How to Find Silence in a Noisy World | Op-Docs 360

This week, “Sanctuaries of Silence” takes you on a virtual journey into one of Earth’s last remaining bastions of true quiet — the Hoh Rain Forest, in Washington State. Shooting in beautifully immersive 360 video, directors Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee follow acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton as he explores the mossy, green heart of silence. Vaughan-Lee’s previous Op-Doc, “Vanishing Island,” also took us to a place physically endangered by modernity — Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles. In “Sanctuaries of Silence,” the threat is not so much to a place, as to our very ability to encounter the natural world on its own terms. As Hempton puts it, “Silence isn’t the absence of something, but the presence of everything.” More from The New York Times Video: Subscribe: Watch all of our videos here: Facebook: Twitter: ---------- Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abr