Posted on 01/31/2011 9:15:12 PM PST by americanophile
Stargazers now have their Graceland. The Channel Island of Sark, located 80 miles south of England, has been designated as the world's first dark-sky island.
Dark-sky communities are places with very little to no light pollution. As a result, the stars are far easier to see and more fun to look at. According to a buzzy article from SPACE.com, Sark is just 4.5 square miles and has "no public street lighting, no paved roads, and no cars." In other words, save for the occasional flashlight or matchstick, there aren't a lot of things to interfere with the nighttime display, which includes "meteors streaking overhead and countless stars on display."
The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) makes the call on whether or not a community deserves to join their movement. And plenty would like to. The Burlington Free Press explains that dark-sky legislation "has been embraced by about 300 countries, cities, and towns." At first this might sound like something only nature enthusiasts would really care about, that's not so. The United States military is also getting behind the legislation. Too much light can interfere with drills at military bases.
And while they don't exactly get a say in the matter, it's worth noting that creatures big and small would likely also be in favor of more dark-sky rules. Again, according to the Burlington Free Press, there is evidence that "nighttime lights disturb animals and ecosystems."
(Excerpt) Read more at buzz.yahoo.com ...
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I lived in a nice little house in a city where my wife could take her children into the backyard to show them the stars,UNTIL the new neighbor hired a tree service to remove the large pine that turned out to be NOT on his side of the line,AND then he put up floodlights that turned the night into day in both our yards.
Your insistence on seing everything as a commie plot is just plain ignorant.
Obviously you are a fear-driven person.
You are right - there has been no “middle ground” - and why is that? Lights can be focused - even flood lights can be directed... and the cost, after you figure in the lower wattage output to light the same surface area, is not significant.
Blows my mind to be diving down the road - and you know when you are getting near a small town that has a new WalMart - their lights light up half of a little town - looks almost like stadium lights. (And no, I’m not trying to bash WalMart - just that they present a glaring example - no pun intended).
Most burglars in this area do their "work" in the DAYTIME,simply because that's when people are not home.Most of the burglars get caught after breaking into about 3 dozen homes.
Burglars don't want to meet a possibly armed homeowner;home invasion robberies are another matter, and both rare and most often targeting "fellow" criminals involved in illegal drugs. .
You are also ignoring the simple fact that people no longer are sitting outside on the now-rare porch idly watching the neighborhood.People come home and turn inwards to watch the TV ,video game, or surf the internet.At least three of my seven nearest neighbors have their homes arranged so that they are usually in the rooms which face away from the road and driveway and have no dog,but they do have an insecurity light or three on a pole which lights up their trees,house roof and wall ,and the yard which isn't in view from their usual chair/sofa.
As for the neighbor floodlights ,although I moved from that city home years ago, simply replacing his two 150 watt floods with two 75 watt spots would have kept his yard brightly lit and ours shadowed and eliminated any need for our installing dark curtains for easier sleep.Do a search for melatonin and the effects of light on sleep.
Just because you enjoy loud jazz music doesn't mean you can force your neighbors to listen to it.
Effectivenes of lighting seems well down the list of their concerns.
Having come fresh to this thread after 85 posts, I rather fear that some of those who have contributed will in any case never be able to see the stars, since the sky is permanently obscured by the passage of black helicopters.
I had no idea that an article about a tiny low-density island, which is mainly used as a tax shelter (by wealthy capitalists), deciding for themselves to become a nighttime astrononomical-viewing preserve would turn into a communist world-domination plot. People don’t know what they’re missing in the night sky. Gratefully I do a lot of traveling and get to visit places like Hawaii and the south Pacific where you can really appreciate the awesome spectacle of the stars, if I stayed in L.A. all the time, I would never see anything except a purplish-brown/black haze.
Property crimes around here are vastly weighted towards night/pre-dawn hours. Breaking into storage sheds/outbuildings/etc. seem to dominate, along with theft of A/C units (again, under cover of darkness - they just drive up, tie a heavy rope to the compressor unit, and drive away. When the unit is ripped from the plumbing, they stop, lift it into the truck and are gone.
Home invasions around here are relatively rare. Some burglary does go on, but it is spread across the 24 hours of the day.
As far as the “replace the 150 watt floods with 75 watt spots” - is that not kind of what I was implying by adding “middle ground”?
I am all too familiar with light and sleep.
It does not have to be this way, with simple well designed lighting fixtures.
Anyway, I had no idea those of us that want dark sky's and common sense lighting fixtures are all Communist and Socialist....
No, they aren’t all Communists...some are merely naive “useful idiots” who mistakenly aid Red agitprop by believing the spin.
I see...People like me and others are useful idiots for the Communist...
You're one extremely paranoid individual who no doubt sees Nazis and Communist under your bed..
but passing laws to limit how many lights you can turn on is decidely Communistic, no matter how nicely the language is couched as “dark skies.”
Yes, we secretly want you in the dark, tripping over all those Nazi's and Communist low crawling on your floor at night....
I suggest you leave all your lights on 24/7. Keep that boogyman away Southack!
I grew up in a small city (35K people) and yet I could never see more than the very brightest stars until I went camping as a teenager. It was a moment of awe and wonder that I will never forget.
It's a matter of design. Most people light their yards from their home outward. I had a neighbor like that in a previous neighborhood. He could have lit the property from the property lines and shone the light toward his house. I'm sure it would have been more expensive but it would have been much more "neighborly".
Similarly, I suspect most people have never even considered designing their outdoor lighting to be "sky friendly".
No."
Central Illinois? Yes.
Charleston/Mattoon area...if that's not "central" Illinois, excuse the hell outta me.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Must be hard to speak out of an asshole as big as yours.
My guess is you've never been in the middle of a central Illinois cornfield, and therefore have no idea what you're talking about. You're showing me a couple of pretty maps which don't reflect the reality of the matter, whereas I've been there, done that, and am telling you how it really is. Do yourself a favor, and don't opine about those things of which you know nothing.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Stars are thousands of light years away - why aren’t they blurry?
The only thing North Koreans DON’T need is a great view of the stars...
Anyone?
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