Environmentalists are always busy pointing out how mankind's activities are despoiling the planet. Seas, waterways, forests, visual beauty, animals and plants are, apparently suffering from our activities; and we, in turn, are suffering from this.
But one all pervasive component of our environment, has been completely ignored even although it affects us in a very destructive way. The audible environment; to the continual noise that now assails all city dwellers.
Yesterday in the local mall the 'background music” was going full blast with loud, meaningless percussion instruments and a woman screeching some incomprehensible sounds. I asked a gentleman aged about 40 who was opening his shop if he had to put up with this noise all day. He gave me a puzzled look and said 'What noise?” His answer tells us a lot about how we have been manipulated to accept noise pollution without complaint.
As I walk past a pre-school centre I hear young people screaming at each other, all trying to get attention, all bent on selfish drives to be 'on top”; and their carers, supposedly trained in child care, screaming almost as loud as the children. This 'pollution” of our precious auditory environment , all by man's activities, surely demands the full attention of the environment lobbyists. (abridged)

John Mills, Mount Maunganui.