Noisy ICE

Noisy ICE does not refer to thundering avalanches nor groaning Arctic seas. No, I mean the internal combustion engine, which grows in asymptotic intensity each year. Especially in suburbs with their addiction to power machines, automobiles, and leaf blowers.

Philosophers often treat a person as an isolate _ a mind possibly dealing with a body vaguely aware of its environment. And much thought is given to how that mind should control its body. But what space does that body expect?

Until very recently a person could encounter long stretches of near silence practically everyday and everywhere. Peasants in their fields, even city dwellers, had hours when the world went still except for nature. It was assumed to be normal, like having access to clean air.

But, alas, clean air vanished and required laws addressing pollution. But somehow we never got around to noise pollution _ more insidious, less immediately harmful, easily addressed with earphones and earplugs.

Now, at our house, dawn to dusk, all seasons, there is ice noise, near and far. By driving us into protective acoustic bubbles, it isolates us even more.

It is a possible human right ripe for legal exploration.