Posted on 01/03/2016 8:06:48 AM PST by rktman
For thousands of years, man has sought to ward off the dark by using light to illuminate the night. Now, EPA chief Gina McCarthy and celebrity astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson want to take us back a few thousand years by giving the agency the ability to deal with "light pollution."
The only way to deal with light pollution is to, well, turn off the lights. This will be a boon to astronomers like Tyson who will be able to see the stars and planets a lot better. But for the rest of us, not so good. Crime will rise, accidents will increase, and more people will die just so that Tyson can study the heavens.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
A lot of this could be solved by the simple requirement that any new or replacement outdoor lighting only cast light below the horizon. This would not cost any more and would allow the orderly transition as older fixtures where naturally taken out of service. In my area the biggest offender is the lights being used by the electric utility for “dawn-to-dusk” use and the ones that local government uses for street lighting.
While this should not be a big deal, government bureaucrats are always looking for ways to increase their power, their budget and their importance.
Wait a minute. I always see stories about how getting the lights back on makes streets safer for city folks. Now all the sudden darkness is better?
Leftists....
I have a winter home in Arizona and I know they have some kind of law or policy about outdoor lighting down there.
Sounds like a good way to cut down on the criminal element. Get some night-vision gear and shut off the lights.
Not sure what the rules and regs are here in Reno, but seems like limited street lights and a lot of downward directed lights. Come to think of it, the only street light I can think of on our street is the one at an intersection. None on the the rest of the street.
When I was a kid, the people across the street had a motion-activated flood light that pointed straight out into the street, and right into my face when I would be outside. I used to grumble to myself that the neighbors are going supernova whenever a simplest chipmunk would trip it. That thing was just that insanely bright.
Wish there was a “like” button here, but, +1 anyway.
I have you by 10 years in Amateur Astronomy and find it sad that 40 years ago, I could stand in my parents front yard and see the milky way, while now, I can barely see stars.
It’s not light pollution, but, a whole lot of wasted light and electricity being used to light the bad guys way so that they can get away.
In England, they use to shut down street lights at midnight. I think it’s time for us to do that here too.
There is too much light wasted going *upward* instead of downward. It does no good to illuminate the sky and not the ground.
I love to look at the stars on a dark night. Did you ever see the Milky Way, all the stars of the Little Dipper, the "Great Nebula" in Orion?
Did you ever see the Perseid Meteor Shower, the Pleiades, the "Double Cluster" in Perseus, the Andromeda Galaxy?
This EPA concern is NOT without merit. Your reactions are.
-PJ
Well, I have observed a “double cluster” on occasion. :>)
The norks don’t apprecIate light. They have no Seoul.
#47 A next door neighbor back in Minnesota wanted to play basketball at night so he had a street light installed which ruined any star gazing and was so bright the neighbor across the street had him black out the half of the fixture that was shining into his house across the street. Plus you had to hear the thump thump bang of the basketball from the nut. He also set up a backboard and flooded his back patio in the winter so he could slam hockey pucks against the board... WHACK!
Now about wind chimes!
He had those too and every noise making gadget to make a peaceful day and night impossible.
Thank you thank you. I’ll be here all week. Try the kimchi.
There are a lot of low/no cost ways to reduce light pollution. Some even save money. And as far as “it just bothers a few nuts” is concerned, it has been shown that animals, including humans, have their built-in wake/sleep patterns disturbed by too much light at night, with bad and potentially life-shortening effects.
I have to stand with those who desire reduced street lights. I agree first of all, that there ARE places where lighting is needed, but for the most part, there’s way too much.
Most homes do have a porch light that they can control with a switch, or aim and direct the lighting. Today, cars have headlights as well so street lighting isn’t has necessary as it was at turn of the century, in cities.
I find a lot of lights at night to be hard on my eyes. Indoor lighting isn’t what it used to be since the demise of the lightbulb..the new ones simply suck! But outside, those darn lights blind me! When the power goes down, it’s as if the whole world lights up.
We have a retired police officer in our apartment building who demanded better lighting at our apartment building. He wanted flood lights and lights working at every door which he claimed would cut down on theft. Not so!, I argued. All those lights do is let the criminal element know where all out-door goodies are when nobody is looking. Now they can easily see what they’re doing. Sure enough, car theft attempts have increased, especially where the floodlights are the best.
Apparently my neighbors agree with me because they all unscrewed their outdoor lightbulbs...the ones next to their doors. Course, in the summer, the lights draw more bugs.
I like it dark because if I decided to creep out onto my balcony and watch the parking lot, I can’t be seen! Not good to be a well lit target!
And of course, as mentioned, the stars can’t be seen. I love to watch the stars and celestial events whether I have a telescope or not. It’s hard to find a spot where that can be done. Either a building is in the way, or a tree, or a street light floods out the view.
I’m told that one reason why night lighting is hard on the eyes is because it’s the design of the eye to open the pupil nice and wide to let a lot of light in. But when the eyes are assaulted with night lights, 1) it hurts! 2) the light forces the pupil to contract which LIMITS how much one can see.
How many people have never seen their shadow by star light? That’s right, star light! You can actually see your shadow by the light of the milky-way when there are no other lights around. You can see the deer grazing in the fields by star light, that’s how sensitive our eyes really are.
If you’ve ever actually seen the milky way, have you ever seen it’s colors? It’s soooo beautiful and loaded with pastel pinks, greens, blues and golds. There are meteor showers we can’t see on a nightly basis, because they are so flooded out.
Does the excess lighting harm the environment? I think so. Birds have difficulty sleeping, and who knows what the light does to it’s breeding cycle. Many birds are provoked to breed depending on day/night length and brightness. Birds eat more bugs than any pesticide, yet we flood our environment with pesticides.
I was watching a documentary about mouse infestations in Australia. They need more owls, hawks and snakes (nonpoisonous) to control them. The environment has built in, a system for balance, and somehow, Australia has lost it’s balance.
Too much light at the wrong times, of the wrong spectrum absolutely HAS to impact the environment. It’s amazing to hear birds singing at night! That’s just not right unless it’s a night bird.
I’m far from being a tree hugger, but I do care for my microenvironment and what happens there. I care that I can’t see the world around me, or that it’s functioning in an off way.
And I care that I’m stepping on glass broken out from a well light automobile that someone tried to steal, but I can’t see the glass because I’m blinded by the wrong light in the wrong places.
Exactly. You don’t have to eliminate the lights, just direct the light where it’s needed.
>> 40 years ago, I could stand in my parents front yard and see the milky way, while now, I can barely see stars <<
Dittos here. And it’s a real shame, IMHO.
Moreover, even though our cities have more lighting today than 50 or 60 years ago, crime is up in most cities.
Therefore, it seems that more light = more crime.
Go figure!
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