News from the Dark Side: 'Saving the Night Skies'

CNSNews.com ^ | July 18, 2002 | Tom DeWeese

[Stand Watch Listen]

Let us begin with the understanding that there is no such thing as "light pollution," yet this idiotic notion is generating legislation to "save the night skies" from it.

It is one more example of the way environmentalists will use any bizarre excuse to secure control over our lives and our property rights. The fact that publicly elected officials would give serious consideration to such nonsense reflects the degree to which environmentalism has destroyed common sense.

Where's the connection, you ask? Consider being told it is against the law for you to put up Christmas lights as decoration or that you have used too much illumination to provide safe access to walkways and stairs leading to your home?

When you have lost the right to how much light you can use to illuminate your property you have lost an important element of your property rights. When such restrictions are applied to a commercial business, they can represent thousands of dollars in lost income.

In Loudoun County, Va., a group of "light pollution" activists have been pushing hard for a law that would plunge the citizens and businesses, as well as public facilities, into darkness by limiting the kinds and amount of light they could display.

In April, Virginia Governor Mark Warner approved a new piece of statewide legislation that requires state facilities to use shielded outdoor lighting fixtures that emit no more than two percent of their light output above a horizontal plane. By 2004, the Virginia Department of Transportation must use such fixtures. As similar bill made its way through New York State's legislature, guided all the way by dark sky advocates and other environmental groups.

Pause for a moment and consider the economic impact of such restrictions. The owner of a Loudoun County Taco Bell/Pizza Hut makes between $1,400 and $1,600 after 9 p.m. every night.

The Loudoun dark skies proposal would have a devastating impact on his business. The same holds true for the owner of a Citgo gas station on Leesburg Pike who just spent $25,000 for a new sign to enhance his 24-hour service.

Extend the restriction on outdoor lighting at night to all the other businesses in just one Virginia County and you have created an economic disaster zone.

Residents of Loudoun County would be restricted to 5,500 lumens of light per property. The typical incandescent lights around a home range from 1,650 lumens to 4,000 lumens. Forget about those Fourth of July, Halloween or Christmas decorations.

Consider now the idiotic reasons put forth for the need to control the amount of light you or anyone else can use. "Light pollution" advocates worry that "Billions of moths and other nocturnal insects are killed each year at lights" or that "Newborn sea turtles are disoriented by lights on their natal beaches and some amphibians congregate around porch lights."

"Increased night lighting associated with human civilization disrupts important behaviors and physiological processes with significant ecological consequences." Darn that human civilization! Darn that Thomas Edison with his infernal invention of the electric light bulb!

People who are more concerned about the fate of "billions of moths" or who claim that "over four million migrating birds are killed in collisions with lighted communications towers in the United States" have totally lost contact with the fact that nighttime lighting is an essential component of modern life.

Over the years, radical environmentalists have given us a long list of various forms of pollution. They have insisted that everything we breath, drink and eat is polluted and now they tell us there's "light pollution."

These lovers of darkness have an international organization that is working hard to insure that we can all see the stars at night, but not the entrances to our homes and driveways. They belong to a Tucson, Arizona organization called the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). This group of environmental loonies exists "to preserve and protect our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting."

I'll bet you didn't even know you had this "heritage"? Who, in fact, really likes the dark? Criminals, that's who. Criminals who value being unseen as they creep around your home or business, seeking the fastest way to break in. Then there is the ever-popular darkened parking area outside of your local mall where you can be easily assaulted or have your car stolen.

In truth, the only people who really are concerned about too much light at night are amateur astronomers and lovers out for a midnight walk. The rest of us need light to get around at night. It's about safety. It's about the economic benefits that accrue from good lighting. It's about common sense.

(Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and is president of the American Policy Center, headquartered in Warrenton, Va.)


Tom DeWeese

[spqrzilla9]

Weese is the loon. The International Darksky Association does not want to prevent you from illuminating your driveway. They want to prevent you from illuminating the sky. There is a difference. Efficient lighting that directs its light down on what should be illuminated is the key. Light that goes up into the sky does not help you see your way or discourage burglars.

[mvpel]

The city of San Jose and others in the south bay area have cooperated with the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton to the east for decades, and have come to a very amiable and productive relationship. And even with a million and a half people living within sight of the observatory, and all the attendant street and house lighting, the Lick Observatory is leading the way in discovery of new planets, among other astronomical milestones.

The trick is the use of high-pressure sodium street lighting, the narrow yellowish spectrum of which can be easily filterd out by astronomers, as well as proper design of fixtures to direct light where it's needed, instead of wastefully scattering it in all directions.

I'll admit that the 5,500 lumen limit is a rather ridiculous proposal, as it's not the number of lumens but how they're used that makes the difference.

But this hyperbole about an "economic disaster zone" is considerably overwrought. Silicon Valley, until recently, was the economic engine of the nation, and still Lick Observatory was able to make breakthroughs in astronomical research.

[scooter2]

Well, this type of legislation will never fly in Las Vegas.

[IMRight]

That's my county.

The bad part about it is. We're pretty conservative here. Every single Republican candidate whose district includes Loudoun County won in Loudoun. All three statewide candidates all state House and Senate candidates and, of course, Bush. They all won Loudoun county handily. There is no Congressman or State representative representing our county who is not a Republican.

Yet at the county level we're swamped with liberals! This proposal is a crock.

[demlosers]

In truth, the only people who really are concerned about too much light at night are amateur astronomers and lovers out for a midnight walk.

I like the dark too. But not for the nut-case Environmental Wacko reasons.

[LenS]

Weese is correct. The intent here is to kill capitalism and control people. Regulating light is an excuse.

[TheOtherOne]

It is pretty clear who the loonie is.

[mvpel]

When I first moved to San Jose from Ann Arbor, Michigan, I was simply amazed at the level of detail one could percieve in the night sky in the back yard. In Ann Arbor, with wastefully-designed, broad-spectrum street-lighting, only the very brightest of stars were visible, but in San Jose, I can sit in my backyard hot tub and identify all the major constellations, and even make out the varying colors of some of the stars.

And that's in a city with about 15 times the population of Ann Arbor.

[hopespringseternal]

In April, Virginia Governor Mark Warner approved a new piece of statewide legislation that requires state facilities to use shielded outdoor lighting fixtures that emit no more than two percent of their light output above a horizontal plane. By 2004, the Virginia Department of Transportation must use such fixtures. As similar bill made its way through New York State's legislature, guided all the way by dark sky advocates and other environmental groups.

What a disaster. This will be a boon for those criminals gifted with flight, who swoop down from the now unlighted skys above street lights on their unsuspecting victims.

Get real. Personally, I would rather my taxes be used the light the ground where I walk, not the sky.

[OBAFGKM]

"Weese is the loon. The International Darksky Association does not want to prevent you from illuminating your driveway."

Hey, give the guy a break. Being from a D.C. suburb, he thinks night sky is orange.

[mvpel]

Capitalism has nothing to do with it. If the city and county governments were capitalist, they wouldn't waste millions of dollars a year worth of electricity by using light fixtures that shoot a quarter of their energy output into the sky.

Not to mention the fact that a 175 watt mercury vapor lamp produces about the same amount of light as a 55 watt low-pressure sodium lamp -- the same lighting for about 60% less electricity.

[1rudeboy]

Funny, too. Ann Arbor has had a light-pollution ordinance since at least the late 80's. No one ever paid any attention to it . . . .

[CJ Wolf]

And light just stops when it hits the ground...? No it bounces right back up. This is a cash cow, replace all those lights yeah yeah...

[CJ Wolf]

Get real. Personally, I would rather my taxes be used the light the ground where I walk, not the sky.

I would rather my taxes not be used to replace perfectly functioning lights in order to funnel money to the BOS lighting buddy. AND IT IS MY TAXES THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

[1rudeboy]

This author would (apparently) argue that his property rights allow him to shine light on his neighbor's property. He is incorrect in the belief that the concept of regulating light pollution is somehow "anti-property." The determination of whether something is or is not light pollution falls under nuisance law which, as a legal concept, is practically as old as the concept of a property "right" itself.

[Saturnalia]

Now I haven't read the proposal (warning sign right there)...

The proper way to go about doing this making the requirement for NEW lighting systems and replacements for old systems.
That way, you have a gradual improvement in light pollution without replacing something that is already functional.

[SengirV]

I just moved back to Loudoun county and I can not agree more with the newlight polution laws. I grew up in Pennsylvania and I remember looking up at the sky at night and being able to see the little dipper and the Milky Way across the entire sky. Now you are lucky to see maybe 100 stars in the sky, That is simply wrong. No one is telling you that you can't illuminate your house or walkway, they are saying to possition the light so that the light shines on the ground not up in the sky. There are special exceptions when it comes to Christmas lighting, so don't get so hysterical. If you live in Loudoun county I invite you to take a drive down East Juniper Lane in Sterling this Christmas and look at the amazing light show. It will be there again this year like all the previous years. It's just that this year, the lights will have to go out at 11PM. My God the horror!!!!!

[discostu]

Geeze, we already argued this over the weekend. There is such a thing as light polution. In places that have light laws there has been no increase in crime or decrease in night commerce. And 5500 lumens is a lot. 4000 lumens is those "oh my God it's noon" uber floods. I live right next to the big Christmas light festival in Tucson (which was an early adopter of light laws at the behest of Kitt Peak) and I seriously doubt if all the houses in the neighborhood together muster up 5500 lumens (just don't see a lot of Christmas displays stacking up a bunch of uber floods). So anybody that thinks this will outlaw Christmas lights is just being silly.

[GovernmentShrinker]

How the heck is a regulation prohibiting lighting up the night sky well ABOVE the Taco Bell going to have a "devastating impact" on its business? Some anti-environmentalists are even loonier than the looniest environmentalists. Maybe DeWeese and the Taco Bell manager and their buddies should protest by climbing up the poles of soon-to-be-illegal upward-aiming lights, and refusing to come down, daring the local governments to cut down the light-poles. That way they could save the forest of inefficient lights from being turned into an "economic disaster zone". Yeah, that would make sense. And then all the local businesses could continue to waste their money competing with each other to have the tallest, brightest signs (just $25,000 for the Citgo station, and that doesn't include the electric bills to run it -- and we wonder why the price of gas is so high).