An Enlightened Look at an Over-Lighted World 522
Saige writes "Every night, as darkness descends, countless street lamps and lights turn on to keep the darkness at bay, bathing countless square feet of the planet in light that sometimes rivals daytime. But has anyone stopped to consider what effect all this light may have on people and animals that have evolved to fit an environment where a significant part of the 24 hour day is spent in lightless conditions? Some scientists have, and they are claiming that all this light is causing numerous problems."
Sensationalism... (Score:3, Insightful)
"...a growing body of research suggests that excessive exposure to [artificial] night light can ... even trigger deadly hormonal imbalances in humans."
riiiiight.... That's why everyone that lives in Alaska, north of the arctic circle, dies when they reach puberty. Man, what would life be like without those deadly hormonal imbalances due to excessive light during the summer in Alaska?
Seriously though, I think the bigger problem is from the lack of light! If you go to those same regions (north of the arctic circle), you'll find abnormally high suicide rates during the winter due to depression from the excessive darkness.
Ok, I agree that this is an incredible waste of energy. Lets keep our motives honest though! If we're trying to save money & our environment, then it's a great idea - but don't tell me that excessive light is killing people.
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:2, Insightful)
Althoug I partially agree on the problem of lack of light for some people, the alleged problem in Northern Regions has other causes.
Lack of light can cause depression becaues most people are not used periods of excessive darkness.
But the problems with somewhat higher suicides rates probably comes more from faltered economy, way too much
Re: True... (Score:5, Interesting)
To tie this in to my original post, it's interesting that in areas/times where daylight levels are the lowest, death rates are much higher than in areas/times where daylight levels are the highest.
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, I think the bigger problem is from the lack of light! If you go to those same regions (north of the arctic circle), you'll find abnormally high suicide rates during the winter due to depression from the excessive darkness.
As Mikka Luttinen (the vocalist for a reasonably well-known Finnish black metal band Impaled Nazarene) put it: "In Finland, it's dark for ten months a year. You either start a band or cut your wrists".
And here where I live (a northern part of Russia), street lamps get turned off after 10 pm in August, so getting home after long coding sessions becomes an exercise in celestial navigation.
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Interesting)
And here where I live in the midwest America, there are still towns with all white lighting. I hate the bland desynthazing effect of high power sodium lighting, but that seems to be the norm these days.
I remember being a kid and driving through the country side at night... we're talking 1 yard light every 2-3 squares miles here, and the slow change when those lights started to go from white to yellow. I'd say the ratio is up to 9 sodium to every 1 white lights these days.
I have friends that bought a few acres in the country, and the first thing they did was replace the sodium bulb in their yard light back to a white one.
Sodium orange lighting sucks.
To keep things on topic... what color are the street lights in your area of Russia? Do you have white or sodium?
Re:White vs yello (was Sensationalism) (Score:3, Insightful)
Where I live (Saskatchewan, CA) I have watched the transition from white mercury lighting to yellow sodium lighting. At first I was concerned about reduced lighting, security, etc. but in the last two years of living 2 doors down from the street light I have grown to like the sodium lighting better. I should also mention that last summer the city upgraded the lighting in my area by installing mor
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Interesting)
(There should be a degree sign after 3200. Thanks for stripping special characters, Slashcode.)
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a sec... you mean, the stars don't navigate YOU?
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm, pfff, rmmmbl. (Score:2)
The problem is when you don't see any darkness, and, in most of the globe, you need to be exposed to artificial light to do so because natural light is not here by night.
In alaska of very northern regions, summer (when they get 6 month of daylight) is as devastating that winter (6 month of night).
The problem is more: Why are some people living there...
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a start, light at night makes it difficult to sleep at night. Try having a streetlight outside your bedroom window and you will quickly (as I found out!) find your sleep patterns are disturbed as you wake up easier and therefore find it difficult to sleep.
Consider that for many of us in major cities, we cannot view the natural beauty of space. Our views are blocked by artifical lights that stop us from seeing the sights our ancestors looked upon and first asked the great philosophical questions.
You imply that light is a good thing. It isn't. Well, not always. Of course we need light, but it needs to be used appropriately.
Artificial light isn't a replacement for natural light. Aside from the voluminous amounts of electricity a lot of it wastes it does cause problems for people.
Daylight is a good thing for animals, plants and humans on the planet. For people who live in northern Europe and the US/Canda there are higher incidencies of suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse than there are in places which recieve more natural light, and this has been attributed to a lack of natural light. Artifical light just isn't the same. You could have 12 hours of artifical light in a polar region and it wouldn't make any difference.
On a small, and possibly more irrelevant scale to you, consider the number of insects that congregate around lamp posts thinking the worlds most beautiful fly/wasp/bee/moth/whatever is in front of them. In time, it will affect their and predators natural actions!
It is very easy to mock and joke about this, but it is a very, very important issue for a lot of people, plants and animals!
pseudoscientific babble (Score:5, Insightful)
You probably don't care about the plankton, insects, and other environmental effects presented, so let's get straight to the human outcomes listed: increased cancer rates among humans; dangerous breathing disorders during sleep; decreased attention during critical events such as driving, etc. Real scientists and clinicians made factual statements about problems they're seeing due to light pollution, and you simply toss it off as 'sensationalism'. Not a factual word about why they're wrong other than the implied 'it can't be'. That is the argument of a ideologue.
You'll notice that the scientists interviewed didn't make policy recommendations, only the city planners interviewed did. You might also notice that none of the city planners recommended shutting off the lights, only a move toward a different kind of city lighting. And, to top it off, they're recommendations save money due to increased energy efficiency. Gee, that's 'sensationalism' for ya.
From a factual standpoint, your argument simply doesn't stand muster. It's pseudoscientific babble based not on scientific study and open debate, but on derision of the scientists for their conclusions; regardless of the data they collected. Your skepticism is poorly placed given the argument you presented. JMO.
--Maynard
Comments from Parent Author (Ramblings, Musings) (Score:3, Insightful)
You're very correct that I was, myself, playing on the sensationalist side of things by saying that their thesis was 'death due to too much (any kind of) light.'
FYI, I did read the article completely before posting (Thank you for the RTFA comments).
I agree that my conclusion, that this article is bogus, wasn't well supported with the evidence I posted.
My conclusion came from the facts that:
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny, deciding that a whole group of people behave/act/think one way is often considered "racism" (or some other -ism), and is strictly forbidden, except when that group is whites, males, suburbanites, or some other group not on the national Do Not Insult list.
If it isn't fair to say that someone "throws like a girl," then it just isn't fair to take all people that
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:2)
Verboten even?
Sieg Heil!
Down with Thought Crimes!
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:3, Insightful)
Last year around this time I went to my college's observatory(this place was about 10 miles away from any decent light source).
It was a new moon. We saw Venus a few minutes before it disappeared. After that we saw quite a few star formations, iridium satellites, the milky way(beautiful) and I forget what not.
All this heavenly stuff made me want to study astrophysics. After that night I was even pl
Re:Sensationalism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should RTFA?
THEY COME FOR YOU IN THE DARK! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Argh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Argh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Question for Parent Post (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a number of labs in the world that utilize temporal isolation environments to isolate their human subjects for long periods of time (three months has been the limit I think). All temporal cues are eliminated including sunlight, food, clocks, etc.
Re:Question for Parent Post (Score:3, Insightful)
Cool. A fellow vision scientist.
we see a very rich world that they cannot as well - the world of figures and space. Humans are extremely good at mapping patterns out of specifics and matching them to previously seen objects and figures. We're very good at detecting relationships.
True, but this is cognition, and that requires cortex which humans have in abundance. I guess I was speaking from retinal and optical perspectives for which humans are relatively re
Re:Telescopes (Score:2)
In this overcrowded country where I live (Germany), you usually have to deal with more than a single light. ;-)
Fortunately, the street lamps are designed so that when you kick them in the right spot, they go off for maybe half an hour without being damaged. When I was younger, we once turned several streets dark in this way. It wasn't completely satisfactory though
For more evidence, see S14E09 of Simpsons!! (Score:5, Funny)
how to tell a funny (Score:5, Funny)
See? That's all you had to do to get a funny. You're like the kid that turns in a 200 page essay when the teacher requests a 2 page book report.
Re:OT - sig quote (Score:2)
Obscure, yes, but funny as hell if you watched the show. They're all coming out on DVD, now, though, so you can experience the magick of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Ob joke... (Score:2)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:2)
Or they obsessively post on Slashdot all day long...
Light (Score:2)
Rus
Re:Light (Score:2)
evolution (Score:5, Funny)
I think they all revolve around configuring sendmail.
Re:evolution (Score:2)
Displacing Animals (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Displacing Animals (Score:2)
Note to all moth researchers (Score:5, Funny)
From the article:
"Never argue against something on behalf of moths," he warns. "People will just laugh at you. Talk about ecosystems instead."
Point well taken ;)
This is not a new phenomenon. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is not a new phenomenon. (Score:3, Funny)
Thats why I always carry a maglight.
DOWN WITH DARKNESS.
Re:This is not a new phenomenon. (Score:5, Interesting)
When we get disconnected from something we no longer respect it, we fear it, loath it. In cities we're disconnected from the enviroment, and see no qualms about destroying it except for the enviromentalism trend (which shouldn't be confused with an actual caring about the enviroment, hence the word 'trend'). So whats going to happen when we become completely disconnected from the heavens, and gleefully accept this. The stars have guided thousands of years human spirituality and philosophy, what happens when we loose that?
I would consider most urbanites as severely mentally ill, with our odd paranoia about darkness. We must ALWAYS cloak ourselves in light and noise to protect us from ourselves and our enviroment. What are we REALLY afraid of?
OT but related, ever go someplace nice and notice that they HAVE TO pipe noise into it, ALWAYS. Out here in Arizona in the Verde Valley there is a casino/resort with a WONDERFUL view of an ancient lake bed and pristine desert, looking out from the entrance way is just great, except the fact that there is CONSTANT piped music, it makes it impossible to EVER relax. The same goes for all this damn light everywhere, it becomes impossible to EVER relax, or dissassociate yourself from society, even for a second.
Turn off all the lights, or light generating things (monitor, case mods, TV, whatnot), turn off all the sound, fans, whatnot, and look and listen. Odds are, if you live in a city or even a small town it will be noisy and bright. The only way to get away from it is to travel hundreds of miles away, and even then there are still flight paths and stupid tourists, lost urbanites, and partying teenagers.
Sad. But then again I am a tech-savvy luddite.
Re:This is not a new phenomenon. (Score:3, Interesting)
I bought the place *because* it was dark and I could see a lot of stars at night. At night, my bedroom is pitch black, and the
silly article. (Score:2, Insightful)
First off, the study they use are women working on the night shift. That says more about people working on a night shift, than light exposure, and even if the increase in cancer rates has to do with light, it doesn't apply to most people because, we go home at night and TURN OFF THE LIGHTS. All this ranting about light in public places, well, that's fine and dandy if you're sleeping under a freaking street light near the stadium downtown, but, uh, last I checked, most people go home and sleep in the dark.
Re:silly article. (Score:3, Insightful)
How dark are your shades?
No, really, I'm serious. Non-nocturnal animals living in the wild evolved in an environment that was incredibly dark. Unless you go inside a closet and close the door, you're not likely to experience that level of darkness in a typical house.
Even if you do turn off the "lights", it's often much harder to turn off the LEDs. In my room I have an iBook with a glowing indicator, the LED ring indicating it's charging, the LED on my monitor, and a few other small sources of ligh
You can find a downside to anything (Score:2, Flamebait)
Given enough time I could find a downside to anything. For instance, breathing is bad because it increases the amount of CO2 in the air and thus helps global warming, etc. The point is is that just because you can find something bad about something you have to think what is GOOD about something and then weigh the differences. Since we've had light for so long we hardly realize its benefits. Goi
Re:You can find a downside to anything (Score:2)
hrmm (Score:2, Funny)
International Dark-Sky Association (Score:2, Informative)
City Budgets (Score:3, Interesting)
It turns out that 100+ megawatt powerplants are really slow to adjust their output, like 24 hours slow, but the customers use more power during the day than at night (actually it is a nice defined peak around noon). The power plants are set to accomodate this peak, which leaves a lot of extra capacity at night. Even with the price of power 3x higher during the day, the power compa
Only a brief mention to the loss of the Milky Way (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of my most memorable experiences were when I made it out to a deserted area, free of light pollution, and allowed to take in the night sky as it really is.
What's the loss of that? It goes beyond seritonin levels... there's something we've lost that connects us to the universe, that can so easily awe us. What are the consequences of that on our psyches? On our very soul?
I say a bunch of us should get together, pool our resources, and buy up a couple of thousand square miles of land and have it designated a no-light zone. Make it out in the desert somewhere, while it's still vacant. The only people allowed to travel/live there would be those who voluntarily consent to certain rules designed to keep light pollution down to zero. No driving at night for instance, or if you do, doing so using some sort of special equipment like night-vision goggles say. All windows would have to be equipped with zero-leakage blinds or curtains. No outdoor lighting of any kind, whatsoever.
Call it Dark City. Like the movie, only darker (and hopefully more friendly people.)
I wonder how many of us would want to live there?
How many of us have actually gotten to see the night sky as it really is?
I have, and I only want to visit it occasionaly (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes the night sky is very pretty without the interference of lights. However, in my ordinary day to day existence, driving to work, trying to make a living, I can only imagine the horrible place night would be without artificial light. For one obvious example, driving a car would be impossible without headlights. Second, if you took away artificial light, people would be forced to adapt the work day to the hours of sunlight. Despite daylight savings time, in more northern areas like Washington, it's dark at 9 and dark at 5. So without artificial light, work would have to start at 10 and end at 4. Ain't gonna happen.
So yeah, I agree with you, the night sky sure is pretty, but that ain't worth turning the whole society over. And I do think you'd be able to find a handful of people to go along with a "no light zone" but these are likely going to be the same people who want the cities burned, enjoy weaving pants out of hemp, think a space ship will take them to the next plane, and want men eradicated from the human race etc.
Re:I have, and I only want to visit it occasionaly (Score:3, Insightful)
Whoa guys! I think we could find a happy medium between no light zones and the current levels of light pollution. For example, most outdoor lighting needlessly sends photons up into the sky instead of down towards the ground where they are most useful. Sensibly designed lights are less wasteful, cheaper and let the sky stay dark.
Light pollution control is a topic nobody every considers, but it really makes a lot of sense when you do. Please educate yourself by going to the DarkSkys site [darksky.org].
Re:I have, and I only want to visit it occasionaly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only a brief mention to the loss of the Milky W (Score:3, Interesting)
One positive side-effect: the constilations are much easier to locate, because the dimmer stars have washed out. I always had trouble spotting Orion's arms/torso, now those are the only
Re:Only a brief mention to the loss of the Milky W (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite honestly I just stopped in
Re:Only a brief mention to the loss of the Milky W (Score:2)
The night sky struck me like a mugger in a dark alley. I litterally fell flat on my ass from the sight of all those stars. It was one of teh most amazing things I've ever seen. You could actually see DEPTH to the night sky.
On clear nights I somet
Welcome to West Texas! (Score:2)
Well, you could always buy Loving County, Texas. From the Handbook of Texas Online [utexas.edu]:
Any astronomers out there? What say you? (Score:2)
It seems to me that astronomers are going to be a big part of the group, so better to have them sign off on a place. Thing is, they tend to gravitate towards mountains in an effort to minimize the amount of atmosphere they have to contend with, and mountains scare me because of the "larger" horizon... more opportunity for light to get into the mix, so we'd need even more land.
It would be great if we c
Must Recheck Bookmarks (Score:2)
I could'a sworn this was Slashdot, not kuro5hin.
Must... not... make... NPR... jokes...
*falls out of chair*
I'd forgotten the stars were there (Score:5, Interesting)
Not quite.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to be an ametuer astronomer (simply no time or decent equipment of late), and I love the stars as well. And I remember my first memory of going out to the boonies, and looking up in the cold winter night and seeing the most beautiful night sky I'd ever seen. I was in love with the stars from that point.
That said, the stars aren't going
Re:Not quite.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Never? You can't imagine a city-planet like Asimov's Trantor or Star Wars' Coruscant?
Earth's population is still growing exponentially, remember; and assuming a strange future without transhumanism (and virtual space), our bodies will continue to expand outward and upward, including arable land (once we can manufacture food), the poles, and the ocean. Even outer space wouldn't be much of an outlet given
Country Outlines (Score:2, Interesting)
A revealing thing about that photo, is how it shows the outline of some countries, eg South Africa and especially Israel.
Darkest Africa is still the norm after more than a hundred years of electricity. Similarly, Israel stands out amongst its neighbours as the only developed area in that part of the world.
North Korea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:North Korea (Score:3, Interesting)
For a more clear image, look at this GIF [colorado.edu] from the U. Colorado at Boulder.
Holiday (Score:5, Interesting)
the only reason i cant see the stars at night where i live is becuase of the lighting in a walmart parking lot, that is ten miles away(the parking lot is huge)
so if we can convince walmart and the city to turn off every other one of their lights maybe we could see the stars, and if we did this nationaly once a year or so, then scientist could get a good view of the sky without all the light pollution
yeah i know i cant spell
ObSimpsons Reference (Score:2)
Sea turtles also light sensitive (Score:5, Interesting)
Artificial lighting can cause disorientation and misorientation of both adults and hatchlings. Turtle hatchlings are attracted to light, ignoring or coming out of the ocean to go towards a light source, increasing their chances of death or injury. In addition, as nesting females avoid areas with intense lighting, highly developed areas may cause problems for turtles trying to nest.
Guess they missed the PBS [pbs.org] special.
Yellow lights may be nice, but... (Score:2)
By contrast, the efficient low-pressure sodium bulbs now used in some street lamps emit only a narrow range of yellow light. This minimizes ecological disruptions, since creatures don't perceive low-pressure sodium as natural light. [...] But at least one, San Diego, decided to switch back to high-pressure sodium after residents complained that the yellow pall cast by low-pressure sodium bulbs made them uneasy.
I'm with the creatures... I don't preceive that ugly yellow light as natural,
you... Light up my life (Score:2, Interesting)
Sadly no proof of deadly hormonal imbalances is included to support this article.. Makes me wonder...
"The farther from lights and altered habitats you get, the more moths you find," he says.
Animals have always for millions of years adapted to factors beyond their control. Climate, s
Re:you... Light up my life (Score:2, Informative)
http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Science/extinc tion.html [thinkquest.org]
http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BIO48/38.Extinctio n.HTML [brown.edu]
http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/courses/EEB105/lec tures/extinction/extinction.html [arizona.edu]
http://fig.cox.miami.edu/Faculty/Tom/bil160sp98/10 _notes.html [miami.edu]
Simon
When I was a kid... (Score:2)
Anyway, set the wayback machine to early 1986, when Halley's was making its once every 76 year orbit near earth. One distinct memory I have was going outside, looking up, and seeing the Milky Way arm that runs through the sky. This was in Yorba Linda, CA. (Yes, Dick Nixon's hometown, now shut up.) Back then there were still many fruit farms around the area.
Cut to present day. The farms are almost gone. Lots of light pollution. The last time I saw the MW was a couple years
Heat vs. Light (Score:4, Interesting)
Heat polution can be more direct than light pollution. Light pollution is measurable in how it impedes stargazing, and thanks to this study how it sickens the biosphere... but what of the heat expelled in the generation and consumption of all our electricity?
Anyone flying in a plane at night knows there are a lot of billboards and lit buildings pointing their beams inefficiently into the night sky. I'd love to see some calculations on how many megacalories it takes to warm the earth's atmosphere a couple degrees. Chances are, we're literally consuming our own planet in wasted heat polution.
Re:Heat vs. Light (Score:2)
An incandescent, according to the chart, dissipates at least 32.5 lumens/watt more than a flourscent (we'll call that zero heat, for ease). Optimum is 668 lumens/watt. So you're generating about 95% waste heat. There has to be other losses, so say 80% is waste heat. A good toaster oven is 1500 watt. So 18.75 100 watt light bulbs is the same heat... That could add up fast.
I wonder what that does to skew global warming figures... Maybe it's all that's
Re:Heat vs. Light (Score:3, Insightful)
-Jellisky
Idiotic Landlords (Score:2)
Lighting 101 / Cost Savings of CFL's (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in a ~1000ft^2 duplex (three bedroom, three people) in a rural University town in Washington - electricty is relatively cheap compared to some cities. We pay 4.777 cents per KWH (First 600), 4.777 cents per KWH (601-1300), 5.718 cents per KWH (1300+)
Last year, during a three month period, our average cost per KWH was 5.25 cents. Since I changed all our lights to CFL's, our average cost per KWH is 4.90 cents. (We're buying less @ 5.718 cents per KWH).
We don't use all lights in our duplex equally, but for the sake of statistics, we save about $1 per month per CFL. (16 bulbs replaced = ~$16/month)
I bought the CFL's at Costco for ~$4 each (large, 23watt, 100watt equiv) and ~$2 each (small, 13 watt, 60 watt equiv). The initial investment was ~$55 & It paid for itself in 4 months. Supposedly, these bulbs will last 7 years, but even if they last 1 year, they will save money, electricty & some Sockeye Salmon! (Hydroelectic power... some politicians swear they are responsible for declining salmon populations)
In a region with more expensive electricity, you could save significantly more on lighting. If you can't stand the 'color' of fluorescent bulbs, you can do 50/50. Our dining room as two CFL's & one incandescent bulb.
Well, this was almost off topic, but it's still within the scope of the article I think!
Re:Lighting 101 / Cost Savings of CFL's (Score:2)
Wasted light (Score:2)
If we could use that light intelligently, we could cut the ambient light by almost 50%.
I've had a variation of that pic as my wallpaper for years.
NASA image of man-made light. (Score:5, Insightful)
An interesting feature is the the Nile river on the top right corner of Africa. Each bank of the river is densly populated, beyond that is uninhabitable desert. That makes it an insanely narrow bright white line in the middle of the pitch black desert.
Another interesting feature is North/South Korea. They are just to the left of super-bright Japan. South Korea is a bright square just below North Korea. North Korea is a pitch-black area. The dividing line of bright to dark is like a knife-edge. North Korea is so dark it looks like empty ocean, making South Korea look almost like an island.
North Korea and South Korea have roughly equal population density. The entire difference is due to development. South Korea is quite prosperous while North Korea is suffering famines while they allocate a crushing 30% of their gross national product to supporting the third largest army in the world (China has the largest, USA is second). North Korea says they want to "Liberate".
-
Re:NASA image of man-made light. (Score:3, Funny)
Too many... (Score:2)
Had this problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, when I have guests or the neighbours are partying outside (we socialize alot) i open the cover and throw the damn switch.
The rest of the street is still lit in the uncomfortable glow of HPS bulbs, but not my yard -- its much darker.
Ive unscrewed countless bulbs in my day, I
People eat $500 billiion worth of food (Score:2)
Plus, excessive food is the number one cause of death. Eliminate food for big savings for our corporate masters!
Yeah... (Score:2, Funny)
Light fucks up moths.
Red lights (Score:2)
Careful with these figures.. (Score:2, Informative)
Just about every study shows 3rd shift workers suffering from more adverse health problems than those who are productive in the daytime. I think this has more to do with sunlight and being in
Welcome to Finland (Score:2)
Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahh, to be nice and dark... (Score:4, Funny)
Dark Sky Assoc. (Score:3, Informative)
Videogame sky (Score:3, Interesting)
By the way, if you want to help our children to see all those beautiful stars, take a look at darksky.org [darksky.org]!
Turn out the damned office lights! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do I look downtown at 3:00am, and see the 50 story high-rises lit up like bloody christmas trees??!!! There are more lights in one building like that than a square mile of low-density residential (i.e. houses), and with no one at all to see them except for the security guards, they're 90% turned on. That's the sort of thing that makes me wonder why I bother even trying.
Stupidest thing ever (Score:3, Informative)
Streetlights provide that load, and make us safer.
I got better uses for that power (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but there are better uses for that power. My parents' water heater only turns on late at night, and then the hot water is stored for the next day. The power company controls this (for a big discount to my parents) to fill in the peak demands. They have in the past had the highest useable for the entire day be at 12:14am, when a lot of the load was this water heating!
That is just one example use for all that power. There are others. Start thinking.
Re:Stupidest thing ever (Score:5, Interesting)
Pumped storage is like a rechargable battery for the electricity network, and they can be pretty damned efficient at it. Instead of just burning off electricity all night because you have to generate it anyway, a good pumped storage network will let you pool about 60% of the generated electricity and let it go when you need it. And pumped storage stations can be brought online and switched off almost instantaneously - there's one in Wales (the electric mountain plant at Trawsfynnydd - basically a hollowed out mountain) that claims the fastest response time of any power station in the world - something like 6 seconds.
City Trees (Score:3, Interesting)
Beauty of the sky (Score:5, Informative)
The last night of my drive, I stopped at Lookout Pass to camp for the night. Since it is summer, and the ski facilities are closed, there were only three cars besides myself up there.
Lookout Pass is 4725 ft. up in the mountains, right on the border between Montana and Idaho (Exit 0 on I -90).
Not a small town for miles, and not a city of mention for 50+ miles in any direction. Almost zero light pollution.
I've never been able to see so many stars before. The Milky Way stood out and was easily visible. I was able to watch sattelites pass overhead. You can understand how the ancient Greeks saw the constellations -- it really helps when you can see the fainter stars.
It is all out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Most people don't know what they are missing with all the light pollution.
Light and acoustics (Score:4, Interesting)
Related: Has anyone ever been to MGM in Florida and done the THX sound effects studio? You sit in a pitch black room with headphones on and it sounds like you are actually getting a haircut, getting your hair blow dried (and you feel heat - but there's not any), + you get annoyed by a fly in the room ... I remember the voiceover saying that the darkness of the room tuned your senses - particularly your ears.
Portland is bright at night (Score:3, Informative)
As a resident of New York City, my reaction is... (Score:3, Funny)