You wanna know where this is heading? This is where.
Posted on 11/08/2007 8:03:56 AM PST by goldstategop
Uh-oh. Those darn stores and business with their lights so we can find them are polluting the skies at night . . . with light. and we can't have that. The skies must be dark . . . just like in the dawn of time. I mean, if cavemen had dark skies, then we must have them, too. Right?
That's the point of view of the Dark Skies movement, a group of uber-environmentalists who like their skies dark . . . and their ability to see the road and find the store late at night hampered.
The movement took hold in Flagstaff, Arizona, where since 1973, a city ordinance restricts businesses to low-intensity lights. And that's not all. starrynight.jpg
Lights must be shielded and directed toward the ground. Any light shining above horizontal "just lights up the bellies of bats," [environmental activist John] Grahame [co-founder of the Dark-Sky Coalition]. Commercial signs must have opaque backgrounds with little white light. A business' total amount of outdoor light is restricted.
But businesses are not wimps when it comes to trying to entice customers. Many Flagstaff stores are getting around the ordinance:
The stores hung big round globes inside their front doors that shine bright white light outside on the sidewalk and beyond.
This angers the Dark Sky Draculas.
Yup, let's go back to the Dark Ages . . . you know, the good ole' days. We can live like Bin Laden in caves. That's the ticket.
Beware of the Dark Sky Movement. And hope it stays in Flagstaff. But don't bet on it. A growing number of cities are looking into it, USA Today reports.
I can understand the need to be in the complete dark when you are stargazing, camping, or "communing with nature":
"The vast majority of people grow up in a city and don't know what a dark sky looks like," says David Crawford, co-founder of the International Dark-Sky Association in Tucson. "I've never seen anybody who wasn't deeply impressed, their souls struck almost, by being out in a really dark place."
But when we live in the 21st Century, and we want to get on with our lives after dark (which occurs early in the winter), we need light. And criminals don't go where the bright lights shine.
If you want a completely dark sky, go camping. And stop inconveniencing the rest of us with your anti-technology, Unabomber-esque ways.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
-—did anybody else notice the lack of breath vapor in the shot of the buffoon with the electrically lighted igloo at a purported minus 12F (during the football game)—my inquiry to NBC has gone unanswered—
Meanwhile, here in America where people are allowed to own property, we'll light our properties however we choose.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
This is a personal pet peeve of mine. I don’t understand why people need to leave their garage lights on all night long, and businesses need to light all neighboring properties. I do like dark skies. The universe is vast and tremendous. Far better viewing than what is on TV.
I’ll be honest, there are places where I’d like it to be a lot darker, and seeing the road is one of the reasons. Of course there’s aesthetics - nothing like driving towards Houston at night and seeing a big orange glow dozens of miles away. That’s a helluva lot of wasted electricity (which means the tax payers are getting reamed).
You wanna know where this is heading? This is where.
Well, that’ll raise the crime rates, big time. What idiots.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
There’s a lot of half truth in this article. I have friends in the astronomy biz and light pollution is a real thing, a real thing that’s causing a lot of telescopes to get build in South America. And the stuff light pollution regulations are working on doesn’t help people do anything at night, this light is just going up into the sky making stars invisible and not actually illuminating anything. Hoods and covers reflect light back to where it’s useful, actually helping us get the most for our electrical dollar. Yes, as always, there are the wacko fringe taking things too far, but the core concept of the dark skies movement is good, we really shouldn’t be wasting a bunch of electricity just to make the sky less interesting.
If there is a way to do low intensity lighting I am also all for it. In the out skirts of town the sky is beautiful and the heavens are vast. You don’t see that in the city.
All this schlock will continue because it is about secular piety. You see you have to display (read show off) the level of your commitment to your faith (which is the environment)to elevate you above the piety of the next person. So when the whales were saved then someone wanted to look better than the next ecco whack jorb and they wanted to save the banana slug and so on and so on....
How high you are regarded depends on how sensitive you are to protecting the thing no one has thought of protecting. There is no use in arguing with them, the best thing to do is to point and laugh in their face with no explanation why. They soon slink away whimpering.
Our township has, not quite an ordinance, but a request that businesses install reflectors on their outside lights.
nah...just attach tactical lights to the end of the fire sticks!
It turns out that the lighting fixtures in high-rise office buildings are more efficient heaters than the central heating system. In a cold country, the energy from indoor light bulbs isn’t wasted — it goes into heating the building. After the lights were turned off, consumption of energy actually rose. Unfortunately, light is very “visible” (duh!), so turning out the lights is an obvious symbolic act — regardless whether or not it actually does any good.
I agree with some of the dark skies stuff. We have an observatory nearby, and street lighting, etc. is generally designed to put light where it belongs, rather than into the sky.
I totally disagree with the extremes though. Dark streets mean more crime — just wait until the incidence of rape soars after the lights are switched off.
AKA the "Dim Bulbs."
It’s cool how they light up their borders...
>we really shouldn’t be wasting a bunch of electricity just to make the sky less interesting.
Why not?
When I was deployed to Desert Storm, our base was out in the desert. Although I came from rural New England, and the night skies there (at least back in the 80s) were pretty star-filled, they were nothing compared to the absolute river of light that was the night sky of the arabian peninsula. We in the US have been buried under the glare of the streetlights for so long that we have forgotten that the sky has more than a few stars in it.
While I realize that it is impossible to get that kind of clarity near cities, there is a lot to be said for lighting only what needs to be lit, rather than creating a lot of glare. MacDonald Observatory in west Texas is one of the darkest places in the US, and the skies there are still affected by the light of cities as far away as Phoenix.
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