Posted on 10/24/2002 1:11:19 PM PDT by RightWhale
Dark-sky Advocates to Push for Nationwide Lighting Reforms [light pollution]
Energy and lighting specialists from throughout the U.S. and Canada are gathering in Boston, Massachusetts, this weekend for a meeting of the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). They'll be taking aim at the ubiquitous pall of urban skyglow known as "light pollution," its effects on our health and our society, and what can be done to halt and reverse its spread.
Members of the news media are welcome to attend the sessions on Friday, October 25th. These invited talks and panel discussions will take place at the Museum of Science in Boston. Speakers are nationally recognized experts from the lighting industry, government agencies, power-utility companies, and others from the fields of medicine, environmental science, and astronomy. Key areas of discussion will include:
-- the glare and energy waste associated with poor-quality lighting
-- the effects of light at night on humans and wildlife
-- community and commercial efforts to improve lighting practices
A press conference will be held at 12:45 p.m. in Cahners Theater at the Museum of Science.
The second day of the meeting, Saturday, October 26th, will convene at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. Due to limited seating, we are not encouraging attendance by members of the news media. Instead, we will try to arrange interviews on Friday with the Saturday sessions' invited speakers and other experts in attendance.
Satellite images dramatically reveal that roughly of a third of the light used outdoors escapes upward, totally wasted, into the night sky. The IDA estimates that each year in the United States, more than $1 billion is spent to generate this wasted light -- resulting in the needless burning of some 6,000,000 tons of coal annually.
Founded in 1988, the IDA has about 10,000 members in all 50 states and 70 countries. Its 450 organizational members include lighting engineers and manufacturers, security personnel, government agencies, and municipalities. The IDA is a nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting.
Just that this seems another attack from the environmentalists on countries which have a good standard of living, namely us. We all waste electricity, and I have to drive an hour out of my metropolitan area to see meteor showers, but that is what happens when we live in an affluent society.
I, for one, am glad I live among the electricity wasters than in Africa where these comforts are non-existent. All these environmentalists enjoy these comforts just like me.
I do suspect that this symposium is just another slam on our usage of electrcity, burning of fossil fuels and endangeriing the environment. Maybe I am too skeptical of envirowhackoes.
Try to convince me to do something and you have a shot. Try to force me and prepare for a fight.
a.cricket
Think about it. Light sent to the skies is completely wasted.
Directing it so that you and the kids can see the stars at night
is a one-off very minor expense. Unless of course, one sees
pissing into a sewer as opposed to pissing in their drinking
water as some kind environazi outrage.
One of the things I learned as an engineer was that quality
can be built into a system at its design in a manner that
is transparent to the user and of continuing benefit at
little or no cost. If you can do it, you should. In this
case, the cost is minor, it should have been designed that
way to start with, and it is worth fixing. Nothing is lost.
The amount of electricity used will remain the same.
There is probably none to be lost or gained.
hmmm... I might disagree with that. my redneck neighbors can blast their radio at almost any level at any time of day and there's not much I can do about it. I've called the police a dozen times and all they can do is ask them to turn it down.
No, there will be no greenies at the meeting. This is mostly engineers. Looking for a way to do something better.
I agree. At one time I thought this was a non-issue. That was before my neighbor put up 14 floodlights, a mercury vapor light, and a halogen light. In addition he told me he intended to put up more walk lights. I had to take legal action before he brought his lights into compliance with our covenants, shielding them, making the lights indirect. He still runs his lights but now they are at least indirect.
Not unless you're my stinkin' neighbor with all of the beagles that bark at his floodlights that shine into my bakyard all night and keep me awake in the wee hours of every morning, that bastage!
I am just extremely suspicious of symposiums of this kind in which the environmentalists condemn our way of life. What really gets me is they enjoy it as much as we do, but use symposiums like this and scientific studies to condemn us for being wasteful.
It seems to me, though, that lighting being directed downward doesn't reduce the usage of electricity, just the glare into the skies. Maybe I was reading too much into their goals, but I am skeptical of the environmentalist objectives.
Ahhh, just a bunch of sparkies. Well, more power to them if they can make my commute to see meteor showers in the early morning hours less adventurous. :-)
It probably won't reduce electrical usage, so the greenies
aren't interested. This is for being able to enjoy the night
sky again. Why not do it?
This enters into specs used by municipalities and DOT, mainly. The government has to codify everything, you know. They can't just go out and buy a streetlight, it has to be in their code. So the Dark-Sky people are trying to get agencies to put it in their code. It spills over [like unwanted light] into regulations that homeowners have to abide by, the residential building code, but that isn't the main objective, the government and commercial codes are. Businesses are notorious anymore for lighting up everything in line of sight and above. Even a gas station, as if their lights attract customers like moths.
A homeowner would say, fine, this fixture needs less of a bulb, and it puts the same light on the walkway, so buy it, who cares. Homeowners aren't the main source of light spillage anyway, and we sure don't need regulations at the molecular level.
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