One of the defining aspects of modern life is our inability to hear the phones of mood due to noise pollution. But since the beginnings of the COVID-1 9 pandemic, people all over the world have remarked that they’re hearing fowls and other beings more clearly than ever before. This includes professional listeners like Chris Watson, the legendary domain recordist who for decades has captured the reverberates of wildlife see in David Attenborough’s films, including The Green Planet, which will premiere next year. As Watson points out, the moment noise pollution stops, the problem goes away. But this period of relative world stillnes we’re experiencing right now is temporary, and something we should all take advantage of. “Most of our time, in much of our lives, we spend time blocking out sound simply to get through the day, ” he says. But if we open our ears, “We can easily train ourselves getting better listeners.”

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