Making War On Light Pollution 437
Hugh Pickens writes "Almost thirty years ago I worked in the Middle East helping install a nationwide communications system and had the opportunity to be part of a team doing microwave link tests across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter. Something I've never forgotten were the astonishing nights I spent in the desert hundreds of miles from the nearest city where the absence of light made looking at the sky on a moonless night feel like you were floating in the middle of the galaxy. In Galileo's time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9 and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. Read a story from the New Yorker on what we have lost to light pollution and how some cities are adopting outdoor lighting standards to save the darkness."
It's true (Score:5, Interesting)
I always thought it would be nice if we had one day a year where people made a conscious effort to turn off all their lights, like "Star's Day" or some other stupid name so people could have one night a year to keep lights off, but that would inevitably just lead to an increase in crime for that night, so... darn.
We'll just have to enjoy it when I'm camping.
Best skies I've ever seen. (Score:5, Interesting)
I snuck out of my house when I was 16 and the island was still under a typhoon warning and nobody was outside.
The entire island and the neighboring island of Truk were both without power entirely and there was not a single cloud in the sky.
It truly was a spectacular sight and I do feel sad when I look up into the night here in the states.
You can't imagine what it's like until you've seen it for yourself. Really
Well, there is an upside (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact this story has inspired me to go and set up xplanet [sourceforge.net] again to provide an ever-changing desktop background.
Re:San Jose (Score:1, Interesting)
Its a great idea, but a different type of yellow, or another color would work better.
Ascension Island (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember how easy it was to see all the space junk flying overhead - and some nebula's and galaxy's
could be discerned with the un-aided eye.. Too cool. Light pollution sucks...
Re:Straw Man Alert (Score:4, Interesting)
Where's your evidence that lights reduce crime at all? If having some lights does reduce crime, where's your evidence that there aren't already more than the optimum number of lights? I know people think that lights reduce crime, but there seems to be little or no proof of it. In fact, what little research I've seen seems to indicate that lights, at least added on top of the lights we already have in cities, do not reduce crime.
In any case, a lot could be done by just aiming the lights at the parking lot itself, rather than at the sky. There aren't that many flying muggers or rapists.
I don't believe that nothing can be done about light pollution while maintaining ground-level lighting, and I honestly doubt that light reduces crime much anyway.
However, even if I'm wrong about that, a better sky view for the majority of the world's population (that's BILLIONS of people) probably is worth a few muggings and even rapes... it takes a stunted soul, or somebody who's never seen a real night sky, not to realize the value. We're not talking about "hobbyists" or "enthusiasts". We're talking about any human being with a functioning spirit.
"Pollution"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, when it comes to someone opening up their cell phone during a movie... roll out the tanks, let the war begin!
harken back to the days of (Score:3, Interesting)
This was done of course to make cities difficult to spot from the air, aiding enemy bombers navigate to (or identify) their target. When you think about how hard it is to get 30,000 people to cooperate on anything, it's a wonder that was even worth the effort of trying.
Re:Straw Man Alert (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ah fuck that. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Straw Man Alert (Score:5, Interesting)
What's notable though, is that there is a considerable variation in the result based on where the study was done (and, presumably, the exact difference between the test and control situations, as I haven't went through all the underlying studies myself), with many areas producing negligible changes, or even statistically significant increases in certain types of crime with the introduction of additional lighting. The most simple conclusion is that the lighting has to be sensibly managed: floodlights on every street corner are not necessary, and may even be detrimental. Which means that there is certainly the possibility that the goals of improving the visibility of the sky and the improvement of street lighting (improvement not strictly meaning increase, of course) are not necessarily incompatible.
Build observatories in North Korea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Women want light (Score:4, Interesting)
There was an incident at the VA hospital on Wilshire Blvd in LA once, over twenty years ago. From then on, until about a year ago, you had to go through metal detectors to get into the waiting room for the main clinic, even though there was no evidence that there was any threat. However, you didn't have to go through them to get into any other part of the hospital; just the waiting room for the clinic. It took years of time, and numerous people complaining, but they were eventually deactivated. Not removed; just deactivated. They're still there, wasting space, doing nothing, having no more effect now than they did when they were in use. A perfect example of security theater in action.
I saw Corpus Christi, TX from 120 miles away (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years back on TX State Highway 77 heading north I could see an odd skyglow that I noticed just a few miles north of Raymondville TX. I was interested quickly because there is nothing in the ranch land between Raymondville and Corpus Christi that could be making that much light. Is I continued north, I noted the slowness of the angular change of the light and realized it had to be Corpus. A couple of hours of driving confirmed that the skyglow in this city of absurd light was really visible 120 miles south of here.
This city is totally filled with flood-lit carlots, an incredible amount of freeway lighting (way more per mile than any other Texas city that I've seen), billboard's littering the cityscape all lit from below, and a total disregard for our very unique coastal wildlife. Light pollution is just another example of our culture's unnatural incompatibility with our natural environment.
Re:Ah fuck that. (Score:3, Interesting)
The lighting we have around her is horrible, it is bright where there is light, but many of the street lights are out so the dark shadows are almost impenetrable, as the horrid yellowish orange lights pretty much destroy any night vision. In many places there are huge bushes that impede the light.
Fixing that could very well result in fewer lumens needed to light the area and still be significantly safer than what we have around here.
The other thing that they could do is use red lights rather than the more typical yellowish orange ones. While it probably doesn't make a difference directly, red lights are going to require less lumens to light an area.
night sky (Score:3, Interesting)
I have some fond memories from the week I spent houseboating with my cousins on Lake Powell. I slept on the top of the boat, and it was absolutely the clearest sky I've ever seen. Definitely much better than anything I've seen in the midwest, where I live. The only problem was the high walls blocked the sides of the sky.
I remember going out at night growing up in Florida and just lying on the ground gazing at the stars. It would be so clear and the stars would be bright. Then the county put in street lights and they ruined stargazing. About the only thing that spoiled it before the streetlights was the jets flying overhead, we lived a few miles from airport runways and one of the flight paths was over us. I especially loved watching rocket launches, we lived outside of Orlando and was about 50 miles from the cape.
Falconsame problem in Brazil (Score:3, Interesting)
Once, 10+ years ago, I was returning from Paraguay by bus and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a freak-long line (customs control). The line was completely stuck, I was feeling bored and went from the bus to take some fresh air. I remember that when I looked at the night sky I could see clearly the Via-Lactea, the sky was filled with stars and the whole thing seemed sort of colorful.. You could even see some meteorites/satellites/whatever passing by.
Man, that was an unique experience for a city guy. I guess it was only then I realised the point of appreciating the night sky people so often wrote about.
Re:Use brain, open mouth. (Score:5, Interesting)
One answer is to only run 1/3 of the lights at any given time and randomly change which 1/3 is on. Tests have shown that this tends to REDUCE crime. When the lights are always on, criminals can see where the dark places are and hide there. With random lights, their nice dark hiding place can light up like a parking lot without warning. To a criminal, a light that could come on at any moment is as bad or worse than an always on light.
It's a fairly easy way to save a lot of electricity and help with light pollution. Bonus points if a "scream sensor" immediatly lights the area fully. Double bonus if the surrounding lights light up in an arrow pattern so a police helicopter can spot a problem area visually.
lit areas are generally seen as safer (Score:3, Interesting)
It's an illusion. There [wikipedia.org] are no good scientific studies that convincingly show the relationship between lighting and crime. In some cases, lighting seems to deter crime and it makes people feel more secure, but in reality they may be just as secure without the lighting.
FalconI have a photo of the Luxor from 100 miles away (Score:4, Interesting)
yes, lights for security have been studied (Score:3, Interesting)
And sure, sometimes no good studies have been done on a random topic or another, even important topics that might surprise you. Freakonomics [wikipedia.org] (chapter 4) had an interesting discussion of the measurable affect of various public policy on crime rates, and it appears that the topic was not well studied and certainly the results of the studies which had been done were not well synthesized. As much energy and money as it receives, you would think that would be studied more rigorously and more often. Alas, it is not.
One moment please while I google for you... Here's a nice (rigorously referenced) summary which draws upon several studies, and which includes a section on lighting, which has been studied and shown to be effective as a measure in reducing crime. Presuming Canadian criminals do not have some unique national aversion to well-lit areas at night, then these results might be of interest to others, eh?
EVIDENCE-BASED CRIME PREVENTION: SCIENTIFIC BASIS, TRENDS, RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CANADA [ps-sp.gc.ca]
On the other hand, sure, maybe most of these studies are too localized, and what's happening on the larger scale is a shell game: a fixed amount of crime in a city is moving from well-lit areas to less-well-lit areas.
In any case, I'm definitely in favor of shielding and motion sensors and reduction of night lighting that's not useful. However, security lighting is a real concern, and it entails more than simply crime, it's really about insurance liability and inventory loss. Business owners will tell you that gangs of kids don't hang out in their parking lots at night as often (or at all) when they are well lit. They will also tell you that incidents of break-ins went down after they started lighting up the place at night. In some situations, their insurance companies may require certain lighting improvements, and you can bet the actuaries have some idea of the cost/benefit of lighting in certain situations. Installing and running lights isn't free, after all, and it's quite likely that businesses wouldn't do it if they were not pretty well convinced that it's effective at saving them money in some way which exceeds the cost. They might be wrong, but that wouldn't be for a complete lack of evidence supporting their current belief.
Re:Driving Lights... (Score:3, Interesting)
What interesting timing for this article, though. This evening, my partner and I drove 35 minutes away to get to somewhere with a Bortle limit of 4, perhaps a bit closer to 3 than to 5, so we could stargaze and use our telescope. We'd have to drive an hour and a half, maybe more to get to a Bortle limit of 2.
And we live in freakin Iowa. Not Des Moines or anything, either -- Iowa City. It seems crazy that living in a city of 60k people, with a city of 100k people half an hour to the north and 200k people over an hour to the east, and that's pretty much it except for farmland and scattered towns, would have this much light pollution. And yet, we do. We have to go to northeastern Missouri to get to a 2.
A month ago, I was in Yellowstone. Bortle limit 1-2. I've never seen the sky that beautiful. It was like a painting. Kudos to the planners for the park for keeping light pollution out that well with that many travelers. Sadly, when I went to Rocky Mountain National Park right afterwards, they were a 3 or 4. Too close to Denver, I suppose. Such a pity.
You know, in theory, light pollution can be made to go away with the flick of a switch. In practicality, that's impossible. Nobody is just going to turn off all of the lights in their cities. Realistically, light pollution can only be eliminated by changing our infrastructure, and in a way, that's very similar to the problems with many other kinds of pollution.
Re:OMG! Unsourced claim at Wikipedia is wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)
A quick Google search shows that there seem to be studies about lighting and crime. Sure the topic probably merits additional study, but discounting the work that has been done based on an unsourced sentence leading a wikipedia article probably isn't helping further the discussion.
Before replying I did use Google. I found the Wiki article by Googling lights night security studies [google.com], it's number 4 in the results. The first result is a blog entry about how the streetlight outside the window disturbs sleep. The next two are sellers of lights. The fifth, "The Issues surrounding lighting" [britastro.org] has a section, "How lighting can aid crime", explaining exactly how lights help crime. It's interesting the first one says most crimes happen in daylight. Streetlights definitely don't help there.
FalconRe:Simple answer to this (Score:2, Interesting)
Many years later, I had a couple of friends come home with me for a couple of weeks for a break, one of them from London. I remember him being absolutely flabbergasted by the shear number of stars
I think the difficulty here is that a *lot* of people just do not, nor ever will, realise just how amazing it is. Many people have only lived, or ever will live, in the cities. Break out the violin, because nothing will happen here. I plan to work for another five years in the cities and then I'm going up north where the largest city for 1500 kilometres is 45 000.
Re:I saw Corpus Christi, TX from 120 miles away (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone didn't read the article.
Here are some reading comprehension questions. Please answer using complete sentences.
1. What do newly hatched sea turtles instinctively do immediately following hatching?
2. How does artificial lighting affect migrating birds?
3. How does artificial lighting affect insect populations, and eventually, population of other wildlife?