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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."
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!
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!
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
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.
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.
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
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".
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.
It is not quite as simplistic as you make out.
:)
For a start, light at night makes it difficult to sleep at night. Try having a streetlight outside your bedroom window and you will quickly (as I found out!) find your sleep patterns are disturbed as you wake up easier and therefore find it difficult to sleep.
Consider that for many of us in major cities, we cannot view the natural beauty of space. Our views are blocked by artifical lights that stop us from seeing the sights our ancestors looked upon and first asked the great philosophical questions.
You imply that light is a good thing. It isn't. Well, not always. Of course we need light, but it needs to be used appropriately.
Artificial light isn't a replacement for natural light. Aside from the voluminous amounts of electricity a lot of it wastes it does cause problems for people.
Daylight is a good thing for animals, plants and humans on the planet. For people who live in northern Europe and the US/Canda there are higher incidencies of suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse than there are in places which recieve more natural light, and this has been attributed to a lack of natural light. Artifical light just isn't the same. You could have 12 hours of artifical light in a polar region and it wouldn't make any difference.
On a small, and possibly more irrelevant scale to you, consider the number of insects that congregate around lamp posts thinking the worlds most beautiful fly/wasp/bee/moth/whatever is in front of them. In time, it will affect their and predators natural actions!
It is very easy to mock and joke about this, but it is a very, very important issue for a lot of people, plants and animals!
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!
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".
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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?
Maybe you should RTFA?
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.
Wait a sec... you mean, the stars don't navigate YOU?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
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
(There should be a degree sign after 3200. Thanks for stripping special characters, Slashcode.)
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.
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.