It’s one thing to light up bridges at night (which is already problematic for myriad environmental reasons). But it’s another to use that lighting for partisan reasons to express the state’s position toward a politically disfavored group.
This is using light at night as a tool of political warfare, and it’s wrong.
Lights Out Connecticut and the Menunkatuck Audubon Society are jointly hosting a webinar called "Humans and The Night Sky: Our Lost Heritage" on Tuesday, 4th June at 7 PM EDT (2300 UTC). Register for the event on: https://www.mobilize.us/audubon-chapters/event/628205/
What's in a name? "While ‘artificial lighting’ may seem a fitting descriptor, it falls short in conveying the broader implications of human influence on night-time illumination."
New law review: "This Note argues that the existing tools in the Clean Water Act provide authority for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate light pollution and preserve the integrity of the nation’s waters."
northern light from south of Portland looks the same as always, I thought the electromagnetic storm was supposed to bring power outages. #lightPollution
"Preserving our dark skies provides economic opportunities, health benefits, reduces energy consumption, maintains cultural values and minimizes disruption to wildlife. It also has produced a thriving astro-tourism industry."
Air and light pollution are both scourges of modern life in many world cities. #AirPollution affects the brightness of the night sky, and #LightPollution at night may make daytime #AirQuality worse. Find out why addressing both issues makes good #PublicPolicy sense.
This week, I was at the Lighting Urban Community International annual meeting, in Montpellier, France. It was a fantastic experience to sit in a room full of people who work professionally on lighting, and hear speaker after speaker talk about everything their communities are doing to combat #LightPollution.
A lighting industry guy sitting next to me remarked after the first day "This meeting made me realize we're going to have to prepare new marketing materials".
In France, over 10,000 communities turn off their streetlights late at night (typically from 11-6 or 12-5), and Montpellier and surrounding towns are no exception.
In response to a question about the possible dangers of crime, a (male) representative of the city said (I'm summarizing) that in order to fix the problem of violence in the city, we should address the actual cause (asshole men), rather than put up lights.
"The higher overall (but variable) #nocturnal activity in #insect communities underscores the need to address threats such as light pollution and climate warming that may disproportionately impact nocturnal insects."
"If large sections of the Big Bend border were to be lit as they are elsewhere the impact would be immense. It could effectively end the Greater Big Big International Dark Sky Reserve and the binational effort."
In response to the energy crisis, Copenhagen dimmed the lighting in the city. A mobile ethnographic study among 22 female citizens asked them about their experience of the change. A total of zero had noticed that the lighting had changed. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/1320/1/012015/pdf
No one knows how bright anything is. There is tremendous flexibility to reduce #LightPollution and #Energy waste, simply by dimming streetlights. If you're concerned about a #ClimateCrisis, dimming is one of the easiest steps to take.
Somewhat understated lighting on Ovation of the seas at Port Chalmers tonight. Bet the folks on board have an excellent chance of seeing starry skies at sea. Not. -#lightpollution
This is a really nice and important new paper by Chris Elvidge and collaborators about how common flickering lights are in our night environment: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/15/4/438
Flickering lights are really common, as you can see in this gif I made of photos I took of a soccer field and the surrounding area in Germany.
In case there are any students looking for a thesis out there, this is an area of #LightPollution research that has had very little work done so far. (1/)
New #SustainableTourism research at a rural #tourism destination in Portugal suggests that "tourism is not a sufficient incentive for participants to take individual measures to mitigate light pollution".
Image 1 - A photo of a wall in my apartment illuminated by the lights 10 city blocks away at Wrigley Field (aka Cubs Park) with a shadow of me taking a photo of the wall.
Image 2 - The lights 10 city blocks away #LightPollution#Baseball#MLB
A new law in Upper #Austria comes into force on 1st May 2024 that regulates public outdoor lighting, including athletic fields. Features include a 10pm-6am curfew; 3000K CCT limit; and full cut-off requirement with 70° maximum beam angle.
Money from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund was reportedly used to construct this irresponsible installation!
Harbors are home to sea life. This appears to be a direct assault on "Life Below Water" (UN sustainability goal 14). It is shocking that public funding was approved for a project that apparently intentionally emits pollution directly into the sea.
If you can read a book in the place your pet sleeps, it's definitely over that limit. If a streetlight is shining into your living room or bedroom window, contact your city to get them to install a shield.
Königswinter Germany reduced annual electricity consumption for street lighting from 1300 MWh to 385 MWh from 2017-2022, including turning off many streetlights during midnight to 5 am. The result was a savings to the city of 80,000€ per year.
The police of Bonn did a crime study, and found that there was no measurable change.