The Noise Pollution of Caribana and Other Music Festivals

The Noise Pollution of Caribana and Other Music Festivals

Byrichard

Summary


In the 21st century technology exists that could make music festivals sound good for festival goers, whist not ruing the night of sleep for neighbours of the festival. I would like EPFL and other academic groups to work towards finding a way to make music festivals more considerate of neighbouring humans, and wildlife. Music festivals should apply Corporte Social Responsability by reducing noise pollution.


Noisy Summers


During the summer months people organise outdoor events, which is fantastic. What is less fantastic is that those outdoor events are organised to take place from mid to late afternoon, all the way to 2 to 3am. This means that if you live downwind from Music Festivals you will not be able to sleep for days at a time. 


Sleepless in Nyon – Due to Paléo and Caribana


Instead of going to bed by 2200 and sleeping by midnight you’re stuck trying to outdo the festival with noise. If you go to bed then you’ll have the noise pollution from the festival for hours. 


Staying Up Later


When I was a university student living in halls I would make sure to go to sleep by two or three am, every single night. I wanted to go to sleep after all the noisy people had gone to sleep, to avoid being bothered by noise pollution. It worked extremly well. 


The paradox is that I went to sleep after everyone else, but I also got up before a lot of people. I was easily living on four hours of sleep per night.  The problem is that I am now two decades older, or thereabouts. I actually need my sleep now. 


More Noise Pollution Due to Increasingly Powerful Speakers


The problem with music noise pollution from music festivals is that it is getting louder, with time, rather than quieter. For years I had the noise of the Paléo, during Paléo, but I could sleep through it. It was just barely loud enough to sometimes make out what was playing. 


With the Carbiana the music is so loud. three to five kilometres away, as the drone flies, that with an air conditioner and a fan going at full power in a small room, or an extractor fan in a living room/kitchen, the thump is still audible. The speaker stacks are set so loud that two or three villages away you hear the festival as if you were there. That’s with all the windows closed, and double glazed windows. 


The Sub Optimal Festival Sound Engineer


Caribana and other music festivals have people who are not that intellectually astute. I say this, because, in the 90s and the zeros there was an excuse for that flood of noise. Technological limitations. In 2023 that excuse is moot. The speakers are more powerful, more noisy.


With speakers becoming smaller, more efficient, and less visible it would make sense to distribute the speakers, within the crowd, and set them to a lower volume. It doesn’t make sense to pump out a wall of sound for a tiny festival venue. 


Increasing Nuissance


I’m writing this blog post because I think the problem is getting worse, as the technology makes noise pollution easier to create. I’m writing this because if we have people gluing themselves to roads, because of car pollution, then we should have people protesting music festivals, for failing to consider the environmental impact, and corporate social responsibility in regards to noise pollution. 


Fairness – Environmentalism


Festival goers are meant to be altermondialistes, in favour of a fairer, more environmentally friendly society, and yet for five days per year individual festivals make sleep difficult or impossible. Boiled down to one word festivals like Caribana are selfish. They don’t consider that people want to sleep at night, that they don’t want their personal sphere to be invaded by the noise pollution from a festival. 


Develop Accoustically Conscious Solutions


I want Paléo, Caribana and every other festival to consider the noise pollution that they create, and stop it. Paléo collaborates with EPFL, so EPFL and Paléo, should find a way to play music loud enough for festival goers to hear it, without earplugs, and for the neighbouring countryside to be silent. How Caribana and Paléo behave, in regards to noise pollution is immoral and unethical. I want it to change. 


Geneva’s Attitude to Noise


I know I am one solitary voice, but don’t forget, the fêtes de Genève had to stop making noise by midnight when they were allowed, and eventually I think they were banned, because locals complained. 


Remember, the Geneva motto, between neighbours is “The less we hear each other, the better we get along.” Festivals are loud and disruptive. Something should be done to resolve this issue. 


I expect to have another sleepless night tonight. Monday I will have my first night of sleep, since Tuesday. 


Oh, to have quiet summers, like we did during the part of the pandemic, when governments were not ignoring the spread of the virus. 

Corporate Social Responsibility and Apple

Byrichard

I have read numerous articles and I think that Corporate Social Responsibility and Apple are hot topics at the moment. When it was found that European firms were cheating on their emissions reports it was a great scandal and the European and German automotive industries took a financial hit. Their cheating cost them billions. In the US people were financially compensated whilst as one article put it Europeans got a plastic tube.

We should look at the Apple Back taxes story within the context of Brexit, the rise of the far right in a number of countries and the emerging popularity of Trump within certain sectors of the American voting public. The group anonymous is defending the rights of the 99 percent. They protest against Wall Street and the abuses of corporations and the wealthy.

When houses in the US were foreclosed because of the bubble bursting because of complex dividends those who suffered were the poor and the middle classes because they borrowed money at a rate that they could not pay it back. A number of documentary makers have explored this issue and there have been talks at the Graduate institute and other places.

Apple is currently making billions per quarter and that money is being stockpiled in offshore accounts so that neither the US government nor the European union can get to it. Other writers and journalists have written about this extensively. The perspective that I want to take is a moral one.

Apple products are expensive, they can cost twice as much as their android equivalents. People in the European markets are paying for these products. They pay the country’s VAT along with the product’s cost. They are contributing to the local economy.

Tim Cook argues that what the European Commission is doing is a “load of crap” and that it is abusing of its power. From an ethical and moral point of view though it is Apple that is being unethical and amoral. They are part of the economy. When they sell products they make huge profits that are taxed at less than one percent. 12 billion dollars could do a lot of good within the European Union if and when it is recovered because it could contribute to the road networks and transport infrastructure. It could contribute to housing, education and much more. In contributing to the economy those billions that Apple owes in back taxes could improve the quality of life of millions.

They hide behind the mask of job creation. They believe that because they contribute to the creation of 6000 jobs in Ireland that their corporate social responsibility stops there. It does not. Apple must be ethical enough to pay taxes like every other business is expected to do.

In effect Apple is providing a concrete example of what Brexiters voted against, the corporations syphoning off money to the detriment of living conditions of many populations around Europe. If corporations are allowed to make billions in profits without paying taxes because of creative accounting then society as a whole suffers. It also ferments resentment and encourages people to vote for the right.

In my opinion, based on the reading of numerous articles and watching many documentaries Apple should agree to pay the 14 billion as a gesture of good will and as a Public relations exercise. Imagine what a positive effect those billions would have for the European Union as a whole. Imagine how much social good having that money re-invested would do.

I believe that Tim Cook and Apple need to pay these back taxes to diffuse the tensions caused by austerity movements across Europe. A wealthy, rather than austere Europe could buy more Apple products. Other corporations would also benefit directly from people’s increased disposable income. A few weeks or months ago I watched a documentary about how the United States benefited from corporations paying their fair share of taxes.