Light Pollution, What Can Be Done About it? Any hope? (poll, suspect)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I had the impression that you were advocating that people move around in total darkness.
The problem is that it takes some time for eyes to adapt. We were in South Africa last month and the first place we stayed was very spread out. The power would go down at 7pm every night and it would take a few minutes before the generator kicked in. It was really hard to see where we were walking and even when we used the light in our phones it was difficult. A lot of our group were over seventy and nobody wanted to fall and break a hip while in a foreign country.
This is yet another issue of the gap between the wealthy and poor countries. You apparently have way too much light and they have far too little. I have to say that this is not an issue in my country, as far as I know. There is widespread concern about the price of electricity, though people can afford it, and increasing costs may well limit the use.
I am saying that most people in the modern world have never spent 30+ minutes under a natural dark sky, so they have never ACTUALLY experienced true dark adaptation. That means they have no idea of just how little light we actually need at night to move around safely. That leads to using much more light than is needed. Even when you are not fully dark-adapted, soft lighting aimed down and ONLY down at the path you are walking on is all that is needed for safety.
And if you go spend some time camping in a truly dark area, like the Red Center of your country, you will be in for a surprise. You will be astonished at how well you will see IF you avoid destroying your dark adaptation by using white light, and you will see the Milky Way cast a shadow. I am not joking when I say I can walk around the observing field of my state's Dark Sky Park safely without needing a light of any sort (although I carry a dim red flashlight just in case).
Sydney, BTW DOES have major light pollution problems, as nearly all modern cities do. It should be corrected, as it is wasteful of energy, harmful to human health, and harmful to other lifeforms
Quote:
Originally Posted by luv4horses
Apparently bright white light, which includes all color wavelengths, can overload your reception such that you lose your dark adaptation. Supposedly it takes about 30 min to totally recover.
Red light is safer and blue is harsher. I read that deep sea captains in the distant past had red lighting on their instruments so that they could glance at them for information but recover to see obstacles in the dark within a couple minutes. White light would have delayed that substantially.
So we have two things going on at the same time: The effect of actual intensity, and the color spectrum. Light colored eyes see better in moderate or dim light, but brown eyes are better protected under all conditions due to the melanin.
I myself would love the situation in Tucson.
YES to all of this! Red light does the least harm to your eye's dark adaptation (but you still want to keep it dim), and blue trashes it. One problem we are seeing with the widespread adoption of LEDs is that many of them are too blue, which makes them harsher and more glaring than if their spectrum was shifted more toward the red end of the spectrum. (The blue light also messes up the function of your pineal gland, which regulates your circadian rhythm, more as well. For your health, avoid exposure to strong blue-white lighting at night!)
For those of you who doubt this is a real problem, please check out the section on Light Pollution on the The International Dark-Sky Association webpage. There are subsections with detailed information about how light pollution harms the environment and us, and how poor use of lighting at night does NOT keep us safer.
Actually I have spent time in the outback in completely dark areas, in Coonabarabran and also in the centre, stargazing, and know how amazing the night sky is when devoid of artificial light and pollution.
But having just been in a country that is completely crippled by “load shedding” where the power may be off for eighteen hours out of thirty-six when the weather gets colder in a couple of months, I know that lighting is very important and it is something that we in the west tend to take for granted. When the traffic lights go down over there, the traffic can be piled up for hours.
Your power is probably much cheaper in the US than ours, and we saw a big decrease in the use of festive lights last Christmas as the cost of power increased. As the cost here will continue to increase as the amount of renewable energy in the system increases, we certainly are likely to see a decrease in usage.
I am SO glad to hear that you have had the opportunity to see a truly dark sky! Unfortunately, these days it makes you one of the minority. Young people especially have often never had a chance to be out in true darkness, and grown-up in urbanized areas, and so are afraid of it(even though they see better in the dark then we oldsters do). Only about 20% of the people living in developed nations have ever seen the Milky Way.
The problem in most cities is that only recently has anyone even been paying attention to light trespass and light pollution, so most of the fixtures are badly designed. It is possible to light a city well using soft light which emits towards the yellow end of the spectrum, with light fixtures that put the light down on the ground rather than allowing the light to shine sideways or up into the sky, and which are only on when people actually need the light. It saves money, it saves energy, it’s good for the environment, and it’s good for human health. They really are no downsides to it, apart from the initial cost of replacing bad fixtures with good ones. The nice thing about light pollution is that all of all the forms of pollution out there, it is the easiest to fix. Personally, I am hoping that as electric cars become more popular and there is more demand for electricity at night to charge those cars, we will see more emphasis on reducing unnecessary and badly designed nighttime lighting in order to save electricity for use in charging cars. (Right now electric companies actually encourage excessive nighttime lighting in order to keep the power demand on their stations. More constant. They basically used outdoor lighting as a way of using up. “waste” electricity.”)
Perhaps the US might make inroads into improving lighting but it is not going to happen here any time soon.
And countries that are not wealthy, like Sth Africa, cannot afford to replace and upgrade lights. The people mostly cannot afford solar panels and generators so electric cars are not suitable while load shedding continues. There the lack of lighting and power is causing misery.
Here in Sydney, two million people have so far come out to see our light festival, which is generally seen as a positive, joyous event. It was cancelled in 2020 and also in 2021 as we entered our 100 day Covid lockdown and the weather was not the best last year.
So I would say the US will have to take a lead if light pollution needs to be tackled as it is not at all an issue here.
^^^ I am not sure why you are focusing so much on developing countries when they are not a major source of the problem (yet). Countries with cannot afford much nighttime lighting or obviously not creating a lot of light pollution. And because they are not a major source of the problem, they have the potential of avoiding it altogether. It does not cost more to install a fixture which is properly shielded than it does to install a badly designed one that scatters light in directions where you do not need it.
The US is only just starting to seriously address the problem, but Europe is doing better. So is New Zealand, which is really taking the problem seriously. The Kiwis will show you the way.
^^^ I am not sure why you are focusing so much on developing countries when they are not a major source of the problem (yet). Countries with cannot afford much nighttime lighting or obviously not creating a lot of light pollution. And because they are not a major source of the problem, they have the potential of avoiding it altogether. It does not cost more to install a fixture which is properly shielded than it does to install a badly designed one that scatters light in directions where you do not need it.
The US is only just starting to seriously address the problem, but Europe is doing better. So is New Zealand, which is really taking the problem seriously. The Kiwis will show you the way.
It is not too hard for the Kiwis when it is such an empty country already, especially the South Island.
I am focusing on developing countries as our time in South Africa showed us that so many of the things we tend to demonise in the west are in short supply over there, and the lack of power is top of the list there right now, with tragic consequences.
I will say no more, we are not going to agree and there is no point discussing this further. I have woken up to the tragic news of a bus crash north of Sydney where at least ten people have been killed. It rolled at a roundabout and was taking people from a wedding. Whether the darkness of the roundabout is a factor will be revealed later but I imagine one of the first things the responders had to do last night was light up the scene.
Actually seems the cause was likely fog which reduced visibility to 100 metres. Rescue helicopters could not land at times.
Last edited by MarisaAnna; 06-11-2023 at 04:49 PM..
^^
When I vacationed in England, many years ago, first time driving on the left, in the rural areas I drove, they had sparkling reflectors built into the road ways, and there was no need for lighting.
^^
When I vacationed in England, many years ago, first time driving on the left, in the rural areas I drove, they had sparkling reflectors built into the road ways, and there was no need for lighting.
Pennsylvania has that! Reflectors and/or reflectorized paint for the lines. They really pop!
Here in CT our road lines disappear when it rains.
Hoping this bill will pass to turn out lights during migrations. Maybe people will get more used to it and continue to do it on their own.
Yes, there are all sorts of ways we can reduce light pollution which don't compromise human safety in the slightest. Those reflectors and reflectorized paint on roads are one. Another possibility (particularly useful in suburban and rural areas) would be to put streetlights on motion detectors after midnight, so a car passing down the road turns on the streetlights ahead of it, which then go off after it passes and the light is no longer needed. Why light up the road at 2 AM when no cars are driving down it?
What is required is first, to see that light pollution IS an actual problem. Then creativity and determination can get the job done!
^^
When I vacationed in England, many years ago, first time driving on the left, in the rural areas I drove, they had sparkling reflectors built into the road ways, and there was no need for lighting.
Yes. The Big Island of Hawaii has these on highways just about everywhere. They are making a concerted effort to reduce light pollution for the benefit of the telescopes on Mauna Kea. The few street lamps to be found are low pressure sodium. Consequently the town of Hilo does not seem excessively bright at night like most towns/cities are.
In many locations in the Puna district the sky is dark enough to enjoy star gazing. I think it's wonderful. Almost equivalent to being out on a boat in SE Alaska with no towns anywhere nearby.
Here's a story from a local news source about this issue.
"..Marlin said the existing Hawai’i statute says a lighting fixture is considered to be fully shielded when it is shielded in a manner that the light it emits, either directly or indirectly, is projected below a horizontal plane through the lowest point of the fixture. Instead, he said the best lighting needs to be targeted, allowing the eye to adapt to the night.
It also encourages nocturnal animals to feel more comfortable. Further still, if the light is only illuminating a pathway, more nocturnal birds will feel comfortable and safe in the environment.
Marlin explained the Illuminating Engineering Society and International Dark-Sky Association have laid out five principles for lighting: every light should have a clear purpose, be targeted, use the lowest light level possible, controlled and be the warmest color possible.
Changing and having the best lighting not only would help save energy costs and consumption, it also would encourage astrotourism, boosting the island’s economy..."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
