Good Light, Bad Light

Light it is a good thing. It makes us feel safe at night. It helps us travel at night by increasing our visibility and extends our day by allowing activities and work to stretch late into the evening. But true to human nature, many people believe that more is better. They are not satisfied with a reasonable amount of light and they want more and brighter light. What was once a good thing is now becoming a problem both for humans and wildlife.

Problems associated with an excess of artificial outdoor lighting include light pollution, sky glow, detrimental sleep and health issues of humans and disruption of wildlife. Excess light wastes electricity and fossil fuels. It increases greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming.

Observatories around the world are in particular danger as their ability to perform research is being severely limited by too much light. Ten billion dollars ($10,000,000,000) is wasted each year in the United States by lighting the sky. This wasted light serves no purpose for safety, security or utility. It is simply wasted energy!

Where is all of this excess light coming from? Motels, hotels, all night service station, sports facilities, building décor, shopping malls, poorly designed street lights, car dealerships……you get the idea.

The good news is that this problem can be solved easily by using night sky friendly outdoor lighting, motion sensors and a little common sense.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 4:03 am and is filed under Astronomy, Commercial Lighting, Light Pollution, Outdoor Lighting, Starry Night Lights, environment, global warming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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