The other side of the authors discussion is the use of 'decibels' to describe 'loudness'. The big difficulty there is that 'loudness' is a sense perception that varies between people and in different contexts. The article touches on this 'weighted to mimic human hearing...' but doesnt mention the systems to do this - DB(A) and others, none of which achieve scientific perfection.

Our senses are all like this - for the same reason we have dozens of systems to describe color. And why perfume and wine makers can never agree descriptions.