Light is a powerful arranger of nature and an orchestrator of all the life processes, affecting every living creature on earth. Light and Dark are some of the most powerful, most pervasive forces in nature. Together, they govern and time all our life processes at a very deep internal level. Since they can’t be touched or held, it seems they are grossly underestimated.
For today’s post, I’d like to highlight a great opportunity to do some citizen science and help out a researcher. Christopher Kyba is looking for observations especially on this coming weekend (March 1-3 and March 29-31). It only takes a couple minutes to do and the whole family can help out.
Go here for Chistopher’s blog:
You will need the Globe at Night webapp. Information on that can be found here:
Also, please note a couple of new links for the 2016 AMA report and the IDA White Paper on the resource page. In addition, check out Alexander Ryer’s Light Measurement Handbook.
Sunny Days & Clear Dark Skies 🙂
Mark
The public pretty much trusts that local, state and federal governments are working on their behalf to keep us safe. In the case of light pollution, it seems as though the Gatekeepers are sleeping.
The EPA and PA DEP, have a couple items written by employees about controlling light but aside from that, there is no vision, policy, research, testing or plans for regulation of light as a pollutant. Legions of blue-rich LEDs installed in so many commercial, municipal environments have been put in place without so much the slightest consideration of their proven effects on humans and the environment. These devices (including the blue-phospher headlamps on vehicles) have not been tested/rated on health, safety or environmental effects. Because of energy savings, these devices are just let loose on the public, when in effect, the increase in device numbers, intensity and unlimited operating hours make the energy savings non-existent.
People that we trust to protect us are sleeping on the job.
Lighting consultants and their companies sell lights. No hippocratic oath that goes along with their work. Developers are a proven lot to discard environmental concerns over profit. A large majority of commercial companies on earth will sacrifice the environment and the public for profit. The public, we the people, are the ones on whom the consequences come to roost.
So I’m asking for the Gatekeepers to wake up. This wake-up call shouldn’t be my job to do. There are other, more enjoyable missions for me to embark on. But, for the moment, do I use one lantern or two? How about a laser pointer?
Paul Revere’s Ride – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On Sunday, we brought home this sweet little sheltie puppy named Whisper. We’ve been quite busy since then! (Yes, our night time sleep space is red-shifted before bedtime and we are ALL sleeping through the night!) Single handedly (because my other hand was holding her!) I read though some research on light pollution’s effect on pollinators. One of the best was written in 2017 from the University of Bern and is added to the Resource Links Page. Also, please check out the CNN report on insect population collapse Light pollution is a factor in this decline.
Another addition first up under the Environmental Resources section is an fascinating document I ran across. It’s a very thorough research and analysis of ALAN’s effects on the whole of nature and also suggests using a framework for further analysis of the ecological problems of light pollution.
The document offers the explanation that light and dark as resources, and light cycles (daily, monthly, seasonal). Also the idea that light and dark are information triggers for many natural cycles throughout all plants and animals (including us).
In the introduction, don’t miss the point of the overarching effect of the natural cycles that have played out over the milleniums and think how light has shaped life as we know it. The natural biodiversity we experience daily, which is critical to our environment’s health, is a result of the natural cycles of light and dark. For eons, light has informed and shaped all life on earth. More than just the night and day 24 hour cycle, the light/dark cycle also plays out in monthly and seasonal rhythms. Through ALAN, we are dangerously disrupting all earthly life and intertwined ecosystems, and foolishly wrecking the biodiversity of the planet. The reseach was from 2013, BEFORE the advent of the widespread use of the blue-phosper LED’s which have a even heavier disruptive ecological footprint than the devices then. The link is also on my links page.
The ecological impacts of nighttime light pollution: a mechanistic appraisal
After some more research, some Signify Lighting Univ webinar videos and eCourses, I had some time to research some for more valid links relating to light pollution. A lot of rabbit trails to follow!
I organized the web links into General, Human Health and Environmental Health sections to help group related studies, reports, and videos.
In addition, I started a new section on Solutions – What individuals, local municipalities, suppliers and designers are doing to decrease or eliminate Light Pollution.
Hope the Links page is now easier to navigate. If anyone has good information or links to good solutions that would be appreciated. That is what we need the most of all. Proof of the ill effects of lighting up the night are all over the place and easily found. Bad design and installations abound. We need solutions and best practices.
Also, if anyone has information or contacts to good light pollution related research or development of good lighting components, I would love to plug those.
Mark
While on vacation at Disney World, I noticed how they used lighting very effectively. They used the appropriate levels of lighting to keep everyone very safe and comfortable at their parks and resorts. Most fixtures were full cutoff, very little glare, and the lighting levels were very easy on the eyes and accommodation levels. The lighting was always appropriate for the task at hand. More on that later. In spite of the size of Orlando comparded to Mechanicsburg, our skies are VERY much worse than Orlando’s. That is a big surprise.
This week, I’d like to encourage families to participate in The Globe at Night’s campaign to count stars and compare visible magnitude limitation charts and report the data to Globe at Night’s database. You can use their app, Loss of Night, or go to their Webapp to report your findings.
My sky in Mechanicsburg, PA, measured via their app running on my iPhone, is 2.81
Using the charts, my skies measure in between the Magnitude 2 and Magnitude 3 charts so 2.81 is a good number.
Try it out! It’s some citizen science for a good cause! Families can participate very easily and everyone can learn something!
Mark
Today, I finished reading the Philips eBook, “The Science of Lighting”, and started on the videos for the Lighting Essentials Certification. Paging through my copious notes, I found an afterthought I had jotted down in the Light and Vision section.
The detailed diagrams and discriptions of how the human eye works and how our bodies respond to light was amazing. The chapter contained many things I had no idea existed and how our bodies work in such a beautiful, coordinated, well orchestrated manner. At the same time, the measurements and methods to quantify lighting and light sources seemed to be based mostly around human vision. I wondered…
To fully comprehend the full environmental impact of artificial lighting and to, as best as we can with current information, quantify the ecological and health related disruptions caused by exposure to artificial light radiated into the environment at unnatural times, we have to consider not only the visual/non-visual light receptors of humans, but also of other creatures. This includes plants, insects and animals in terrestrial and aquatic environments.
Proper lighting design and measurement methodology should, as a best practice, take all this into consideration. To do this, a collaboration of competencies is required. That is indeed how projects are done in these modern times.
To my mind, I can think of no farther reaching, all encompassing, multiple vector pollutant than artificial light. Artificial Light, as a pollutant, disrupting natural day/night cycles and rhythms, strikes a deadly, invisible, toxic blow to the very core of human, animal, and plant life processes. The threat is to our own existence and the existence of all the creatures we share this world with. The very biological balance of nature is threatened and unexpected, irreversible consequences can be unleashed by blind-spot methodologies.
Just like nuclear power, Artificial Light can do tremendous good. At the same time, it can also be deadly when used carelessly and improperly. Lighting projects should be entered into with not only careful attention to artful display and visual performance/acuity but to the well-being of all creatures (including us) in the surrounding environmental space. Many disciplines such as art, architecture, engineering and installation, biological, medical, environmental, ergo-dynamics, landscaping, and others, are required to collaborate together in a combined competency in order to create best holistic modern lighting designs and best practices. Design integration with the environment and creature physiology/biology is an absolute requirement.
A week ago, I started on a course of study from Philips Lighting University. I’m learning some very interesting background to how lighting works, how we see and perceive, how to measure, and more. It’s a very interesting subject and I am grateful to Philips for the opportunity to study up a little.
It’s important to know the terms and technology so we can converse and communicate. This includes raising our ability to hear from other people and understand.
My plan is to do some more night light tours soon to show examples of good and bad lighting. Hopefully, through some course work, I will come to know more of the background of this interesting subject. Light Pollution’s effects branch out into so many sciences, and while I can’t be an expert in all of them, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel either. There is so much to read and learn about lighting and light pollution to be found. Will keep me busy for awhile!
If people have ideas for night-tours locations in Cumberland County, PA, I would appreciate suggestions. As I find and qualify good resources, I will add them to the Links page. Would appreciate good links if you know one.
Mark
Sunrise vs Skyglow
Site of the Skyglow Source
Sunday Morning Sunrise
Last night, with the snow and rain, I noted the bright skyglow from the warehouses, parking lot lights, and new street lighting at Allen Distribution, right outside Mechanicsburg borough, along 114. At 1:30am the light hitting the back of our house and into our bedroom windows was bright enough to easily see in the room. In fact, it was enough to keep me awake. I had trouble getting back to sleep.
This morning, at 7:10am, a few minutes before sunrise, the skyglow from Allen Distribution was many times brighter than the sky to the east where the sun was lighting up the sky with red glow. The picture on the left is the sunrise – normal dawn lighting. The picture on the right, with the bright skyglow, is artificial lighting – a combination of crazy bright white LED street lighting, wallpacks, and HPS lighting.
A few nights ago, I visited the Allen Distribution site. From across the field where a new housing development will be located. The second set of pictures show the string of warehouse lights brightly lighting up the sky towards the south. From our house, a half mile away, the skyglow lights up the sky to about 45 degrees or more. At the site, I measured over 200 lux from ONE of the bright white LED streetlights. The brightly lit lot was empty and there was no activity around the facility. The lights glare towards Rt 114 and the housing development on the other side of the road. The white LED’s hurt your eyes to look at them.
In the reach of their skyglow, most planetary nebulas are no longer visible in the southern sky in my 10″ telescope. Brilliant Sirius and one other star is the only big dog stars visible because of this intense, uncontrolled amd misdirected lighting. The Allen Distribution site is a good example of energy waste and over-lighting. Also an example of why trucking distribution centers and residential areas don’t mix well. The industrial set needs to figure out how to co-exist in a better manner with residential areas. If their lighting requirements are such, then they shouldn’t be building them near houses.
Yes, Scarlett, this is the kind of light that will keep us awake at night. It’s the kind of lighting that will makes us and the environment sick.
Mark
We went out to hear some friends play eat last night and then went to a nearby restaurant to eat. I’ve been using an app on my iPhone to take lux readings here and there. While the app and my iPhone may be questionable for a totally accurate, spot-on reading, I figure its close and I’m doing comparisons – so apples to apples.
The lux reading, from light shining on the menu at the restaurant was 20 lux. That seems to be about the norm for other restaurants and diners as well.
In the parking lot, near home, the reading at the base of the light pole was 127 lux.
Wanted to update this and hold until I get my calulations right. Not sure I can properly calulate the point source amount from what I can gather. Inverse square law will work when the measurements and units are correct. Important to figure out how to do this so sites can be measured and properly compared.
Night Lights 