During this Solstice holiday, the following LA Times article excerpted below was recommended by friends.
The need for humans to have healthy sleep patterns has been well documented. Anyone of us who has had to work the midnight shift knows the havoc this can play on one's emotions and physical body.
"Our bodies need darkness to produce the hormone melatonin, which keeps certain cancers from developing, and our bodies need darkness for sleep."The primary point here is that the author, Paul Bogard makes is that we can change this.
"The rest of the world depends on darkness as well, including nocturnal and crepuscular species of birds, insects, mammals, fish and reptiles. Some examples are well known — the 400 species of birds that migrate at night in North America, the sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs — and some are not, such as the bats that save American farmers billions in pest control and the moths that pollinate 80% of the world's flora. Ecological light pollution is like the bulldozer of the night, wrecking habitat and disrupting ecosystems several billion years in the making. Simply put, without darkness, Earth's ecology would collapse."
"It doesn't have to be this way. Light pollution is readily within our ability to solve, using new lighting technologies and shielding existing lights. Already, many cities and towns across North America and Europe are changing to LED streetlights, which offer dramatic possibilities for controlling wasted light. Other communities are finding success with simply turning off portions of their public lighting after midnight. Even Paris, the famed "city of light," which already turns off its monument lighting after 1 a.m., will this summer start to require its shops, offices and public buildings to turn off lights after 2 a.m. Though primarily designed to save energy, such reductions in light will also go far in addressing light pollution. But we will never truly address the problem of light pollution until we become aware of the irreplaceable value and beauty of the darkness we are losing."In addition to this informative piece is a companion, Dark Skies (pdf) with some really good illustrations to support the Bogard argument.
This is yet another topic that has often been belittled and mocked as some hippy goofiness or NIMBY fixation, as with the Hall property plans for a Regional Sports Park's extensive exterior lighting. For this reason it seems we should help educate our friends, neighbors and city planners to the realities of night skies to our healthy and prosperity.
Hat Tip to C.J. and Jean Bernard Minster
Update via Encinitas Undercover 12/28/12
Read the letter to the UT Editor from a Cardiff student regarding 90 foot high lights.
