This TED Talk features science journalist Nicola Jones, recorded live at TED Summit 2019.

This is the sound of Orcas off the coast of Vancouver.

They make these fantastic sounds not just to communicate, but also sometimes to echo locate,

to find their way around and to find food.

But that can be tricky sometimes, because, well, here's the sound of a ship passing by, recorded underwater.

You know, when we think about marine pollution, I think we usually think about plastics,

maybe toxic chemicals or even ocean acidification from climate change.

As a science journalist who often writes about environmental issues, those are the things that have passed my desk over the past 10 years or so.

But as I recently realized when I was writing a feature for the science journal Nature,

noise is another important kind of pollution, one that often gets ignored.

You know, maybe you've heard of the dark skies movement,

which aimed to raise awareness of the issue of light pollution and create pockets of unilluminated night so that people and animals

could enjoy more natural cycles of light and dark, night and day. Well, in much the same way,

there are people now raising awareness of the issue of noise pollution

and trying to create pockets of quiet in the ocean so that marine life can enjoy a more natural

soundscape. This is important. Noise isn't just an irritation. It can cause chronic stress or even

physical injury. It can affect marine life's

ability to find food and mates and to listen out for predators and more. Think of all the sounds

we inject into the ocean. Perhaps one of the most dramatic is the seismic surveys used to look for

oil and gas. Air guns produce loud blasts,

sometimes every 10 to 15 seconds for months on end, and they use the reflections of these sounds

to map the ground beneath. It can sound like this. Then there's the sound of the actual drilling for oiling gas, the construction of things

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