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?

[ColdWetDog]

We could all move to North Korea. That place is pretty dark at night (and during the day for that matter).

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?

[mjr167]

Small children shouldn't be running down the road unsupervised after dark :) I realize that in winter the sun never actually rises in the north, so we also have things like flashlights and reflective clothing. And don't run around in all black at night. Stupid is a capitol offense.

Re:Good can we ban all street lights now?

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

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.

I wish more people would appreciate darkness

[ZorinLynx]

The street lights on the road behind my house were damaged by hurricane Irma and still have not been fixed, and I'm loving it. The darkness outside at night is beautiful and serene; I hate the ugly yellow-orange glow of sodium lighting.

I wish people would appreciate darkness at night. And even then, "security" lighting can be done so that an area is softly lit without blasting bright light in all directions.

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

Beam Angle

[Thelasko]

If you want to add exterior lighting to your home, there is pretty much just "flood" style lights on the market. These lights shine at a very wide angle, meaning most of it is wasted. Even if you want to buy better light fixtures, they are very hard to find.

Re:Fear of the dark

[Penguinisto]

Odd thing is, a healthy set of eyes can adjust to most conditions at night - at least enough to avoid tripping on anything. Under a full moon, you can see pretty much anything you need to (as long as you're not in the deep woods or anything). You just have to sit still in the dark until your eyes adjust.

Introducing people to dark skies

[Strider-]

I work with an organization that operates at a wilderness site, some 50+ miles from the nearest population center. We ourselves are very careful with our outdoor lighting, providing just enough illumination to be safe, and no more than that. As such, our skies are absolutely incredible.

One of the things I love to do is if I run into someone new on a clear night is to basically go "So.... have you looked up?" in so many cases, they haven't yet, and are simply blown away. It's really quite sad how many people have never seen the Milky Way with their own eyes. The amusing thing, though, is that there are so many stars that it is actually rather difficult to pick out the normal constellations.

The thing that really pisses me off, though, is the people who insist on walking everywhere with a headlamp or a flashlight. Just let your eyes dark adjust; after a minute or two, even starlight is enough to safely make your way around on well maintained roads/paths.

Wasted my $2,000 telescope investment

[Snotnose]

Some 20 years ago I bought a house that had pretty dark skies. So I spent some coin on a 3" refractor, it worked really well so I got a 10" cassegrain. Got about 2 years of great viewing. The kids enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, the neighbors enjoyed it. Then a high school a mile away built lights for the football field, and I lost half my dark sky. That sucked ass, especially as I was paying taxes to pay the electric bill to light up my back yard when that was the last thing I wanted.

About a year later someone built what I called The Taj Mahal down the hill, maybe 1/4 away from me. The front face fronted both the street it was built on, and my house. They lit that fucker up like Oscar night in Hollywood. Every fucking night. I could damn near read in my back yard by the light from that goddamned building.

So, scopes went into storage, about once a year we'd head out to the Anza Borrego desert (La Casa del Zorro used to rock, but haven't been there since they closed and opened under new management).

Someone explain to me why a high school stadium needs to light up my back yard 1 mile away, and why a company needs to light up a closed building after hours like it was the fucking temple of all gods.

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.