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."
Women want light (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Straw Man Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Women want light (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Straw Man Alert (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Straw Man Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a little excerpt from the article (which you obviously are oblivious to else you wouldn't post foolishness) that seems fitting...
"A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack." In the early seventies, the public-school system in San Antonio, Texas, began leaving many of its school buildings, parking lots, and other property dark at night and found that the no-lights policy not only reduced energy costs but also dramatically cut vandalism."
Re:morals. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Read article, open mouth. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah fuck that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damn lights (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
My father was a pilot on b-49's and other miltary aircrafts, and later on the commercial aircrafts. He was telling me about the stars that he used to see in the 40's (from the ground),50's (from the planes),and somewhat into the 60s, vs what he see now at 35-50K ft.
Apparently, the view up at 45-55K during the late 50's was stupendous. Now, it is like the ground was in the 60's. Light pollution is easily changed, but it is obvious that it is air pollution that becomes the real killer.
Re:Women want light (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah fuck that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ah fuck that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Women want light (Score:3, Insightful)
For those walking at night along an unlit road at night, they have these devices called "flashlights" that can help with the other concerns you voiced, and reflective clothing goes a long way towards preventing an unpleasant encounter between pedestrians and traffic. I would say that five dollars spent on a flashlight for one's own safety is a far more efficient solution to the problem than to have everyone else pay thousands of dollars for streetlights and the power to run them, with the attendant light pollution problems.
And whether Alpha Centauri is visible isn't an issue for the vast majority of residents of the Northern Hemisphere as it's always below the horizon even on a totally dark, clear night for them.
Re:Use brain, open mouth. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it is light pollution. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Use brain, open mouth. (Score:1, Insightful)
Dark Sky Preservation hostility? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm sure people in Central Park would enjoy the night sky, I empathize with their concern for safety and well lit areas certainly feel more secure. I am suggesting that they would need to travel for a bit in order to enjoy the night sky. Another words, the people who are trying to preserve the night sky aren't suggesting the cities turn out their lights, just shine their lights toward the ground instead of toward the sky. You can drive an hour or so from a small city to see a somewhat dark sky and still see a mighty glow from the cities direction. While I understand the glow can never be eliminated, it certainly can and should be reduced.
One aside - I am familiar with the wind farm being erected in one of the few remaining dark sky sites in the eastern United States. A few changes (like moving them a short distance or using red "safe" lights) would have made them astronomy friendly. While this may not seem important to many, the area was obviously a haven for astronomers from all over the area especially since the park has been working hard to make it even more friendly - like installing astronomical domes with electricity and renting them for a nominal fee. so it goes. end aside.
One final thought - even if there were no benefits like cost savings, energy savings, and better lighting, the idea of dark sky preservation is akin to other environmental concerns. Just because we don't all enjoy sloshing through wetlands or cutting our way through a rain forest doesn't mean those areas shouldn't be conserved. I say the same goes for the night sky. We may not all be awed by the glow of a full moon, a fiery meteor blazing through the sky, or just watching the twinkling of a million stars but we shouldn't take away the opportunity for all of us and future generations from seeing what many of us feel is the most amazing and spectacular thing imaginable: our universe.
Re:San Jose (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Use brain, open mouth. (Score:5, Insightful)
What about people WALKING at night?
What about them?
they don't experience glair [sic] (no windshield)
Maybe if you'd RTFA you would know what glare is. Since you won't, let me help you:
"glare bombs": fixtures that cast much of their light sideways, into the eyes of passersby, or upward, into the sky
Nothing at all to do with windshields though I suppose windshields can magnify the effects of glare.
how do you propose they walk without streetlights?
You're the one who proposed that. The post you responded to mentioned reducing their illumination.
Streetlights were intended to reduce crime, and I'd say they do a pretty good job of that.
From the article:
Crawford pointed out a cluster of mailboxes across the street from his garage. The lighting near the mailboxes was of a type that Crawford calls "criminal-friendly": it was almost painful to look at, and it turned the walkway behind the boxes into an impenetrable void. "The eye adapts to the brightest thing in sight," he said. "When you have glare, the eye adapts to the glare, but then you can't see anything darker."
[...]
Much so-called security lighting is designed with little thought for how eyes--or criminals--operate. Marcus Felson, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, has concluded that lighting is effective in preventing crime mainly if it enables people to notice criminal activity as it's taking place, and if it doesn't help criminals to see what they're doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights--one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country--often fail on both counts, as do all-night lights installed on isolated structures or on parts of buildings that can't be observed by passersby (such as back doors). A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack." In the early seventies, the public-school system in San Antonio, Texas, began leaving many of its school buildings, parking lots, and other property dark at night and found that the no-lights policy not only reduced energy costs but also dramatically cut vandalism.
So there you go. Street lights are good, but if they shine light directly in the eyes of people walking at night, then those people will be unable to see into the shadows, which would be a great place for a mugger to lurk. However, if those street lights are subdued to decent levels and designed to be free of glare then not only can you see your path but your eyes will also still be adjusted for the darkness and you're better able to see what's outside of a brilliantly lit area. There are other benefits too:
Calgary, Alberta, recently cut its electricity expenditures by more than two million dollars a year, by switching to full-cutoff, reduced-wattage street lights.
Reduce the power output of your street lights and save millions. Additionally:
Diminishing the level of nighttime lighting can actually increase visibility. In recent years, the California Department of Transportation has greatly reduced its use of continuous lighting on its highways, and has increased its use of reflectors and other passive guides, which concentrate luminance where drivers need it rather than dispersing it over broad areas. (Passive guides also save money, since they don't require electricity.) F.A.A.-regulated airport runways, though they don't use reflectors, are lit in a somewhat similar fashion, with rows of guidance lights rather than with high-powered floodlights covering broad expanses of macadam. This makes the runways easier for pilots to pick out at night, because the key to visibility, on runways as well as on roads, is contrast.
Re:Ah fuck that. (Score:4, Insightful)
On one major street that I drive on at nights sometimes, you have to learn to remember where you saw a green light and, when you glance back (from scanning the sides of the road and your mirrors like one should), remember where it was - because if it's turned yellow, you can't quickly pick it out from all the yellow street lights - it just looks like suddenly a signal that you recall having seen is no longer there
Once you learn to remember where the signals are because you drive the street regularly, it's not so bad - but it's quite disconcerting the first few times and certainly detracts attention from other elements of your driving even once you learn to compensate for it.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's true (Score:3, Insightful)
If street lights make people feel safer, then there will be street lights. It doesn't matter that much if it actually works or not. Arguing for a public policy that makes people "feel endangered" is grounded in fantasy. Further, the premise that people feeling more in danger will have a net reduction in crime is a myopic viewpoint typical of this forum. It may well reduce actual crime, but you can bet it will ratchet up paranoia and accidental injuries arising from perceived crimes (you know, like how people with guns hurt and kill more people every year than are saved by having the guns).
Just imagine yourself listening to someone on TV saying "I support this plan to make you feel less safe, more on edge, and therefore more active in stopping crime." It's ludicrous. People shouldn't be police officers. Citizens shouldn't have to be more careful. That's treating a symptom.
Re:the country (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not that it's controversial. All I see is a bunch of arguing about the relative goodness or badness of it. Hey, I think it's a great idea - I like seeing stars, and if you can alter lighting in such a way that I'm not made more susceptible to crime while walking, and that I can actually see better when I'm driving, then I'm all for it!
But nobody is asking the "grownup questions" that are at the core of every good idea, social program, and good intention. Too frequently, they never get asked. Anyway, here they are:
1) How much will it cost?
2) Who's going to pay for it?
3) What will we have to give up in order to get this?
4) Is the tradeoff worth it?
5) What are the higher-order effects, and can we live with them?
Re:This cannot possibly be serious (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not an issue or a cause to be taken seriously. So it seems that the logic here is: "let us all use "dark sky friendly" lights so we cannot see the real pollution and this will all go away and seem like a bad dream. I believe that we can find better issues to deal with than "light pollution". It is similar to going to an emergency room with a gunshot wound to the chest and complaining about a hangnail. Priorities people... Priorities.
A couple of comments:
I don't quite see why trying to reduce light pollution would be mutually exclusive with working concurrently to solve other issues. After all, 'we' (in the more global sense, as I'm not probably living in the same country as you) have been working at the same time on multiple problems of different scopes pretty much as long as the humans have lived in organized societies. As a comparison, it's generally not a good idea to forget completely about some local group of criminals while you're working on the global hunger, war on terror or other grand things.
It's also not only about being able to enjoy the night sky properly. By using more efficient lighting setups that minimize the amount of light that ends up on the sky and becomes wasted, less energy is used, which in turn has an effect on the amount of other pollution being created. This really is related to the other pollution problems (and even appears to be capable of causing some actual biological harm to humans and other animals, as mentioned briefly in the article as well).
Re:the country (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Take a 0.00001% fraction of the defense budget.
3) Nothing.
4) Yes.
5) None, and yes.
Any more?