At whose sight all the stars, Hide their diminish'd heads.
August 23, 2016 7:07 AM   Subscribe

 
What a lovely, articulate plea. This was beautiful. I remember taking a friend who grew up in LA, camping, and his awe and wonderment upon seeing the Milky Way for the first time.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 8:18 AM on August 23, 2016


As much as I wish it wasn't, I think light pollution is a fundamentally lost cause. You'd have to legislate for any meaningful effect, and you'd be fight pro-business forces (we need it to advertise!), pro-safety forces (we need our security lights!), sports (we need our outdoor stadium lighting!), and even the government (we need our huge lights at airports/prisons/military bases!) Given that you are representing what is basically a hobby, good freaking luck against all of that.

Unfortunate things seem to have gotten vastly worse in the last 5-10 years as CFL and LED tech makes outdoor floodlights much cheaper.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:53 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's getting worse every year. Used to be, out where I live in northern Virginia, I could clearly see the Milky Way on a clear, moonless night. That was 16 years ago, I cannot recall seeing the Milky Way at all in the last couple of years except when traveling even further from civilization. It feels like every housing development, new road, shopping mall, and other construction has a mandate to put up as many streetlights as possible. Not sure if it's security, fear of the dark, desire for a permanent global nightlight, or just that once again I'm in the minority in preferring seeing stars over streetlight glare.
posted by Blackanvil at 9:44 AM on August 23, 2016


I'm renting a cabin over Labor day weekend via AirBnB and my first question was "is the sky dark?" I have no astronomy background, not even hobbyist knowledge, but there is nothing I like better than sitting under the stars in the stillness of deep night (preferably ~4 am).

My current apartment is next to a parking lot. The adjacent office building is completely empty from 6 pm to 6 am, but the lights burn all night. It's horrible, and I have to have blackout curtains in my bedroom in order to sleep.
posted by AFABulous at 9:51 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


When we went to visit my dad in Cedar Key, FL, there was an overgrown path through those scrubby woods to a tiny private dock near his house. We went out there, beers in hand, nearly every night, because it had been so long since we had seen that many stars. (His tiny town has taken measures to reduce light pollution. A 720 person town in the Gulf of Mexico likes being able to see stars at night.)
posted by Kitteh at 9:54 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


The prevalence strip malls and big box stores with their giant, brightly lit parking lots and late hours of operation can't be helping. And then there is the "architectural lighting" that every new house seems to have plastered all over it. I don't get architectural lighting -- why do you want your boring mcmansion illuminated? Who is this supposed to benefit? And a lot of the time the lights shine into the windows -- isn't that annoying when you are in the house?

My neighbourhood association routinely sends emails trying to get people to leave outside lights on "for safety". Bah. Let the criminals stumble in the dark.

Even up at our fairly isolated cottage it is getting worse. The new massive "cottages" (all of which dwarf my family home, never mind our tiny plywood cabin) have lots of architectural, landscape, and dock lighting all over the place. I don't get it.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:00 AM on August 23, 2016


I am also one who bemoans the light pollution all around me but cannot bring myself to try to make the argument that anything should really be done about it.

I'm not in love with architectural lighting on boring buildings. But outdoor lights on houses are a valid safety feature (criminals don't "stumble in the dark", and can be confident that when there is more light inside than out they are essentially invisible to inhabitants). Ditto later business hours: I have a hard time arguing that businesses shouldn't attempt to cater to people without typical "daytime" schedules.

I could see an exception in cottage country, to the extent that I wouldn't think that it would be overreaching for a home/lake owners association to make rules about unnecessary outdoor lighting between X and Y times. (And I am generally pretty anti-association)

But, if you're not talking about vacation homes, people need to live, and work, and shop, and sometimes that needs to happen at night.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:16 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was being sarcastic about the stumbling. At any rate, there is a difference between having a light on by your doors if you think that will improve safety (I don't) and architectural lighting highlighting every boring detail of a mcmansion.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:27 AM on August 23, 2016


Where's the line between appropriate and "too much" lighting?
posted by sparklemotion at 11:33 AM on August 23, 2016


In my opinion, too much lighting can be seen on new houses with lights in all the eves, spotlights in the yard shining on the house, etc. I mean decorative architectural lighting, not a light in your driveway or at the front door or whatever, there is a difference. Why illuminate every bit of every wall of a house? It is weird.

I've lived in the country, small towns, small cities, and now I live centrally in the 6th biggest city in Canada. Sure, that is only a million people. My neighbourhood is fairly nice, but we are close to some rough (for Ottawa) areas. I still can't say I've ever felt the need to illuminate the walls of my entire house for safety. The biggest crime problem in our neighbourhood is car break-ins on well-lit driveways and streets.

The places I usually see houses with vast amounts of architectural lighting are the wealthy, safe, city neighbourhoods where people have torn down old houses to replace them with enormous boxes, or exurban mcmansions.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:56 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not to take away from the article's larger points, but:

“I’ve found that probably 95% of my students come from either an urban or suburban environment, which means they can only see a dozen stars at night, and no planets,” Stanley said.

The five visible planets are among the brightest celestial objects, and some of the few which I can see from my suburban environment.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:56 AM on August 23, 2016


What about motion activated lighting?
posted by AFABulous at 11:58 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Roberta Bondar (a Canadian astronaut) was on one of the CBC radio programs over the summer and during her interview she spoke about how the night sky in her hometown of Sault Ste. Marie was an inspiration to her. I've been making small trips with my kids to see the stars so that hopefully they get some of that but there is a difference between making a trip to see something and having it just be a part of your life.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:17 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Is there any actual evidence that blazing bright lights reduce crime? (And, what kind of crime?)
posted by phliar at 2:22 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I just got back from a very very remote canyon in Idaho. We couldn't see very many stars, the full moon was so bright it actually hurt my eyes to look at. I woke up every time it came out from behind a ridge or tree. I could see color by the light of the moon.

It was amazing. I'd never experienced anything like it.
posted by Grandysaur at 2:44 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Is there any actual evidence that blazing bright lights reduce crime? (And, what kind of crime?)

In the context* of lights vs. better star gazing -- does it matter? Isn't it enough that walking down a street a well lit street makes people feel safer than walking in the dark? Or, isn't the aesthetic choice to illuminate one's McMansion such that it might catch the eyes of the Gods above worthy of some value that at least puts it on part with the desires of amateur astronomers?

I'm OK with outdoor darkness being a privilege that society decides isn't worth the cost to provide in most areas where people live. It means that kids who don't have parents with the means to take them all the way out of civilization will might see the Milky Way with their own eyes. But I'm not sure that actually seeing the stars outdoors is a developmental necessity that we can't meet through other means (like more planetariums/museums/libraries, etc.)

*There are other contexts, like lights vs. fossil fuel use, in which it makes sense to take an objective look at the data and weigh the pros and cons. But, we've got technologies (LEDs, CFLs, solar) that make that less of a choice AND this is not that debate.
posted by sparklemotion at 3:33 PM on August 23, 2016


It's an enormous shame that so many people just never get to see the Milky Way. I'm not quite romantic enough to genuinely argue that it's robbing us of some measure of vital perspective, but I kinda believe it.

I'm generally against night lighting mostly because of that, partly because of the glaring, capricious security light across the way that makes it impossible to acclimatise to what little darkness we get here, and originally because I remember someone on an "ex-burglars reveal their secrets" type show scoffing at lights as a deterrent because (paraphrasing from memory) he's gotta see to do his job like anyone, and a torch is hardly less conspicuous.

Understandably it's not something that gets tested much, and there's some evidence both ways on whether lighting increases or decreases crime and accidents, but I hope we can push towards more directed solutions than a nebulous driving away of the night. We lucked in to a flux style orange spectrum night life with sodium lights, and people are noticing the loss of it, maybe that can strike up a wider conversation.
posted by lucidium at 4:43 PM on August 23, 2016


Requiring all outdoor lighting to have some kind of shade that only allows light to escape downward would make a huge difference by itself (Wikipedia). And while monochromatic light from low-pressure sodium vapor lamps may be ugly and still interfere with naked-eye visibility of the Milky Way, at least it allows astronomers to compensate with a relatively simple filter. We don't have to make a binary choice between crime and astronomy.
posted by mubba at 6:56 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


In the context* of lights vs. better star gazing -- does it matter? Isn't it enough that walking down a street a well lit street makes people feel safer than walking in the dark? Or, isn't the aesthetic choice to illuminate one's McMansion such that it might catch the eyes of the Gods above worthy of some value that at least puts it on part with the desires of amateur astronomers?

I'm OK with outdoor darkness being a privilege that society decides isn't worth the cost to provide in most areas where people live.


If the only effect of light polution were to deprive some star-gazers of their pleasure, this might be a point worth making. However, research increasingly shows that it has severe negative impacts for environmental and human health.

A search on Google Scholar results in quite a few titles discussing the issues involved; see for instance this on the need for more research.

The cost of well-lit roads and illuminated McMansions is nothing to sneeze at, either: as much as 30% is apparently wasted (this translates to millions of tons/ barrels of coal and oil annually). Unfortunately, LEDs, which partly deal with the issue of cost, seem to be harder on environment & health than other light sources.
posted by miorita at 7:40 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light by Paul Bogard is another fascinating read on this subject. He walks readers through locations and stories from each of the 9 levels of light pollution, addressing the various causes and effects along the way. Really opened my eyes to how much of the night sky we are losing every day. (Full disclosure - A photo of mine is published in this book, that's how I discovered it!)
posted by platinum at 9:29 AM on August 24, 2016


I'm not sure that it's possible to make a case for the night sky to people who've never seen it. I guess the best analogy would be pictures of the Grand Canyon, compared to being there. But even that doesn't take time into the experience the way that the sky does.

When I was very young I lived in the deserts of southern Arizona and California, nowhere near a town of any size. This would have been between the years of 1945 and '55. I can't remember the exact year that the speed of light was put into order in my brain. Maybe I was eight years old. Looking at a summer sky I realized that stars from millions of light years away were not in the same place they were when their light hit my eyeballs. Maybe some of them no longer existed. So, what I was looking at did not exist. I couldn't think of a grammar to cover the situation. I still can't. It's easier to go the reductive route and make stories from the constellations. Even so, the brain knows the sky is not flat.

I was a bit older when I finally got a grip on the wash of light that was the Milky Way. I still don't have a grip on that.

Lying on your back at 0300, looking straight up....if the Earth was a car, you would be looking through the front window. You can look out the back window at mid-morning, but you won't see anything.
posted by mule98J at 10:37 AM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


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