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Atlas of Worldwide Light Pollution
mgarraha writes: "Researchers at the University of Padua and NOAA have analyzed DMSP data to produce a new atlas
of night sky brightness due to artificial lighting. Previous maps only showed the distribution of light sources. Their
paper
will appear in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Here is an AP article."
Or it could be the deserts and the Rockies of course :-)
>You almost think you could fall off the planet into the void.
So, LSD really is used in y2k.1
-Anon
I notice that there are chunks of the middle east and northern Africa that have been erased. Political lines are even gone. Is this a mistake, or are we protecting some valuable light pollution data, here?
Odd.
I'm in the west, but not in California. I'm in Las Vegas, Nevada. A very bright white spot onthe map, but the cool part is that less than an hour's drive puts be in a totally dark region on the map for stellar (pun intended) stargazing. Truly the best of both worlds.
Shrug, fly on decent moonlit nights or just don't fly at night. If it's that dangerous, don't do it.
I would rather have much less light pollution and far darker nights, even if it inconveniences a few pilots.
~Cederic
ps: The skies would be a damn sight safer if people didn't fly in them.
60,000,000??? Not sure where you are getting this, but last time I checked (and the census people) we are actually at 281,421,906. Point still taken, but there are a bit more than 60 million over here.
There is atmospheric distortion too. Let's get rid of all that air as well :-)
Don't worry, George W. Bush is taking care of this already.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Get a clue before you post next time. Astronomers don't want all outside lights removed, just replaced with more economical alternatives. Read up on the subject, and if you happen to have some outdoor lights you may be able to save yourself a lot of money by replacing them: http://www.darksky.org/
Yeah, but full-FOV retinal scanning displays will be able to recreate that same experience (minus the the pile of dogshit you just stepped in).
Power to the Peaceful
Try looking at New Zealand, according to that map, Timaru, a town of population 10-20 thousand is brighter than our largest city of 1.5 million. It's almost as bright as Sydeny, population 3.5 million, the same as teh whole of NZ!
:-)
I know my parents often forget to turn the outside lights off, but they're not _that_ bright
Hmm...They are spending 3-4 times the markup on a SUV and $250 more a month in operating costs than a comparable car. Given that 85% of them aren't being used for what they were designed, but as a commute/basic transportation vehicle instead, I would certainly say that their owners have more money than brains.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
The reason for this divide is the large pool of relatively warm water to the south -- the Gulf of Mexico. Frontal systems crossing the midsection of the continent are relatively moisture-starved until they can tap the much higher precipitable waters in the atmosphere influenced by the Gulf.
In spite of the govt's effort to populate the drylands of the West in the late 19th century, Ma Nature played her winning card with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Now, even though the high plains are intensively farmed once again, it's only because of powerful electric pumps which will deplete most of the Ogallala aquifer in the next 20-50 years. After that, the left hand side of that line will be really dark.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
If you want to look at stars, get off your ass and drive to the boonies. Better yes, why not move there? You are right now choosing to live in a brightly lit city, yes? You know why you don't choose to live in a dark area? BECAUSE LIFE THERE IS PRIMITIVE AND SUCKS. If it didn't, you be there and not complaining.
It's Sealand, of course! :)
:)
hmm.. they must be expanding
--
Seeing is believing; You wouldn't have seen it if you didn't believe it.
So the USA, emitting 25% of global pollution, is actually completely innocent, huh???
*black stare*
Pardon me while I laugh hysterically at that comment. Yes, American air is so much cleaner than the air in the nonindustralized world. (Including parts of Commiela--er, China.) Of course, I suppose it's obvious -- what with all the smog warnings they face in the third world. It is truly terrible that parts of their population can't leave the house due to air polution generated by all those consumer automobiles and industrial infrastructure they don't have. Riiiiight...
BRx ;)
Life after capitalism? The participatory economics project
I also have certain doubts about Europe.
The pictures of Europe were taken at a later date, and they subtracted 20% to compensate for that.
Sounds like a lot for a region where building new houses, roads or anything is nearly impossible due to all the legislation.
Anyone know the address to a smiliar satallite mosaic of the worlds EF emissions? I saw it online once and have been looking for it ever since.
Beautiful image ( although scary ) outlining the coasts and air/sea shipping lanes.
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
You can get this data better from close-up satellites, which is what these guys have done. The especially tricky part is that they are interested not in how much artificial light escapes to space, but how much is visible from the ground.
There are also some natural sources of light (fireflies etc.), the most visible (from orbit) being some kind of plankton iirc.
Colonel Sanders, prepare to transform the International Space Station into..... Mega Maid!
InigoMontoya(tm)
This signature is self-referential.
On an other note; the anti-liberal(=arrested development) that started this thread forgets there is no difference between polution and waste, waste is not what we (according to most religeons) were set in this world for.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
...and thank you for that insightful interview with another arrogant pinhead SUV driver!
Guess I wasn't clear in my comment. I was talking about pollution in general... most of that electricity is produced by coal, and it is wasted so carelessly. I don't think of light as being pollution until I'm far away from it, and that's not often.
The worst, it seems to me, are large car dealerships.
IDA also likes to talk about gas stations. Some are more brightly lit at night than most offices are during the day! It's as if each gas station feels a need to light itself more brightly than its neighbors, assuming a correlation between foot-candles and sales revenue. I think I will start boycotting the worst offenders just to be contrary.
Website using CGI script to estimate light pollution:
http://www.darksky.org/ida/darksky/
Java Applet to estimate light pollution:
http://www.darksky.org/ida/darksky/darksky.html
To help you use the above tools, you'll need to know your latitude and longitude in degrees. Just type in your zip code at the bottom of this page:
http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapbrowse-tbl/
When converting latitude and longitude for use in these tools, use a negative number to denote South and West (W); use a positive number to denote North (N) and East (E). For example, "49.147247 N" = "49.147247" and "73.996206 W" = "-73.996206".
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
I couldn't agree with you more. When I was a young teen, I lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Because I had such and interest in astronomy, they allowed me purchase my first telescope, a 4 1/4 inch reflector from Edmund Scientific. I could go out into my back yard on almost any given night and have a clear sky (weather permitting, of course) and see most of the stellar sights. It was amazing and awe inspiring. We'd go to farmlands of Lancaster and it was just like you could fall off the Earth.
Today, I live even further in the "country" and can see almost nothing. Yes, there are a few nights when I can see the stars, those are the nights of power failures. It's very sad. As real-estate developers continue to build larger, more luxurious homes with overzealous lighting in already heavily populated areas or buy out the precious open space, the situation just keeps getting worse.
In the 60's and 70's, the sky was still pretty amazing. No wonder we wanted to go into space. Now, we look up and it's not quite so awe inspiring...sorta like a polluted beach or something. "Who wants to go there???" we ask.
People wonder what the big fuss is all about. But, as the previous poster stated, it truly is a humbling experience to look up and see the heavens as our forefathers did hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.
In some respects, the Californian's are lucky. With the rolling blackouts, maybe they'll get a glimpse to see what we are all missing.
Being a big heavy vehicle means that it will be the reason that real cars are crushed in the pileup.
I went sailing round Britain a couple of years ago, even a few miles off shore (about 10), was just amazing.
Here in the UK there is almost nowhere devoid of light (desert light), as you are never really more then 20 miles from a town. Most of the land (especially here in the north west) is disgustingly light, you're lucky to see venus and mars, let alone anthing bigger. I go to Exeter Uni and I was amazed the first night i was there walking back from the pub - even a mile out of town, on a large campus, you could see so much more then near Manchester.
But nothing will beat the boat.
Regarding the map - what is the lights in the North Sea? Oil Rigs?
North Eastern corridor, I.E, new york, washington, philly etc. Not chicago, the south, the west..
Yup, I can confirm this. I've lived in heavily populated areas for my entire life, and with my typical computer-user nearsightedness didn't think much of the stars.
Then I took a trip down US 84 through northern Texas. Let me tell you, when you can see stars out the *SIDE WINDOW OF THE CAR*, you really are in the middle of nowhere.
We parked in a rest area outside Post, TX, and you could see them all the way down to the horizon.
If you don't think constellations are impressive, then you just haven't gotten to a place that's dark enough.
I doubt econoboxes are driving insurance rates up. The insurance industry has gone back and forth over this (for higher rates: safety, theft, higher liability, cause more deaths, etc.; against: safety for occupants). Allstate and Progressive charge more for SUVs while State Farm gives them a discount. Given that they waste about $250 a month on ego. For people to claim that SUVs are safer, they are only looking at from the aspect of being an SUV occupant in a crash. They are actually dangerous if you are in a car and are hit by one. Given that SUVs are less maneuverable and take longer to stop due to their mass, you probably have a better chance of avoiding an accident in a car. Since 85% of them aren't being used for what they are designed for, it is a waste. For most people, having a SUV in a metro area is just plain DUMB (let's have one person commute ina 10-15mpg vehicle, take up two parking spaces, or can't fit in some parking garages [a guy at work can't park his Excursion in the garage because it's too tall]). I can think of better things to spend my money on.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Would gave thought it would be oil rigs out there. They look like Christmas trees. Big square Christmas trees.
Have any opinion of SUVs or their drivers. I really don't give a flying fuck what you think, but will support your right to hold an opinion (no matter how lame) and to make choices for yourself. But FUCK YOU for trying to dictate what choices others can make. Fuc you with a big rubber dick you pinko control-freak commie gray bearded hippie asshole.
Marc Reisner explains this in the opening pages of Cadillac Desert (a must read!)
This is roughly the line of the 100th meridian, where the climate of N. America changes radically.
East of this line, it is possible to have a viable, self-sufficient farm. In the West, the combination of altitude and lack of summer rain means that ranching is the only productive use of the land. Because of this, the two areas were settled very differently last century. This is also (roughly) the Western boundary of the Ogalila Aquifer, which was heavily tapped only recently (1920s-30s).
Most of the lights you see in the West (except for the Pacific Coast) are cities totally dependent upon imported water (esp. Colorado River) delivered via recent public works projects.
J.
Information wants to be Free. Useful Information will cost you.
this "light pollution" is just a problem made up by do-gooders.
Well, it's mostly caused by wasted light. Most of the light that actually comes out of a street fixture goes straight up into the air, where it does no one any good. That's a tremendous amount of wasted energy. The light bulb's efficiency sucks already. But now we have to make it put out more light just to see what we're doing on the ground. When headlights (which on EVERY SUV in the country are TOO BRIGHT and pointed up TOO HIGH) shine into a driver's eyes, he has more trouble seeing the road. That's actually dangerous. There's a type of headlight that's made in Europe, (my car aficianado friends tell me) which focuses a far sharper cone on the road and works about a thousand times better. They are not permitted in the US because the DOT standard is "good enough."
All in all, light pollution, besides ruining the night sky for astronomers and amateurs alike, is a pretty important topic. Our energy costs could go down . . . oh yeah. I forgot, that would hurt the oil com^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heconomy.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
You seem to be casting your leftwing dislike a little too far, of course they have homes and roads over there you know, you have over 360m people on quite a small continent, hence the reason it's so bright. Capitals' are clustered tightly together also, not like the USA where places are resonably spread out.
That's because people have this idea that 4-wheel drive and antilock braking systems will save them in every situation.
They don't though, you have to *learn* how to drive something with 4wd. Not only that, but you need to know how to drive the kind of 4wd you have - obviously a Suzuki SJ or Landie will be completely different from a Quattro (or its rarer, but oddly cheaper cousins, the VW Syncro) or Scooby Impreza.
I dispute that the US is the largest "polluter." Ok, I agree if you consider it as a single country, but if you look at it in land mass, Western Europe is every bit as bright. If you look at it as percentage of country covered, Japan certainly takes the prize followed closely, it looks like, by Germany and England.
What puzzles me is the islands off of South America. What is going on down there?
If you've ever lived in an area with deer, you'd have learned to appreciate lights which shine somewhat wider than the road immediately ahead of you.
Compare light to population and no one should wonder why the US is the biggest polluter in the world. Put together the light intensity of China, India, and Indonesia, and you've got half the population of the world, yet they still put off less light than the NorthEast corridor of the US. That's 3,000,000,000 people to 60,000,000.
Ya, it kind of annoyed me that the northern areas of canada were cut off. They just barely got edmonton on there. It would have been neat to see some of the northern towns in the yukon and the territories (and for you americans, Alaska). There is one "earth at night" image that a different poster (jmorzins) linked to, Here, that shows all the way up to the north pole. It is interesting since every little town and research site up there seems to have at least one light turned on.
People never deliberately do things wastefully and stupidly, it's because they're busy with other things, haven't expended the effort to understand the problem, or are simply not bright enough to understand it themselves and would have to hire someone else to do it for them.
You might say, "No problem! I know the answer, they just have to do as I say." but even after you manage to communicate it to them, they have no reason to believe you. You're just one more person with an agenda claiming unrelated benefits for compliance, which makes you as unreliable as a commercial advertiser.
After reading this story, almost everyone will forget about it, because it's really not very important. Astronomy is an impractical profession and an unusual hobby; it might be different if you could never get away from the light, but this is simply about the convenience of star-gazers. There are better things to spend our resources on.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
ulster.net? I guess that means you're in .uk? Try taking a street address of some place in Texas (Dell or Compaq would be a good start), plugging it into mapquest.com, and zooming out. Then click around in various directions and see how they correspond to the light pollution map. And by the way folks, this map is supposed to be a light pollution map, not a light source map, so that's why there are all these great blobs, including ocean areas.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I feel kind of ignorant, but what's that huge bright spot off the coast of Argentina? It looks too big to be the Falkland islands.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
One thing to point out, is that the map is using mercator's projection (a way of making a sphere look like a square on a map) and it makes things near the equator a lot smaller than the land far from the equator. This makes places like india, australia and the malasia area a lot smaller compared to europe, canada, and northern US. Those cities in australia, for instance, are a lot larger than some of the canadian cities shown, yet it looks like they give off a heck of a lot less light. I don't think it is the amazing lighting technology they are using.
According to this article, an SUV owner spends an extra $100-$250 per month compared to a regular car in just operating costs on top of the extra cost of the vehicle. It would be better to put this in a retirement fund. Considering that 85% of these vehicles are never used for the conditions they are designed for, that really is a waste. All for ego.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Well, if you thought driving at night on an unlit highway with no headlights is bad, then you know what flying at night is like all the time.
I for one delight in being able to use the artificial upshining night lighting to navigate by. It makes the skies SAFER. And that's more important than some stargazing.
If you want darkness, go drive to the boonies.
*Sigh*
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Well, I haven't read the article, where it may explain, but I thought maybe, since those pictures must have been taken at different times, it has to do with schedules, timezones, and all that. The light in CDT at 1 am versus the one in MDT at 12 or something. Or maybe that's where one picture ends and the other starts, and they are from different times/days.
Also note that the London-like lights near Nigeria are actually in the Gulf of Guinea.
There are lights in the North Sea, though I can write those off to drilling.
Anyway, quite an interesting idea. Some cities are easy to pick out, as is (for example) the Lower Nile and the associated delta.
In response to another poster, the entire world is not included in this atlas. If you look closely at the big world thumbnail, you can discern the areas of the world that they've actually surveyed. Apparently they gave low priority to oceans, Siberia, and Canada.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Don't know about Kashmir.
Nigeria and Brunei could be burning off waste gas in the oilfields. But Nigeria has 80 million people nearly all of them in a tiny area in the south. Even though they are mostly dirt poor, that many people will still have a lot of city lights.
It'd be interesting to know if their results could be used to find the brightest city in the world. Looking at the maps, my guess would be Stockholm or Chicago. Because of the map layout, it's hard to judge based on geographic size of a "white spot" (ie, countries closest to the poles are smaller than they appear and thus a city is spread out over more pixels). Does their data make any mention of this?
It's a map of light sources, and shows some really interesting structures. The Nile is much brighter than the rest of Egypt, the central U.S. is a grid of cities, and there's a railroad stretching across Russia to the Pacific Ocean.
A small version of the image was an astronomy picture of the day last November (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html), and a larger version of the image is also available (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earth lights_dmsp_big.jpg). There's a short writeup at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Lights/.
That odd line shows up if you plot the number of "towns" listed in the USGS list of named places. There are two lines, the one that shows up on this graph and one east about 200 miles but its not clear on the light polution graph.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
If we are seeing so much artificial lighting from space, then it says something about the lighting used. If the light sources were only pointing their light towards the grounds, using shrouds to avoid upward distribution of light, then we should see a darker night view. Also, any light source that can be seen from space is probably also using more energy than necessary. Being environmental friendly is not always a question of finding an alternative, but simply using what we already have in a smarter way.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Disclaimer; I'm an amateur astronomer and a member of the Int'l Dark Sky Association. The thing that drives the light pollution activists most nuts is that this is nearly all waste. The majority of lights, and nearly all of the lights that you see in situations like this, are badly designed lighting fixtures that spill much (sometimes more than half) of their light uselessly into the sky. People put in lights to illuminate buildings and roadways, then they use crappy fixtures that send more light into your eyes than onto the intended target. Bad lighting is sometimes worse than no lighting at all. I've certainly driven down roads where I could see better after I get out of the lighted street area, because of the glare from the lights directly in my eyes. I've also seen really bad flood lamp security lighting where a robber could walk right up to the house and not be seen, because again, the lamps are glaring in your eyes so bad you can't see in the shadows. It's this kind of thing that gets me going. That, and people that are so scared of the boogeyman that they have to have several thousand watts of lights on their property up all night long.
I think funds from the incandescent lighting project have been once again diverted to the countries long running beer consumption experiment.
- The Falkland Islands / Malvinas catching fire?
- Atlantis alive and kicking
- A bug sitting on the satellite sensor
- ...?
Just wondering...No a better choice would be the fat lazy welfare recipients. There are lots of them and they do nothing productive. This would at least justify their existence.
Yawn. Tough talk when the SUV owner can't see and hear you in person. Just another jealous coward.
Too bad there's no point beyond the earth where the gravities from the earth and sun cancel out though.
Last post!
Rainfall. The area west of the 100th parallel used to be known as the "Great American Desert" and was considered by some to be as uninhabitable as the Sahara. Giant dams and massive irrigation projects have made this less the case, but to this day only a small fraction of the West has been irrigated enough to be useful. Its very interesting to look at a map of two states, say, Missouri and Nevada. In Missouri, there's a town every 10 miles. In Nevada, there's a town every 100 miles, and this difference is solely due to the difference in rainfall between the two regions.http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/014 0178244/qid=997558029/sr=2-1/107-3046739-4898128>C a dillac Desert.
For a good espousure of this try reading a href=
The lights down there are from Japanese Squid fisherman (I'm not making this up!)
The amount of light coming from the Falkland islands in that map is really bugging me. It makes it look huge. What is going on down there? real size?
Almost all bright spots where you don't expect them are either fishing fleets using super bright lights to attract fish (the brightest lamps made i the world by GE are using for fishing) or burn off from oil wells.
That line is a bit west of the Mississippi River.
It's way further than a bit. I'd say Oklahoma City and Dallas are over 400 miles west of the Mississippi River.
The American conquest and subsequent resettlement of North America was a movement westward.
Geez, why is it that everyone with an axe to grind has to find some excuse to whet it, no matter how unrelated it is to the topic at hand. You seem to be enjoying the fruits of this conquest. If you don't like it, go back to your ancestor's country, wherever that is.
The history of the world is one people displacing another. If we are going to redress the wrongs in America, why don't we redress them worldwide back to the dawn of time, instead of singling America out as being somehow unique in this regard.
Back on topic. Yes, light pollution sucks. Go to the International Dark-Sky Association site to see what you can do to curb it.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Problem with opposite position is that
a back-lit Earth view has some terrible
glare issues since the camera would be
looking directly into the sun. (The Earth
would not fully eclipse the solar disk.)
(Apologies for not creating an account yet.)
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Well today in America nobody gives a fuck about techno(oh god I hated techno) and have learned to not believe political noise just because it comes from the radio. But if you've ever heard Europeans or Canadians talk, they just loooove television. And their favorite television sitcom or channel will be inserted to every part of the discussion. Kind of how like we were 10 years ago.
I'm dead serious about this. Keep in mind too that they might not be as dissillusioned about television yet and may very weel be believing everything they see and hear in the media. I remember 10 or 20 years ago here in the US when radio and television held quite a bit of prestige. Looking back, I know I was naive to trust them.
Maybe we shouldn't be angry with Europeans but look at them as a retarded little brother with a learning disability.
I can honestly say that right now my mindset is one that experiences shades of zen from time to time. Where I'm not excited by things I read and just see them as bright points of logic. I've seen this in others around me here in the US. I think maybe in ten years, our retarded little brothers will maybe reach this state.
Ever been nagged to no end by a wife or other female in the family? Don't the Canadians and Europeans remind you of this? I find it so similar that it's unnerving. Maybe the next weapon should be a huge hand that will swing backwards through the air upon neihboring countries. Press a button and *whap* *whap* *whap*.
karma capped
First, I was not the original poster. But I will tell you that those who drive 4x4 SUVs only on their high quality suburban American roads are morons for paying four times as they needed to for their vehicle. Never mind safety and energy concerns. And while I do not have an exact percentage it does not take a genius like you to look around and realize it's quite high.
Fishing. Massive fleets use massive amounts of light at night to attract fish. In the Falklands, they don't fish it themselves, but they make hellalotta money off the licenses. It's a rich area (fish-wise).
Acording to this I left my porch light on again
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Here's a good site about Texas highways.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The comet was Hale-Bopp. I live in Los Alamos, elev. 7200 feet. If you are willing to drive for about 20 minutes, you can be 800 feet higher, in the middle of the Jemez Mountains, and quite separated from manmade lights. The night sky -- the real night sky, not the four stars and an airplane that the city-dwellers get -- is staggering. The astronomers are fighting a losing (lost?) battle, but I am glad I have seen just where we fit.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
You may want to check the following: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010709.html
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
No, the sun's never far below the horizon. you get more of a perpetual twilight.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
They don't applied a world wide statistic to Europe, but the increase ratio of artificial sky brightness as measured at the Asiago Astrophysical Observatory in Veneto, Italy. In the past forty years htere was an annual increase of about 10%. Unfortunatly here in Italy it's possible to build everithing, expecially light fixtures! In few years it could not be possible to build new building unless you destroy the previous ones.
Doh! That should be "cui bono?"
I wrote parts of this stuff
Yes, I noticed that. I find it very hard to believe that the Falkland islands are one of the brightest spots in the southern hemisphere - does oil drilling really produce so much light? I used to live in Denver, and so I find it hard to believe (after seeing the excess there, and the lack of stars) that the much smaller cities of Calgary and Edmonton further north are so much brighter. As for the darkest place on earth... try the south pole in winter.
Looks like a problem with the mapping, unless Syria is a very dark place, if you take a look at a high-res map there's still a little gap in there, but it's less pronounced.
A morally indefensible point in climates where water is more expensive than gasoline.
Only safer in the sense that they have a tendency to inflict damage in a multi-car crash. Can you live with the realization that your "safety", which wouldn't be necessary if people drove the cars that they needed to drive, only comes at the expense of the lives of others?
SUV's have a higher incidence of injury to the occupant in single car crashes than smaller cars with lower centers of gravity, and a much higher incidence of solo rollover.
As for status, I'll leave that one to the truly religious.
Here we have a sterling example of a person who appears to believe that preparation for war is the highest good a society can strive for.
I pity you, I really do.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
Argentina never won... all the light you see is the British army burning down various schools, churches, stealing candy from babies etc.
As for Kashmir, they got 400 million people to rub sticks together... or it's probably just the miliatry presence.
This is a picture along the same lines, only IMHO more awe-inspiring.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
[long, bitter story, snipped]...
Classic. Anybody that "roars past me" is a fscking asshole. And unsafe. All vehicles that are more expensive than mine are driven by fscking assholes, and without knowing the circustances, I will laugh at their misfortunes. Lovely. Thank you.
Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!
God forbid people actually do good...
You can see the same effect from the fishing fleets between Korea and Japan. Another interesting effect is made by the oil platforms in the North Sea.
That's a part of it. They *don't* learn. They just jump in it and drive it like they would a normal car w/o realizing that it is more likely to tip over due to the higher center of gravity or that it takes longer to stop because of the increased mass. I would see this all the time before the SUV craze with guys and their 4x4 pickups. Combine the over confidence produced by SUVs and the 80% greater chance that the occupants of a car hit by one will die, you can certainly see why many people don't like SUVs. Hell at least truck and bus drivers have to go through some form of training.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Indeed. It would show that the 3rd world countries getting a free ride in the Kyoto treaty are the real polluters in the world these days.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Having just returned from a trip to Safeway on my bike in which I was almost killed by some asshole in an SUV, I'm inclined to agree. I grew up on a ranch, and having driven all sorts and kinds of 4wd vehicles in my day, trucks, SUV's, tractors+trailers, etc, I know that you can't just hop into a vehicle like that and expect to be safe. There is a learning curve, and you'd better fucking make sure you've mastered it. Visibility, handling, turning radius, and speed are all factors that need to be considered when driving -ANY- large vehicle. SUV and RV owners (especially RV owners) should be required to take the same tests required to drive a truck with a cattle trailer. The same risks and considerations apply to any large vehicle like that, and it's shameful that lawmakers have been lobbied out of keeping people safe on public roads.
Despite all this, I'm probably going to buy an SUV after I get out of school. Why? Because I try to live places where I can bike back and forth to work, and I have a lot of stuff to haul around.
Then again, maybe I'll just use U-Haul.
I mean: :-)
the fisshing light, must be pointed to the see, not the sky.
Can a couple of ship really generate more light polution that the biggest city of Argentina and Brazil together?
I don't think so. But, the light is on the map, what can we do?
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Seems a little imposible for me this solution. .it could explain it...
Look at the density, this region is generating more light than BuenosAires or SaoPaulo.
Also, the fisshing light, must be pointed to the see, not the ocean.
What else could it be?
Hope the people at
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
Hi, boys,
l ). If the growth rate would be smaller, this means that the measurements are larger than our predictions and that our maps underestimate the brightness in Europe.
:^)
I was looking around in search of press releases on our "First World Atlas of the night sky brightness" and I found your very nice site. The discussion is so lively and people so interested that I decided to answer to some your questions even if I am leaving tomorrow for my summer holydays. I hope you will excuse me if, for that reason, I will not able to answer to further questions. I also hope that you will bear my orrible English language.
-Northern Canada is so dark that the researchers forgot it existed
-It would have been interesting to have a complete map though. Alaska isn't even there!
-What's all that down near the Falkland islands, etc.
-Does anyone find strange the light off the Falklands? For a small set of islands with more sheep than people, how can they possibly generate so much light?
The paper, linked in the news, explain the majority of your questions.
"Satellite data also record the offshore lights where oil and gas production is active (visible e.g. in the North Sea, Chinese Sea and Arabic Gulf), other natural gas flares (visible e.g. in Nigeria) and the fishing fleets (visible e.g. near the coast of Argentina, in Japan Sea and near Malacca).
Their upward emission functions likely differ from the average emission function of the urban night-time lighting (that we used) so that the predictions of their effects have some uncertainty. The presence of snow could also add some uncertainty (see the discussion in our Paper 1). For this reasons we neglected territories near the poles."
In few years we hope to be able to update or method in order to take into account the effects of the snow so we could be able to make computations for the missed territories too.
-Why, we should all stop using any and all outdoor lights immediately, to make things easier for astronomers living in densely-populated areas!
Light pollution is a problem for the population rather than for astronomers. Astronomers can go to observe in some very dark site. But the loss of perception of the "world" where we live, i.e. the Universe, is a much worrying problem. The Milky Way is nothing of strange: it is simply the galaxy where we live. So we cannot be surprised if people are impressed when they realize that they cannot see it anymore.
-I think an atlas of the worldwide pollution would be much more interesting.
We are working both to a world atlas of the total light flux emitted upward and to an atlas of the growth rates of of light pollution in the World. Please be patient some years.
-I notice that there are chunks of the middle east and northern Africa that have been erased. Political lines are even gone. Is this a mistake, or are we protecting some valuable light pollution data, here?
Someone noted that original maps are very heavy. The computation of the world atlas was extremely time-consuming, so when we divided the World in sub-maps we has been forced to optimize as much as possible their size. This is the annoying reason of the missed areas between two sub-images. I agree with you that it is tiresome and I do not like it too.
-If you look at the large maps (can you say lots of memory?) they look much different than the low res maps. It looks to me that they picked an image reduction method that tends to highlight more areas than should be.
Our scientific result are the original high-resolution maps. In facts the press usually ask us them. The small images on the web site has been obtained reducing and automatically optimizing them as much as possible with a web-mastering program, Adobe ImageReady, in order to favour the fastest opening of the pages. You cannot expect a scientific rigourous detail in an image with a destructive compression like a JPEG or in a GIF reduced from 32bit to few colours. However before to put the images on-line we checked them and honestly I do not see any recognizable difference at their scale. Neither in Australia. However, if you need to enlarge them and to look at nearly pixel level, it is more correct to use the original science images not the web-optimized images.
-I also have certain doubts about Europe. The pictures of Europe were taken at a later date, and they subtracted 20% to compensate for that.
-Sounds like a lot for a region where building new houses, roads or anything is nearly impossible due to all the legislation.
The DMSP data on Europe was taken in the same period than the other data. We do not subtracted anything. The subtraction that you cite it is another question. When comparing our results obtained based on 1996-97 data with measurements of sky brightness taken from Europe in 1998-1999, we had to scale back them to 1996-97. So we approximatly rescaled them based on available mesurements of the growth rate of light pollution in Europe (10% per year, e.g. see http://debora.pd.astro.it/cinzano/en/page94en.htm
-First, they've opted for a horrible projection which neglects to include some areas and skews others.
We used latitude/longitude projection because it is the standard in our field. Both radiance measurements, digital population data and digital elevation data are in this projection. However we will remember your suggestion for other projection in our popularization activities.
-Acording to this I left my porch light on again
Smile! We are going to photograph you with our satellite!
I hope to have satisfied at least some of your curiosities. Thank you again for your interest.
Have a nice discussion.
Pierantonio
Pierantonio Cinzano
ISTIL, Italy
"what is the lights in the North Sea? Oil Rigs?" YES if you ever get a chance to go near a big rig that's pumping you'll be amazed at the size of the burn off flame. I saw one going once that must have been 2-300 feet tall. It seems amazing that, in the process of getting all that "precious" stuff out of the seabed, they can't help but waste enough fuel to keep a couple of countries heat and lit.
Northern Canada is so dark that the researchers forgot it existed.
driving up auto insurance rates by making yourselves more vulnerable to injury
Wow. Let me tell you a story about four fucking wheel drive. About ten years ago, I was driving through Kansas in November or so. Doing 70 mph, we drove onto an inch-thick sheet of ice, rather suddenly. The wind was chilling the road, and all the melting snow suddenly became solid. The car in front of me (just a car) started fishtailing. I tapped my brake ever so lightly, not yet realizing my peril, and I was fishtailing too. Well the car in front of me lost control and went off the right side of the road, flipped upside down, blew his front and rear windows out, and landed sitting upright. Screaming kids, stunned drivers. I went off to the left, but managed to keep the car upright, and safely stopped. The 18-wheel truck behind us managed to come to a safe stop as well.
After I talked to the driver of the car, and made sure they were all alive, we drove to the next town to call the police (this was before every pinhead had a cell phone in his back pocket) and for the next hundred miles I counted a four-wheel-drive vehicle tumbled over on the side of the road every three miles. I only saw one or two regular-sized cars. Almost without exception, the people who misjudged their driving abilities, their speed, and their car's traction, were driving a hopped-up SUV or light truck of one kind or another. I saw maybe three or four regular cars. The rest of us, not having this blind belief in the indestructibility of our vehicles, drove slowly and cautiously. But the SUV assholes roared past us all, and a good number of them ended up inverted in a ditch. So DON'T TELL ME about how your SUV is so fucking safe. I laughed as I drove past some of those people. I laughed the fuck out loud. You are buying the DELUSION of safety with an SUV.
My original post had nothing to do with the fitness of these cars. I just made a note that the lights were pointed higher than they needed to be. I will point out that I have yet to be blinded by the lights of a bus or 18-wheel truck. I think because they're correctly configured. It's as if the SUV designers sat down in a smaller car, right in front of the SUV, and designed the lights so that they could not help but annoy the driver in front of them.
People wouldn't hate SUV's so much if their designers and owners didn't make such a point of being arrogant about them. I can't tell you how I long to go up to a Jeep and paint in big bold letters on the back windshield: "No, it's a penis thing, and sadly, I do understand."
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
From your earlier post:
Why, we should all stop using any and all outdoor lights immediately, to make things easier for astronomers living in densely-populated areas!
Come to think of it, we should also tear up all the asphalt so geologists can get a better look at the ground.
And now:
Astronomy is an impractical profession and an unusual hobby; it might be different if you could never get away from the light, but this is simply about the convenience of star-gazers.
However, it turns out that people in general, not just astronomers, value a dark sky at night. Sure, I assume astronomers would like to have a dark sky, because their work is most severely impacted by this problem. But I don't think this is about astronomers at all. It's more about everyday people wanting to be able to see and enjoy the night sky.
I have a friend, Nakoruru. Nakoruru is an Indian. Not a savage like the American Indian, but a black negro Indian from India. Here is an account of when I first met her. Or him. Kind of hard to tell, they all look the same.
... I get it. "Little Nakoruruette." Ha ha. Cripes, look at that thing. Looks like a fleck of curry. How do you wack off with that, wrap that little dot on your head around it? Okay, I gotta go Nakoruru. See you tomorrow morning when I get my paper and coffee, ya little sand nig you."
"Nakoruru, what is that, Indian? Go make me a slurpee, Nakoruru, and give me one of those little "wassup" ligthers, too. I love that shit. Is it true you people eat your own children? I think I'll pass on that hot dog, Nakoruru. I don't want to be muching on little Nakoruruette. Hey, what are you doing? Why are you unzipping your pants? Put your pants back on! Oh
All living things live at the expense of other living things. Life is an arms race and I intend to win for as long as I can.
And then you'll lose, but they'll be no one left to be the victor. And with everyone treating this "arms race" like a sprint, they'll be the loser sooner than they think.
I want to win for a long time, but the way to win is not to destroy as quickly as possible.
The enemies of Democracy are
I think that photo is wrong. How can be light in the middle of the ocean (well... not in the middle) in front of Argentina's south coast. To the north of "Malvina's Island"??
According to this article, an SUV owner spends an extra $100-$250 per month compared to a regular car in just operating costs on top of the extra cost of the vehicle. It would be better to put this in a retirement fund. Considering that 85% of these vehicles are never used for the conditions they are designed for, that really is a waste. All for ego. I personally would never buy an SUV. They seem trendy and wasteful. But I do see a very practical reason to buy one: comfort. Many people who buy SUVs claim to enjoy sitting upright and stepping in and out of the vehicle rather than crawling into a compact car. I think car manufactures just haven't stopped to ask why people are buying these things... they just know they sell, and therefore spend their time trying to make the better SUV. What we all need is a line of cars that we can fit in again.
The Falklands have been mentioned, of course.
But the really odd thing is the *huge* patch of fuzzy light just north of the Outer Hebrides, North-West corner of Britain.
It's roughly where I'd expect the Faeroe Isles to be. The Faeroes are a small cluster of a dozen or so very small islands.
And before any irate Faeroese start to hassle me, I'm from a very small island off the NW of Britain myself!
Yeah, but the same narrow band lights that make astronomy easier also produce less visible light polution. Hence the corrolation.
I have friends who grew up here, who never saw a proper night sky. I convinced one of them to drive up a nearby mountain with myself and a couple of friends. She stepped out of the car and then stepped right back in, terrified by the stars.
There aren't any lights shining directly into my window. But I still can't sleep without the curtains drawn.
Mockingbirds start singing at 2 A.M.
Staples Center decorates itself with blue lights illuminating to top floor from below. You can see the blue light reflecting off the clouds, even if you drive two miles away and face away from Staples Center.
Reducing light pollution doesn't have to mean turning off lights. It can be as simple as installing a reflector above outdoor lights, so that light does not spill needlessly into the sky. This will also make your lights effectively brighter. Most cities are using shielded street lamps already, but I still see a lot of shopping malls and companies lighting their parking lots with un-shielded, 10,000W xenon lamps. That's just unnecessary.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
The old sovereignty by proximity doesn't really wash, France is only 22 miles from Britian but they're separate countries, well Brittany was once under British rule, but that was more to do with a Prince shacking up with a French bird (who happened to rule the whole of northern France, as you do).
The Falklands and Kashmir/Punjab are really bugging me out. There shouldn't be that much light there. In the Falklands the British might be up to something ( or did Argentina ever get that back? ) And god knows what might be going on in Kashmir and Punjab that we don't want to know about.
Am I just out of it today, or does that map only show the Western hemisphere?
This map is a godsend. With one fell swoop I can perceive which parts of the planet are fun for what reasons -- i.e., I had no idea Argentina was so full of stuff, or that Australia was quite so empty.
I heard some enviormental group in california started putting bumber stickers on SUV's that said something like "I'm destroying the Enviorment, ask me how." The funny thing about these was that they were super strength and nearly impossible to get off. Anyone know more about it, and perhaps where to get some. I'd love to take some sort of revenge on all the stupid soccer mom's in lincoln navigators that have nearly killed me about three times in the last week.
"To save the planet, I had to go to the worst spot on Earth, and that was Philadelphia." -- Sun Ra
There was a similar story to this posted on K5 a few months back, in fact I think that map was even more impressive, you can even make out the grid structures on the East coast.
As mentioned before, the milky way is absolutely amazing when you leave the metros, especially here in the Southern hemisphere. Sad to think how few people get the chance to just stare at it in awe.
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
...it's a product of a different value computation than you use. They generally get what they want from those "wasteful" choices.
They find the "wasteful" landscaping more beatiful. Their "wasteful" large vehicles are often safer than small, fuel-efficient vehicles (size remains the best single indicator of vehicle safety), and often confer that most precious of goods: status.
Let's not overlook the benefits of things that seem like absolutely blatant waste. For example: consuming twice as much food as one needs through inefficient processing and overeating. Once in a long while, a really bad year hits, and global famine results. People who normally consume twice what they need get by with minor inconvenience, while others begin resorting to cannibalism. Or consider war: who do you think will be better off between a country with huge factories that produce new oversized vehicles for its citizens every few years, and a country which, through careful design, only produces a handful of replacement parts for small cars that last practically forever? Who has the capacity to suddenly switch over to turning out mass quantities of the newest weapons?
Sometimes a prudent reserve isn't a static cache, but dynamic maintainance of supply lines which aren't currenly needed.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
I don't know if it's those fleets, but they do in fact use bright lights to attract squid.
uhhh.. bad.. this is just bad.. Canada doesnt produce any light.. Texas doesnt have any cities. Atlanta and Miami are missing.. and the west coast of north America doesnt have anybody living there. Also, most of the population areas on the map are west of where they should be. What a nice long exposure shot of 1 night.
North Carolina's Outer Banks are totally devoid of light on that map...
P.
This map is so revealing. I never realised that the distance from the South Pole to Australia was twice that from one pole to another. All jokes about using this as a navigational aid aside; does this map have a USE? I see your point about using it for "visual impact" though. If people could only look at light pollution on this map then they would realise just what it is doing to poor "Mother Earth". It's ripping her apart!! penguinshark
As several readers have pointed out, the map bright spots are closely matched with population/industrialization concentrations. And they mostly seem to make sense, except why in the heck are the Falkland Islands (off the East coast of Argentina) so damned bright? I mean, really, the Islands have an ordinarily resident population of 2,221 people.
Maybe the UK used some secret weapons during the 1982 war that left those bright spots behind?
Anybody want a peanut?
The maps's a bit wierd. What's all that down near the Falkland islands? It's almost all sea down there?
;)
Also, look near south west Kashmir, it reckons the area is as light as much of Europe.
Nigeria looks pretty light near the coast too - spending all that oil money eh?
It's interesting to pick out places - Cairo and the Nile valley in Egypt. Around Bangkok and further south to Kuala Lump and Singapore. Also the sultan in Brunei is leaving his lights on a bit too much
Tibet must be the darkest place on earth I reckon. Then again, maybe Somalia.
Jamie
All living things live at the expense of other living things. Life is an arms race and I intend to win for as long as I can.
Would seem to me if you live in the sticks and don't have broadband access, you could shine a flashlight at the sky and hope for the best.
You didn't have to go to so much trouble just to nag me.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
bit far north for that ;)
_ high.gif (big file) does appear to have lights in the right location. Sealand is so nearthe coast thoug, it may be somethig on te mainland.
However, http://www.darksky.org/ida/graphics/europe_lights
Considering just how light-polluted the eastern seaboard is, I'm surprised at how much the view improves after a 30-minute drive into the burbs west of Philadelphia or a 40-minute drive to a fairly rural part of southern New Jersey.
~Philly
There is atmospheric distortion too. Let's get rid of all that air as well :-)
karma capped
I think they wrap the sheep in aluminum foil (shiny side out) to keep them fresh.
Why, we should all stop using any and all outdoor lights immediately, to make things easier for astronomers living in densely-populated areas!
Come to think of it, we should also tear up all the asphalt so geologists can get a better look at the ground.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
If they want accurate results, they have to take pictures of each area during its night-time period. You have one hemisphere with lots of artificial lighting, and the other with almost no artificial light.
Fly in the day if you want light. 'nuff said.
Any vehicle will crash under those conditions. Being in a big heavy vechicle, though, makes it less likely you get crushed into dog food in the 100 car pileup.
Yeah, but they're not driven by complete morons, like you.
See also the sea of Japan. The Chernobyl area in Russia also seems pretty bright. Hmmmm.
A couple of points:
(a) seeing the universe laid out for real is awe-inspiring and more than a little humbling. I think that if more people were to see the real night sky more often, there'd be a significant attitude change. When you realize just how insignificant and impermanent we humans are, the bullshit in life isn't so important any more.
(b) street lights actually increase crime rates. No one wants to wander the streets in the dark, it's a bugger to break into a house when you can't see what you're doing, and it's difficult to be unseen when your flashlight turns out to be the brightest thing in the neighbourhood.
(c) if you really want to be impressed, take up backpacking and head into the mountains. There are some remote areas that make the normal "real" view from out-of-town look about as cheesy as the out-of-town view makes the in-town view look!
(d) in particular, aim to be in the mountains during a meteor shower. Ye godz!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
It's a false-color image. The sky brightness just happens to cross the threshold between "blue" and "green" there. The actual difference probably isn't as dramatic as it looks.
Funny how the trailors and buses don't blind me when they're behind me. But I guess they have better things to spend their energy on that ultra-bright bulbs.
But hey, "jealous of the well-to-do", "driving up auto insurance rates"... Thanks for spelling out your priorities in life. And I expect a thank you when you're allowed to keep up your lifestyle because someone else thought to fix the problems that threaten to end it.
The enemies of Democracy are
It's easy to see the difference between "conservatives" (read: capitalists) and "liberals" (read: socialists) on either map.
Just look at North and South Korea. It is easy to see where one begins and the other ends.
Interesting, look at SE Asia. Of all the countries there, the only one that's lit up is non-communist Thailand. It's brighter than China.
There's really nothing else like it. Not just the Milky Way, but the sheer number of stars everywhere in the sky in a dark area with clean air.
I live in southern central Canada, and going an hour away from Winnipeg (a fair-sized city in the middle of nowhere, by American, let alone European or Pacific rim, standards, so sprawling and covered with trees that it hardly looks like a city when you fly over it) is enough to get as good a view as you'll see anywhere.
It's not enough for me to make the trip just for that view, but it would be if I didn't see it a few times a year anyway. Don't miss it if you get a chance to just walk outside and look. It's an amazing thing to realize there really is no roof of any kind, just a clear view for a million parsecs.
OTOH, I was stunned in a similar way the first time I saw the glowing low cloud cover of a city night sky. I grew up in the country, and didn't realize that cloud cover didn't necessarily mean a pitch black sky at night. Very eerie.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
This is due to other atmospheric hazes -- in Chicago there's all sorts of moisture in the air and other aerosols that reflect the light pollution back to you when you're looking up, thus making it harder for you to see stars. But under clean air there can be a huge amount of light pollution around you and it won't affect the sky brightness very much at all.
I've seen the Milky Way from the city of Tucson, one of those very bright spots, but never from my home of St. Louis despite the fact that they're both hopelessly light polluted, and this is why.
I think an atlas of the worldwide pollution would be much more interesting. Especially in a time when the Kyoto Treaty is dangling. Pretor
Friend of mine worked for a summer camp that took troubled inner city kids. One of them was having a rough night so they went out to just sit on the end of the dock in the middle of the night. He could hear the kid was quietly crying, so after a bit he said "hey man, what are you thinking?" "I never knew there were so many stars.."
> another liberal myth
Well, I'm not a liberal (as my views -- not expressed here in detail -- on gun control and other issues would attest. But there's a bit off the human condition, the romance of the skies, that is destroyed by light polution. A story from my childhood:
I grew up on a farm in an area that, on the current referenced map, is light green. In the 1950's the area, like so many others, would have been black (had the technology for such an image existed).
It was corn harvest time in the midwest, a cold November night. I, a boy of about eight years, was holding the flashlight to help my father back up a wagon-load of corn to the elevator (to the urban dwellers, the term 'elevator' also refers to a sort of conveyor belt thing that lifts the grain to the top of the storage bin).
But boys will be boys (or, children, as it were -- no need to discriminate here), and the onyx sky overhead, embedded with diamonds, beckoned.
I knew at the time that the stars were far away, far farther that I could, at that time or any time within my reach, hope to travel. But I knew I could go there in spirit. And I knew a way...
I raised the flashlight and aimed it at a promising star; I then moved the beam outward in a spiral path to cover as much of the cosmos as possible. This gesture, I knew, would not redound to me in any way during this life.
But I knew then, and still know, that this beam -- four decades now on its illimitable tour -- still travels as _my_ message to other worlds.
And this, apart from astronomical considerations, is the magic that light polution destroys.
Rainfall.
The area west of the 100th parallel used to be known as the "Great American Desert" and was considered by some to be as uninhabitable as the Sahara. Giant dams and massive irrigation projects have made this less the case, but to this day only a small fraction of the West has been irrigated enough to be useful.
Its very interesting to look at a map of two states, say, Missouri and Nevada. In Missouri, there's a town every 10 miles. In Nevada, there's a town every 100 miles, and this difference is solely due to the difference in rainfall between the two regions. For a good espousure of this try reading Cadillac Desert, a documentary on the whole water thing.
Why is there this very straight line right down the middle of the US where the east side is very bright, but the west side is very dark by comparison? I might understand if that was where the Rockies started, but to my knowlege it's not. Does anyone know what this line signifies?
--
Seeing is believing; You wouldn't have seen it if you didn't believe it.
Forgot the point:
It seems that they applied a world wide statistic (increase of light/year) to a non typical region (Europe). I don't think that is wise.
P.s. my region is also awfully bright (the very southern part of the Netherlands)
The GOOD news in New York State is that both the State Assembly and State Senate have passed anti light pollution bill. It's waiting for the Govs signature. It requires full cutoff lights on Govt projects, and outlaws light trespass
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
if anything, so-called "conservatives" (read: fascists) should be sent to fat-rendering facilities and used as alternative fuel... but i digress...
And Americans PAY MORE to be wasteful. They've accepted the higher cost of waste. Why can't you accept that?
We do pay more. But if you think the only cost of being wasteful is some extra cash out of your paycheck, you are sadly mistaken. If you think you are the only one who pays the cost for your waste, then you are even more sadly mistaken.
You see? Your have to pay for what you want (light hoods). Let us pay for what we want (SUVs).
Hm. How long would it take for the light hood to pay for itself, because you can use a bulb half as bright (because all of it's light is hitting the ground, instead of half shining into space)? Not only from a monetary standpoint, but from the standpoint of conserving our energy supply. What I want gives us more energy, and saves us money (especially if it is a street light, paid for by your taxes).
But how does your SUV pay for itself? Maybe you think the extra monetary cost is worth it for the convenience or whatever the supposed advantage of an SUV is. But what about the extra fuel consumption? How is your SUV worth the extra cost to our (meaning everyone's) fuel supply?
You see, it isn't so simple as "you do what you want, let me do what I want", because what you do affects everyone.
Now before you dismiss me as a self centered American bastard. Know that we could conserve 95% of all water by recuclying and using (including for drinking) so-called gray water (recycled from sewage).
As a Boy Scout, I learned how to survive by distilling my own urine (though in a true survival situation, you could drink it straight up). I have no problem with this, and the existence of a stupid law prohibiting it doesn't surprise me. Yet another thing that needs to change, no surprise.
And how does this have to do with you not being a self-centered American bastard? ^_^
There's more to the equation than "conservation". People are living things that want to live confortably. And comfort requires waste. It is not wrong to want this, either.
It's not morally wrong to want to live comfortably, this is true. I myself want to live comfortably.
It's wrong in a factual sense to think that living comfortably requires waste (at least to the insane degree of current times). In fact, the opposite is true. Living comfortably requires that we not waste, so that we can continue to live comfortably, as can our children. We are either going to learn this, or we are going to stop living comfortably.
The enemies of Democracy are
The bright spots in the north sea between Great Britain and Norway may be from Oil and Gas production platforms. Only I doubt if they create so much light. Must be like down town London there.
Does anyone find strange the light off the Falklands? For a small set of islands with more sheep than people, how can they possibly generate so much light?
It would have been interesting to have a complete map though. Alaska isn't even there!
I live in the murky Eastern United States and if I can see a half a dozen stars from my backyard it's a good night. A few years ago I spent six weeks at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and one night several members of my team drove out to a remote corner of the site to take a picture of one of those comets that was big news in 1996 - I forget it's name. I thought the comet would be the high point of the night. It wasn't. Folks, when you are laying on your back looking up at the whole Milky Way splayed out above you, and you can really SEE that thing streching across the sky, it is a truly life humbling experience you will always remember. You almost think you could fall off the planet into the void. There is one hell of a lot more to see out there than a screen resolution of 800x600 pixels will ever show and it is worth the effort to get to dark skies to see it.
If you look at the large maps (can you say lots of memory?) they look much different than the low res maps. It looks to me that they picked an image reduction method that tends to highlight more areas than should be. The area north of Cairns Australia looks like its got a bit of light on the small pictures and only the two major towns on the high resolution image.
.tif images in Gimp (or anything else) unless you've got 1/2gig.
The Nile valley didn't have that many lights on at night the last time I was there. It tends to get dark and people go to sleep since the farmers along that river can't afford electricty on their $400/yr. The lights attracts bug which is a bad thing on the Nile.
Note, don't look at the
Funny. I didn't see you flaming the "morons who drive SUVs" you flamed the SUVs. Perhaps you could tell us what drivers are not morons or what percentage of SUV drivers are not morons. List, please. Or say "they're all morons" and prove yourself one. We're listening....
I'm not a member, but I know these folks have been getting a lot of press lately. Check them out at:
http://www.darksky.org/
Also, an August 8th interview on NPR's "All Things Considered" featured Elizabeth Alverez from the IDA. You will need the evil RealPlayer to listen to the interview here:
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20010808.atc.04.rm m
I won't address the statistical errors some believe they have made as I am not a statistician and only have a basic understanding of the field, what with those sigma sums and means, medians and modes, and such. I will address the cartographical problems of the map, though.
First, they've opted for a horrible projection which neglects to include some areas and skews others. Second, it simply doesn't carry much visual impact. If they wanted to make a message, a wiser choice of map projection would have been good. I suggest the Dymaxion Map, designed by Buckminster Fuller. This is the map known as the 'One-island-Earth' map as it accurately prtrays the world as one large land mass. It is nearly 100% perfect in its replication of land size and shape as it is the result of overlaying the globe on an icosahedron and unwrapping it.
You can find some info about the Bucky map here, http://www.bfi.org/map.htm, if you want to see this beauty.
The combination of the two would have been incredible. It would have conveyed the message that our world is becoming homogenized as the cities spread and join together, blanketing the world in light.
Pax Digitalia
light pollution to gain credibility and unconditional acceptence amongst less rational Americans.
Wait about 10 years for this to be accepted without question.