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Why We Need to Keep Our Night Skies Dark (Video)
Kelly
Beatty has a unique perspective on the world of astronomy:
Beatty's been on the staff of Sky & Telescope magazine
for nearly 40 years as a writer and editor, including a stint heading
"Night Sky" magazine. He's also written what's been called "the
definitive guide for the armchair astronomer," and teaches astronomy
to people of all ages. (He even has an asteroid named after him.)
Besides being fascinated with the objects we can see in Earth's skies,
Beatty takes the skies themselves seriously: his Twitter handle is NightSkyGuy for a reason. We talked a few weeks ago, in
dark-skied rural Maine, about his involvement with the International Dark-Sky Association,
and why you should care about ubiquitous light pollution, even if you
don't have a deep interest in star-gazing. (And it's not just to be courteous
to your neighbors.)
A few days ago, the Washington Post ran a somewhat unconventional travel article on Tucson as a destination for skygazers, and mentioned the influence of the ISDA and the local astronomy community in creating the local ordinances limiting light pollution:
www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/seeing-stars-in-tucsons-brilliant-night-sky/2013/08/22/5bc4d34e-05e2-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html
where do you live? I can drive hour out into the country and see the Milky Way, even near houses with lights on. more a matter of lack of street lamps and clean air (doesn't work near large cities)
it may seem so intuitively, but research is inconclusive. Bright night-time lighting produces sharp shadows that bad guys can hide in, and reduces the eye's ability to detect peripheral movements.
See http://cops.usdoj.gov/Publications/e1208-StreetLighting.pdf
and http://keysso.net/community_news/May_2003/improved_lighting_study.pdf
actually, by the site's own claims 22% of energy is used for lighting, and 8% of the 22% for outdoor lighting.....1.6% is not much to be worried about saving a portion of, sorry.
From a wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption article on energy usage
Energy consumption in the G20 increased by more than 5% in 2010 after a slight decline of 2009. In 2009, world energy consumption decreased for the first time in 30 years, by 1.1%—equivalent to 130 megatonnes (130,000,000 long tons; 140,000,000 short tons) of oil—as a result of the financial and economic crisis, which reduced world GDP by 0.6% in 2009.[11]
So 1.6% of that is 2080000 long tons of oil per year based on 2009 figures, it's almost certain that figure is higher now. Now work out how many power stations it would take to create the equivalent output. Not so insignificant?
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
nuclear reactors produce 55% of the power where I live, that's a solution that can make a huge difference. one ton of natural uranium can produce the energy of 16,000 tons of coal.
That is a real misconception. Light doesn't reduce crime, it only gives people a better feeling so they tent to come to places where they feel safe. Criminals most of the time don't like to be watched so go to other areas. That is also the reason why you hear music in some parking places to give people a safe feeling. To be honest, I prefer a parking without the music so I hear other people. And about the light? Please turn it off, it gives burglars the need to use a flashlight again and what is easier then to aim for the light with your gun ;-)
In The Netherlands there are towns that turn of lights after a certain time and crime didn't go up. Other cities are also reducing lights and on some places it is turned of completely. In other places we may just need lights with motion sensors so they turn on when its needed. In GB soms roads have LEDs in the asphalt which turn green when your light hit them, but they are orange when a car past the same spot in say the last 60 seconds so you know people are in front of you.
Light itself doesn't create security, only a safe feeling, but how it is used it how it becomes a security measure. This is what some cities in The Netherlands are also experimenting with. How to use light to create safety not to give everything a nice glow. You may want to read what green light does for the environment.