Night Being 'Lost' To Artificial Light (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A study of pictures of Earth by night has revealed that artificial light is growing brighter and more extensive every year. Between 2012 and 2016, the planet's artificially lit outdoor area grew by more than 2 percent per year. Scientists say a "loss of night" in many countries is having negative consequences for "flora, fauna, and human well-being." A team published the findings in the journal Science Advances. It showed that changes in brightness over time varied greatly by country. Some of the world's "brightest nations," such as the US and Spain, remained the same. Most nations in South America, Africa and Asia grew brighter. Only a few countries showed a decrease in brightness, such as Yemen and Syria -- both experiencing warfare. The nocturnal satellite images -- of glowing coastlines and spider-like city networks -- look quite beautiful but artificial lighting has unintended consequences for human health and the environment.

Comments

Good can we ban all street lights now?

[silas_moeckel]

At least have them shut off after midnight.

Re:Good can we ban all street lights now?

[Penguinisto]

There would be arguments concerning public safety (and Lord only knows how many lawsuits would spring from such a move), but I could totally get behind shutting off, say, 50% of all street lights after a certain hour (say 10pm?), and in small-enough towns, shut 'em all off entirely (I think a lot of small towns do that anyway to save on the power bills).

I'm just glad I live 30 miles away from any sizable city, and 20 from the nearest town of any kind (which has like a small handful of dim street lights at most.) When family (especially young nieces and nephews) come to visit, I see the same awestruck look on their faces the first time they go outside and look up on a clear night... I actually have to point out that the big band along the sky is the Milky Way, even to the teenaged ones. Pointing out satellites (especially if it's the ISS) gets an even cooler reaction out of them. Makes me feel damned fortunate and humbled at the same time to get that view every night...

Almost every property has a big, fat Sodium-vapor or Mercury-vapor light, but it's rare that I bother having mine on, and given that I'm in Oregon, not too many others have theirs on at night either.

Re:Good can we ban all street lights now?

[crunchygranola]

At least have them shut off after midnight.

Simply redesigning them (and other outside illumination lighting) would be a huge gain. A bit less than 10% of light hitting the ground in an urban area gets scattered back up into the sky. So if the lights are designed to shine light on the ground only (no light being sent horizontally, where it just creates glare, or worse directly into the sky) there would be a large reduction in light pollution.

LEDs can help a lot here since they are inherently directional, it takes effort to make them spew light in other directions. But light makers are willing to provide them to the market since people want to buy lights that resemble lights they are used to.

Similarly regulating sign lighting so that you don't have bright lights at the bottom of a sign pointing straight-up, and regulating the use of light as a form of advertising and promotion. A lot of commercial light use is abusive, using brilliant light-emitting signage throwing light everywhere.

On highways with light traffic late at night "smart" lights can be implemented that turn off when there are no cars for them to aid.

YOU CAN HELP

[Anonymous Coward]

The good news is that light pollution, unlike many other forms of pollution, is reversible and each one of us can make a difference! Just being aware that light pollution is a problem is not enough; the need is for action. You can start by minimizing the light from your own home at night. You can do this by following these simple steps.

Open the door
get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur

Re:I wish more people would appreciate darkness

[RailRide]

New York City is in the midst of a sodium-to-LED street-lamp upgrade. I was going to get a before-and-after photo of how my block looked at night when I saw the closest main thoroughfare upgraded, but the DOT beat me to it.

The lighting is very directional. So much so that the sidewalk on my side of the street (opposite the poles) looks like it's lit by spotlights (the brightness trails off rapidly as one moves farther back but the opposite sidewalk is mostly in darkness by comparison. The commercial strips on the main streets have had additional short-armed fixtures installed on the opposite sides of the poles to light up the sidewalks, but it remains to be seen if anything will be done about the residential side streets thus affected

Even so, riding above these streets on elevated subway lines makes them look dim by comparison since almost none of the light is visible once you're above the fixture heads. It'll be interesting to see how this makes nighttime cloud cover look after the first snowstorm turns the ground into a reflective surface.

---PCJ

An anecdote...

[djbckr]

I live near Seattle - about 20 miles out. On clear nights you can see the stars relatively well. I must have gotten used to what I see because I didn't think the light pollution was all that bad.

Then I went to see the eclipse earlier this year. I specifically chose a spot that was "in the middle of nowhere" (which as it turns out, about 10,000 other people had the same idea, but no matter). I set up camp and settled in for the evening.

My GOD the stars were brilliant! I laid awake most of the night mesmerized and amazed at what I was seeing.

Yeah - people don't know what they are missing.