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Date: 5 September, 2001
Locusts in the afternoon, shouting children playing outside, June bugs banging against the screen door, birds singing in the early dawn, frogs croaking during twilight, the sound of a ball connecting with a bat at a neighborhood playground, mosquitos buzzing our ears at a picnic, the song of a robin before the rain, rain falling on leafy trees, bees working around nectar-filled flowers...these, are the sounds of summer.
At American PIE we can can hear additional summer sounds: the sound of the cows as they cross the brook to their pasture, owls in the night, the cries of gulls on the river, the quacking of brook-traveling ducks, a braying donkey. When on vacation on a lake in Maine we heard the calls, the heart-stopping calls, of the loons, the lapping sound of the lake, the soft swish of the wind moving among the giant pines, the rustling of chipmunks and red squirrels in the underbrush.
But there are other summer sounds common to all of us. The 'tik, tik, tik' of lawn sprinklers, watering the unending turfgrass of suburbia. There are the sounds of mowers working on overwatered, overfertilized landscapes, the sounds of weed wackers, 2-cycle gasoline-powered engines, trimming where the lawn mowers can't reach, noisy hedge trimmers sculpturing shrubs and trees, into shapes that nature never intended. There are the pruners, the loppers, the edge trimmers and the chain saws. And soon the sounds of leaf blowers out in force as leaves begin to separate from the trees. We hear clearly the traffic, the heavy and constant traffic. Too many cars, cars that are too big, too powerful and carry too few, people. The sound of air conditioners in homes and stores. Summer sounds... we have become accustomed to.
On that wild lake in Maine, too, we heard other summer sounds as jet skis circled fragile loons, and power boats - traveling nowhere - made loud flapping noises as they hit the water and swung into wide arcs off the rocky shore. In the early morning the sound of heavy trucks carrying freshly cut timber served as an alarm clock.
Sounds, like the quality of our water and our air, can serve as environmental warnings.
Man has a voice and man, is busy talking. Nature has a voice which grows harder and harder, to hear. In summer there are nature sounds and there are man-made sounds. But the man-made sounds grow more strident with each passing year. We will not fare well if we do all the talking. It is time, past time, to consider, a two way, conversation... to let nature have a chance, to be heard.
Act today on this EcoAlert and thank you for your environmental responsibility.
American P.I.E.
Public Information on the Environment
124 High Street, P.O. Box 340
South Glastonbury, CT 06073-0340
Telephone: 1-800-320-APIE(2743)
E-mail: Info@AmericanPIE.org
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American PIE
http://www.AmericanPIE.org
Return to American PIE Index on EHN's site
http://users.lmi.net/wilworks/ampie/ampieind.htm
EHN pages of possible interest --
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