Gordon Hempton

Acoustic ecology is the study of information systems: the shared acoustic environment and how species send and receive messages in this shared…

— Gordon Hempton

If you're listening to a symphony, you're getting all the information, including the audience around you, the delay from the sides of…

— Gordon Hempton

The earth has continued to change, from rapid climatic changes that have caused the glaciers and the ice sheets to basically bulldoze…

— Gordon Hempton

You can listen to a birdsong, and from the content of the birdsong, you will be able to determine whether or not…

— Gordon Hempton

You don't really need to engage your visual sense, because the natural wiring of the human psyche is to monitor the environment…

— Gordon Hempton

Quiet is the element of discerning what is essential.

— Gordon Hempton

I believe that our distant nomadic ancestors came forward and survived because they could hear distant, faint birdsong as an acoustic navigational…

— Gordon Hempton

How are we going to know what sounds are important before we've even heard those sounds? It's an absurd question. The only…

— Gordon Hempton

What visual information does is it creates priorities. You cannot know with certainty what lies behind something else. There are very few…

— Gordon Hempton

Not only does the modern person often think that sight is more important than sound - there's no objective evidence to indicate…

— Gordon Hempton

Many environmentalists have failed to recognize that the preservation of quiet areas, places off-limits to noise pollution, should probably be a number-one…

— Gordon Hempton

The normal way of gathering information is through sound: when you hear information that you want to gather, you look in its…

— Gordon Hempton

The most important thing for our species is, before it speaks, to listen to its environment. That has a higher priority in…

— Gordon Hempton

Often how you define the problem will determine whether or not you're able to find a real solution.

— Gordon Hempton

I used to hate the urban environment and the urban din. But I realize now that it's really not that much different…

— Gordon Hempton

We're all born listeners. And as a result of our modern lives, and living in a world that has less meaning than…

— Gordon Hempton

I've never really understood how people cannot value the future, or think that the world is going down a fast slippery slope…

— Gordon Hempton

Most people think visual information is more important than aural information - like, what's this big deal about sound? And why should…

— Gordon Hempton

I'm very thankful, hearing impairment or not, that I've brought listening into my life. I will never say that I'm a good…

— Gordon Hempton

When we listen, it's not linear, it's 360, and it's in a time-space continuum, so you don't have to create a list…

— Gordon Hempton

Noise pollution is basically defined as the presence of simple information that makes it impossible to hear all the other more delicate…

— Gordon Hempton

Healthy areas that are richest in information are those areas in the wild where we can get all the information that's available…

— Gordon Hempton

If you're going to listen, you have to be willing to be changed by what you've heard. My life has gone through…

— Gordon Hempton

An acoustic ecologist is a listener who is aware that sound is information. It's information because it's created by events, events produce…

— Gordon Hempton

The Hoh Valley is an incredibly secure area. Any event occurs around us, we will instantly become informed of that event. This…

— Gordon Hempton