Slashdot Mirror
An Enlightened Look at an Over-Lighted World
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."
"...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.
I don't know about you, but I turn my lights off when I go to bed. The darn animals can come out then.
Does that mean there are hundreds of thousands of nerds with breast cancer from being bathed in the 24/7 light of a computer monitor for the past 15+ years?? I better start learning those breast checking techniques.
oh wait, thats bad movies... nevermind.
Maybe you would think differently about streetlights if you had been mugged or raped.
-if- this has truth, then note that life will evolve and adapt to the environmental change, just as it has for billions of years and untold other changes in the environment.
There is nothing to see here. Move along.
I don't care if the excess light inhibits further evolution or causes intense sleep disorder - I just want to be able to use my $350 telescope without having to drive to the fucking boonies!
Not really.
From fox43.trb.com: Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky March 30 03 SI-1409 British filmmaker Declan Desmond (guest star Eric Idle) heads to Springfield in order to film a documentary on the lives of American elementary students. Springfield Elementary is chosen as the school to be filmed and Bart and Lisa quickly find themselves at the heart of the film. Bart plans on showing how cool he is by hitting kids with dirt clods, but Nelson hits him first and Bart loses his status as a cool kid. Things get worse for Bart when Nelson steals a hood ornament and becomes king of the schoolyard, prompting even Milhouse to tell Bart how big of a loser he is. Principal Skinner wants to show Desmond the more enlightened side of the school and introduces him to Lisa. However, Desmond isn't impressed and belittles her into thinking that her life has no direction and she'll never succeed. Lisa becomes depressed and heads to the Springfield Museum to find inspiration. After deciding Paleontology and Geology aren't for her, she's captivated by the planetarium and decides to devote herself to astronomy. Lisa convinces Homer to buy her a telescope and she sets off to discover the wonders of the heavens. But, much to her dismay she finds that Springfield's light pollution is impeding her ability to view the stars. Lisa starts a petition to rid the city of it's nighttime lights, but after Mayor Quimby shuts down the lights, crime soars and the residents demand more light. Quimby turns on so much light that night becomes day and no one can get any sleep. Bart and Lisa, with Homer's help, overload the power plant and bring night back to Springfield. An angry mob is about to tear the kids apart until a meteor shower shows them just how beautiful the night sky is. Anyone who's seen this episode can agree, those animals (and humans) were doing some weird stuff from all of that light! And we all know, if its on Simpsons, it must be true!
I don't need light. I just sit here in the dark with the light from my monitors. No need for bulbs. OK so my eyes might go but hey :)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
of that simpsons episode!
... coming down the fiber is making their server crawl.
Evolution has given us several adaptations that allow us to be in darkness as needed.
I think they all revolve around configuring sendmail.
Building houses right on the animals homes is probably a lot worse for them than shining lights during the twilight hours. At midnight in my town we don't have coyotes and mountain lions roaming our streets; they stay out in what wilderness is left. And somehow I think my little wooden box has more to do with it than the light it emits.
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 ;)
I live in England and a popular BBC science TV programme, "Tomorrow's World" was doing reports on this phenomenon as far back as 1998/1999. If I recall correctly, they even asked viewers to do an informal study whereby they looked at the night sky through a toilet roll tube and counted the number of visible stars, then to send in that number and geographical location in so that they could figure out where light pollution was worst. As far as I can tell, the south of the country was a lot more afflicted than the north, with major cities (particularly London) often having no stars visible at all at some times.
Bash script for FP whores
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. At night.
This article would apply to the retarded person who works the night shift under artificial light, and then goes home to sleep during the day and neglects to pull the shades down, however.
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. Going back to the dawn of electric lighting it was certainly very welcomed in its day. Just like Rouseau or many philosophers before and after, we realize that we are unhappy and we look back to some idealized vision of the past (where people had half the life expectancy they do now) and think that they were happier, but really, they weren't.
who's bright idea was this anyways?
That's not even a fucking word.
It's LIT.
The International Dark Sky Association is an organization that has been looking at these issues for some time, if you want to get involved. They have some interesting information and data about night-time lighting and its relationship to crime, as well as other things.
Throughout history all mankind was treated to this incredible sight, and now for most of us, it's gone.
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?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
*rubs eyes in dismay*
I could'a sworn this was Slashdot, not kuro5hin.
Must... not... make... NPR... jokes...
*falls out of chair*
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
Having been a city dweller for more years than I care to remember, I recently had an assignment in Mongolia. I was working about 50 miles from the nearest group of tents, which is the closest thing you get to a village in that part of the world, and hundreds of miles fom the nearest town, I continuously found myself staring upwards muttering expletives to myself, a truly awsome sight. Perhaps soon to become one of the wonders of the ancient world.
Worrying about light is for those without enough to think about.
Urban sprawl is far more destructive than light. In the grand scheme of things, light should be about the least of our worries.
I would love to reduce light pollution but it could be part of efforts to conserve energy generally.
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.
Oh well, what the hell...
You guys have seen daylight?
-n-
"However, Desmond isn't impressed and belittles her into thinking that her life has no direction and she'll never succeed."
If Lisa were so fucking smart, she'd already be like that, having discovered existential nihilism. That's what smart people do. Then they either get depressed and shoot up their school/workplace, or they discover art as a means of escape and produce a great work.
Okay, here's the joke I was gonna make, "Take back the night sky, Springfield!"
:)
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.
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
On March 31, 1880, the good people of Wabash, Indiana (population 320), launched a technological revolution. Atop the town's courthouse dome, they mounted two crossarms with a 3,000-candlepower carbon-arc bulb at both ends of each. They then fired up a threshing-machine steam engine to generate electricity, and at 8 p.m. sharp, flipped a switch. Sparks showered, and Wabash became the first electrically lit city in the world. "The strange, weird light, exceeded in power only by the sun, rendered the square as light as midday," one witness reported. "Men fell on their knees, groans were uttered at the sight, and many were dumb with amazement. We contemplated the new wonder of science as lightning brought down from the heavens.
A century and a quarter later, electric light turns night into day around the globe. In the first world atlas of artificial night-sky brightness, released in 2001 by the Italian astronomer Pierantonio Cinzano and based on high-resolution satellite data, the heavily developed urban corridors of Japan, Western Europe, and the United States blaze like amusement parks. We flood the heavens with so much artificial light that nearly two-thirds of the world's people can no longer see the Milky Way. On a clear, dark night far from light-polluted skies, roughly 2,500 celestial points of light can be discerned by the naked eye. For people living in the suburbs of New York, that number dwindles to 250; residents of Manhattan are lucky to see 15. Moreover, as the stars fade from view, a growing body of research suggests that excessive exposure to artificial night light can alter basic biological rhythms in animals, change predator-prey relationships, and even trigger deadly hormonal imbalances in humans.
Many creatures are genetically programmed to navigate by the dim glow of the stars and the moon. For them, night lights can be deadly: Michael Mesuren, founder of the Toronto-based Fatal Light Awareness Program, estimates that 100 million songbirds collide with lit buildings in North America each year. Likewise, artificial light is a source of confusion for the nocturnal cousins of butterflies. Entomologist Rod Crawford, of the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, believes that light pollution may be the leading cause, after habitat loss, of the decline of the spectacular giant silk moths that were once a source of summer visual delight. "The farther from lights and altered habitats you get, the more moths you find," he says.
Kenneth Frank, a Philadelphia physician and lepidopterist, says that light-lured moths often miss their brief opportunities to mate, or succumb to light-stalking predators. Bright lights also disrupt migration routes, confining some moth populations to isolated islands of darkness. But Frank concedes that the plight of moths is unlikely to rouse public outcry. "Never argue against something on behalf of moths," he warns. "People will just laugh at you. Talk about ecosystems instead."
And there is plenty to talk about. Just ask Marianne Moore, a limnologist at Wellesley College who studies the life cycles of zooplankton--minute crustaceans and rotifers that rise toward the surface of nearby lakes at night to feed on algae and then descend by day to escape predators. Her research suggests that the sky glow reflected from streetlights prompts the tiny organisms to remain well below the surface. This deprives the zooplankton of nutrients and allows runaway algae to grow, which in turn suffocates other aquatic plant life. At the same time, artificial light appears to wreak havoc on the mating habits of the little lake creatures. "Lunar cues are very important for reproduction," Moore says, and sky glow simulates those cues.
Many people might consider such subtle changes in the environment a small price to pay for brightly lit communities. But new medical data suggest humans are not immune to light pollution. In 2001 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published two studies that the editors argued revealed "
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 special.
Losers choose to abuse the use of "loose".
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.
Even more revealing is the Korean peninsula. South Korea is brightly lit, but there is a sharp divide at the 38th parallel: northward it is very dark indeed.
From the article:
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, either! One Dallas suburb uses what I assume are low-pressure sodium lights, and it's downright painful to drive down the street. In fact, it's moderately dangerous -- you can't tell the streetlights from the traffic lights, especially when fatigued.
On the other hand, I didn't know that the lights were easier on the light pollution -- in fact, I had heard that they were worse, but I probably got them confused with the wide-spectrum high-pressure sodium lights mentioned in the article.
Hmmm... wonder what would happen if you broke a sodium vapor light under water? If you try it, don't forget to send the story to this guy.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Very true. I'm sure those reasons are actually much more valid than the lack of light. I've read documentaries on small small villages in northern Canada & their economies don't really exist - they live off of whaling & seal oil. The kids hear enough about the rest of the world that they want to leave, but with no money, a lot of them don't think they can. So in some areas, the suicide rate is actually highest among teenagers / young adults. However, even with all these other factors, the suicides end up happening in the 'night' season.
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.
...can't you find something better to point that scope at???? *cough*
article: "The farther from lights and altered habitats you get, the more moths you find," he says.
That's really strange.. Moths always seem to just love hovering around the porchlight where I live.
That's like roses and plants. Stupid.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
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, seasons, etc., they've all managed to evolve just fine.
Sure the article is informative but the studies should have included any relevant information (and I'm sure there is some) on adaptations by animals who are affected by this. As stated before though, animals have managed to adapt just fine for millions of years, and I'm sure similar arguments have come about for other technologies and when time has gone on, studies were proven wrong.
Example... Windmills used for energy were supposedly the devil's spawn way back when because it was viewed as a bird killer. Yet there is little mention of this anymore. Either the birds that were being killed are all dead and an entire species became extinct or... DUH... They adapated
Now to scroll down and see some trolls mention that Nelly Furtado "Turn off the lights" song
MoFscker
Yeah I also went to the tropical forest once.
And man, 50 miles from civilasation, the stars are awesome.
It was such a breath taking sight.
Stars EVERYWHERE.
Must have been thousands.
There were more stars then darkness
Incredible, really incredible.
Get a ship! .. it's dark out there and plus u can navigate to avoid the clouds.
Alternatively go out in the desert.
Why should people reduce their quality of life to support someone's hobby. I have no prob with reducing my quality of life if it's actually going to HELP somebody.
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 ago when I went out to have a look at the Leonids with a friend and my wife out by Lake Matthews in Corona. Simple reason: it was the closest location to Orange County where we could watch this with no worries about light pollution.
My point? Maybe they're not physically harming us, but in the name of progress we are probably shutting down the backyard astronomers.
This sig no verb.
As a kid, I recall the first time I noticed the MW, I must have stared for an hour. I live an hour outside of Pittsburgh now and most of the sky is washed out. so I don't know how my kids are going to get the same treat. I was on a cruise last year and it was overcast at night, so we didn't get the chance to see much :-|
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 things bright enough to be seen.
It's great to see the mention of the wattage and infrared inefficiencies of light sources, but it'd be better still to get numbers on what this does to global warming. If you think about the Terrawatts we're pouring into the atmosphere, there has got to be some measurable totals for temperature increase.
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.
He didn't refute his own argument. He restated their thesis & then showed how ridiculous it was.
I hear he's quite the expert in breast exams from all those Krispe Kreams and time alone.
I was recently treated to this light show. Last weekend I was up in Clinton BC for the annual SCA war (google it if you don't know). Being that it's held in the middle of a huge ass field a few km from Clinton itself, which is in turn in the middle of nowhere, the night sky was amazing. Even with the light pollution of torches and flashlights from the 1100 campers around me, you could still easily just stare up at the sky and see the band of the milky way stretched across.
Quite honestly I just stopped in my tracks more than once and did nothing but stare up at the sky for a while, then move on a bit, and repeat.
"That's why everyone that lives in Alaska, north of the arctic circle, dies when they reach puberty."
Nope... due to deadly hormonal imbalances they never reach puberty.
Life on the threshold of puberty... in other words: hell.
So what do my idiot landlords do just before we move in but install an automatic high pressure sodium street light right outside the house! Not only that, but they installed it facing the bedroom window! It went on automatically when it got dark, and there wasn't even a way to turn it off. They had wired it directly into another circuit that we were generally using, and hadn't installed a switch to it or anything. What the hell were they thinking? Did they suppose people moved to the middle of the woods to have the damn place lit up like suburbia?
Fortunately, the light stopped working after a few months. Just like them to put in a cheap piece of crap that fell apart before long, but that was the right thing to do for once. (Or at least, it was the less wrong thing.) We didn't ask them to fix it.
And the brethren went away edified.
Get out and drive into the desert. I was astonished by the Mojave at night - and not especially far from Las Vegas or LA. You can truly see how the Mikly Way got its name. As an additional treat, it's dead silent - quieter than an empty office since there's no HVAC whooshing, computer fans humming, etc. Get out of your car, turn off your lights and walk around in the pitch black desert (sliver moon or no moon) - you'll feel an odd sensation - you're aware of the vastness of the desert, but hemmed in by the darkness - claustrophobia and agoraphobia at the same time!
When I was 19 I went out into the desert and hid in my tent from the ending if sunset until about 9:00 pm. I then went outside with a baseball cap on and kept my eyes to the ground. I closed my eyes, took off the cap, turned off the flash light and looked up.
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 sometimes walk the half mile up the mountain road into the valley behind my house and look up at the sky. The air here (southeast Alaska) is not as clear as the air of the Arizona desert due to all the moisture of the nearby Pacific Ocean, but the view is still damned impressive.
And yes, on a clear night I can see the Milky Way glowing brightly in the sky.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Which is why his unreasoning derision of these scientific claims, rather than a factual rebuttal, is worthy of scorn and ridicule. If this is 'skepticism' then it's pseudoscientific skepticism at it's worst.
There's a good section in that article called 'Lighting 101,' with a few facts about different types of electric lights. Check it out if you didn't already.
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!
Well, you could always buy Loving County, Texas. From the Handbook of Texas Online:Looks like a good bet for your proposal! Imagine a whole community of Slashdotters in the middle of the West Texas desert.
But don't forget to bring your own water. "Water from the Pecos, however, is too saline for drinking, so the 100 residents of the county haul water from a community tank." Evian, it ain't.
On the bright side, though, we could elect CowboyNeal as County Sheriff!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The real problem is...all that stuff in the picture is totally wasted. We are ground creatures. Anything that shines up is almost totally wasted light.
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.
cwel!
Ah, a perfect opportunity to post a link to my favorite NASA photo! It is a composite image called the Earth at Night. It shows the intensity of man-made light on earth. The brighness level is a facinating combination of population density and economic development.
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".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
South Park did the "Simpsons did it" bit already!
I think like in the movies we should have mirrors in space so that it can be day light 24/7. ;-) That way the clowns won't get me ;-p hehe.
Too many bright young slashdotters are making light of this dark situation. I have but a glimmer of hope that the truth will come shining through and enlighten us all!
The former director of the planetarium in my town reportedly once shot out a light in the middle of a field because it was blocking his view.
When we lived out in the middle of nowhere, my brother would sometimes use his telescope looking through our sliding glass door when the mosquitos were too bad to go outside (the perils of living on a swamp), and even through a smudged sliding glass door, he could see more than he could when we lived in town. Alas, all the yuppies moved out there and the night skies are no longer pristine.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
I live in an brownstone townhouse in the oldest party of my city. I had one of the electricians from my place-of-work (bigthreeauto) come and, while the light was still powered, install a switch in the interior of the column.
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 grew up in a rural area, and the bloody city lights are one of my #1 pet peeves. Night was meant to be dark. I get *very* uncomfortable under street lights.
Plus, excessive food is the number one cause of death. Eliminate food for big savings for our corporate masters!
This is my sig.
Desert terrain I think is appealing... you want the air to be dry to prevent, um, twinkling of the stars.
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 could get sponsorship from some kind of industry that would use the land, but not at light. You'd think mining companies would be a natural choice, but damn if they don't light up their operations like Christmas Trees at night.
Too bad arid land doesn't make for good farming.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Important Fact from the Galactic History, Number One: (reproduced from the Siderial Daily Mentioner's Book of Popular Galactic History)
The night sky over the planet Krikkit is the least interesting sight in the entire Universe.
Light fucks up moths.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
here's a larger image than the one in the article.
a ge s/Images/earth_lights_lrg.jpg
much cooler.
the rest of the site isn't too shabby either.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewIm
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 companies still shed load every night. Thus, to ballance out usage, power companies give a really sweet deals for nighttime lighting.
Interestingly, the commercial billing is set up to penalize peak usage. Here in Illinois ComEd charges industrial customers based on their highest three hours in the last 12 months (simplified explaination), where it is possible to pay more for your peak charges than actual usage for many months. Thus, running a computer in the hours setting the peak is usually more expensive than running it for the entire rest of the year.
In Toronto, there's been quite a lot of political pressure placed by animal science professionals/animal activists to cut down on the amount of skyscraper lights that go on at night.
God if only I had the energy to find a suitable link to make this a two paragraph reply...oh wait.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Wake up, people of America.
Light pollution is causing considerable damage to our planet.
I invite you to see the meteor shower next week, turn all your lights off.
And you don't need drugs to appreciate *that* (just to enhance it).
Thank you Springfield!
Lisa S.
Did you even read the article? They said they found no correlation between less light and crime...
yours,
kbs
Damn hooligans will steal your hood ornaments!
Lets turn the light setting up to Perma-Noon!
I don't know if you were the one who posted it a few months back on slashdot but that photo has been my background photo since then. Its amazing.
--
most of the world still lives in darkness.
So just use red lights. It doesn't affect night vision in humans (and maybe other creatures too, I dunno), which means people can still see on the streets, as well as see the night sky and all the funkalicious stars.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Anyway, in reading these pulp novels, I always wondered if things really were that dimly lit in the 1920's and 1930's, that someone dressed in black being able to hide in the corner of a room you were in seemed realistic back then, or if even then it was a preposterous notion (as it would be if the same novels were being written today). If such a thing would have been possible, then we really do light our communities and buildings WAY more than used to be done in the early days after the invention of the electric light.
ChicagoFan
"...I continuously found myself staring upwards muttering expletives to myself, a truly awsome sight. Perhaps soon to become one of the wonders of the ancient world."
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 anywhere, so they're not going to become "one of the wonders of the ancient world". That would assume that EVERYWHERE on Earth would be lighted at night, and that will never be the case. If you're in a city, you're simply going to have to plan your star trips, and go into the boonies at night. But those unlighted boonies will always be there.
Wish I could have been with you in Mongolia though. That sounded like an outstanding expierience. Wonder what you do for a living?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
maybe this is a good time to mention the LED? since it only gives off light in one wavelength, which would be white light with a bluish cast to it.
I, for one, welcome our new night sky overlords!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Holy crap, did you read yourself?
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...
Write boring code, not shiny code!
There's nothing 'insightful' about this post, it's simply an ideological diatribe maligning the work of real scientists without offering any kind of factual rebuttal. Several scientists and physicians (including a neuroendocrinologist) made many very specific claims about the effects of light pollution on humans, insects, and plankton. Your rebuttal is 'Yeah... Riiiiight.' I didn't read a single valid counterpoint to any of the claims presented in this article.
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
I have been trying to figure out what the heck this means for some time. Is this a reference to something that I am not getting?
Seriously,
Mr. A.C.
Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reviewed the health histories of 78,562 nurses and found a lower but still significant correlation: Those with one to 29 years on the night shift showed, on average, an 8 percent increase in breast cancer; those with 30 or more years showed a 36 percent increase.
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 a more natural cycle. I personally think depression caused by working overnight has far more to do with these health problems. The typical health of most night-time workers I've known (over 35) have been in rough shape from mostly preventable conditions like smoking, drinking, etc.
Elizabeth Alvarez, the International Dark-Sky Association's associate director, counters with photos of bright streetlights casting deep shadows where bad guys could lurk. "Glare does not help visibility!" she says. "Too much light is blinding."
This is very true. When I grew up out in the country, I could walk outside and see several hundred feet on any night with even a slight moon. Once I moved to the city, this was not the case. So many bright lights everywhere, that where one is not appears pitch black. No way in hell could you ever manage to sneak up on me out in the woods, but in a city, it'd be about as hard as standing past where the street lamp's light is cast.
The thing that bothers me about all this extra lighting at night is the wasting of resources. I'd rather get a cut on my state and local taxes and do without the massive lighting infrastructure on my local freeways. My car has headlights that illuminate everything I need to see to drive safely and the only cost is energy my motor would have wasted anyway.
On a more reasonable note, what we really need is a few more technical hurdles overcome and move to LED lighting. The safety factor of lower operating tempuratures and saved energy would be immensely beneficial.
Welcome to Finland. We got like total darkness in the nights most of the year. Some of you would probably fear and feel uncomfortable in darkness like this. Only in June there's the midnight sun.
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 more street lights (1 per half block vs 1 per block).
I know find more then adequate lighting on the street without an excess in my backyard due to bleeding from bright white light sources. The new lights seem to have better shielding so as to light the street and not the neighborhood. Also the yellow lights do not provide as much of a distraction, fucus point, or blinding glare as the white lights when driving.
Over all considering factors such as: security lighting, convenience lighting, driving, and yard privacy I have to say that the yellow lower lumen sodium lighting wins out in my mind.
So far as farm yard lighting goes, I can understand wanting to light the yard up more as you have a much larger area to monitor for security purposes. Also we used the yard light on our farm as general lighting when trying to work in the late evening or at night. This is not the case for city street lights as typically each property owner has there own method of lighting their yard for their own purposes.
As a final point on yard lighting, if I am just navigating my yard a night as opposed to working in it I will shut off the outside lights as I can see better (read as: more of the yard but less detail) with the general illumination from other light sources outside my yard (city lights, moon, etc.) then I can by flooding part of my yard with a flood light.
Merlin.
Hey, if you do that, I need some help getting a hood ornament from a car.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
What is this "night" that you speak of?
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
There's a book which deals with the issues of light's impact on human health called Lights Out. The authors claim that extended light induces sugar cravings in people among other things. Worth a look if you're into that kind of stuff.
You nerds are so cute when you talk about evolution like it's a proven fact!
a boat is the best way to access that 2/3s of the earth's unpopulated surface, or so im told. but the dark city (with merciless enforcers of inky blackness) idea way out in lala land is cool too. i vote shoot to kill over 10 lumens.
Mr Burns could build a giant sun blocker then owls would deafen us with their incessant hooting!
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
Actually, you want to do it up north like montana, wyoming, or idaho. You are up higher so the stars are even better. You pretty much want to stay away from east of Albuquerque as it is typically polluted, has low water, and has loads of sky pollution due to LA, SD, Pheonix, Albuquerque , Mexico, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Issac Asimov did some exploration into this general theme in his book Nightfall. While Earth experiences night and day, the planet in this book had three suns, such that at least one was in the sky at all times. However, every 2000 years the suns line up, so one genuine night occurs. The gist of the story is that everyone goes mad, destroys the obvervatory (the messenger of this "nightfall"), lights everything on fire to quench the night, and, essentially, civilization collapses. Oh, and like many of us city folk, the people on this planet see stars for the first time (stars were mentioned only in prophecy to these people).
Imagine what would happen if all the lights in a big city went out. I believe hearing something about this regarding New York City some time back--I also believe hearing of a "baby boom" afterwards...
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
as far as i know hungary has a law against light pollution. who knows more?
anyway some good facts about light pollution:
http://www.asv.org.au/sections/lpoll.htm
Arizona has light pollution laws, because of the astronomy work that is done here. Lights have to be pointed down and must have a cover. Parking lots have to use this funky amber color that doesn't spread out as far. It really is possible to strike a compromise.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
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Last year I moved to a city right next to mine, where there are no street lights at all. It is wonderful. Coming home at the end of the day to sorta-darkness just feels a lot more normal and peaceful. Having a streetlight near your house is just one more reminder that you're packed into a crowded suburb. Alright, there are still a few people with lights in their driveway, and there is still a hazy orange glow visible over San Jose, and there is still the occasional car going by, but just having it a *little* darker is so much nicer.
From Desolation Wildernes, near lake Tahoe, I have seen the sky so dark that when I would lie perfectly still I could see the tiny orange reflection of one of our satellites moving ever so slowly across the stars. It's incredible what you can see with your pupils dilated, like they never are at home.
go be a farmer. buy yourself a couple of sections and see if you can make a profitable business of it. most can't these days, but it doesn't stop romantics from trying. the lifestyle does have some downsides... how do you feel about working with animal shit all day long? but, i gotta admit, the night sky is great out where the population averages 1/2 to 1 family per square mile.
What about the heat from all those bulbs- global warming is a reality.
While the heat generated from each bulb may not be great (tried holding onto a light bulb recently ??) when there are that many, it is signifigant - and more to the point - it is distrubuted over a wide area so this is a very effecent way to warm something large - the Earth.
I haven't seen this mentioned yet. I would urge everyone concerned with this issue to become members of the International Dark Sky Association. They have wonderful information on the issue and are very active in trying to get light pollution laws enforced.
A new innovation from Taliban Fashions: Burkas!
This patented cloaking garment design prevents breast cancer from artificial night light. (Also known to prevent floggings in some Arab countries.)
So here's my question for you:
:)
How do your sleep labs obtain experimental participants?
Because of the way our society works, it would be extremely difficult to test people who have no exposure to light during the non-naturally-lit hours. Almost everyone in America uses artificial lighting. How did you find people to test your theories on?
I would guess that you did your studies on other animals, as it would be extremely difficult to regulate someone's lifestyle so that they only had daytime exposure to light. In this case, do you find it hard to generalize your results to humans, who have specifically evolved tetra-chromatic vision to allow for better light-sight (remember, at one point in our evolutionary line, mammals were mostly nocturnal)?
Just wondering if you have scientific references.
But in general, I can see where you're coming from.
The larger, and more populated, parts of my campus are lit using mostly high pressure sodium lights. While this aids people's fears about walking around at night, it adds a truly ugly orange hue over most of the area. Winter time and the addition of snow make the glow almost alien because it spreads for miles around. The lights at the stadium are on until midnight or later, and the entire campus is drenched in an unnatural light that can over power a full moon.
With the exception of the campus and the small town it's in, the entire area is undeveloped. When you get about 20 miles away, you can see thousands and thousands of more stars in the night sky. The old observatory is kept up by the school because it is one of the oldest modern era ones in the region. It is completely useless, practically speaking, because of the insane amount of light pollution put off by such a small area.
I've been a campaigner against light pollution in New Zealand over the last several years, mostly because of my strong interest in astronomy. I like to understand what I'm arguing though, and one common argument that I didn't understand was this one about saving energy and therefore saving money.
The basic argument says that by using more efficient lights that (among other things) direct light more intelligently, less energy is used, and the money spent on electricity goes down.
My problem with this is that people don't think about the cost of electricity when they pay for it. They think about the cost of being able to heat their home or the cost of being able to see what they're doing at night, and allocate a certain amount of money that they're prepared to pay for it. If the lighting equipment is cheaper to operate across the board (as is ultimately the goal of this campaigning) then it's just as likely that the price of electricity will be inflated by the power companies to fill whatever people are prepared to pay for those same goals. Net long term monetary savings == $0.
I was curious about this, and I asked about it on a light pollution campaigning forum. I was expecting to get a rational argument explaining how I was incorrect, but instead there was a barrage of frustrated complaints about the US Federal Government, and how it heavily promotes the excessive and inefficient use of energy as much as possible in order to keep the energy production industry strong. Presumably there's lobbying from congress reps on behalf of people's jobs and state economies, and so on.
The might have just been a rational argument that I missed, but the result appeared to be that American light pollution capaigners were just advertising to local governments about the energy savings because they know that the prospect of things changing across the board (which could cause prices to go up again) are virtually impossible for as long as the Federal government has a conflict of interests.
Anyway, I feel much better about my local understanding now, since New Zealand is a much smaller country that has a limited ability to generate electricity, and the national government is a lot more conscious about energy saving simply because of that.
I'm from the countryside and I didn't really noticed how beautiful my night sky was. I began missing darkness and silence after moving to the city. You can't see any stars at all, and often the sky is purple with orange clouds. This just doesn't look real to me; I feel like if I'm inside a weird videogame.
By the way, if you want to help our children to see all those beautiful stars, take a look at darksky.org!
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
As an amateur astronomer (or at least the son of an amateur astronomer), this is a subject that is very near and dear to my heart. As someone who is trying to change the environment, it's even dearer. This brings my to my rant of the day:
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.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Streetlights provide that load, and make us safer.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I hope they took clouds into account!
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I,
Have a friend who has the disease porphyria and too much light is a MAJOR problem for her.
She has become so sensitive to light that she has had to spend the last 22 months living in her mother's basement with nothing but little red LED lights to show her the way.
So all of you clods out there who "Want more light" chill out and conceed that there may be negative consequences.
My buddy went out in the middle of the night in Roanoke Virginia for just twenty minutes a few months back, with clothing draped all over her, even her face, and she still got burnt.
Don't believe me, look it up. She has Erythropoietic Protoporphyria. Very rare.
Caution: Contents under pressure
When the city I lived in switched from incandescent to mercury vapor lighting, which was much brighter, they found that the trees became stunted and sick. The trees were no longer able to tell the difference between day and night. This screwed up their internal processes and cycles.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Without all this extra light, it would be impossible to wear sunglasses at night! Think how cool you would look wearing sunglasses at a night club!
If you're going to dim all light, attenuate the EMF too! Its arguably more harmful, and you might as well kill several trillion possible wavelengths than just a small, limited, range of visible light. EMFs (electromagnetic fields) are much too pervasive in our daily life's, and it would be something to be able to travel to a place where none exist.
Thanks for reading.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
Last month I drove from my old home (Orlando, FL) to my new one (Spokane, WA). I was amazed at the difference in the night sky between the two places.
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.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
No?
Then you don't need the light up there.
Proper lighting design puts the light where it is needed.
Also, there's the matter of dark adaptation. It is possible to see reasonably well in low light conditions. What matters is the amount of useful information that reaches the retina not the quantity if light that strikes the cornea. Badly designed and overpowered fixtures that send their light in all directions instead of where it is needed make it harder to see things in partially illuminated areas. You don't need massive high pressure sodium fixtures or those ridiculous purple headlights to get around.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
India! It's such a bright patch, surrounded by darkness from all the sides: Pakistan to the West, China and former USSR to the North, the Indian Ocean to the South, and Burma to the East. Also, it's amazing that China being so economically advanced (or is it?) is so dark.
1) Light pollution
2) Heat pollution
3) Pollution, uh, pollution (like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nuclear waste, etc: by-products of producing the energy to run those lights)
So, yep, lights are baaad, um-kay? (Though they are helpful at times...)
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
A personal gripe I have is with auto dealerships. They install an white light fixtures at a density that is so excessive as to be obscene. The glow from a single dealership in my area (central texas) is visible at least 12 miles away. The arguments for doing this usually include security and safety. If this were true, I bet a full time on sight guard would be cheaper. I suspect the real reason is that any sane car buyer browses when the place is closed to avoid the sales people. Dealerships want them to look so they burn the lights all night.
Rather than the usual staring at the fire, we were all entranced by the heavenly light show.
It wasn't just the visibility of the millions of stars and the intensity of the Milky Way. We were able to watch up to five satellites slowly trundle across the sky, uncountable shooting stars, and (perhaps an astronomer could elicidate upon this phenomena?) intermittent "hyper-speed" shooting stars. These flashes of light were almost faster than your perceptions could absorb, and seemed to often scribe a quasi-cirular path (reminiscent of cloud chamber experiments).
I have read some articles on high energy particles hitting the atmosphere and flourescing, but their maths seemed to imply very low frequency of occurence...
I have never forgotten it - and plan to take my own kids to experience it aswell.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
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.
those morons are not supposed to live there in the first place. polar weather is for whales and bears and those dumf moose.
That is to say, can anyone think of a densely populated area that is not brightly lit on the map? I've been trying that, without too much success so far.
More than mere navel gazing.
What is this Way of Milk that you speak of?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
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.
Well it does depend on the plant design. However most "peaking plants" are natuarl gas. A peaking plant is a plant that can be started/stoped quickly to meet a peak in demand. They are not as efficant as the big coal/nuke plants, but that isn't the main goal either.
....especially in the winter. Downtown lights up low hanging clouds and gives us a nice well lit evening. It's really nice when walking at home at 10pm in the evenin. Then again, though, on winter days the sun sets before 5pm.
During these misty evenings, car lots with their hundreds of thousands of watts of light make it possible to see quite well, and in some cases there is enough light to read a newspaper several blocks from these car lots. I know cities such as Phoenix, AZ have enacted strict lighting rules to combat light pollution. Here in Corpus Christi, buildings are commonly lit up with huge flood lights on the ground aimed upwards. I do hope this city realizes that there has to be some impact on its rich wildlife. We have a lot of exotic birds down here, including whooping cranes. Perhaps some federal regulation is necessary.
I don't know how exactly much impact this light has on wildlife, but I do know that I hear birds chirping all night on these bright nights that I don't normally hear at night.
There's been a good bit of research on Seasonally Affected Depression (SAD), and what I've read suggests that one of the root issues is lack of sunlight, not just any light. Treatment involves exposure to both full-spectrum and special quartz-lamp light to shift melatonin levels and also ensure healthy levels of vitamin D, something you can't get from your garden-variety houselamp. The issue here is complex, given that hey, we're talking about the chemical soup of the body here, but it seems to be not lack of light per se, but different levels of different kinds of light than our particular design was optimized for. As the article points out, excessive illumination can lead to screwy melatonin levels, leading to other kinds of circadian imbalances.
Sure, too little light can be a problem, but I don't think the answer is to have too much.
--------
If I can own an idea, does that mean I can legally claim some portion of your soul once I tell you that idea? Or even if you just come up with it on your own? Heck, who needs contracts written in blood...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
seems like the human race does nothing good for Mother Earth. Everything we do is for the destruction of Earth.
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If I could find a place to occasionally get away from all the artificial light AND noise, I'd be in heaven.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
I did this too and got eaten alive by misquitos and contracted west nile and now I'm dead.
Laugh...
There is a benefit to living in central Alaska: the very cold winter nights here make for spectacular night sky viewing, as the air is very dry. I live in a rural area, but I can see one or 2 lights on houses a few miles away, since my house in on a hill.
-cp-
First, I have this cool CD alarm clock, so I can wake up to whatever sound I want.. currently it's a birdsong recording. But the LED display in it is so damn bright you can practically read by it. I have to turn it away from the bed or it drives my wife crazy. I sleep turned away from it so it doesn't bother me as much. Some time I'm going to have to get some kind of a filter to tape over it.
Also, when I'm out in the woods at night, when camping with the kids, for instance, I carry a flashlight but leave it turned off unless it's a really pitch dark night. I finally convinced my oldest son to try it last year. With a bright spot of light at your feet all you see is a few feet of trail, and that's it. But if you let your eyes adjust to what light there is, you can generally make out more detail than you can with the flashlight. And it sure is more fun. I keep my thumb on the flashlight switch in case it's needed but it rarely is.
Michael Mesuren, founder of the Toronto-based Fatal Light Awareness Program, estimates that 100 million songbirds collide with lit buildings in North America each year
So NOT being able to see the building would help??
I think the bigger problem here is windows. How many of you have large windows on the front of their house... and how many times per year do you hear a loud "thump"?
Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle interviewed 1,606 women and found a 60 percent greater incidence of breast cancer among those who worked at night; the risk increased with the number of years on the night shift and night hours worked per week.
My guess would be that the reason for the boost in breast cancer is probably because of stress levels. I mean, when you have a correlation of # of hours worked and the rate of breast cancer.... you blame the lights and not physical stress???
I just started work at a nuclear power plant, so I don't know much yet- somethings I've learned so far-
We sell electricity cheaper than anyone else in the regional grid, so when load goes down, we're the last to have to reduce our capacity. (other nuclear power plants notwithstanding)
The plant was designed to change output on a day-night cycle, but years ago it was decided it was a much better to run at full load all the time.
That's pretty much all I can add, except that I'd like to shoot out the light just outside my apartment window. For now, I'll have to settle for heavy blinds & curtains.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I advocate the construction of more RED light districts in our towns and cities.
Yes, I could easily be talked into this as well.
Another chap earlier remarked about getting rid of all electromagnetic radiation, but I think that would be going too far.
I'd still want my laptop.
I promise to wear headphones.
(Why don't more people wear headphones anyways?)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Oh yeah and the poor animals....
Death to nitelights!
Try living here where there are 4 months of 24h light and after that follows a period of 8 months of darkness.
:)
Welcome to Finland
Bot Assisted Blogging
...um, what exactly are these "star" things you mention?
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
"Aside from the obvious safety factor of light at night"
The supposed link between streelights and less crime is discussed and dismissed in the article.
"streetlights are absolutely CRITICAL to the operation of a modern power grid. Generators require a certain load on them to release generated electricity. The plants CAN NOT be turned down low when it gets to be night with no demand"
That's just insane. Of course the amount of power being produced can be controlled. Power consumption goes way down at night even with the streetlights in any case, and fluctuates widely from morning through evening.
"You cant slow down a nuclear reaction"
Of course you can. In fact you must constantly regulate the reaction is you want to have a power plant and not a bomb.
"you cant let a coal plant cool down because it needs to operate constantly at a minimum temperature."
I don't know a lot about coal plants, but lets assume you're right (which seems awfully unlikely at this point). So you have to keep the coal fire burning at a certain temperature. Why exactly do you need to keep dumping water in the boiler, or routing the steam through turbines, or keep those turbines connected to generators?
"Streetlights provide that load, and make us safer."
Before you tell me I've been trolled (which I suspect) some one slap around the guy who gave this an Informative a little bit.
Who needs a Rand McNally map to teach kids where the state of California is? Just point to the strip of light on the West Coast of the US on that photomosaic.
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:
My conclusion (which is generally accepted by the above comments) is that this article is a giant non-sequitur.
I wrote the parent post far too quickly & I didn't proof-read it to make sure my conclusion was supported by my evidence & that my own evidence was correctly presented. (note to self...)
Just about everyone supported my conclusion, but nobody understood how I arrived at it.
"the Scottish physicist William Thompson (Lord Kelvin, 1924-1907)"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
In Seoul, the lighting in neighbourhoods is sporadic. Some places are blinding, and some places are dark. The lighting in the small towns is not all night. They still use almost all white though, no sodium here.
Is there a correllation between the sky and inspiration? I remember when I was younger living in rurual areas and going out at night being in awe of the sky and all its beauty. I think people just don't realize how amazing it can be to look up and see an unblemished sky, speckled with a billion pinpoints of light teasing you with their possibilities.
(Why don't more people wear headphones anyways?)
Because many (most?) people enjoy annoying others. The rest seem to positively live for it.
That is why, despite the snide remarks in this thread, idealist utopias usually involve avoiding or eliminating large portions of the population.
A few years back there was a report that night lights left on in childrens' bedrooms could lead to short-sightedness. A later report told us all not to worry.
Phil
When building a house in a country-ish area [Morris, IL] a good while ago, one of our deciding factors was light pollution--or rather, the lack thereof. It was a place you could sit out at night and watch a meteor shower, for example, free from the glare of city lights.
Since that time, however, not one but TWO large plants went up near this area (the worst offender being in the general direction of Aurora), equipped with flame stacks serving to purify (or maybe just burn-off) some kind of industrial waste product. These are essentially very tall smokestacks shooting large jets of yellow flame into the air, all day, all night. It causes more light pollution than any mere streetlamps.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Even with the light pollution of torches and flashlights from the 1100 campers around me, you could still easily just stare up at the sky and see the band of the milky way stretched across.
Actually nearby lights don't matter way as much as light pollution does. I was astounded when I went on a weekend to a camp some way from any cities a few years ago. The gravel yard of the house was very brightly lit by several halogen lights, and even in the middle of the yard you could glance upwards and have the Milky Way flowing through the sky. It didn't require letting your eyes get used to the darkness or anything - it just was there!
If you really want to strech the limits, try to spot the Andromeda galaxy with your bare eyes. That requires *very* dark conditions, but is still possible (it should be relatively easy to see with binoculars, though). I think I was just able to glimpse it at the camp when I tried. But when you see it, you are looking at light that has been travelling in void for two million years!
I doubt, therefore I may be.
12 hours on 12 hours off! any light while off will mess up the plant. i wonder how many other plants and animals would be affected by this...
puff puff, give give...
No, please, not the desert. Look at Arizona - they had dry heat. Now, everyone's come in and built houses, with *green lawns* et all. Now they've got humidity and many problems that the Midwest has.
Ok, on second thought, I think you could get away with it, if your association rules said no outside lights, no lawns, etc etc.
http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal
...you are most likely to be eatten by a grue. 'nuff said.
For those who doubt the importance of seeing the night sky, we need only recall the people of Krikkit. Surrounded as they were by a monumental dust cloud they had no awareness of the universe around them. The trauma of the it's intrusion upon their pastoral world was a shock so profound that it caused them to attempt xenocide on the entire galaxy.
Furthermore - it resulted in the creation of the game of Cricket.
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Funnily enough, there is actually a valid point in this...
No driving at night for instance, or if you do, doing so using some sort of special equipment like night-vision goggles say.
Now this is really chilling advice, unless they are obliged to use horns, of course;)
Just another muzzy diatribe by the ecoliberals who would have us all using stone knives and bear skins.
an ill wind that blows no good
Try the Visible Earth site and the Blue Marble site. Both have stunning images of day/night earth. BTW, the images map perfectly onto a 3D globe shape in your favorite 3D API, so you can create an earth visualization of your own. <rummage>Somewhere around here, I even have a Java applet I created to generate a rotating globe wallpaper.<\rummage>
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
The stuff I am growing in the basement needs lots of sunshine.
My rights don't need management.
I have a solution! We all dress up in black ninja suits and run around town shooting out all the bright lights with sling shots. That'll teach 'em.
- Nick Busey
www.pedalbmx.com
www.nickbusey.com
Streetlighting coordinator Barry Poon says elderly citizens howled that less lighting would boost crime. "But police told us there's no correlation between light levels and crime. Isn't Poon one of the aliases Fletch goes by?
Despite our ever growing knowledge, reason, and progress, we still have this basic fear. Humans will always fear the night. Keeping perpetual light about us is one of the fundamental reasons for people to create cities. Take this lyric for example (apologies to Kurt Harland):
I think that's a description of a place humans may never go. Given our grossly falliable nature, we will never get lines 2 and 3 right. And even if a person says something that is real and right, will others believe her? Not likely. "Darkness is simply the absense of light. To mark darkness and too much light are equally blinding." "No! There be monsters, here!"
Join Tor today!
Uh, guys, it all started with a circle of firelight to keep the animals away. Of course it's hard on the wildlife -- it's meant to be. Darkness is enemy territory.
Doggone it, people build cities to keep the animals out. That's where the concentrated night-light is. Then, if the light disturbs our sleep, we build walls to provide darkness on demand. We call it civilization.
A couple of points to make:
:)
Claiming the article is 'sensationalism' or a 'non-sequitur' is a matter of personal opinion and non-factual. Which is fine. The problem is the ambiguity in your original post: did you mean the scientists were full of it? Are you saying you think the city planners are implementing ridiculous policy due to poor analysis and logic? Or are you saying you think the author extrapolated all of those quotes in a way to completely misrepresent the expert opinions of those quoted, presumably in order to present a biased article?
As a trained scientist I'm sure you'll agree with these two statements:
a) Your medical condition has no bearing on the outcome of data collection and analysis by other professional scientists investigating a tangentially similar issue.
b) Your expertise as a chemist has no bearing on the formation of expert opinion by scientists operating in their disparate fields.
Note that in neither of these posts have I made any assertions as to the validity of the science in question. All of those interviewed could be completely wrong in their conclusions and your response would draw the same objection. A stopped clock being right twice a day doesn't make for a timepiece, just as someone asserting a scientist is wrong on 'common-sense' grounds bears no relevance to the science in question -- even when the scientist in question is wrong.
Regarding the science in the article though, I would argue that when scientists across several fields make similar assertions about the outcome of their respective data analysis, it's often something to seriously consider as real. This is not a factual argument about specific data sets or outcomes, but an argument based on the likelihood of common outcomes dovetailing across disparate fields. And thus to dismiss all of these assertions out of hand as ridiculous misses an obvious point about how collective science works. JMO.
Finally, on a personal note, it's unfortunate that you chose to mark me as a foe rather than debate me directly. I may have come on a bit strong in my initial post, but I didn't insult you personally; I simply attacked your argument. Which, in a debating forum is how it should be. I apologize for any personal insult you felt over my reply, but do so without backing down from the debating position I've so far taken. Heh.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Not sure where you get your load data, but around here peak load is generally around 3-5 in the afternoon, while the lowest load is 3-5 in the morning.
The use much less energy to produce the equal light output. They are much more efficient and don't generate as much heat. They last much longer and would require less maintenance. Oh yea and I was reading an article a long while back, forget URL, that talked about being able to better match the color of the sun. And that the color had a lot to do with health benefits. Don't remember them getting into the ammount of light thought. I could see where it might matter, in uber extreme cases, but only a small amount. Sometimes I think scientists and so called specialists don't take into account the human ability to adapt. Either way, LED is the answer. Although last time I check an equivalent 60W edison bulb is still around $200. Ouch.
> There is no way its dark at 9am
You forgot to add a thick layer of overcast to your calculations. Twilight? Get real.
This is for the same reason that sodium lightning is better for car drivers than white light, because, as lenses, eyes suffer from chromatic aberration, so you have the focus only for the dominant wavelength.
With monochromatic light, your sight is clearer.
My mother, who is an essayist for National Public Radio, wrote an essay ("Turn Off The Lights") on this topic some years ago. To her surprise, there turned out to be a whole organization dedicated to the problem of our over-lit world, The International Dark Sky Organization. Shortly after her essay was broadcast, they seized her like some kind of a messiah; I imagine that they were pleased to have a non-astronomer care. She spoke at one of their meetings, IIRC, and we (my family) still follow the organization and now do our best to speak on behalf of them, having low-key conversations with neighbors, business owners, and municipal officials, extolling the values of darkness. I think, maybe, it's catching on.
-Waldo Jaquith
oh how it burns!
I am very disappointed in this article.
They talk about a correlation between night-shift workers and increased breast cancer risk, and blame it on artificial light... but they totally ignore the dramatic decrease in vitamin-D that night workers experience because they get less sunlight. Vitamin-D is crucial in the prevention of cancer!
This is basic nutrition 101 here, guys! Hide from the sun at your own peril. Both increases in cancer and osteoporosis have been linked to insufficient active vitamin-D, the kind which we don't get from supplements.
This guy is right on. Motion sensors provide security without creating light polution.
At my parents' house, which borders on rural/suburban, they use motion sensor lights like the ones mentioned above, there is no doubt in my mind these things create way more security than constant floodlights. Normally the outside of the house is "dark", illuminated quite nicely by moon/starlight, and it makes it nice to look out the window and see the moon/stars and blue/black view of the world. However as soon as something moves in the focus of the motion sensors; BAM!, bright lights. Not only does this illumniate a potential intruder, as would a floodlamp, but it is much easier to notice the sudden change from darkness to light than it would be to notice someone moving stealthily even in floodlight, it's the sudden change in luminance that allows someone to act accordingly. One of the nice things we've noticed at my parents house is that we see all sorts of "wildlife", foxes, skunks, squirrels, even the occasional deer will trigger the light.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
a bit late to be adding this, but here's a composite image of earth from space - at night. Note the city lights blanketing most of the globe.
a rb le/Images/land_ocean_ice_lights_2048.jpg
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueM
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
"The farther from lights and altered habitats you get, the more moths you find," he says.
Yeah, like moths to a...er...away from a flame?
Paranoia means having all the facts. ~William S. Burroughs
I added you to my foe list because your worldview is completely different from mine. I doubt that we will ever even see an issue from the other's perspective. Further, we both feel very strongly about our beliefs. You seem to have some metaphyiscal worldview where objectiveness is 'here,' subjectiveness is 'there' & never the two shall meet.
;-)
In just about all cases, it's very fruitful to argue with someone who merely has a different opinion - it promotes critical thinking, causes new ideas to be thought, etc. However, imho, every single presupposition you make is going to oppose every single presupposition I make. I've been involved in 'online' discussions (usenet, etc) since at least 1997, and I've never run into someone like you. I'm at the point where I don't debate/argue anymore unless I'm pretty sure it will benefit at least one person involved in the debate. As you can tell, I don't believe that is the case.
Cool slashdot number though... it almost 'spells' 1337... I guess you're just 'eeet' though.
"Streetlights...make us safer."
Prove this statement. Based on this logic any crime that occurs in the daytime could be reduced by blocking the sun. Crime is more likely to happen at night due to the lack of witnesses than due to the lighting.
Streetlights make night driving harder by interfering with your night vision (along with high intensity headlights) as you pass from light to dark and back. The only place they should exist is at busy intersections and crosswalks. Lighting up the sky is a total waste of money and anyone, right or left wing, should be against waste.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You seem to have some metaphyiscal worldview where objectiveness is 'here,' subjectiveness is 'there' & never the two shall meet.
/. since before accounts were implemented, and says nothing about the validity of my comments (a statement I'm sure you'll agree with :^). It's less like 1337 and more like 'EEET!' If ya know what I mean. --M
Not always, but in this case we're dealing with an objective frame of reference as defined by a group of scientists and their body of work. The analysis of their data sets is what defines 'objective' reality, at least as far as one can determine as such. But that doesn't take away from my subjective enjoyment of playing an instrument; dating a hot chick; enjoying a fine glass of wine; feeling sand between my toes on the beach; and all the other great stuff life offers.
However, imho, every single presupposition you make is going to oppose every single presupposition I make. I've been involved in 'online' discussions (usenet, etc) since at least 1997, and I've never run into someone like you. I'm at the point where I don't debate/argue anymore unless I'm pretty sure it will benefit at least one person involved in the debate. As you can tell, I don't believe that is the case.
That's too bad. We may disagree in this case, but that doesn't bother me one bit. I'm really curious to see if we can find some sort of common ground. But if you're not interested, I'll let it drop and wish you the best of luck. BTW: a low UID only means I've been reading and posting to
Asking people to kill city lights will never work, they'll play it like your asking for return to the dark ages. Instead how about better motion sensors, maybe RF detectors in the city lights. Make it so on side roads, the streetlights 2 up and 2 down from you are turned on. And add a gradual fade off (dimmer) instead of winking out.
Then you can sell it as an improvement: Less energy use, better bulb life, less maintence costs, and oh yeah can finally see that comet/meteor shower from your backyward like the weather guy on tv is always saying you can.
They don't even mention LEDs. I've seen traffic lights are moving to LED-based lights all over the place. From what I've heard, they last longer and use a lot less energy. The light is different, so it may have different effects, but the article doesn't even mention them!
Using yourself (a sample of one) for analysis of a scientific theory is very poor and unprofessional. I propose that RTS is bogus - after all, I've worked on computers for over half my life, and I don't have any problems. Worse, you are in a known minority that would behave differently in this issue, yet still hold to the illusion that you are representative.
And just because everyone else agrees with you doesn't make it true. Before Gallileo (sp?), people thought the sun revolved around the earth, and before Columbus, people thought the earth was flat. Apparently, before these people did their study, most people thought that being exposed to light 24/7 was good. So 2 times out of 3, the general consensus has been wrong. Next, you'll be hearing sayings like "the average person is an idiot"...
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Hopefully you can provide some arguments to back up why you think scientists are most always saying facts.
Why should I? The scientists quoted are far better sources to ascertain validity than I. My arguing that they're right has the same validity -- littte to none -- as you arguing that they're wrong. You'll notice that I didn't once assert that the scientists' statements were correct, only that the top level poster's argument against their conclusions is faulty. The factual basis of these scientists' claims is completely irrelevant to the meta argument over calebb's (the parent poster) stating that they were making 'sensationalistic' claims. I called him on that because he posted nothing factual beyond the implied assertion of their professional conclusions violating 'common sense'. It's completely irrelevant whether his assumption over the validity of their claims is right or wrong, what matters is that IMO the thought process which lead him to that conclusion is faulty.
Scientists ignore laymens' opinion within their fields not because the layman might be right or wrong on the outcome of a specific issue, but because the layman has no concept of the data collection over time, or thought process and logic, which went into the final conclusion. Therefor, the layman can't replicate the experimental process to derive a valid opposing conclusion. In this case calebb later posted that he is a chemist, and is likely well educated in his field, though is not a biologist or physician and as such has no standing to make a valid factual statement on their claims. However, he didn't even offer opposing references in counterpoint, he simply argued that at it's face what was said was obviously false without even dealing in specifics. It's just a bald faced claim to say that a group of scientists across a wide spectrum of fields were all wrong in their factual statements to a reporter, with nothing of merit to to back it up. To me that reads like pseudoscience. JMO.
Finally, please note that I am NOT a scientist, and am only recently taking acting classes to play one on TV.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Hell, I propose we designate three such areas - one in the northern hemisphere, one near the equator, and one in the southern hemisphers.
How does Greenland, the Sahara, and Antartica sound?
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Yeah, good idea! Now we just need a way to block out that pesky moon. The moon does put out quite a bit of light, doesn't it? Maybe we can just blow it up, then we can have it REALLY DARK.
This is all quite true, and I've been aware and concerned about that for years (never mind the enormous waste of energy and fossil fuel and pollution that creating all that needless light causes). However, they completely missed the growing impact of saturation of one of our other senses: HEARING. Sound pollution is a severe problem now; for instance does anyone know the true impact of a 400W car stereo on a developing fetus? What effect does grossly exaggerated low-frequency sound, often carrying kinetic energy equivalent to a gunshot or worse, have on human physiology or neurochemstry? I know that in my case, it triggers a clear "fight or flight" response.
This was a truly funny post; I'm exceedingly entertained. --M
To demonstrate the difference between subjective and objective statements: Subjective: Thinking that this statement is true: "Using yourself (a sample of one) for analysis of a scientific theory is very poor and unprofessional." You say "And just because everyone else agrees with you doesn't make it true." Are you familiar with peer-reviewed journals? Of course opinion does not create objectivity!!! But the scientific community uses 'opinion' to determine what's fact & what's not. Objective: I used the evidence of my narcolepsy to show that I have spent time critically thinking about the effects of sleep & light.
Funny that they use Wabash Indiana in an article about overly-lighted cities. When I lived there, it was just about the darkest town I'd been in--I think they used a single 40 watt bulb per block.
There is a difference between everyone (being the highly eclectic and often uninformed /. crowd) and a selection of individuals with some degree of experience in the field (peer review). This doesn't apply to you, but it does apply to your statement that everyone (or even the majority) here agrees with your fairly intuitive statement.
Clearly you have thought about this more than the average person, but you appear to be limiting your observance of effect to extremes. 10 months of darkness raises the suicide rate, but what about lesser changes, and lesser effects? Could it not be that excessive light causes less restful sleep, irritability, less concentration, reduced life expectancy? These things aren't as obvious, but that doesn't mean they aren't possible (although I just picked some things more or less at random for my list). What I'm getting at is, this could affect quality of life in more ways than abruptly ending it.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
...and my first thought was that such unaesthetic lights sucks no matter the color. So any change in it (even from one funky emanation to the next) is, at least, a change - and therefore seems better.
Caveats, though, as this comes from someone who has a prescription to wear polarized (not shaded) 'sunglasses' at night.
-The Lorax (shpoffo)
... There's another advantage to using red street lamps everywhere beyond amateur astronomy - hmmm, imagine the entire country one huge red light district!
What I'm getting at is, this could affect quality of life in more ways than abruptly ending it.
Ok, I'll agree that there are probably many other problems that you'll deal with, besides just suicide. From that point of view, I guess the original article is somewhat insightful.
OK. I will not engage in a debate over the validity of the that cancer study's conclusions primarily because I know I am not qualified to do so. Neither are you, but you just don't get that fact and instead view yourself an 'expert.' As the lawyers say, only the fool is his own client. Instead I'll debate you on your general assertion that:
However, it seems to me that releasing an insignificant finding such as what was found in that study, to the public under the guise of anti-light advice, is scientifically irresponsible behaviour. Behaviour, which, not surprisingly, is quite common considering the current scientific funding model. Now, where's my cold fusion?
This implies, along with your previous cato.org (a political organization with a very ideological axe to grind I might add) reference, that the academic scientific community as a whole is engaging in large scale manipulation of data and conclusions in order to justify increased research grants from the public sector. In essence, you're accusing the entire scientific community of wholesale fraud.
I find that charge laughable at it's face. Who coordinates the data manipulation and how, such that all scientists in a specific field agree to the fraud? And assuming your assertion that scientists are somehow manipulating data en masse, just how do they make new real discoveries? Data manipulation does not help the discovery process, be definition. And what about the risk to reputation? If only a certain percentage play this game, that is: join the dataset-fraud-club, it will be discovered through peer review and by further experimental replication generating new data at odds with the previous fraudulent data. Reputable scientists will raise their eyebrows in wonder, and in the end certain careers will tank. That's why science works over the long haul.
You have no evidence to substantiate that charge other than editorials by political 'think tanks' imbued by ideology rather than data. Imagine, academic scientists across national borders engaging in conspiracy to defraud their respective governments of public funds by wholesale, coordinated, manipulation of their data and conclusions. I don't believe it's possible because I don't believe that such a conspiracy is workable. Nor do I believe that the majority of scientists would be willing to engage in such conspiracy; they're a conservative lot when it comes to matters of reputation among their peers.
Of course I'm sure with a bit of google searching you can find numerous instances of individual scientists committing data fraud. It happens. But to claim wholesale conspiracy -- wow, that's rich. Bully for you! And I thought I was an internet kook! HA!
Cheers,
--Maynard
I read (don't remember where) about a lady that named her dogs Timex and Rolex. When asked why, she said "What else would I name watch dogs?"
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I've been in places with much less artifical light, and it's fine for a few days, but after about three days, I miss basic things like... net access.
As a final comment, there has been repeated discussion questioning the effects light has on sleep quality. Astronomers have a long record of evidence that daytime sleep quality is much less than that at night, unless measures are taken to completely block intruding light. We put a lot of effort into blocking daylight from rooms in which we sleep during observation runs, specifically to combat this effect.