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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."
Someone's firing too much magic missile.
We should be making love on light pollution, not war!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I live in Salt Lake City, and the light pollution here is just like any other city. My favorite place is to visit Lake Powell, near the Arizona border where there are no city lights for at least 50-100 miles.
I always thought it would be nice if we had one day a year where people made a conscious effort to turn off all their lights, like "Star's Day" or some other stupid name so people could have one night a year to keep lights off, but that would inevitably just lead to an increase in crime for that night, so... darn.
We'll just have to enjoy it when I'm camping.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
A couple that was married for 20 years always made love with the lights off.
Well, after 20 years, the wife felt this was ridiculous. She figured she would break him out of this crazy habit.
So one night, while they were in the middle of a wild, screaming, romantic session, she turned the lights on.
She looked down... and saw that her husband was holding a battery-operated pleasure device -- a vibrator -- softer and larger than a real penis.
She went completely ballistic. "You impotent bastard," she screamed at him, "how could you be lying to me all of these years? You better explain yourself!"
The husband looks her straight in the eyes and says calmly:
"I'll explain the toy... if you explain the kids."
Moral of the story? everyone is happy when you turn the lights off at night.
Unfortunately, a lot of citizens of San Jose want white lights for some reason (especially car dealerships), so I don't know how much longer that'll last.
sigfault. core dumped.
The most impressive sky I have ever seen was right after a typhoon on the island of Guam.
I snuck out of my house when I was 16 and the island was still under a typhoon warning and nobody was outside.
The entire island and the neighboring island of Truk were both without power entirely and there was not a single cloud in the sky.
It truly was a spectacular sight and I do feel sad when I look up into the night here in the states.
You can't imagine what it's like until you've seen it for yourself. Really
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
While lights at night may make the sky harder to see the effect will be very pretty for any visiting aliens.
In fact this story has inspired me to go and set up xplanet again to provide an ever-changing desktop background.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
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.
Tucson AZ has been fighting light pollution for more than 20 years. This isn't exactly a new fight. That said, it's gaining momentum. In part thanks to the IDA. That having been said, this won't be won until the general population sees light pollution as a bad thing. We aren't there yet but with more general public articles there are chances that light pollution becomes as well known as air and water pollution.
For what it's worth, some estimate that there are about 700,000 amateur astronomers in the US. It's not a huge number. But it's much bigger than the just a few geeks that some would make you think.
It's a good fight and it starts at home, you can do your part by turning off the exterior lights of your house when you don't need them. With 2009 the international year of astronomy, if you help now, maybe we all will get a better view of the night sky to celebrate the 400 years of telescope observing of the night sky.
The suburban sprawl boom of the last 25 years absolutely destroyed the quality of the night sky, and I don't see it getting any better unless there is a severe energy crisis that hits the avg American's wallet. Even one of the few remaining dark sky sites in the North East is now being threatened by a proposed wind farm.
If you would RTFA instead of rushing for first post you'd see that it mentions that, when properly done, reducing the excessive and inappropriately strong lighting that covers most cities would actually aid nighttime vision by eliminating the glare.
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
The darkest - best sky I have ever seen - in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean its pretty dark !
I remember how easy it was to see all the space junk flying overhead - and some nebula's and galaxy's
could be discerned with the un-aided eye.. Too cool. Light pollution sucks...
All we need to do is install more power stations with Windows and the viruses will do the rest:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/14/power.outage/
No power, no light pollution
Where's your evidence that lights reduce crime at all? If having some lights does reduce crime, where's your evidence that there aren't already more than the optimum number of lights? I know people think that lights reduce crime, but there seems to be little or no proof of it. In fact, what little research I've seen seems to indicate that lights, at least added on top of the lights we already have in cities, do not reduce crime.
In any case, a lot could be done by just aiming the lights at the parking lot itself, rather than at the sky. There aren't that many flying muggers or rapists.
I don't believe that nothing can be done about light pollution while maintaining ground-level lighting, and I honestly doubt that light reduces crime much anyway.
However, even if I'm wrong about that, a better sky view for the majority of the world's population (that's BILLIONS of people) probably is worth a few muggings and even rapes... it takes a stunted soul, or somebody who's never seen a real night sky, not to realize the value. We're not talking about "hobbyists" or "enthusiasts". We're talking about any human being with a functioning spirit.
For those who don't know what he's referring to: Belgium illuminates its highways at night.
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?
While I do understand the desire to see the night sky better, I'm not sure that this is "pollution" per se. Pollution (at least as defined by Merriam-Webster) implies contamination - light does not contaminate. Where we to just turn off all the lights and wait a few femtoseconds the night sky would be as dark as pitch. This isn't about pollution (which is something that does actually need fighting), but rather someone saying "Gee, I wish I could see the night sky better." Fair enough, and so do I, but I'm not willing to give up street lights to get it.
:)
Of course, when it comes to someone opening up their cell phone during a movie... roll out the tanks, let the war begin!
PUT THAT LIGHT OUT! (ww2)
This was done of course to make cities difficult to spot from the air, aiding enemy bombers navigate to (or identify) their target. When you think about how hard it is to get 30,000 people to cooperate on anything, it's a wonder that was even worth the effort of trying.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Those of us from "out in the country" have a different perspective.
Most nights, it's easier to see in the absence of artificial light, because our eyes adapt to the more complete light coverage provided by the moon and stars. City and suburb folks have problems with darkness because of the incomplete coverage of the artificial lights causes ordinary darkness to appear pitch black, and creates shadows causing even more darkness.
Driving at night, I generally prefer to be out in the middle of nowhere, because I can see better with my headlights being the only light source.
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.
many women demand more lighting during the night, for reasons of safety.
.7 foot-candles, around 20X the brightness when you are right under the streetlight, but how far outside of the immediate scope of the streetlight can you see? The brighter the bright spots get, the higher the contrast and the less overall visibility you have. My point is that if you keep the brightness low, but take care to light up the dark shadowy spots as well, you can actually see better. Well lit shouldn't be confused with "brighter".
They may be saying "more" light but they probably mean "more even" lighting. You could see better down a street or across a parking lot if it had half the brightness but it was evenly spread, vs intermittent very bright spots. So having it bright as the noon day sun in front of the bar actually makes it worse to walk across the parking lot, unless that is just as bright. If you have every been out in the country at night and you could see moderately well with a full moon (enough to play soccer, I've done it) that was what even lighting at about 0.035 foot-candles gives you as far as visibility. Most streetlights give you about
We are all just people.
Besides turning off lights, just modifying them can make a tremendous difference. Calgary, Alberta used to be one of the brightest cities in the world (despite having a population under a million) and at night you could see about six stars. Most neighborhoods now have lower wattage street lights with flat faceplates. They're much more effective at directing light downwards instead of up into the sky so the overall illumination on the ground is the same. The city saves millions a year in power and you can see constellations again.
Oh man, I am so with you friend. I moved a few miles out of town, and the sky is a bit better out here, but the skyglow creeps ever nearer. I really can't help but wonder if anyone that has posted a negative remark about this article has ever beheld a truly dark sky... though I would guess any negative remark comes from those who haven't read the article, and have no past education about the issue.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
What's notable though, is that there is a considerable variation in the result based on where the study was done (and, presumably, the exact difference between the test and control situations, as I haven't went through all the underlying studies myself), with many areas producing negligible changes, or even statistically significant increases in certain types of crime with the introduction of additional lighting. The most simple conclusion is that the lighting has to be sensibly managed: floodlights on every street corner are not necessary, and may even be detrimental. Which means that there is certainly the possibility that the goals of improving the visibility of the sky and the improvement of street lighting (improvement not strictly meaning increase, of course) are not necessarily incompatible.
Have you *seen* the lack of light pollution there?
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There was an incident at the VA hospital on Wilshire Blvd in LA once, over twenty years ago. From then on, until about a year ago, you had to go through metal detectors to get into the waiting room for the main clinic, even though there was no evidence that there was any threat. However, you didn't have to go through them to get into any other part of the hospital; just the waiting room for the clinic. It took years of time, and numerous people complaining, but they were eventually deactivated. Not removed; just deactivated. They're still there, wasting space, doing nothing, having no more effect now than they did when they were in use. A perfect example of security theater in action.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Allow white lights until say 10, and then after that require just the yellow lights. When I was a kid, I grew up in the country and can remember the stars that I saw. It was incredible. Now, whenever I look out there, it is just a fraction. But it is not just Light pollution.
My father was a pilot on b-49's and other miltary aircrafts, and later on the commercial aircrafts. He was telling me about the stars that he used to see in the 40's (from the ground),50's (from the planes),and somewhat into the 60s, vs what he see now at 35-50K ft.
Apparently, the view up at 45-55K during the late 50's was stupendous. Now, it is like the ground was in the 60's. Light pollution is easily changed, but it is obvious that it is air pollution that becomes the real killer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A few years back on TX State Highway 77 heading north I could see an odd skyglow that I noticed just a few miles north of Raymondville TX. I was interested quickly because there is nothing in the ranch land between Raymondville and Corpus Christi that could be making that much light. Is I continued north, I noted the slowness of the angular change of the light and realized it had to be Corpus. A couple of hours of driving confirmed that the skyglow in this city of absurd light was really visible 120 miles south of here.
This city is totally filled with flood-lit carlots, an incredible amount of freeway lighting (way more per mile than any other Texas city that I've seen), billboard's littering the cityscape all lit from below, and a total disregard for our very unique coastal wildlife. Light pollution is just another example of our culture's unnatural incompatibility with our natural environment.
I would out in the middle of the australia desert - i kow what a black sky is. but suggesting we need cities without night lighting is retarded. haven't you seen the simpsons episode?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It's a bit more complicated than that. From a safety perspective, what you want is even lighting with fewer shadows. A brighter light can be counter productive in many areas to adding security.
The lighting we have around her is horrible, it is bright where there is light, but many of the street lights are out so the dark shadows are almost impenetrable, as the horrid yellowish orange lights pretty much destroy any night vision. In many places there are huge bushes that impede the light.
Fixing that could very well result in fewer lumens needed to light the area and still be significantly safer than what we have around here.
The other thing that they could do is use red lights rather than the more typical yellowish orange ones. While it probably doesn't make a difference directly, red lights are going to require less lumens to light an area.
Dude.. you really need to work on your headlights. Either that or learn what the phrase "driving too fast for conditions" means.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
No, No, No.
You keep the lights on to make the thieves at ease, infrared motion detectors to trigger the machine guns.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Streetlights won't help reduce the glare of oncoming cars' headlights in the least, unless you're suggesting that the roads be so brightly lit that it won't be necessary to use headlights at all. Keeping one's windshield clean helps quite a lot with this problem.
:-)
For those walking at night along an unlit road at night, they have these devices called "flashlights" that can help with the other concerns you voiced, and reflective clothing goes a long way towards preventing an unpleasant encounter between pedestrians and traffic. I would say that five dollars spent on a flashlight for one's own safety is a far more efficient solution to the problem than to have everyone else pay thousands of dollars for streetlights and the power to run them, with the attendant light pollution problems.
And whether Alpha Centauri is visible isn't an issue for the vast majority of residents of the Northern Hemisphere as it's always below the horizon even on a totally dark, clear night for them.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The article does touch upon the subject of crime: The object of security lighting is to see the criminal while not letting the criminal see you, so gigantic bright lights on all the time can only do one. Nobody's suggesting we get rid of streetlights, by the way: just make them illuminate straight downwards.
Ninjas and pirates. How piquant.
I hate to have to tell you this, but it is much more likely that you father's vision is deteriorating. The atmosphere is very thin at 55 thousand feet, and contains even less particulate matter, so there is no way that air pollution is affecting the view from that altitude.
The object of security lighting is to bathe otherwise dark places in light so that criminals will not feel secure in their ability to commit crime unseen.
"Nobody's suggesting we get rid of streetlights, by the way: just make them illuminate straight downwards."
Streetlights already employ reflectors to direct their light downward, they just let it arc over many degrees so that fewer lights will need to be installed, and so that some lights can be turned off to cool while not leaving the street dark. I think they're talking about installing a larger number of smaller lights. I don't know that that would be a worthwhile investment (and it wouldn't reduce the wattage installed in lit parking-lots).
I always thought it would be nice if we had one day a year where people made a conscious effort to turn off all their lights, like "Star's Day" or some other stupid name so people could have one night a year to keep lights off, but that would inevitably just lead to an increase in crime for that night, so... darn.
Not really, criminals need light too. And as TFA says when San Antonio started turning lights off at night at schools vandalism went down not up.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have some fond memories from the week I spent houseboating with my cousins on Lake Powell. I slept on the top of the boat, and it was absolutely the clearest sky I've ever seen. Definitely much better than anything I've seen in the midwest, where I live. The only problem was the high walls blocked the sides of the sky.
I remember going out at night growing up in Florida and just lying on the ground gazing at the stars. It would be so clear and the stars would be bright. Then the county put in street lights and they ruined stargazing. About the only thing that spoiled it before the streetlights was the jets flying overhead, we lived a few miles from airport runways and one of the flight paths was over us. I especially loved watching rocket launches, we lived outside of Orlando and was about 50 miles from the cape.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Look, dude, it's like this. Chicks dig stars. Countless generations of guys got laid by showing chicks stars. What are you gonna do, now that you can't even see the stars? This is all about trying to help guys like you score. Get with the program. Shield your bloody lights.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
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.
Yes. Done wrong, more lights can make for a more dangerous environment. If you read the article, part of what it touches on is the fact that poorly designed and placed 'bright' lights actually reduce viability. Properly designed and placed lights would reduce light pollution, save electricity AND make for a more secure environment.
I do live in Curitiba and I do remember that ~15 years ago you could quite a lot of stars during the night, enough to try to identify the constelations and stuff. Nowadays all you can see during the night is a reddish haze in the sky (due to the city's mercury lamps), the Moon, Venus and perhaps one and another star. When the weather is _very_ dry you may see perhaps more 5-6 stars.
Once, 10+ years ago, I was returning from Paraguay by bus and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a freak-long line (customs control). The line was completely stuck, I was feeling bored and went from the bus to take some fresh air. I remember that when I looked at the night sky I could see clearly the Via-Lactea, the sky was filled with stars and the whole thing seemed sort of colorful.. You could even see some meteorites/satellites/whatever passing by.
Man, that was an unique experience for a city guy. I guess it was only then I realised the point of appreciating the night sky people so often wrote about.
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.
-1, Wrong and Uninformed
/ 054b_exposure_light_and_exposure_values.htm#Light) You can see with a lot less light than you think you can, if you'd just turn out the damn lights.
People walking at night *do* experience glare. First off, lots of folks wear glasses. Secondly, the presence of streetlights, even assuming no stray reflections, *does* affect human vision by preventing the eye from becoming fully dark-adapted. Many lighting schemes actually make things worse by creating very uneven lighting patterns. The eye will wind up adjusting its levels based on those bright areas, and then be completely unable to see in the dark areas.
Naturally, anyone up to no good will be in those shadows where nobody can see, because their eyes are metering for the bright areas.
*Contrast*, not the absolute amount of light, is the real limiting factor here. Two examples:
I was out in the forest today and saw a bird land on a tree branch west of me, backlit by the setting sun. I couldn't tell what it was; it appeared completely black to me because my eyes were adjusted to the huge amount of light coming from the western sky. I can, however, override my camera's automatic exposure setting, and was able to get a picture (at ISO 100, fyi). There was plenty of light to see by, there was just too much light coming from what I didn't want to see. Your eyes don't have an exposure override.
You can also see quite well in a whole hell of a lot less light than you think. I've been in situations where moonlight is actually bright enough to be dazzling (compared to the previous starlight when the moon was obscured); starlight is even enough to see where you're going by.
Starlight is 512 times dimmer than a streetlit street; moonlight is 64 times dimmer. (Reference: http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/tips
Also, studies have been done that show that, when streetlights are removed from neighborhoods, crime actually goes down. Why? Because there are no shadows to hide in, and, if it's really that dark, the boogeyman (who's much less common than you think) won't be able to see you either without a flashlight. My neighborhood is unlit and is in a city with a pretty high crime rate (Tucson, Arizona); I've never felt unsafe because of the lack of streetlights.
Benefits of turning off the lights, since you asked:
1) It saves power. Gobs of power.
2) People can enjoy the natural world, and possibly learn something in the process.
3) Less damn glare, helps drivers and walkers (who can see just fine by moonlight/starlight
4) Astronomy.
5) It has been hinted at that excessive artificial lighting at night screws up people's circadian rhythms and might be responsible for certain sleep disorders, fatigue, depression, etc. This hasn't been shown conclusively yet, of course, and in any case looking at a 14" LCD like I am now is far worse.
Slightly off topic, but... Some of those horrid yellow lights have another little problem which could probably be dealt with but isn't in some places. That problem is that they are so close to the color and intensity of a yellow traffic light that they "camouflage" yellow traffic lights.
... that is until it "suddenly" turns red and results in people jamming on their brakes.
On one major street that I drive on at nights sometimes, you have to learn to remember where you saw a green light and, when you glance back (from scanning the sides of the road and your mirrors like one should), remember where it was - because if it's turned yellow, you can't quickly pick it out from all the yellow street lights - it just looks like suddenly a signal that you recall having seen is no longer there
Once you learn to remember where the signals are because you drive the street regularly, it's not so bad - but it's quite disconcerting the first few times and certainly detracts attention from other elements of your driving even once you learn to compensate for it.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
One answer is to only run 1/3 of the lights at any given time and randomly change which 1/3 is on. Tests have shown that this tends to REDUCE crime. When the lights are always on, criminals can see where the dark places are and hide there. With random lights, their nice dark hiding place can light up like a parking lot without warning. To a criminal, a light that could come on at any moment is as bad or worse than an always on light.
It's a fairly easy way to save a lot of electricity and help with light pollution. Bonus points if a "scream sensor" immediatly lights the area fully. Double bonus if the surrounding lights light up in an arrow pattern so a police helicopter can spot a problem area visually.
It's an illusion. There are no good scientific studies that convincingly show the relationship between lighting and crime. In some cases, lighting seems to deter crime and it makes people feel more secure, but in reality they may be just as secure without the lighting.
FalconShould there be a Law?
However, there are times when the sunlight reflected off the moon is insufficient to provide meaningful illumination. Without street lighting in these cases, you get no advance warning of anything beyond the range of your headlights -- which can increase risk over a situation where there are some fixed sources of artificial light to provide some visibility beyond your headlights.
In the area I live, there are some stretches of freeway where there are no street lights and virtually no human presence (business or residential) near the freeway to cast artificial light on the freeway. When deer are (for reasons only a deer would understand - and I'm not sure even they do) standing in the middle of the freeway at 3AM just because a car hasn't driven by for five minutes, it's quite a bit more exciting on the "moonless" nights because by the time your headlights pick them up, you need to react very quickly to avoid hitting them (especially when, for reasons known only to themselves, they are distributed across all three or four lanes). Obviously one needs to drive at speeds within the limits of one's headlights, but a minor distraction or moment of inattention becomes substantially riskier if you have nearly zero time to react due to a lack of lighting beyond your headlights.
Not to say that there should be street lights on these stretches of road (it would be absurdly wasteful actually), but it seems likely it would be "safer" in at least some situations (sorry, but I'm skeptical that limited properly designed street street lighting on these stretches would reduce safety in any way that would offset the safety benefits).
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
On an all-night *yawn* trip from Salt Lake City to San Diego, I took this photo at the rest area in the desert between Baker and Barstow, California, looking in the direction of Las Vegas. Once I found refuge from the glare bombs surrounding the parking lot, I looked up and saw more stars than I've ever seen before... but Vegas and L.A. were huge glowing domes on the horizon. I don't think there's anywhere in the continental U.S. that is totally free from light pollution.
You don't need a scientific study to figure some of this stuff out. My bullshit detector lights up whenever some random dothead posts a quote from a random website to Slashdot that "no such studies have been done". People who claim no such studies have been done usually have no clue exactly how many graduate students there are in the world (a lot... I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that more than one had independently studied the relative incidence of cold and flu among two groups of people, one of which pluck their nose hairs when they get too long, the other which trim). Someday Google will make it easier to find and evaluate studies on all manner of things. For now, it's a bit harder than it should be.
And sure, sometimes no good studies have been done on a random topic or another, even important topics that might surprise you. Freakonomics (chapter 4) had an interesting discussion of the measurable affect of various public policy on crime rates, and it appears that the topic was not well studied and certainly the results of the studies which had been done were not well synthesized. As much energy and money as it receives, you would think that would be studied more rigorously and more often. Alas, it is not.
One moment please while I google for you... Here's a nice (rigorously referenced) summary which draws upon several studies, and which includes a section on lighting, which has been studied and shown to be effective as a measure in reducing crime. Presuming Canadian criminals do not have some unique national aversion to well-lit areas at night, then these results might be of interest to others, eh?
EVIDENCE-BASED CRIME PREVENTION: SCIENTIFIC BASIS, TRENDS, RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CANADA
On the other hand, sure, maybe most of these studies are too localized, and what's happening on the larger scale is a shell game: a fixed amount of crime in a city is moving from well-lit areas to less-well-lit areas.
In any case, I'm definitely in favor of shielding and motion sensors and reduction of night lighting that's not useful. However, security lighting is a real concern, and it entails more than simply crime, it's really about insurance liability and inventory loss. Business owners will tell you that gangs of kids don't hang out in their parking lots at night as often (or at all) when they are well lit. They will also tell you that incidents of break-ins went down after they started lighting up the place at night. In some situations, their insurance companies may require certain lighting improvements, and you can bet the actuaries have some idea of the cost/benefit of lighting in certain situations. Installing and running lights isn't free, after all, and it's quite likely that businesses wouldn't do it if they were not pretty well convinced that it's effective at saving them money in some way which exceeds the cost. They might be wrong, but that wouldn't be for a complete lack of evidence supporting their current belief.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
A quick Google search shows that there seem to be studies about lighting and crime. Sure the topic probably merits additional study, but discounting the work that has been done based on an unsourced sentence leading a wikipedia article probably isn't helping further the discussion.
Here are a couple papers which each include several references:
THE EFFECT OF BETTER STREET LIGHTING ON CRIME AND FEAR: A REVIEW
EVIDENCE-BASED CRIME PREVENTION: SCIENTIFIC BASIS, TRENDS, RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CANADA
I'm all in favor of a darker sky, but we are not going to win many converts if we keep lying about something that can be so trivially debunked.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Especially since as soon as the criminal turns on his flashlight his night vision will go poof.. allowing you to sneak up to him without him seeing you.. with that big pipewrench in your hand.. oooh.. that sounds almost like how a criminal would sneak up in the shadows of the very lights meant to keep you safe.. er.. make you feel safe. Hmm... wait... there is a point in there. Go find it. ;)
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Headlights aren't that big of a deal as far as light pollution goes, in most places at least. Ever been on a road where you're the only car going down it, but there are lights all over the place? Those lights are the problem.
What interesting timing for this article, though. This evening, my partner and I drove 35 minutes away to get to somewhere with a Bortle limit of 4, perhaps a bit closer to 3 than to 5, so we could stargaze and use our telescope. We'd have to drive an hour and a half, maybe more to get to a Bortle limit of 2.
And we live in freakin Iowa. Not Des Moines or anything, either -- Iowa City. It seems crazy that living in a city of 60k people, with a city of 100k people half an hour to the north and 200k people over an hour to the east, and that's pretty much it except for farmland and scattered towns, would have this much light pollution. And yet, we do. We have to go to northeastern Missouri to get to a 2.
A month ago, I was in Yellowstone. Bortle limit 1-2. I've never seen the sky that beautiful. It was like a painting. Kudos to the planners for the park for keeping light pollution out that well with that many travelers. Sadly, when I went to Rocky Mountain National Park right afterwards, they were a 3 or 4. Too close to Denver, I suppose. Such a pity.
You know, in theory, light pollution can be made to go away with the flick of a switch. In practicality, that's impossible. Nobody is just going to turn off all of the lights in their cities. Realistically, light pollution can only be eliminated by changing our infrastructure, and in a way, that's very similar to the problems with many other kinds of pollution.
By a scallop's forelocks!
A quick Google search shows that there seem to be studies about lighting and crime. Sure the topic probably merits additional study, but discounting the work that has been done based on an unsourced sentence leading a wikipedia article probably isn't helping further the discussion.
Before replying I did use Google. I found the Wiki article by Googling lights night security studies, it's number 4 in the results. The first result is a blog entry about how the streetlight outside the window disturbs sleep. The next two are sellers of lights. The fifth, "The Issues surrounding lighting" has a section, "How lighting can aid crime", explaining exactly how lights help crime. It's interesting the first one says most crimes happen in daylight. Streetlights definitely don't help there.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's not that it's controversial. All I see is a bunch of arguing about the relative goodness or badness of it. Hey, I think it's a great idea - I like seeing stars, and if you can alter lighting in such a way that I'm not made more susceptible to crime while walking, and that I can actually see better when I'm driving, then I'm all for it!
But nobody is asking the "grownup questions" that are at the core of every good idea, social program, and good intention. Too frequently, they never get asked. Anyway, here they are:
1) How much will it cost?
2) Who's going to pay for it?
3) What will we have to give up in order to get this?
4) Is the tradeoff worth it?
5) What are the higher-order effects, and can we live with them?
This is not an issue or a cause to be taken seriously. So it seems that the logic here is: "let us all use "dark sky friendly" lights so we cannot see the real pollution and this will all go away and seem like a bad dream. I believe that we can find better issues to deal with than "light pollution". It is similar to going to an emergency room with a gunshot wound to the chest and complaining about a hangnail. Priorities people... Priorities.
A couple of comments:
I don't quite see why trying to reduce light pollution would be mutually exclusive with working concurrently to solve other issues. After all, 'we' (in the more global sense, as I'm not probably living in the same country as you) have been working at the same time on multiple problems of different scopes pretty much as long as the humans have lived in organized societies. As a comparison, it's generally not a good idea to forget completely about some local group of criminals while you're working on the global hunger, war on terror or other grand things.
It's also not only about being able to enjoy the night sky properly. By using more efficient lighting setups that minimize the amount of light that ends up on the sky and becomes wasted, less energy is used, which in turn has an effect on the amount of other pollution being created. This really is related to the other pollution problems (and even appears to be capable of causing some actual biological harm to humans and other animals, as mentioned briefly in the article as well).
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
On the Autobahns, there are almost no lights at all. In whole west Germany I only know about one or two pieces of a few kilometers where there are lights. And when I first came here I was surprised that driving on an Autobahn with no lights is actually more comfortable than driving on the completely illuminated Dutch roads. You can look much further ahead (an eye trained to the dark can distinguish a single photon, you can probably catch the light of a car that is a mile in front of you) . Also by the shape of the lights you can distinguish trucks from cars, which helps when you're speeding. In general, you can just concentrate better.
What I don't like BTW are the LED back lights on cars. For some reason they create a memory effect in my retina, and the eyes seem to automatically follow these lights, which is very distracting. This is probably because they have the overall same intensity as normal back lights, but much more focused. I wonder if this isn't dangerous on the long term.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
What about if the entire city's lights light up in a marquee display that can be seen from the moon reading "Mugging victim needs assistance here!" ? Brownie points there? No? Dang!
I hate printers.
1) Next to nothing compared to other programs. Use the excess tinfoil around here to make reflectors.
2) Take a 0.00001% fraction of the defense budget.
3) Nothing.
4) Yes.
5) None, and yes.
Any more?
I hate printers.