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Light Pollution Activists Strive for the Darkest Hour to Be Just Before the Dawn
Green Technology Featured Articles
August 26, 2013

Light Pollution Activists Strive for the Darkest Hour to Be Just Before the Dawn

By Cheryl Kaften
TMCnet Contributor

Today, a growing number of environmentalists and city planners are “going over to the dark side” as worries mount that 24/7 “light pollution” from cities worldwide is changing the natural rhythm of life on Earth—and may even be exacerbating global warming.


Anyone who lives in or near a city knows that the artificial light created by street lamps, retail windows, skyscrapers, vehicles, bridges and neon advertising obscures the stars and planets above—especially when the illumination is directed upward. But, in addition to altering our view of the night sky, light pollution recently has been blamed for everything from disrupting the migration of birds, to disturbing the breeding patterns of nocturnal animals, such as turtles, and of insect populations, such as fireflies.

What’s more, it has been well-documented that migrating birds are drawn off course by artificial lights—colliding with buildings in absolutely stunning numbers that lead to death tolls as high 100 million annually. 


This image of the continental United States at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. The image was made possible by the satellite's "day-night band" of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires and reflected moonlight. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC

On the Caribbean island of Tobago, a 2012 study (called “Save Our Sea Turtles”) of leatherback turtles — a species that has been on Earth for 150 million years — found that “artificial lighting of the nesting beaches is the biggest threat to survival of hatchlings and a major factor in declining leatherback turtle populations.” Evolved to follow the reflected light of the stars and moon from the beach to the ocean, hatchlings now instead follow the light of hotels and streetlights, with the result that they die of dehydration, are devoured by predators, or run over by cars.

And humans are not immune. Research also has shown that man-made lights diminish the quality of people's sleep, and may even have a causal link to breast cancer.

And if that were not enough, a study published this year in the January issue of the journal, “Nature,” (“Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America”) established that  large cities, most of which lie in the northern hemisphere, could be affecting weather systems more than 1,000 miles away.  The report, whose lead author was Aixue Hu, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., pointed out that energy consumption is thinly distributed over the surface of the Earth as a whole—but anthropogenic (man-made) heating by cars, buildings and factories in 86 urban areas in the northern half of the globe had raised the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere above North America and Asia by about 1° Celsius (33.8° Fahrenheit).

French Revolution (News - Alert)

So what’s to be done? Just a month ago, France said, “Non, merci,” to artificial lights at night. On July 1, a new measure went into effect nationwide that mandates:

  • Interior lighting in offices must be switched off one hour after staff vacate premises;
  • Lighting illuminating building facades can be switched on one hour before sunset, but must be turned off by 1 a.m.; and
  • Window lighting at retail and commercial premises must be doused between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m.

In addition to helping save the Earth and its denizens, the new law will help conserve energy. France’s new night-time lighting regulations will save 2 terawatt hours (tWh) of power annually, a terawatt being equal to one million megawatts. According to figures from France’s Agence de l'environnement et de la maîtrise de l'énergie (ADEME), the savings will be equivalent to the power consumed by about 750,000 households and will reduce France’s carbon emissions by 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually.

Not all of France will be in darkness once the new lighting rules apply. There will be certain exceptions to the new law—including those for holidays decorations and for zones designated prime tourist attractions.

Barred in Britain

Back in November 2004, Queen Elizabeth of England also made it clear that she took a dim view of light pollution—announcing that, stemming from “ a chain of events over the last three years, [including] the ‘Night Blight’ initiative of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) […and] the Science and Technology Select Committee’s deliberations on light pollution in 2003, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister [has made a] decision to insert an additional light pollution clause in Planning Policy Statement 23.”

Following that, Britain passed the Clean Neighborhoods and Environment Act of 2005, which makes light nuisance subject to the same criminal law as noise and smells. It applies to “artificial light emitted from premises so as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance” (section 102, Clean Neighborhoods and Environment Act, which amends section 79 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990).

U.S. State of Play

In America, the states of Connecticut, Arizona, Maine, New Mexico, and Texas all have some form of legislation on the books barring overly bright lights on state-funded roadways.

In California, several municipalities, including Beverly Hills, have banned “intrusive lighting”—but it is the City by the Bay that is leading the way with its own “Lights Out San Francisco” campaign, which started in 2007 as a drive for energy conservation. Now, in phase two, is encouraging downtown buildings to turn out their non-essential lights and appliances every night.

That makes San Francisco the first dark skyline in the country—much to the disappointment of activists in Arlington Heights, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. After working for more than four years to pass a "Dark Sky" light pollution ordinance, the Midwestern effort was defeated in June. The ordinance would have limited all outdoor lights—including porch lights, driveway lights and exterior lights on buildings, as well as lights along walkways or driveways, atop garages and in yards of homes. It also would have required lights be controlled so that glare wouldn’t spill onto nearby properties. The maximum intensity allowed for lighting glare would have been the same as that approved for parking-lot lights, said Michael Wilder, chairman of the Arlington Heights Environmental Commission.

In addition to safety and enforcement concerns, Arlington Heights Board Trustee John Scaletta told The Chicago Tribune that such restrictions would create a burden for homeowners and businesses and would "solve a problem that doesn't exist." There have been just two light-nuisance complaints over the last five years, officials said.

However, the International Dark Sky Association, based in Tucson, Arizona, has ambitious plans for the United States and plenty of statistical ammunition to use for the job. The association states: Once a source of wonder--and one half of the entire planet’s natural environment—the star-filled nights of just a few years ago are vanishing in a yellow haze. Human-produced light pollution not only mars our view of the stars; poor lighting threatens astronomy, disrupts ecosystems, affects human circadian rhythms, and wastes energy to the tune of $2.2 billion per year in the United States, alone.” And they’re just not going to take it anymore.




Edited by Alisen Downey


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