When people think of biodiversity, I feel like they think of tropical places that we are always told are so beautiful and full of life. We forget that our city also has an insane amount of biodiversity that we don’t notice every day which provide us with clean air, clean water, and flood control. We have to try and live in harmony with this biodiversity because it’s health affects ours and vice versa.
One of the most interesting parts I found in the reading was when it talked about light and noise pollution. In an article I read, I learned that the photons from artificial light can mess up our circadian rhythm. Likewise, artificial night lighting alters the behaviors of animals and plants’ behaviors. And not in a good way. The article stated that birds get distracted and that about 10,000 crash into NYC buildings each year. Maybe the city should have an initiative that calls for buildings to dim a certain amount of their lights/floors during peak migratory times to stop so many birds from being hurt. Or at least, enforce the rules they have.
I also read an article from the Huffington Post which talked about all the adverse affects noise pollution has on humans. As city-dwellers, we’ve become desensitized to all the noise, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hurting our bodies. Scientists found that it increases high blood pressure and heart disease. Just imagine what this is doing to the other organisms we share the city with! Our reading gave examples such as how it messes up how they communicate with each other and how they evade predators.
If that doesn’t freak you out, the last article I read was about how noise pollution hurts our pets such as dogs. Dogs have better hearing than us and when they can’t figure out where noises are coming from, they have an imbalance in their nervous system. That’s why they freak out when they hear garbage trucks in the morning. NYC’s noise code has been catering to mostly people. What about the other living things our noise is messing with?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627884/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dailyrx-news/loud-noise-health-affects_b_7595814.html
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/does-noise-pollution-affect-our-pets.html
