Category Archives: International Dark-Sky Association

International Dark-Sky Association, light pollution

Heads Up, Lights Out

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International Dark-sky Week

Do you have a lot of outdoor lights? What does your electric bill look like every month?  High?  Low?  Where do you live? The city? Not the city?  What do your night skies look like?  Barely see a few stars? More than a few? A whole starry night?

The answers to all those questions are related to at least one thing: excessive use of light.  Humans put out an incredible amount of light pollution, as if we want to advertise to the universe that we are so wealthy we can afford to light up the night. Of course this isn’t true.  We just like to light up the night, for reasons that have less to do with wealth and more to do with some perceived fear that if we don’t, bad things will happen. Or we won’t sell as many cars, or attract people to our strip malls, or people won’t be able to see how great our leaders are because their monuments won’t be lit up, or whatever it is people need to illuminate. It’s not that these uses of light should be stopped — but they should be done more efficiently, with an eye toward saving money, resources, and the night sky.

The International Dark-sky Association is encouraging people to celebrate better lighting at night by turning off the lights (or at least using them more sensibly) during Dark-sky Week, April 20-26.  The idea is for us all to figure out ways to use our lighting better in the long run — not just to eliminate light pollution, but to make positive contributions to our environment and our own health.  There are a number of studies, which IDA has references to on their extremely useful website, that point out how to better light our properties (with downward facing lights so that light isn’t scattered to the sky), how darkness is important for all forms of life, and how eliminating unnecessary lighting can help us use less energy and reduce pollution. It’s a win-win for everybody, even the folks who feel the need to have security lights (which can be made to work more efficiently and focus exactly where needed, rather than splashily illuminating areas without regard to sensible use).  If you light properly, your electric bills will go down, your community will benefit, and so will you.

So, think about celebrating Dark-sky Week along with millions of people around the world. It’s a great time to assess how you can save money by using good lighting practices, and — as an added bonus — it’s a chance to skygaze at night after you’ve turned off the lights you don’t need. (Obviously, some safety lighting is necessary — make sure that it’s aimed properly and used well.)

Earth Hour, GLOBE at Night, International Dark-Sky Association, light pollution

Are Your Skies Dark?

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Tell the World What You See

Postcard for GLOBE at Night.
Postcard for GLOBE at Night. (Click to embiggen.)

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but now that the time for GLOBE at Night is getting closer, it’s worth bringing it up again for your consideration.  GLOBE at Night 2009 is a week-long activity running from March 16-28  that anybody can participate in to measure the darkness of their local skies. You don’t need fancy equipment, just the ability to walk outside and compare what stars are visible to you with a chart that you can get online. Then, you report what you find to the GLOBE at Night folks and they do the rest. The result will be a global “chart” of what light pollution is doing to our night skies.

The capstone of the event will be an event called Earth Hour, where cities around the world turn off as many lights as possible for one hour. Nearly a thousand cities have committed to turning off the lights so their citizens can see something they haven’t seen for a long time: the night sky in all its glory.  I see that a few dozen cities and towns in the U.S. (my home country) are participating. That needs to change, folks.  Work on your city’s officials to commit an hour to the sky.

You might think to yourself “So what if there’s some light pollution?”  And, for a long time, people did. That is, until we started finding out that we are losing our night skies. In the process, we’re affecting nocturnal animals,the environment, and possibly even affecting human health in ways that we are still measuring.

We’re also radiating a lot of light upwards, wasting energy doing so. It costs money to light up the skies, and I’m not sure why we do it. Someone once wrote that civilizations that can afford to waste money sending unused light upwards must be very wealthy indeed. Is that true?  Are we on this planet so wealthy we can afford to do that? Are all of our people fed?  Does everybody have a safe drinking water supply?  A dignified place to live?  I think you know the answer to that. And yet, we waste money on brightly lit car lots and buildings and other places that don’t need to be lit up bright as day each night.  We’re spending money to drown out the vision of the night sky. And the stars.

We don’t have to be doing that.

To understand the magnitude of the problem, programs like GLOBE at Night and Earth Hour  illustrate for people in a first-hand way just what we’re blotting out with our energy waste, and what we’re doing to our environment.   You don’t have to be a tree-hugger or of one political party or another to appreciate the beauty we’re washing away with light pollution. You just have to be someone who appreciates the beauty of the sky and also someone who appreciates not wasting tax dollars and advertising money on lighting up the sky.  Shine the lights where we need them, not where they aren’t needed or wanted. And, in the process, help save tax dollars and public monies in a time when the economy is having a rough go of it.

Light pollution on a freeway causes glare and wastes energy. It can be done better. Courtesy IDA.
Light pollution on a freeway causes glare and wastes energy. It can be done better. Courtesy IDA.

To that end, I also recommend you take a look at the International Dark-sky Association’s web page. This is a group of citizens and experts from all walks of life, all political persuasions and outlooks, who have banded together to find ways to use energy resources wisely when it comes to light use. They have an incredibly useful set of handouts and position papers that people can give to their local officials to point out how best to light our public spaces safely but with respect for the night sky AND taxpayer pocketbooks.  Check it out!  And, be sure and participate in GLOBE at Night and Earth Hour.  You’ll be glad you did.