Jet noise from U.S. bases harms local residents’ health.

Evidence

Bases can also be dangerously loud. Air bases hosting jets and helicopters, and bases where training involves tanks and large artillery, are particularly prone to causing harmful noise pollution. From Ansbach, Germany, to Okinawa and other parts of Japan, noise has been the source of considerable friction with local communities. More than twenty-two thousand residents living around Okinawa’s Kadena Air Force Base are now suing the Japanese government in the third citizens’ suit seeking the reduction of aircraft noise. Although some dismiss the effect of persistent exposure to helicopter or jet engine operations as “just noise,” research shows that noise pollution can be a serious public health hazard, damaging both physical and psychological well-being. In Japan, for example, jet noise from U.S. bases has been linked to stress, low educational performance, and poor health outcomes for infants. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 396

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Ties to Vine’s broader argument (and prior reading on noise) that basing imposes environmental costs on host populations, not just the US.

Related

• Jet noise from U.S. bases harms health and learning in Japan (similarity 0.92)
• Host nations, not the U.S., absorb base-related environmental and noise costs (similarity 0.85)
• Military bases magnify environmental harm beyond what any civilian concentration causes (similarity 0.79)