Turn out the lights
Image: Chicago at night. Flickr/Troy McClure SF
A New Push to Turn Off the Lights in 2009
By Clara Moskowitz
December 31, 2008 | 1:02:47 PM – Categories: Astronomy
Astronomers are fed up. One fifth of the world’s population cannot see the Milky Way because street lamps and building lights are too bright. So scientists are mounting a new campaign, called Dark Skies Awareness, aiming to reduce light pollution as part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy.
“Reducing the number of lights on at night could help conserve energy, protect wildlife and benefit human health,” astronomer Malcolm Smith of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile wrote in a commentary Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Smith points out that billions of dollars of light is needlessly shined into the sky each year. Beyond the waste of money and energy, this light is blocking people’s view of the heavens.
“Without a direct view of the stars, mankind is cut off from most of the universe, deprived of any direct sense of its huge scale and our tiny place within it,” Smith wrote.
Plus, lights confuse and harm wildlife. For example, millions of birds in North America die every year because their migration patterns are disrupted by errant light. And baby sea turtles hatched in the sand often mistakenly head toward cities, instead of the sea, because they are lured by artificial lights.
Preliminary research even suggests that light at night is harmful to human health, potentially reducing the normal production of melatonin in our bodies, which suppresses cell division in cancerous tissue.
There is cause for hope, though. Some cities have made improvements in laws and regulations governing light. For example, new lighting codes in New York require dimmers and lights that are activated by motion sensors in many buildings. And Toronto’s Fatal Light Awareness program encourages buildings to turn lights off during bird migration season. The 2009 Dark Skies Awareness project plans a range of programs and events to raise public awareness of the issue and argue to lawmakers about the impacts of light pollution.
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My comments: I’m all for cutting down on and changing the amount of and type of lights in our cities, especially the one I live in, which is very light polluted. We happened to drive by a Simon David supermarket the other night on our way to the movie theater in an upscale neighborhood of Dalwah. (There’s Dallas, and then there is Dalwah.) All the lights in the parking lot were on poles about 12 feet high, were an amber color and were pointed downward. The light was focused downward to the cars and the pavement. It made a big difference in the entire neighborhood. It was much calmer and it looked safe, but not lit up like an airport.
As for viewing The Milky Way, I recall spending a night on top of Mesa Verde one summer long ago, 1974 to be exact. If you don’t know where that is, please look it up. It was incredible… the Milky Way was visible for the complete dome of the visible sky (space). The only bummer was 5 or 6 young German men (tourists) who built a fire and stayed up very late drinking beer and singing at the top of their lungs, until they passed out. After that, I felt I could hear the ‘hum of space’ while peering up and out. Another wonderful view was while camping at Jenny Lake below the Grand Tetons. I woke up at dawn with frost in my nose. Anytime you can get away from a city, I highly recommend it, even if only in your auto. We spend too much time in ground focused illusions. When I was a little tyke on our farm, I would lay on my back on a little rise out near our barn and attempt to count the stars as they appeared when the sky slowly darkened. Very fun… until I started hearing the many sounds of the nocturnal animals in our woods.
The summer Milky Way. See it live, ‘in person’.
