[gridlock]

Here is my objection, in a nutshell:

When it comes down to nut cracking time, the political process is going to have to determine winners and losers.

The Dark Sky advocates want to use any means available, including government regulation, to limit the amount of fugitive light pollution. Their reason for this is obvious. But instead of being up-front about their desire for darker skies for the purposes of astronomy, they will dress up their crusade with a lot of extraneous and irrelevant information about energy conservation and environmental quackery.

The advocates know that this will give them a much stronger position in the political process and make the chance of eventual governmental intervention in their favor much greater.

The problem with this is that the political decision will inevitably take some rights from some to give a benefit to others. That's what the politics of regulation is all about. By introducing a lot of extraneous arguments, the political process is distorted, and too much weight is placed on the interests of the Dark Sky advocates. Which means they will probably carry the day, eventually.

I guess if you are rooting for the people doing the manipulation, you don't really care that it is deceitful. But just remember that others will do it to you, also.

So twenty years from now, when you are bicycling to work in the middle of a Maine winter because some enviro-weenies succeeded in banning the internal combustion engine, don't dare complain about how they won by making up a bunch of nonsense about global warming and caribou, because you will have advocated the practice of winning through manipulation.

[Physicist]

The Dark Sky advocates want to use any means available, including government regulation, to limit the amount of fugitive light pollution.

Now who's not being up-front? It isn't dark skies you object to, it's a specific solution that you fear. I fear that solution, too, as a matter of fact. But that argument is quite apart from the (very real) merits of a dark sky.

In reality, the lion's share of the light pollution comes from public-sector streetlamps.

[RightWhale]

It is unfortunate that Int Dark-Sky is trying to preserve something since that makes them the same order of scoundrels as the greenies. But you know the greenies don't give a fig about the night sky, nor any kind of science. I don't know that any Int Dark-Sky associates are interested in any greenie campaigns at all. Different kinds of people. Haven't seen a greenie yet who had real numbers to work with. IDS is using education and economics to influence local governments in the types of lighting they purchase for municipal use. They are also trying to make low-light scattering, higher efficiency lighting appliances available for homeowners and businesses. Too bad these things are being mandated instead of people just using common sense.

I hope to be driving a methane fuel cell powered car 20 years from now even though it will emits clouds of the notorious greenhouse gas - water vapor.