The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a water way leading to the uttermost ends of the earth.
Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness
I was a student in London in the 1970s. On dark, still nights, lying in bed in my flat in Whitechapel, I would often hear the horns of ships and barges edging their way through the Pool of London. I always associate that sound with East London: horns calling out above the constant hum of traffic as if seeking to remind all who hear that they, the coastal and ocean-going craft and the river they ply their trade upon, are the very reason that the city exists.
I live on the edge of a small town in Wales now and the sea is quite a long way off, so the only ships’ horns I hear now are those that haunt my dreams. But even here, close to open countryside, one can always hear the background rumble of traffic from the garden. Until recently, at least.
One of the few positive spin-offs from the current COVID-19 crisis is the fact that there is far less traffic on the roads. Going out for my early morning run every other day or just taking a walk at other times I see very few cars and lorries. As I sit at my desk now, looking out over the garden, all I can hear is birdsong.
There are far fewer planes flying overhead too. We live on flight paths for Manchester and Liverpool airports and would normally see and hear scores of aircraft each day. The huge Beluga transport plane, shuttling between Airbus at Broughton and Toulouse each day, normally flies over our house too. But it does so no longer.
Worldwide air pollution levels are plummeting too. People are driving and flying far less. Sadly, this is probably only a temporary phenomenon. But it does give us all a foretaste of the kind of world we need to create if we are to avert Earth’s impending climate disaster.
Picture of River Thames from The Shard, ©Bobby Seal
