Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.