Starry Night Lights goes to great lengths to push the fact that all of our exterior lights are night sky friendly, neighbor friendly, wildlife friendly, environmentally friendly, etc. Sure. That’s our message and our mission. You might be wondering then… we’re selling friendly lights… what are other guys selling? More specifically… are there unfriendly outdoor lights? Sorry to say, but there are.

Unfortunately, most outdoor lights in use today are unfriendly. This is a sad but true statement. Most homes and businesses employ lights that are night sky unfriendly, neighbor unfriendly, wildlife unfriendly and environment unfriendly. You probably have unfriendly lights installed at your home or business. I can tell you paused reading. Wow! How can this be? How could the majority of exterior light fixtures in use today be unfriendly is all these ways? My only answer is to say… that’s a really good question. I don’t know how it ever became acceptable to shine light up into the night sky. I can’t for the life of me even guess why this would be so desirable that the vast majority of fixtures on the market would have this “feature”. Even if you’re not an astronomer… or into the night sky… why would you want to waste money generating light that shines straight up? (shrug) Ya got me???? Continuing… why would it be acceptable or desirable to shine lights into a neighbors windows at night? Again, I couldn’t tell you… but that’s certainly a fact of life in much for many people.

Here’s a quick test for you. Go home tonight… turn out all the lights in your home… then open all the blinds. Now, notice how many of the walls in your home have light shining on them from a neighboring home or business. Bet you didn’t know you had that many rude neighbors, did you? FYI: This is called light trespass. Now… lets continue this a bit further. Go to your front door and flash your exterior lights on and off slowly. Can you see the fronts of neighboring homes getting lighter and darker? If so, guess what? Your lights are unfriendly, too!

Lights fixtures that shine where they shouldn’t need to be replaced. ASAP! They waste a huge amount of money and destroy our heritage of star-filled skies. Lights that shine across property lines need to be replaced. ASAP! Besides wasting additional money and resources, they are a threat to wildlife (if you border wild areas) and they are a threat to your neighbor’s health. Light at night has been shown to be the cause of many human health issues including certain forms of cancer. This is no joke. Light at night reduces the production of melatonin, your body’s chief cancer fighting agent. Why do you think cancer rates have jumped so dramatically in the developed world? In many cases, we’re doing it to ourselves.

Fortunately for us all, unfriendly outdoor lighting is an easy problem to fix.

• You can simply turn the lights off and the problem goes away. You’ll save lots of money, your neighbors will be a little healthier and society as a whole will benefit from reducied green house gas emissions. Can’t keep your exterior lights off all the time? Well, there are still many other improvements that can be made.
• Make use of motion detectors. Motion detectors monitor an area for activity and instantly switch your lights on when some is detected. This ensures that your lights are only on when needed (why would you want them on more than that?) which is most of the time. You’ll still gain the utility your installed the lights for in the first place… all while saving a huge chunk of money and resources. If you need to have your lights on more than this (you really need to revisit this decision) you still have good options
• Make your lights as energy efficient as possible. For homes, this typically means switching from incandescent to compact fluorescent bulbs. Compact fluorescent bulbs will reduce your energy consumption by about 75%. This is a huge savings in money and resources. You’re not quite done yet if you’re going this final route. You’ve addressed half of the problem… energy and resource consumption… but you’ve still not brought your exterior lights under control
• Replace all your non-friendly light fixtures with friendly fixtures. These will keep light on the ground… where its needed… and keep it out of the night sky and your neighbors property… two places that it most certainly does not belong. As an added bonus for you… by making use of all the light that your fixture produces, you’ll typically be able to reduce the wattage of the bulbs you use. Since no light is shining into the sky or your neighbors yard… you won’t need to produce as much illumination… hence the switch to lower wattage bulbs.