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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
We need to help be able to see the galaxy. I enjoyed as a kid. Now as a photographer for Impostor Magazine shooting fashion, this makes me miss the good old days!
Have you at least read the transcript? He isn't advocating the removal of night lighting. He's advocating LED lights that are focused downwards, which would not only help with the light pollution problem but is more efficient energy wise.
I don't think that I have ever met a person who, when away from the city lights, didn't marvel at the grand display overhead. I also don't think that I have ever met a person who upon re-entering a built up area ever said, "I'm glad those twinkling stars have finely gone away."
To be even more specific the darker it has been the more people have always marveled. When you can see our galaxy edge on in all its glory then the whole experience becomes just that much better.
But for some reason we don't fight the big box stores when they blast a megawatt or two into the completely unused corners of their lots. Or the car dealerships that seem to want to keep their cars warm with the lighting; not to mention the dealers that then use the skyward spotlights to announce that their salesmen are like the gods of Olympus.
Obviously some lighting is necessary but I would love to see some requirements for intelligent lighting. Lights that take into account that there is nobody needing their services and thus they can turn off. I suspect that at 2 in the morning all but the most populated areas would be quite dark. Plus the added bonus of reduced energy costs.
I'll take a clear sky over culture any day. Hence why I'm visit cities, but no longer live in them.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
As anybody who's been to Vegas can confirm, lots of lights = lots of culture. So, yes, you are right.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
How much longer before genetic engineering gives us humans the night vision many of our fellow mammals have?
Yeah, I'm one of those people who never understood the lack of lampshades on our streetlights. There is no reason shine any light above the horizon, except to illuminate the buildings, and most of them, you don't want to see.
You know what else travels far, the noise. You can hear a city from 10-20 miles away.
And the RF, well..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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
Even light that is laser-focused toward the ground tends to bounce back up from the gray concrete. Take a night flight at your nearby general aviation airport and look down. You'll see few lights directly, and large swaths of glowy orange.
There's not even much reason to shine light at the horizon - all that gets you is a bunch of night-vision destroying bright points in the distance. Light falls off with the inverse square of distance, and beyond a short range it no longer provides anywhere near enough power for our eyes to use. Ideally we would figure out how far from the light you can get before it ceases to be useful, and shield the light so that you can't see it directly from much beyond that distance. That would actually *improve* effective illumination since you wouldn't have all these bright point sources in the distance blinding you to everything within several degrees of them around them.
Can't tell you how many times I've driven into town at night and cussed out the light-lined streets that make it impossible to see anything.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I have been in well-lighted gated communities where the lighting was well designed; you could clearly see around you for safety but light pollution was minimized, such that you could luck up and enjoy a great view of the sky. How did they accomplish this? They installed the lights properly, such that all of the light was aimed down at the ground on and surrounding walkways. It was very safe, minimized light pollution (you cannot eliminate it because some light will reflect off the ground and of course off of fog), and of course, very "green" because all of the light produced was aimed at the ground.
I live in Lee, NH - on most nights, except when the moon is at or within a couple of days of full, I can see the Milky Way very clearly - I consider our sky to be very dark, but by astronomical standards it isn't (compared to oh, say, north-central Maine, Antarctica, northern Canada, and central Australia - or North Korea where the only people who have lights is tyrants). The only (clear) nights I cannot see the Milky Way is Friday Nights, when the NASCAR track has events going on - when I drive by there it pisses me off. The lights are installed improperly, spraying probably >70% of the light produced straight up into the sky. This is commonplace in the city, where people are ignorant asses and I get that, but this is rural NH. Why the hell are you assholes at Lee Speedway wasting all that electricity to produce wasted light, rendering the sky unviewable? When it comes up for vote, I will be voting to NOT give them an extended season, and if the vote is at a town meeting I will explain why - it won't be the noise, nor the traffic, but the light pollution.
I don't mind the noise of the cars (hell I love engines as I'm a motorhead myself, having driven many muscle, sports and exotic cars, and having rebuilt several engines myself, but the idea of a race where you only turn left bores me to tears) but the light pollution is awful; it ruins one of the best aspects of living in a rural area.
Lighting fixtures are stupid-easy to select and install properly.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Ever visited/seen documentaries of just about any developing nation on the planet? Rich and varied cultures with roots going back hundreds or thousands of years.
Oh wait, you mean the sort of "culture" that lets you get a Big Mac at 2am on your way back from watching the midnight showing of Slasher XXIV in stereoscopic surround sound. Nope, they don't have any of that.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Look up. I just moved away from Boston to New Hampshire. I'd say NH is far more cultured since people are far more polite and entertainment is plentiful, plus it's nice to actually GO OUTSIDE and enjoy nature, especially the dark sky at night. You know, SCIENCE SHIT, as in astronomy.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I regularly observe in Charlestown, RI, which has fairly good lighting ordinances to protect the nighttime viewing conditions (and thus draws people from miles around). The only big light in town is the police station, to which I regularly say when I pass it, who can trust cops who are scared of the dark to protect them?
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
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...
So the alternative is that the bad guy remains hidden in the dark while the victim holds the flashlight?
Night lighting is only partly for that type of security. It is more for people to see where they are walking, negotiate stairs, ramps,,, to see where they dropped their keys, etc.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
That's easy to fix, but so far the Florida legislature hasn't passed my bill declaring all loud vehicles pistol & riflery targets.
I could see having a country-wide holiday every year where the lights around the city would be shut off early in the evening. We have plenty of useless holidays already, why not one that actually gives city kids a chance to see the stars?
You mean drunken night-time culture. Visit nearly any rural area on earth and you'll find vastly different cultures in nearly every place. Visit any bustling city at 11pm and you'll find the same drunken assholes in all of them.
Funny thing about Las Vegas is that it is both the worst and one of the best places to see the stars. The strip is extremely bright but relatively small and rather than being surrounded by suburban sprawl and smaller towns and villages like most other cities, Vegas is surrounded by empty desert. Drive out into the desert just far enough for the Vegas glow to disappear from the horizon and you're in business.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Quite simply because there is never going to be just one thing that can make that big a difference all by its self. What's more likely, finding 20 measures that can make 1-2% difference each, or one thing that would make 20-40% difference? ( or whatever your threshold for worthwhile is). While you're thinking about it, why don't you leave all of your electrical appliances on all the time? It would be statistically insignificant and therefore affect no-one.
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.
Bull.
Criminals work our neighborhoods during the day. Because that's when everyone is at work. The reason they come out in business districts at night is because that is when the people are not there. Except for muggers. They go where the people are, brightly lit or not.
The whole light == security thing is a sales pitch by the power companies who want to sell street lighting.
Have gnu, will travel.
Agreed. I grew up listening to Sears Point/Sonoma Raceway on summer nights and looking out my window at the countless stars in our seemingly black skies... 20+ years later, the sound of the races gives me a pleasant relaxed feeling, but 10+ years of having a city council in developers' pockets (claiming "progress" means turning every square inch of carefully-preserved open land into buildings/concrete) has caused such severe rapid growth that the night sky is now merely dark blue and has depressingly few stars.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
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.
You need light on the ground, not light in the sky. Australia's capital city has an observatory mounted on a hill. As such careful thought was given to the design of street lighting. Light pollution is a fraction of what it is in every other major city yet the streets and parks still all meet the same standards for illumination as elsewhere.
Actually, I do work with audio/video on occasion. I rarely do color intense work at night. I save that for early in the day when my eyes are fresh. I'll work on tweaking avisynth scripts (to test the next day) or scene cutting and audio work at night but that's it.
Flux doesn't silently dick with the colors, it's blatantly obvious. There's no doubt at all that it's shifted to warm colors. In fact, I hated it at first (defaults were too much) but week after week I found myself wanting warmer colors.
(Same AC that posted about f.lux. I need to register..... some day.)
That's why one avoids doing such work too late into the night. Anyway, you shouldn't do artistic jobs right before going to bed, it's likely that your skills won't be as good as 1-2 hours ago, and imagination and willpower get a severe drop when bed is calling.
I actually use redshift (a close equivalent to f.lux), programmed to always interrupt my artistic work 1.5 hours before bed. I know I'll go to bed late if I ignore that warning. I also picked a syntax highlighting for code that becomes unreadable when the screen goes warm.
From my personal experience, working up on computers late not only makes your sleep worse, it also lowers your output/quality and makes you more tired for your actual day job. Of course if you have a deadline and your job is artist/coder, then yeah, but it still isn't the best idea to work right before going to bed.