A. Global airline traffic has approximately tripled in the last couple of decades[1], so even if you're arguing that someone should have known when they moved there it's not the same amount of noise as when they moved in.
See e.g. [2] for historical Kennedy airport traffic amounts, it makes no sense to compare modern-day traffic at any airport to its current traffic and noise levels.
B. It's basically a "let them eat cake" argument. Property prices in high-noise areas are lower, but poor people also deserve to have their health.
It's a given that a rich person living near an airport can afford to noise insulation to make it a non-issue (indoors at least), but that doesn't begin to address the greater public health aspect.
C. You're assuming that people are capable of making perfectly informed decisions before they move or buy property. You might know that the house is next to the train tracks, but you won't really know what affect waking up at 4am to screeching train noise will have on you until you settle in.
I live in a house constructed before WWI in a major European city. If we follow your reasoning it would be perfectly OK to heat all those houses with indoor stoves spewing unfiltered particulates into the air, with the resulting air pollution and fire risk.
After all if we wind back the clock that's what people who bought those houses initially expected, and if the default answer to how we could improve our collective living conditions was "you should have known about this when you bought it!" nothing would ever change.
But it doesn't work like that, standards change over time, and in the case of air or noise pollution bottom-up change over time tends to result in improvements through laws and regulation, and hopefully better public health as a result.
The level of bending my argument is worthy of a contortionist.
Lets keep the alpha bulleting
A. Global airline traffic has approximately tripled in the last couple of decades[1], so even if you're arguing that someone should have known when they moved there it's not the same amount of noise as when they moved in.
The individual I responded with the grievance moved to one of the areas a few years ago and the other less than 20 years ago. Please explain how your point relates to their position.
B. It's basically a "let them eat cake" argument. Property prices in high-noise areas are lower, but poor people also deserve to have their health.
And people with less money deserve to have choices. Also your argument is false because in most major conurbations with ready access to international air travel increases prices. Secondly the houses wouldn't exist without presence of an airport. Go to a 3rd world country and you will see shacks appear at the end of runways or near the airport built in the middle of nowhere
C. You're assuming that people are capable of making perfectly informed decisions before they move or buy property. You might know that the house is next to the train tracks, but you won't really know what affect waking up at 4am to screeching train noise will have on you until you settle in.
That's genuinely the worst argument I've ever heard and entirely based on a fictional supposition. Can you tell me honestly you know a person who thinks living on a train track doesn't involve noise? Honestly?
I live in a house constructed before WWI in a major European city. If we follow your reasoning it would be perfectly OK to heat all those houses with indoor stoves spewing unfiltered particulates into the air, with the resulting air pollution and fire risk.
In what logic pathway is that my reasoning? I genuinely would pay you to explain this because its beyond ridiculous. Please explain how that is analogous to my point (even in itself it is illogical and nonsensical, but that is beside the point).
After all if we wind back the clock that's what people who bought those houses initially expected, and if the default answer to how we could improve our collective living conditions was "you should have known about this when you bought it!" nothing would ever change.
A communist plea to collective action because they set themselves on fire on purpose but sold the water to pay for the food
> The individual I responded with the grievance moved to one of the areas a few years ago and the other less than 20 years ago.
I'm referencing the "demand the 80+ year old airport be shut down" part of your comment. And assuming that you meant that for those 80+ years the airport had been a relatively constant source of noise, otherwise what's the relevance of it being there for 80+ years if not to imply that the nature of the airport has remained relatively constant for that time?
> Go to a 3rd world country and you will see shacks appear at the end of runways or near the airport built in the middle of nowhere.
Well, yes. Because there's jobs there, or the land is cheap etc. Your point seemed to be that if those people then complained about the noise they'd have no standing, I was pointing out that that's a rather black & white position to take.
> Can you tell me honestly you know a person who thinks living on a train track doesn't involve noise? Honestly?
Of course they know it's noisy, but they might not fully appreciate the long-term health effects, or perhaps they've since had children who find the noise intolerable, but had no part in the decision to move there.
I was again, responding to your argument that we should just tell those people (to paraphrase) "tough luck, you should have known when you moved in!".
> "[...]Please explain how that is analogous to my point"
I thought it was rather obvious, during the industrial revolution and early 1900s European and American cities were notoriously polluted, but they aren't today.
If we are to accept the axiom that people who moved somewhere don't have standing to complain about the environment they find themselves in it seems unlikely that anything like modern-day air pollution regulation would have been enacted.
No analogy is perfect, but it seems rather obvious to me how the increasing awareness about noise pollution today is likely to follow a similar trajectory as the increasing awareness about the health effects of air pollution did in the past, and other environmental pollution more generally.
> I'm referencing the "demand the 80+ year old airport be shut down" part of your comment. And assuming that you meant that for those 80+ years the airport had been a relatively constant source of noise, otherwise what's the relevance of it being there for 80+ years if not to imply that the nature of the airport has remained relatively constant for that time?
It simply indicates that he/she was more than aware the airport was there. And with their own information they moved there in recent modernity and thus nothing has changed in their experience from day 0 to n, I don't quite get how this is such a sticking point for you. They made an open and free and informed choice to move someplace.
> Well, yes. Because there's jobs there, or the land is cheap etc. Your point seemed to be that if those people then complained about the noise they'd have no standing, I was pointing out that that's a rather black & white position to take.
They have no standing if the parameters of operation have not changed. Absolutely zero moral high ground. None whatsoever.
> Of course they know it's noisy, but they might not fully appreciate the long-term health effects, or perhaps they've since had children who find the noise intolerable, but had no part in the decision to move there.
So all of society should hyper react to people incapable of making basic personal decisions? That isn't a good way to run a civilisation.
> If we are to accept the axiom that people who moved somewhere don't have standing to complain about the environment they find themselves in it seems unlikely that anything like modern-day air pollution regulation would have been enacted.
I genuinely don't know how someone can consider this an analogous argument. Very poor at best. Particulate pollution in urban areas is a function of density and change previously unknown to humans who learned to adapt technologies to live with it. How is that the same as someone deliberately in full awareness moving to beside an airport and then claiming the airport shouldn't exist. Nothing has changed. Airports already deploy considerable effort to limit noise e.g. approach AOE etc.
> No analogy is perfect, but it seems rather obvious to me how the increasing awareness about noise pollution today is likely to follow a similar trajectory as the increasing awareness about the health effects of air pollution did in the past, and other environmental pollution more generally.
In the UK there are bylaws in some areas to disregard noise complaints from people who have moved into the area and complain about the pub's normal noise under normal licensed hours
It is the height of social decay to have the gall and arrogance to think you alone should have a society shaped around you because you made bad decisions. Problematic to be honest.
A. Global airline traffic has approximately tripled in the last couple of decades[1], so even if you're arguing that someone should have known when they moved there it's not the same amount of noise as when they moved in.
See e.g. [2] for historical Kennedy airport traffic amounts, it makes no sense to compare modern-day traffic at any airport to its current traffic and noise levels.
B. It's basically a "let them eat cake" argument. Property prices in high-noise areas are lower, but poor people also deserve to have their health.
It's a given that a rich person living near an airport can afford to noise insulation to make it a non-issue (indoors at least), but that doesn't begin to address the greater public health aspect.
C. You're assuming that people are capable of making perfectly informed decisions before they move or buy property. You might know that the house is next to the train tracks, but you won't really know what affect waking up at 4am to screeching train noise will have on you until you settle in.
I live in a house constructed before WWI in a major European city. If we follow your reasoning it would be perfectly OK to heat all those houses with indoor stoves spewing unfiltered particulates into the air, with the resulting air pollution and fire risk.
After all if we wind back the clock that's what people who bought those houses initially expected, and if the default answer to how we could improve our collective living conditions was "you should have known about this when you bought it!" nothing would ever change.
But it doesn't work like that, standards change over time, and in the case of air or noise pollution bottom-up change over time tends to result in improvements through laws and regulation, and hopefully better public health as a result.
1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...
2. https://www.airporthistory.org/kennedy-traffic-booms.html