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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."
As far as lighting goes, suburbanites have an insane fear of dark streets. They'll gladly pay until their entire environment is brightly lit.
The real culprit, though, is incredibly cheap, bright lights. I don't like these because of their pink glow. Near the University of Texas, at night the low-hanging clouds looked like cotton candy from all the reflected pink light.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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?
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.
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...
Seriously though, I think the bigger problem is from the lack of light! If you go to those same regions (north of the arctic circle), you'll find abnormally high suicide rates during the winter due to depression from the excessive darkness.
As Mikka Luttinen (the vocalist for a reasonably well-known Finnish black metal band Impaled Nazarene) put it: "In Finland, it's dark for ten months a year. You either start a band or cut your wrists".
And here where I live (a northern part of Russia), street lamps get turned off after 10 pm in August, so getting home after long coding sessions becomes an exercise in celestial navigation.
Excessive light in the summer is a bad problem, here in Alaska. While the long nights of winter cause depression in some people, the endless days of summer really screw with people's sleep patterns and cause other health issues as well. They don't get the same press as the winter cases of S.A.D., but they exist.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
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
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".
You rebutted your own argument. As the article mentioned, living organisms (humans, for instance) have evolved to expect certain levels of light & darkness. It is the lack or disruption of these cycles that has the potential to effect humans & other life forms adversely. Like people that whack themselves due to SAD (seasonal affective disorder). The article (did I say RTFA?) mentions higher rates of breast cancer in women who work the night shift - they don't get a regular dose of darkness that their bodies expect.
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.
regarding the over- and underlit situations you describe in the polar regions: we humans didn't evolve to live there, and therefore our circadian rhythms are not programmed to deal with polar extremes. of course, the article referring to 100% death rates of all people that get too much light would lend credence to your theory...
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.
You joked about sleep disorders, but I used to run a sleep lab, and I can tell you this problem is a significant one. We have a direct path from our retinas to a subset of cells in a structure in the brain called the supra-chiasmatic nucleus. This pathway, the retino-hypothalamic pathway mediates light information to set our intrinsic sleep/wake rhythms that are normally set by light during the day. The advent of the lightbulb has transformed our society into a 24 hr/day affair that can cause problems with entrainment and now we have computer screens that we stare into until the wee hours of the night. Sleep disorders resulting from poor circadian entrainment can have influences on our lives that can be dangerous. Other than breathing or rem movement disorders, disorders of circadian entrainment can cause depression, failure to maintain alertness at important times (flying a plane or driving a car for instance), and recent evidence indicates that circadian period may also have an influence on the efficacy of pharmacologic treatments among other serious implications within our lives.
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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
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.
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.
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!
And here where I live in the midwest America, there are still towns with all white lighting. I hate the bland desynthazing effect of high power sodium lighting, but that seems to be the norm these days.
I remember being a kid and driving through the country side at night... we're talking 1 yard light every 2-3 squares miles here, and the slow change when those lights started to go from white to yellow. I'd say the ratio is up to 9 sodium to every 1 white lights these days.
I have friends that bought a few acres in the country, and the first thing they did was replace the sodium bulb in their yard light back to a white one.
Sodium orange lighting sucks.
To keep things on topic... what color are the street lights in your area of Russia? Do you have white or sodium?
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.
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.
"...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
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.
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'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
I know that the parent was funny, and supposed to be, but to me it high-lights (pun not intended) a serious problem. What happens when people get completely disconnected from the enviroment/universe. Get fully accustomed to a completely artificial condition, and prefer it. Are we becoming disconnected from who we are, where we came from, and what spiritual/intellectial/philosophical/political problems does this make for us as a species or culture.
When we get disconnected from something we no longer respect it, we fear it, loath it. In cities we're disconnected from the enviroment, and see no qualms about destroying it except for the enviromentalism trend (which shouldn't be confused with an actual caring about the enviroment, hence the word 'trend'). So whats going to happen when we become completely disconnected from the heavens, and gleefully accept this. The stars have guided thousands of years human spirituality and philosophy, what happens when we loose that?
I would consider most urbanites as severely mentally ill, with our odd paranoia about darkness. We must ALWAYS cloak ourselves in light and noise to protect us from ourselves and our enviroment. What are we REALLY afraid of?
OT but related, ever go someplace nice and notice that they HAVE TO pipe noise into it, ALWAYS. Out here in Arizona in the Verde Valley there is a casino/resort with a WONDERFUL view of an ancient lake bed and pristine desert, looking out from the entrance way is just great, except the fact that there is CONSTANT piped music, it makes it impossible to EVER relax. The same goes for all this damn light everywhere, it becomes impossible to EVER relax, or dissassociate yourself from society, even for a second.
Turn off all the lights, or light generating things (monitor, case mods, TV, whatnot), turn off all the sound, fans, whatnot, and look and listen. Odds are, if you live in a city or even a small town it will be noisy and bright. The only way to get away from it is to travel hundreds of miles away, and even then there are still flight paths and stupid tourists, lost urbanites, and partying teenagers.
Sad. But then again I am a tech-savvy luddite.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
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
(There should be a degree sign after 3200. Thanks for stripping special characters, Slashcode.)
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
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
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.
I bought the place *because* it was dark and I could see a lot of stars at night. At night, my bedroom is pitch black, and the sun wakes me up in the morning as it should. Within a few months, I am going to have to make a choice to either have a street light shining in my bedroom window or install more opaque blinds which would also block out the sun.
This is progress? This is better for me *how*?
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
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
Load of rubbish. Yes, power stations need to keep running for efficiency reasons (not safety reasons - you can turn off the turbines and just vent steam if you really don't want the energy coming out of a coal furnace or nuclear reactor). But we can do a lot better than streetlights as a tension load on the electricity grid. Why not, for example, pipe the power into a pumped storage station - use it to lift water up a mountain. Then the next day, let it run down through turbines to generate electricity when it's needed.
Pumped storage is like a rechargable battery for the electricity network, and they can be pretty damned efficient at it. Instead of just burning off electricity all night because you have to generate it anyway, a good pumped storage network will let you pool about 60% of the generated electricity and let it go when you need it. And pumped storage stations can be brought online and switched off almost instantaneously - there's one in Wales (the electric mountain plant at Trawsfynnydd - basically a hollowed out mountain) that claims the fastest response time of any power station in the world - something like 6 seconds.
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.