Unfortunate editorial choice for the title, as this is really about how noise and light pollution disrupt the natural world. As these topics seem to be popular

Unfortunate editorial choice for the title, as this is really about how noise and light pollution disrupt the natural world. As these topics seem to be popular here, probably the original title would have been a better choice: > It appears in the July/August 2022 print edition with the headline “Our Blinding, Blaring World.” It’s an important article too. Some of the documented effects are startling. For example, how noise affects scrub-jays which affects the distribution of piñon pines which affects everything else. I wish we had a more examples and a better understanding of how the effects of these pollutants ripple through entire ecosystems, as I imagine the effects are even more extensive than we realize. The article only briefly touches on an aspect I think is under-appreciated, that we are part of the natural world, and sensory pollution deeply affects us as well. > By then, about 83 percent of people—including more than 99 percent of Americans and Europeans—were under light-polluted skies. More than a third of humanity, and almost 80 percent of North Americans, can no longer see the Milky Way. And we are well aware of the deleterious effects of noise pollution on our health, both physical and mental. Imagine if we didn’t live in such a polluted sensory environment and had more of a connection with the natural world we so rely on. Maybe then we would be more motivated to really address the climate, environmental, and biodiversity crises we are living through. > Sensory pollution is the pollution of disconnection. It detaches us from the cosmos.