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By: Stewart Catso
Web site: http://www.lamps-n-lighting.com
Research shows that outdoor lighting pollution
is gradually obliterating the glorious spectacle
of the star-strewn night sky. In the first of
an occasional series, Mark Daniel examines an
illuminating problem
In March last year, I wrote of the stars and
of the efforts of lowly humans to blot them out
with their own excessive, uncontrolled lights.
The article in question was inspired by the launch
of an investigation by the Campaign to Protect
Rural England to check the ever-growing menace
of light pollution, which is blotting out the
glories of the night sky. If I waxed a trifle
rhapsodic on that occasion, I trust that I will
be forgiven. The stars, after all, have meant
so much to me, as to poets, countrymen, sailors,
lovers, thinkers and dreamers throughout history.
Oh, and astronomers, of course.
To all of us, the stars are at once a commonplace
and a treasure. This is probably why local councillors,
multinational companies, the owners of discos
and the like do not like them. They could, without
additional expense, engage in their laughably
paltry enterprises without affecting our enjoyment
of the stars. They choose not to.
At issue here is the widespread use of increasingly
inefficient but powerful outdoor lights - along
streets and roads, in housing developments, and
even in rural areas - that shine out and up, as
well as down, often spreading the light where
it simply isn't needed. Wasted outdoor lighting
actually costs money, adding millions of pounds
every year to the nation's energy bill to no purpose
save the masking out of the cherished night sky.
The land area of England experiencing 'severe
outdoor lighting pollution' grew by 17 percent
between 1993 and 2000. Over the same period, the
rural areas where there are truly dark skies shrank
by 27 per cent. On average, the light shining
upwards at night from each square kilometre in
England rose by 24 per cent over those seven years.
With dark-adapted eyes, we should be able to
see at least 2,600 stars in mildly polluted residential
areas. In remote rural areas that have not suffered
urban sprawl, it is possible to see four times
that many stars on a clear night. Today, in most
urban areas, and now even many suburban and rural
areas less than 100 stars visible in the night
sky. We're in jeopardy of losing the whole
night sky this century, warns Dan Green,
an astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Outdoor Light pollution occurs when too much
artificial illumination enters the night sky and
reflects off of airborne water droplets and dust
particles, causing a condition known as skyglow.
It is always totally unnecessary, and it causes
extensive distress to humans and damage and confusion
to both flora and fauna alike.
Big businesses, airports, sports centres and
the like seem to regard the night as a vast billboard,
and excessive lighting merely as a means to free
advertisement. For homes and smaller businesses,
recent research has spawned halogen and metal-halide
lights that pack a more-luminous punch in a smaller
package than their incandescent ancestors, and
are cheaper to run. More and more people therefore
install them to highlight their patios, garage
doors and roofs for the edification of the passing
public. Meanwhile, many cities and towns line
their streets with unshielded lights, often with
little consideration of the lighting already present.
Councils may devote large quantities of taxpayers'
money to ecologically sound waste disposal, but
persist in spending that money in polluting the
environment with unnecessary light. In the United
States, the National Institute of Justice, the
research and development branch of the US Department
of Justice, concluded the results are mixed.
We can have very little confidence that improved
lighting prevents crime. The authors also
suggested switching off lighting may actually
have a beneficial effect in reducing crime.
Paul Marchant, a statistician at Leeds Metropolitan
University, maintains we are mistakenly clinging
to the illusion that additional lighting reduces
the incidence of crime. Householders, he says,
are installing halogen security lights as once
our ancestors hung up garlic or horseshoes to
ward off bogeys.
A House of Commons select committee inquiry recognised
light pollution is growing thanks to careless
and wasteful use of outdoor lighting, but the
CPRE complains Ministers' responses have been
negligible. Government inaction means light
pollution will continue to worsen, robbing more
and more of us one of the greatest sights on earth
- star-filled night skies, said campaigner
Tom Oliver.
He welcomed, however, the Government's view that
all local authorities should include policies
within their development plans on external lighting.
The Government is also considering
making serious light pollution a statutory nuisance,
which would enable local health authority environmental
health officers to take enforcement action against
polluters.
But, says Oliver, it's time
for the Government to stop considering and start
acting.
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