NOISE POLLUTION

The level of decibels that human ears can tolerate is limited. Exceeding it leads to health troubles.

Noise pollution is dangerous for the health of the people since it can cause permanent deafness or even death in some of them. On medical grounds, I salute the minister for taking steps that will save Kenyans from noise pollution. Noise interrupts sleep in all people: children, the sick and even normal people.

When people are chronically deprived of sleep their heart beat could change and this could lead to sudden death in some of them.

People who are engaged in serious thought might find their trend of thought diverted by stray noise, which in fact contributes nothing to the well-being of the people.

The Nyanza churchmen should be the last to challenge the minister for environment over noise control since they are well versed in the way the people of old in Jericho raised a thundering noise that made the walls come down tumbling.

Resonance created by the building up of noise in degrees till it reaches a crescendo could in fact cause such vibration that could break solids. High frequency vibration is used in cutting through tissues in surgery. This is measured and controlled vibration. What about the uncontrolled noise that we are bombarded with daily by other people in the streets and homes where we live?

With the passing of time we might not even know the salient causes of our ill health, but this could be directly linked to the noise we are exposed to. What right do other people have to maim or kill us with their noise?

Hiring a room to sleep over night on Tom Mboya Street, prior to the banning of noise by the minister, was like throwing money into rubbish bin. I have yet to meet anybody who enjoyed sound sleep in the hotels along this street, prior to the banning of noise, thanks to the noise leashed out by matatu touts all night.

When we sing, play music or preach aloud, do we ever stop and think whether or not other people enjoy our music, songs or even preaching? What right have we to impose our feelings and likings on others?

A time came that the amount of noise in the center of Nairobi BD was so high that one could not even hear their own cell phones ringing.

Some business people might even argue that they play loud music to attract customers. But are all and sundry exposed to the pollution created by noise going to be customers?

How will the business people who are making noise as a trade benefit their customers by making them permanently deaf or even dead from the effects of resonance?

Is it lost to these Nyanza churchmen the fact that more often than not, musicians are dropping dead as a result of the repeated loud noise that they expose themselves to in the course of their work? It is no wonder that the clever ones protect their ears as they ”kill” their clients with the noise that they create as they sing.

There is more to noise that meets the eye dear Nyanza clergymen.

DR ODIDA OKUTHE.