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Making War On Light Pollution
Hugh Pickens writes "Almost thirty years ago I worked in the Middle East helping install a nationwide communications system and had the opportunity to be part of a team doing microwave link tests across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter. Something I've never forgotten were the astonishing nights I spent in the desert hundreds of miles from the nearest city where the absence of light made looking at the sky on a moonless night feel like you were floating in the middle of the galaxy. In Galileo's time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9 and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. Read a story from the New Yorker on what we have lost to light pollution and how some cities are adopting outdoor lighting standards to save the darkness."
The average supermarket parking lot is much brighter at midnight than necessary. You also don't need the entire parking lot lit all night, when on most nights, the first two rows of lights would suffice for the night-time customers. After parking lot lights, the biggest offenders are billboards and other illuminated advertising signs. These can be turned off without compromising public safety, and with minimal harm to the efficacy of the advertising.
it is sad truth that most people prefer feeling safe to actually being safe.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Wow, what can I say but that was a seriously uneducated answer. How come people can't think that there might be a way to better the situation than to turn off the lights? How about.. maybe.. just maybe.. use light fixtures that don't blast kilowatts of light energy into the sky where they're not needed? Huh? Can you answer that one? In fact, with the same amount of light energy, but directed where it's useful actually makes a much brighter area where people are walking, parking, whatever. To achieve the same level of visibility on the ground, and make the sky darker would actually SAVE energy.
Here is a little excerpt from the article (which you obviously are oblivious to else you wouldn't post foolishness) that seems fitting...
"A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack." In the early seventies, the public-school system in San Antonio, Texas, began leaving many of its school buildings, parking lots, and other property dark at night and found that the no-lights policy not only reduced energy costs but also dramatically cut vandalism."
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Actually, we can improve lighting on earth, save energy, AND improve our view of the cosmos. Our existing nighttime lighting is enormously wasteful. Good lighting design lets you "see where you're going", without blinding you with glare, or destroying your night vision with excessive light. Please visit the International Dark Sky Association which has been working to solve this problem for decades. First, realize that lights that shine up into the sky are helping no one. Any electricity used to illuminate the sky is wasteful and causes light pollution. Properly shielded lights direct light at the ground where it is helpful, instead of at the sky.
Computers obey me.
While I'm sure people in Central Park would enjoy the night sky, I empathize with their concern for safety and well lit areas certainly feel more secure. I am suggesting that they would need to travel for a bit in order to enjoy the night sky. Another words, the people who are trying to preserve the night sky aren't suggesting the cities turn out their lights, just shine their lights toward the ground instead of toward the sky. You can drive an hour or so from a small city to see a somewhat dark sky and still see a mighty glow from the cities direction. While I understand the glow can never be eliminated, it certainly can and should be reduced.
One aside - I am familiar with the wind farm being erected in one of the few remaining dark sky sites in the eastern United States. A few changes (like moving them a short distance or using red "safe" lights) would have made them astronomy friendly. While this may not seem important to many, the area was obviously a haven for astronomers from all over the area especially since the park has been working hard to make it even more friendly - like installing astronomical domes with electricity and renting them for a nominal fee. so it goes. end aside.
One final thought - even if there were no benefits like cost savings, energy savings, and better lighting, the idea of dark sky preservation is akin to other environmental concerns. Just because we don't all enjoy sloshing through wetlands or cutting our way through a rain forest doesn't mean those areas shouldn't be conserved. I say the same goes for the night sky. We may not all be awed by the glow of a full moon, a fiery meteor blazing through the sky, or just watching the twinkling of a million stars but we shouldn't take away the opportunity for all of us and future generations from seeing what many of us feel is the most amazing and spectacular thing imaginable: our universe.
What about people WALKING at night?
What about them?
they don't experience glair [sic] (no windshield)
Maybe if you'd RTFA you would know what glare is. Since you won't, let me help you:
"glare bombs": fixtures that cast much of their light sideways, into the eyes of passersby, or upward, into the sky
Nothing at all to do with windshields though I suppose windshields can magnify the effects of glare.
how do you propose they walk without streetlights?
You're the one who proposed that. The post you responded to mentioned reducing their illumination.
Streetlights were intended to reduce crime, and I'd say they do a pretty good job of that.
From the article:
Crawford pointed out a cluster of mailboxes across the street from his garage. The lighting near the mailboxes was of a type that Crawford calls "criminal-friendly": it was almost painful to look at, and it turned the walkway behind the boxes into an impenetrable void. "The eye adapts to the brightest thing in sight," he said. "When you have glare, the eye adapts to the glare, but then you can't see anything darker."
[...]
Much so-called security lighting is designed with little thought for how eyes--or criminals--operate. Marcus Felson, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, has concluded that lighting is effective in preventing crime mainly if it enables people to notice criminal activity as it's taking place, and if it doesn't help criminals to see what they're doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights--one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country--often fail on both counts, as do all-night lights installed on isolated structures or on parts of buildings that can't be observed by passersby (such as back doors). A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack." In the early seventies, the public-school system in San Antonio, Texas, began leaving many of its school buildings, parking lots, and other property dark at night and found that the no-lights policy not only reduced energy costs but also dramatically cut vandalism.
So there you go. Street lights are good, but if they shine light directly in the eyes of people walking at night, then those people will be unable to see into the shadows, which would be a great place for a mugger to lurk. However, if those street lights are subdued to decent levels and designed to be free of glare then not only can you see your path but your eyes will also still be adjusted for the darkness and you're better able to see what's outside of a brilliantly lit area. There are other benefits too:
Calgary, Alberta, recently cut its electricity expenditures by more than two million dollars a year, by switching to full-cutoff, reduced-wattage street lights.
Reduce the power output of your street lights and save millions. Additionally:
Diminishing the level of nighttime lighting can actually increase visibility. In recent years, the California Department of Transportation has greatly reduced its use of continuous lighting on its highways, and has increased its use of reflectors and other passive guides, which concentrate luminance where drivers need it rather than dispersing it over broad areas. (Passive guides also save money, since they don't require electricity.) F.A.A.-regulated airport runways, though they don't use reflectors, are lit in a somewhat similar fashion, with rows of guidance lights rather than with high-powered floodlights covering broad expanses of macadam. This makes the runways easier for pilots to pick out at night, because the key to visibility, on runways as well as on roads, is contrast.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Security is the ultimate bad justification, and knee jerk reaction to anything couched as the least threatening. Gated communities, fences around apartment complexes, hostility towards foot and bike trails (because criminals are more likely to be too poor to afford a car), and older cheaper housing, proactive continuously operating computer virus scanning software that makes computers run 10% slower, the invasion of Iraq, airport security measures, locked doors on stairwells so people can't "sneak up" the stairs, the response bank customer service reps too often puke out on why they can't do something or why you must put up with something, DRM, big cars, snooping and spying, and of course lights. It's amazing how all rational discussion of costs and benefits can be short circuited by playing that trump card, "security".
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"