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It's funny how the achievements of the last generation (or even decade) are the Things That Need Fixing of the new.

I remember the night sky in Calgary as a child (say 40 years back) had a lot more stars, just because the city was so much smaller (1M now; maybe 250,000 then - we're one of the fastest-growing in N. America) and there were so fewer streetlights shining up on the clouds.

But we were indeed extra "bad" for light emissions intensity as measured in kwH/km^2 too, not just sheer size - as this sat. photo on our own website shows:

http://content.calgary.ca/CCA/City+Hall/Business+U nits/Roads/Street+Lights/Satellite+Photograph+-+Fu ll+Size.htm

It made me remember that the "Chief Commissioner" (we now say "CEO") of the municipality when I started working there about 20 years back was a former electrical engineer named George Cornish; and that his bio included him winning an award for championing Calgary getting one of the best street-lighting systems in the world during his time at the (then City-owned) electric light department. Likely our formerly huge 32,100 kWh/km^2 emissions were a byproduct - not seen as a bad thing at the time.

When we brought in the change to the streetlighting, the ad campaign emphasized the savings - money and carbon both - not the improvement to the free astronomy show.

I can't find anything on the web about how much we improved the kwH/km^2, or a new satellite photo for before/after comparison; and no figures on what our "Bortle" number was before/after, either; the available info is all about the money. (5 year payback!)

I'm afraid I can't call the difference dramatic - if it wasn't as bad as "only six stars visible" as one /. poster above said, it was pretty bad; now it's just somewhat less so - you sure as heck can't do serious stargazing even now, though it's probably doubled the number of nights you can see the Milky Way. Not that most people notice, since our clearest skies are in the winter and few brave the cold to watch for more than a few minutes.

The astronomy benefit probably goes to the National Parks like Banff that are over 120km away - we were probably reaching the size where we were affecting the "seeing" even there!

The difference to the streets is probably more dramatic, literally - residential streets have gone from roughly even lighting almost anywhere you stood (which is what I guess got Mr. Cornish his award) to the "look" that cities older than Calgary mostly have, at least in older neighbourhoods - pools of light under the streetlights, soft chiaroscuro pools of darkness between. (I remember seeing this in New York on a visit in the 70's, even in Manhattan itself, and thinking with surprise "I thought that look was just in old film noir with Bogart under the streetlight with a cigarette". I had to visit several older cities before I realized it was common, and that Calgary was the unusual one.)

Now, there's a corner near my house where it's dark enough at night to not be able to see an icy spot on the sidewalk if there is one, so now you tend to memorize these during the day (since night starts at 5PM in late December). That's about the only real bitching though, on the whole I wouldn't go back - it's also nice to have a lot less of the glare and blinding than there used to be...and it's not just me; there have been few to no complaints about the change, it's certainly not an issue ever mentioned in the news.

When you think about it, the vaunted $2M/year is $2/citizen; and most people would pay $2/year for the convenience of "good lighting" if it really made a big difference in their day, so the "savings" only work if the change in comfort/convenience is almost imperceptible. Partly, the change isn't that big, and partly - I'm the guy complaining about the invisible icy spot because I WALK EVERYWHERE,

Here's a City of Calgary page on the program (bit out of date): http://content.calgary.ca/CCA/City+Hall/Business+U nits/Roads/Street+Lights/Envirosmart+Street+Light+ Retrofit+Program.htm

Apparently they expect to recoup the costs in six or seven years. The radiated light figures are interesting too. Note that I believe Calgary's area is larger than any of the cities listed, yet it's population is quite a bit smaller than Vancouver and Seattle.

I moved to the city after they'd already decided to go ahead with the program so I don't know about any of the debate... I'm sure someone at city hall would be happy to give you some information if you e-mailed though.

Exactly. For instance, where I live, the city is offering incentives to switch to low-flow models. They point out the monetary savings and ecological advantages, and then offer a $50 rebate on a bunch of models.

You're correct of course. But there is more emphasis on fines a source of revenue for the department.

http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/finance/2005bu dget/operating/07_police.pdf

46m of revenue, 200m, that means fines account for 1/4 of their expendature... its the ONLY thing they have control over - and there has been a trend increase over the last 5 years when actually crime statistics have decreased

anyhow this is off topic

Maybe they'll make up for Australia and the USA not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol!

Whatever happens with Kyoto, I think it's great to see a few governments here and there finally leading by example, and getting involved in encouraging and providing incentives for saving energy. Hopefully it'll get some power saving technologies and industries much more established than they were before, and some people might actually begin to realise that there are more benefits to being efficient than possibly reducing the effects that power generation might have on the environment. Some of it may even carry over into countries that initially didn't sign on to Kyoto.

In New Zealand, where I am, finding ways to save energy has almost become a necessity, albeit one that the general population is noticing very slowly. (The main theme at the moment is everyone wanting to build more power stations, but nobody wanting them in their back yard.) Call it lack of planning if you like, but the power situation here is at the state where we're presently on the edge of getting brown-outs.

The geographic isolation makes it necessary to be entirely self-reliant with power generation, and saving energy becomes a definite alternative to generating more. (Not all the time, but certainly much of the time.) Being someone who's quite enthusiastic about reducing light pollution, it's helpful to finally have some government bodies to deal with whose actual purpose revolves around finding new ways to save energy, such as this one.

My understanding, from having spoken to people there, is that the US Federal government is comparably hopeless at implementing energy efficiency schemes, for whatever reason. (That'd mean less jobs for all those americans in the power generation industry, right?) Apparently it's a much healthier economy when a few billions of dollars extra are circulating, even if it is for energy that's not actually necessary... but whatever.

If you happen to have an interest in energy efficiency, though, I've heard that state governments and more local authorities in general are often a lot more receptive about promoting it. I presume that it's probably much easier in states that buy more energy from neighbouring states than they sell. eg. Calgary (okay, that's Canada but it's in the same direction as the US from here) recently went through a programme of replacing every one of their street lights. It's expected to pay off entirely within six to seven years, through operating costs of the lights alone.

... when it's down or misbehaving, people die

Oh bullshit! We geeks are no more important that the mechanics who repair the fire trucks. When a truck breaks down, people die... because the important people, the firefighters, can't do their job. DUH!

BTW - I am a geek who works in the fire dept of a large Canadian city. Since I'm actually doing the kind of job you speculate about, I'm in a pretty good position to rebut your argument