Light Pollution for Dummies
While letting Wallace (see profile picture) get his morning exercise, I settled onto the sofa with a Diet Coke in hand and watched with half-interest Today on NBC. But one of the segments really got my proverbial knickers in a knot. Some design "expert" wearing a far-too-clean orange Home Depot apron told millions of science illiterate Americans that exterior lighting was an excellent way to increase the curb appeal of their homes. He extolled the virtues of lighting that runs automatically from dusk 'til dawn (obviously in case of a vampire outbreak in your neighborhood) and that lighting is the #1 way to prevent crime - the insinuated take-home message was that clearly MORE light prevents MORE crime. Is dad having trouble finding his cookie-cutter suburban castle after pulling a double shift at the office? Clearly lighting your house like Riker's Island will not only allow the weary and confused patriarch of the family to navigate home (if his TomTom is on the fritz), but it will also "make your house stand out from similar houses in the neighborhood." Did you spend money cleaning up your flower bed this spring? Light those suckers until they glow like a mushroom cloud! And nothing says " I live in a national monument" like upward directed lighting! Go ahead and install 200,000 gigawatt flood lights that will stream so much light into the sky that the crew of the International Space Station with salute in awe every time they pass over your house.
Sigh.
Rather than bore you with a long lecture on the evils of light pollution, here are a few facts to ponder:
1) There has recently been a link established between excessive night time lighting and breast cancer.
2) The wasteful upward direction of outdoor lighting is estimated to burn about 22,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity world-wide per year. Think about the money and fossil fuels wasted, and the massive carbon footprint this represents!
3) An estimated 100 million birds die in North America each year in collisions with lighted towers and buildings. Sea turtles are threatened by beachfront lights as hatchlings crawl UP the beach toward the lights rather than to the safety of the water. Light pollution can also affect plants, changing their flowering and leaf-shedding cycles (so much for your flower bed!).
4) In some towns, light trespass (light flooding from your property onto your neighbor's) is a legally punishable offense.
5) Light that shines upward does NOT add to safety, but instead wastes money and prevents all of us from seeing the stars, aurora, meteor showers, comets, and other celestial objects that our ancestors took for granted. Take a look at the following NASA composite of the world at night:
The lights you see represent wasted resources.
And finally
6) More light does NOT make us safer! Take a look at the following picture:
Sigh.
Rather than bore you with a long lecture on the evils of light pollution, here are a few facts to ponder:
1) There has recently been a link established between excessive night time lighting and breast cancer.
2) The wasteful upward direction of outdoor lighting is estimated to burn about 22,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity world-wide per year. Think about the money and fossil fuels wasted, and the massive carbon footprint this represents!
3) An estimated 100 million birds die in North America each year in collisions with lighted towers and buildings. Sea turtles are threatened by beachfront lights as hatchlings crawl UP the beach toward the lights rather than to the safety of the water. Light pollution can also affect plants, changing their flowering and leaf-shedding cycles (so much for your flower bed!).
4) In some towns, light trespass (light flooding from your property onto your neighbor's) is a legally punishable offense.
5) Light that shines upward does NOT add to safety, but instead wastes money and prevents all of us from seeing the stars, aurora, meteor showers, comets, and other celestial objects that our ancestors took for granted. Take a look at the following NASA composite of the world at night:
The lights you see represent wasted resources.
And finally
6) More light does NOT make us safer! Take a look at the following picture:
Feel safe? Take another look:
The intruder was there all the time, but the glare from the floodlight made him difficult to see. I highly recommend the website from which these pictures were taken (http://www.physics.fau.edu/observatory/lightpol-security.html) as well as that of the International Dark-sky Association.
Contrary to popular belief, astronomers do NOT want people to stumble around in the dark (although, come to think of it, it might be amusing in the short term). What we DO want is for people to THINK before they light the night. We all share this planet, and I for one am not enthusiastic about the prospect of turning it into one giant disco ball.
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