Do people even care about Light Pollution?

In celebration of International Dark-sky Week, I show you some common examples of poor urban lighting choices in my city, and the problem of light pollution. 

5 Principles for Responsible Outdoor Lighting at Night

• Useful: All lighting should have a clear purpose
• Targeted: Lighting should be directed only where it is needed
• Low Levels: Light Should be no Brighter Than Necessary
• Controlled: Light Should Only be Used When Useful
• Color: Use Warmer Colour Lights

NASA Images/Video:

Milky Way Timelapse:

Shutterstock

#IDSW2022, #DarkSkyWeek, #DiscoverTheNight

[NGC]

I’m an African amateur astrophotographer. My village is in the middle of the equatorial rainforest in Cameroon, where we do not have electricity. At the beginning I used to complain a lot because of the lack of power. I never really paid attention about the night sky until I discovered astrophotography, and stargazing through Trevor Jones ( Thank You). Than my eyes got opened and I saw it for the first time. It was amazing... Just like a new birth. For the first time my dark village has become an invaluable treasure. I never saw such a wonder in my life... So much details. My eyes can almost see a magnitude 12 object in the night sky. Yes, we have fight against light pollution, for the future generations to enjoy such a beauty.

[RahilSethi]

When I first came to US 15 years ago, I saw office buildings were required to keep the lights on even after office hours. Back then in India, this was a big no as it lead to wastage of electricity. It's not only the light pollution but it also leads to unnecessary burning of fossil fuels leading to more air pollution as well.

[raheslop]

This really hit home with me a few weeks back when visiting North East Iceland. I have been doing astro photography for several years and visited numerous “dark sky” areas in the UK with what I thought was little or no light pollution, but when in the north east of Iceland I was stunned as to how many stars I could see with my eyes. It’s crazy to think that 200 years ago everyone had that view.

[DAstroTC]

Absolutely love this! Not just the topic, but the passion you conveyed, the sense of frustration but not doom and gloom negative, i.e., not a pure irritating rant. I'll repost/share this as much as I can!

[satvikvarun]

Light pollution is a major reason many amateurs like me give up on the hobby itself.

[DarkSkyInternational]

Thanks for celebrating International Dark Sky Week with us!

[gramschap]

Hey trevor, I am 13 and you inspired me to start astronomy and i feel the same way. I dont have a backyard and in my frontyard there is a bright street light. thank you for inspiring me and thank you for making this video. i hope it reaches a bigger audience.

[bowkso_o]

Had similar issues. My local council and electricity provider has had a program in place to replace all street lights with LED's. One such light is 67m from my back deck where I set up my tracking mount, and now lights the area up enough that you can read a book just off that light source. I lodged a complaint with the council and asked that they either reduce the wattage of the light or shield it, but basically got told "too bad". I then pointed out that since the lighting "upgrade" we now have morning birds singing all night because they no longer know what time of day it is. The response I got was, and I quote "people want light for safety when they go walking at night, and you tell me you don't want light? You can't have both." I asked what relevance that had to between midnight and sunrise when we needed just enough light to illuminate the street directly under the street light, and basically got fobbed-off.

Only 4-5 years ago we used to have reasonably dark skies where you could see quite a lot of detail in the night sky. Now the sky is a permanent milky blue colour on cloudless nights. To test this I went to a neighbouring council area that has a much greater population but has not gone through the same lighting upgrade, and the detail is significantly greater.

[curtfleenor]

Spot on Trevor. This truly is a much more serious problem than the average person realizes. From the effects on human health to the disruption of day/night patterns for wildlife, the ever increasing spread of light pollution is a major global problem.
20 years ago I bought 2 acres of property in what was then a rural part of my area. I had less than 10 neighbors within a mile in either direction only 2 were visible. For me, one of the attractions of the purchase years ago was the dark sky - on a moonless night, the sky was alive!
Today, there are nearly 40 homes in that same 2 miles. 5 miles to my southwest is one of the largest retail intersections in a 100-mile radius. I don't know what the Bortle zone was 20 years ago but just based on my memory of the night sky, it was at worst a Class 3. Now this is a Class 4 zone that borders on Class 5 to the south and east. When I built my backyard observatory a few years ago, I had to situate it facing north to avoid the spill of light from the southern sky.
So, last year when the nearly 15-acre pasture adjoining my property when up for sale, I jumped at the opportunity to buy it! Everyone who has asked 'what will you do with it' has been a bit taken aback when I tell them 'nothing'. I do continue to lease it to a local dairy operation to maintain by growing hay and corn. My primary purpose with the purchase was to help preserve the what dark sky that still exists in this area and second to stall further encroachment into rural farmland. 
It isn't much in the grand scheme of things but it is what I can do here and now.

[michaelmckeag]

Over 25, 000 views at this point and 465 comments and counting. I’d say you struck a nerve. Many do care about light pollution. I’m a co-founder and board member of IDA Oregon and our experience is that a great many people do care, and are willing to pitch in and make a difference. Thanks for delivering the message so effectively and passionately, a great contribution to International Dark Sky Week. An amateur astronomer and astrophotographer myself, I am dismayed by how few engage in protecting the natural resource their avocation depends on. You have issued a compelling wake-up call. We will be sharing the link.

[alexis]

Hi Trevor, I'm 14, and I live in Sweden. You have helped me with a lot of techniques for astronomy, I love the way you inspire people and making people feel confident about their equipment and being a part of astronomy. When I got started with astronomy in 2019, that's when I realized that light pollution was a big problem for nature, skies and for astronomy. I also don't feel so happy seeing light pollution and the way It affects animals and other things.

It's very sad when I want to go to a dark sky in Sweden because there is only in the very north and that can be a very tuff. In winter, it's freezing, and your equipment doesn't work that well. But when you wait for the summer, so it could be warmer, then there is another issue (The Sun). Because the northern part of Sweden is so high up on earth that you only see the sun during the whole day and night, and that's what makes it a little hard, even in Stockholm.
The thing is that in the southern part of Sweden is only light pollution almost everywhere, but that's where you can see the stars during the summer but in light pollution. Thanks, Trevor for your help to inspire people. Clear skies! ❤

[gerhardbraatz]

I absolutely detest light pollution. Even in my backyard there is way too much light everywhere.

[pawesedrowski]

Great video! It's not only a problem with light. When I started my journey with photography - I do mostly wildlife, some landscapes, occasionally astro - and when I started truly looking around I noticed that you can't take a landscape picture without any human made objects - buildings, fences, power lines are everywhere. But the worst is trash - old bottles, beer cans and plastic bags are literally everywhere. Even if you go to a middle of a swamp to get a picture of a crane you will find either a can or a bottle. You will wonder how on Earth someone managed to get it in there but that won't change the thing that it's there. And I leave in the middle of Europe.

[joshuadtaft]

One of the reasons why I moved to the desert. Plenty of dark skies out here!

[Jupisevenfive]

I served in the Guard in the 90s and been in the Mojave Desert 3x back in the day. A truly-dark sky place at the reserved military area. Military people know, but the majority of people never had their eyes ever adapted to the dark. It takes about 15-30 minutes. You can see nearly EVERYTHING. The stars and the sky is enough to have your eyes adapted to the dark, that even the faintest lights are enough to see well. I know 95% of the people do not know about this and never tried it. We are actually gonna lose this ability and won't be able to live without blasting bright day/night. This isn't just a city issue, because the light lits up the sky, especially when there are water particles and clouds in it and the light travels for 10s of miles outside the cities.
We are also disrupting not just our sleep cycles, but many of the animals life cycle. Some predators cannot live in a lit night, they depend on it for their life. If you are unaware what could a continously disrupted sleep cycle/insomnia brings, ask a psychiatrist. hint: Insanity, losing your mind, possibly even Alzheimer's disease is linked to lack of sleep and abnormal sleep cycle.

[boomerbear]

I wish people would cover this topic more. It deserves as much attention as the climate I think; the night skies are as much a part of nature as the forests or the oceans. This is the first I had even heard of International Dark-sky Week but I'm thankful I found out about it before it ended. I have experienced the exact feeling you're describing and I have observed the skies have gradually been getting less and less dark every year, and I'm in a rural area! Did you know that they aren't even using diffusing globes on the newer LED streetlights in a lot of places? I don't even photograph the night sky but I admire viewing its beauty.

[astrosertao]

My neighbor was robbed and his sollution was to put a LED monster lamp and cut a tree in front of his house, poor tree.. He even paid a worker from the eletricity company to change the sodium lamps to LED lamps he bought in our street. Now this light is invading my backyard and my bedroom, so annoying and frustrating!

[GrowingAnswers]

I live under a Bortle six sky in a suburban area. The houses are not very close together and the properties are adequate. There is very little light from other houses in my backyard, yet the glow from the sky is enough to disrupt my sleep with the ambient light coming through my windows from the backyard. I had black curtains over my windows and actually added blackout blinds behind them just to make my room darker at night. And yes I did it because my sleep patterns shifted as I’ve gotten older. And I am just like you, Trevor. The more time that has gone by that I’ve been in the hobby, the more I noticed how irresponsibly artificial lighting is installed. And it does not make sense to have these brighter-than-the-sun street lights without shield on them. There needs to be a cone shield over them so the light is only lighting up the road and not blinding us with glare. On top of light pollution affecting health and wildlife it’s also sad that a lot of people don’t even know what a dark sky is. Their version of darkness is seeing one or two constellations and can count the stars. If the sky glow alone without cloud cover is bright enough that you can see your feet, then it’s not dark. In a time when energy conservation is becoming more critical, it certainly doesn’t show with all that wasted light going up in that sky. Simple solutions are to focus the area lighting which means less power is needed and also makes it EASIER to see with less intense light. On top of that, after a certain time of night all lighting can be dimmed or turned off too. Most LED’s in street lights are capable of dimming to where old school HID could not. So it’s at least a possible solution with little effort and/or cost.

[Tony-Elliott]

Hi Trevor I used to live in Nottingham UK under a bortle 8 sky but five years ago we moved to France, I now live in Raul France under bortle 3 or 4 sky but things for me have just got even better, the local government have implemented a policy that all streets light are turned off between 11pm and 6am and all monuments and churches are no longer able to use up-lighting the city's are still able to keep the light on but only within a mile of the centre, , the main reason they are doing this is help the wildlife and to stop light pollution, between 11pm and 6am my sky is now about bortle 2, the nights sky now looks amazing, if France can do the rest of the world should be able to

[JuanAMota-puzx]

Inmediately after testing my first pair of binoculars, I realized how bleached are our current skies because of light pollution. You can read a newspaper's headline in Santo Domingo's downtown at night, same thing in Madrid, Spain. We need to formally request our governments to do something about it: Warm lights pointed downward, ban digital outdoor advertising from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. a tax for white light bulbs and economic incentives for warmer ones (below 3000 Kelvins).