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The Illuminati Project Pushes For Dark Skies In 2009
An anonymous reader writes "2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observations of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter published in Sidereus Nuncius ('Starry Messenger'). To improve scientific literacy, the NOAO and NASA are promoting dark-sky initiatives in 2009 to draw attention to the problem of light pollution which obscures nearly all night sky colors and objects except for the moon and a few bright stars and planets. Project Illuminati is a Flickr project by James Cann to showcase the beauty of light pollution to raise awareness and educate fellow Earthmates to lower energy consumption and become more curious about our place in the universe."
They are trying to promote dark skies (which of course show some amazing celestial bodies) by showing how pretty of a red sky light pollution makes???
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getting out into the middle of nowhere makes. On a clear night out in Yellowstone, for example, there are so many stars in the sky it can be hard to find constellations you're used to seeing in the city. Really beautiful.
People need to get past the idea that you have to try to illuminate every shadow. All you're doing is ruining people's night vision, and thus making the remaining shadows "darker".
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Here in Quebec, one of our parks is actually also protecting the sky. It's a world premier and it is possible. Also, having more efficient lighting saves money so everyone is much more happy from it. http://www.sepaq.com/En/Pages/COM/popUp.cfm?no=588
In Galloway in Scotland, the local tourist board is trying to set up a dark sky park. The area that they're planning to open it is apparently the darkest place in Europe.
There are already two in the US, in Utah (http://www.nps.gov/nabr/parknews/news040507.htm) and Northern Pennsylvania (http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/cherrysprings.aspx). This BLDGBLOG article mentions suggests World Heritage sites for experiencing darkness, set up to protect dark areas: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/dark-sky-park.html
I recently visited Poland (Krakow) and there the level of street lighting was a lot lower, resulting in reduced light pollution. Streets were mostly lit with light reflected from buildings. It's surprising to be able to see the night sky from the middle of a city of 1 million. It's not comparable to countryside darkness by any means, but it really changes the character of a city.
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Whenever I explain your point to other people, they look at me like I'm from another planet. I usually tell them that if they really want lights, they should use red lights and explain to them why it doesn't ruin their night vision and why astronomers and photolabs use red lights.
There are plenty of areas around which are void of lighting. Often times lights are necessary for safety and although you may be able to encourage people to use mirrors and what not to maximize the amount of light hitting the ground rather than going up into the sky, you're not going to have much luck getting populated areas to turn down the lights much. Lighting helps avoid crime.
You can't have a dark city.
The government should just make sure they have large enough plots of land that keep the cities far away so people can go visit and view the dark sky.
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The goal of environmentalism is to improve the quality of life for human beings -- to ensure that our environment, which by definition is everything that surrounds us, is a healthy and pleasant place to live. I'm not sure what it is about this that raises your ire.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Tucson has been working on this for years to protect various local observatories. It's also the home to the international dark sky association: http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do
They have a city ordinance making it illegal to have a light shining upwards - all lights (street lights, security lights, porch lights, etc) have to have a reflector. It's apparently pretty easy to police - bare bulbs are highly visible from the police helicopter.
Seems to be kinda silly to spend your lighting budget trying to illuminate the universe anyway.
And the worms ate into his brain.
My neighbors are typical americans - they came out into what was the countryside (our house was in the middle of nowhere for decades, now it looks like suburbs.)
After they built their McMansions, closer together than some of the houses in the city, using up the woods and fields I used to romp in, they installed huge arrays of sodium-vapor lighting on their houses, which they leave on 24 hours a day. For "security," or to make it homey, or whatever.
I used to go in the back yard to stargaze, I could even see the aurora borealis sometimes - in NY! We never even bothered to replace the outside floodlight over the driveway for years after it died, but the latest thing for all these new people seems to be to have a gazillion lights. Houses, cars, SUVs, three-wheelers, all festooned with lights - long driveways lined with bright lights left on at all times.
I don't get it. Why do people move out to the country if they don't want it to be like the country?
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In order for the light to remain the same, you'd probably have to reduce the power to the lamp.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Flagstaff, AZ, home to the Lowell Observatory has had a black sky ordinance on the books for 50 years now and it works wonders.
There is plenty of lighting for the town and yet you can see stars like you should be able to see stars.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Errr, and that's a problem? Sounds like a win-win to me!
... as a knife wielding teenage gang member I welcome any dark sky initiative - and I can assure you that all my victims will be seeing stars when I've finished with them (shortly before they die in a pool of their own blood ...)
At last, the needs of amateur astrologers, penny pinching local councils, and muggers finally coincide! Happy days!
Is it something in his genes that compels a Geek to give a worthwhile project a name that carries a lot of excess baggage?
Whenever I explain your point to other people, they look at me like I'm from another planet.
You'll get used to it, eventually... sometimes the easiest way is to just tell them that you ARE ;)
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As the cost of energy rises in the medium future, I think this will sort itself out. Towns will question why they are spending so much on lighting and cut back. Generally, households use all they electricity they can afford so rising prices will make people cut back. People don't (usually) run the AC in the summer with the front door wide open. People don't like heating/cooling the outside. It's too expensive and wasteful. Similarly, I think people will curb their habits of trying to light entire cities at night.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Think how much easier it would be to see the stars if we just stopped making electricity. The night skies would be black like they were a thousand years ago. We could all go back to living in caves and wearing fur, no wait, we can't kill animals, and wearing fur is evil and sit by the fire, no burning wood produces CO2, so we'll sit in our dark caves, huddled together to stay warm and slowly starve to death. But then there wouldn't be anyone to look up at the stars. And that is the true goal of "environmentalism".
Are you on a mission to pack the maximum amount of gibberish and straw men into a single post?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
railing against light pollution by taking pictures showing how beautiful it is... kind of like raising diabetes awareness by building a giant sugar sculpture.
Oh no, you've uncovered our evil plan! And we would have got away with it, too, if it weren't for you darn /.ers!
GMAFB. Environmentalists don't want people to starve to death any more than anti-environmentalists want people to choke to death on pollution. Pretty much everyone (well, everyone sane, anyway) wants steady food production, clean air and water, a healthy economy, thriving wildlife, etc.; we simply disagree about the best ways to accomplish these goals and resolve the conflicts which sometimes occur between them. If you want to talk about specific issues and ways you think we can do better than the current approach, go ahead. If all you can do is throw out blanket accusations, you have nothing of value to contribute to the discussion.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
My annoyance with any and all of you who are reading this and use any kind of bright hurricane light while camping. You ruin my night vision. You dont need your stupid light you fool. Grrrr.
Even on the darkest of nights, you dont need any light to find your way around in the dark. Give yourself a couple minutes to adjust and you will do fine. If you really need light, get a maglite and some blue gels for it. Using a blue gel will let you turn on the light for a second or two while you check for the boogie man, and when you turn it off you'll have most of your night vision back right away.
That's great, get back to me when Greenpeace and the World Wildlife foundation stop lying and want to join in real scientific debate rather then scaremongering.
Global dimming specifically measures the reduction in the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface of the Earth because of atmospheric aerosols. It has only been measured for fifty or so years and does not take into account the reduction in surface irradiance that has occurred because of natural or man-made causes in the the nearly two hundred years prior to when record keeping started. Aerosol Optical Depth as well as 'plain old' Optical Depth, are measures of the transparency of an optical medium -like the atmosphere- at optical wavelengths and have a greater effect on dim, point-sources, of light -such as stars- than they do on brighter extended sources of light -the Moon and the Sun- since small aerosol particles in the atmosphere have a greater tendency to scatter the light -which reduces the apparent brightness and increases the extinction- of point sources. If the atmosphere was truly 'clean', then the only phenomenon that an observer would have to contend with is 'Rayliegh Scattering'. A short article over at 'Sky and Telescope's" site, ties it all together. The reduction in atmospheric transparency since the Middle Ages due to man-made pollution has, by some estimates, reduced the brightness of the stars in the night sky by as much as twenty-five percent. There was an article published last year -that may have been mentioned here on \.- that discussed this very situation. Unfortunately, it escapes both my memory and that of Google.
Sig this!
Here's a shot I took the other night of the sky here in the south east of Africa. Sorry it's small (internet here ain't cheap, hehe) but the clouds and trees show that those are real stars in the sky not just sensor noise. enjoy, http://edified.org/external/africa-stars.jpg
Perhaps the rest of you could finally kill each other off so I can enjoy the night sky. Its a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Sigh, wasting a good thread for modding by replying to this but since no one else has I'll bite.
Why legislate? If the lamps were cost effective, then the municipalities would make the switch. Right now in central Ohio the primary electric provider charges in the neighborhood of $5 per lamp per month for power. The muni is responsible for purchasing the bulbs if I am remembering correctly.
First, you legislate it since its the only way to get it done. Sad but true. Next, you only need LED light bulbs. You don't have to replace the full lamp, at least if these consumer sites are anything to go by.
If the cost of power and the cost of the bulb are figured in, the LED street lamps take an insane amount of time to recoup the cost. Even when you figure in the labor to replace the bulbs every couple of years it still doesn't add up.
Per the source Wikipedia provided the extra initial cost is paid off within two years just from the electricity savings, and barring a physical disaster (such as the streetlamp falling over or getting shot with a gun) you don't have to change the bulb for 20 years. Really, it is a better choice but it would require work by city employees to actually make the change happen. They may even have to do a slide show!
When many budgets are being stretched to the breaking point would you advocate for your town to install LED street lights that will cost more? Would you vote for your taxes to be increased to purchase the lights, or would you prefer that a couple of employees be terminated to pay for the cost difference? I, myself, am not opposed to the idea of installing power saving, pollution reducing equipment, but there has to be a balance somewhere.
Hell yes I would advocate for this. Budgets don't magically get bigger on their own. You have to work for it. You have to plan and invest for it. This is a very, fucking, simple, means to save the city/town a lot of money and power, and it cuts down on light pollution as an added bonus!
Oh and something else to chew on: as more demand for LED lights increases, in the form of cities and towns using them for streetlights, the manufacturing process will be improved as companies compete with one another to produce a cheaper light bulb to sell. That's basic market principles. Demand drives innovation. Yet another long term economic bonus by mandating a switch to LED lights.
Apparently the Department of Energy in the US thinks they're a damn good thing that should be improved so they can become the defacto light source. They're hosting a contest since May 2008 to create a better LED light bulb. They call it the L-Prize.
Really, once you look at the known facts and the future potential you have to ask yourself why not? A handful of employees might lose their job? Taxes may go up a fraction of a percent? You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and you can't make improvements for the future without paying for it. To hold back on something as simple as this for the reasons you gave is petty, just petty.