Dark-sky Advocates to Push for Nationwide Lighting Reforms [light pollution]

spaceref.com ^ | 24 Oct 02 | Sky and Telescope

[ScholarWarrior]

Pittsburgh is clean now, but no jobs.
When I was a kid, I complained to my dad about the purple and orange smoke from the mill.
He said: "It means we're working, son."

[another cricket]

They can talk, they can persuade, they can educate and I will be cheering them on and help where I can. It is when they try to legislate that I have to say no. That they are going too far.

a.cricket

[RightWhale]

It is when they try to legislate that I have to say no

Everything is legislated. 1000s of times a day across the country this that and the other is legislated. What is special about this that makes cricket chirp?

[another cricket]

Everything is legislated. 1000s of times a day across the country this that and the other is legislated. What is special about this that makes cricket chirp?

It is not just this and you just said it. Everything is legislated or almost anyway. Once you begin making rules you have to enforce them. What are you going to do? Slap fines on people who don't comply?

Convince people to do something of their own free will and they will do so cheerfully. Point out to businesses that not only will they save money but it will do wonders for community relations and watch them rush to be the first. Try to force it on them and watch them sneak around the law and then instead of a tax cut there will be a tax increase to fund Bureau of Light and Darkness. And you have L&D enforcement officers running around with light meters and hauling off people who don't respect the dark and protests with people singing "This little light of mine / I’m going to let it shine..."

Okay, so I got carried away but the point is valid.

And, if you think that it would never get abused so badly, allow me to direct your attention to the anti-smoking nonsense. Whoever would have thought that a parent could lose custody of their child because they smoked? Or that a business would not be allowed to have a smoking section? Or that in some places it would be illegal to have a smoke on your porch?

I just ask that you please consider the can of worms before you open it. Afterwords it will be too late. Undoing a law is not so easy as getting one passed.

a.cricket

[RightWhale]

Bureau of Light and Darkness

I would shorten it to BOD. Light encroachment is already in many land use zoning codes around the country. Code enforcement relies on complaints from the private sector to be filed before they send the code enforcement officer out and begin writing nasty-grams. We don't actually need more regulations. The State or Municipality can and do write lighting specs into their own specification code for public construction purchases [schools, streets, ballparks] made by State or Municipal agencies and leave the private sector alone. We can still file on McDonalds or K-Mart parking lot lights in either case. That shouldn't be a problem for little shining lights, should it?

[Atlas Sneezed]

"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."

Sue them civilly under nuisance law. If the cops won't enforce noise ordinances, you still have rights.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"I'll take the moonlight over the white mountains, stars, green night skies, and wolves howling any night.

Green? Did I miss something here? Have the aliens already invaded? Has the cheese from the moon started to get runny?

[another cricket]

That shouldn't be a problem for little shining lights, should it?

Maybe, then again maybe not. Face it, no matter how you dim the lights, put shields on them or whatever you will still not be able to see the night sky very well because the sheer quantity of lights that you get in a large city. So where do you stop?

If you want to have a clear view of the night sky in a city there is only one way to do that, you have to cut off the electric power.

a.cricket

[RightWhale]

you have to cut off the electric power

Right, the circumstances that would do that are probably the same as would cut off the food and gasoline supply. Cutting off the electric grid also has the effect of improving shortwave radio by a factor of a million or so. But if all we have left is a really dark sky and some shortwave to a few radio amateurs on other continents, we would be in big trouble. All things considered, light pollution isn't the worst thing on the list.

[Eska]

Often green, sometimes red and yellow too. I guess you do miss somethings living in the lower 48. I often wake up at night and watch the show out my bedroom window. Up here the aurora is overhead; from mnts to mnts; not just a green hue on the horizon.

[another cricket]

Things do have a tendency to snowball don't they? That is why I am for voluntary reduction not a legally enforced reduction.

I do like star gazing but not at that price.

a.cricket