of slavery to everyone’s whims?
Marc Says:

June 30th, 2009 at 7:16 pm

Geez, Dan, there’s just so much you don’t get. First, Hempton’s not trying to stop anyone from flying, just adjusting the trajectory. What’s selfish is your (apparent) unwillingness to consider the effect you have on anyone else. And the silence he’s (we’re) seeking isn’t the absence of sound, but the absence of the unnecessary intrusions of human-made sound over pristine national lands, part of the heritage that belongs to us all and that can’t be preserved with a set of bloody earplugs. Again, very selfish of you to not even consider it; to hold everyone else in slavery to the noise you produce. Besides, it’s hardly a “whim,” but a deeply held passion for the protection of a national treasure that, like countless species in the Amazon rain forest, is highly endangered before people even realize what they are losing. Stop…for just a moment. Turn the engines off so you can hear yourself think…just for a moment…or two…or three. Listen…the silence just might have something to teach you.
Paul Adams Says:

July 28th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

I guess a taste for quiet is like a taste for fine wine, honesty, and kindness: difficult to explain to those who do not have it.
Jon Roberts Says:

August 7th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

Well said Paul. I remember some commentator making a similar comment in the album notes for one of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans records. Someone asked him to explain why jazz was important, and he said it was like romance. If you don’t enjoy it in the first place, you won’t be convinced by arguments.