Light Pollution

I am doing a project for my school that involves light pollution and how I can help cut down on it. My group and I are wanting to go to the city and help replace bad streetlights or shield them, especially the ones near the UW-RF observatory (which I visit often). Those lights can be seen 30 feet up in the observatory deck, because they are not properly shielded. Apparently the city is generating electricity so that they can light up our atmostphere, am I wrong?

i think there are excessive lights as it is, when the moon is shining it illuminates the streets. why waste so much energy on lights? its not like the streets are ever bustling with people anyways, theres barely a soul on the road during the dead of night anyways, i say light up commercial districts and leave it at that, large watts are also not even neccesary. wasteful america lets get are act together for once!

Originally posted by diehard_democrat
Apparently the city is generating electricity so that they can light up our atmostphere, am I wrong?

Yeah...
Huge amounts of electricity is wasted to lightning sky.

Worst possible lamp is that in which bulb is inside glass bowl which is on top of the post... those waste at least two thirds of light/energy... and post even blocks light from ground near pole!

Here's some sites:
www.darksky.org...
members.aol.com...

Let's see... Here we have a soccer complex with 4 fields about 4 miles away and the university's stadium complex about 2 mines away. For some reason, whenever it's clear ALL those light are on and by God is it horrible! At least here on campus all the lights are shielded.

As for what you can do about it, I'd say going to the cities and stuff would be a good start. I doubt you'll accomplish much though, since the shieled lights look awkward and don't have the appeal of those God-forsaken acorn lights.

Good luck though!

Here are some links to help:

cfa-www.harvard.edu...

www.harvard-magazine.com...

www.utahskies.org...

www.southnorthants.gov.uk... lution.pdf

ottawa.rasc.ca...

Good luck.

Thanks for all of the links posted here!

I looked at some streetlights in my neighborhood and made some mental notes of them. Most of the streetlights here are the traditional ones you see with the light inside the head, with a glass bulb with ridges on it surrounding the bottom half.

Downtown, they have black streetlights with the bulb fully enclosed within the head. Thank God!

At one of the gas stations, they have those ugly ones with flourescent tubes inside, and it is a post with two flourescent panals sticking out the side, and upwards a bit. Those are probably the worst ever.

At the UW-RF, the streetlights are covered on the top with a shield. Yet it is still visible from the observatory deck thirty feet from the ground. I'll try to find a pic on Google because it's really hard to explain what this streetlight looks like.

But this is what we need!

Edit: Found a pic of the UW-RF streetlight. Except this isn't the light that is actually at the university, it's just the closest thing to it. Mentally cut 1/3 of the light out, to make the clear housing shorter, and you basically have what is here at the university.

[edit on 12/19/04 by diehard_democrat]

Light pollution is a real problem, and I think I know well about it...

I live in Belgium, one of the only countries in the world where most of roads are lit all night long. Even in the middle of the countryside it is a real challenge to spot the Milky Way "white" lane in the sky, because all around there are villages and towns and roads, and everything is well lit...

As a matter of fact, it is easy as ABC to spot Belgium from space in the night (I've never seen that myself!) because it is basically an incredibly bright spot in the middle of western europe, and you can even nearly draw the borders... It is even close to impossible to spot big cities amidst the rest...

Well, getting to my point... I've asked the question several times, and it seems that there is some logic for keeping those desert roads at night still lit... I've argued that between (let's say, for instance) midnight and 4am it is not useful to keep the roads lit. Well, yes! The father of a good friend of mine is working as "high" staff in the biggest electricity plant in Belgium, the Mol nuclear plant, and he explained to me...

To keep the cost of electricity as low as possible, the output should be as constant as possible. For that, if the roads are lit at night, it compensates for daytime electricity not needed at night. And believe it or not, he is right...

I suppose that light pollution is a necessary evil... But it is indeed very sad that I can't see a lot of things in the sky that I could see in the middle of nowhere...

Originally posted by SpookyVince
The father of a good friend of mine is working as "high" staff in the biggest electricity plant in Belgium, the Mol nuclear plant, and he explained to me...

To keep the cost of electricity as low as possible, the output should be as constant as possible. For that, if the roads are lit at night, it compensates for daytime electricity not needed at night. And believe it or not, he is right...
I suppose that light pollution is a necessary evil...

No it isn't necessary, that comes just from the fact that nuclear power plants can't be so well adjusted/shutted down basing on need of power.
So instead that production would be made to correspond need of electricity markets are adjusted to make big corporations happy.
(which is general direction of this capitalistic globalisation, instead of adjusting markets to correspond needs of people/countries it's those which are "adjusted" to correspond capitalism/corporations greed)

aren't street lamps solar powered?? if they aren't then they should be, this is the 21st century! we should be making use of whats around us like the sun, wind and sea to generate our electricity. when coal and oil are thin on the ground we will have no choice but to change the way we live. however, if we put in place solar power stations, more of those windmill type things, and more power stations on the coasts to gain tidal energy. if these things are implimented now then there is no need to worry when oil runs out. we can already build electric cars so why do we use petrol and diesel ones? we don't use feathers and ink to write, we have pens. why use something that's old and polluting our atmosphere like there's no tomorrow when we could use something that's ozone friendly and we put us in the right direction for a better future.

The coolest thing I have seen is the earth at night from a jet Plane. The cities and light grids look unreal.

Earth lights from space

Cool picture. What is interesting are the areas that are almost totally dark, like North Korea, and the string of lights along the trans siberian railway.

We should just shut off all of the streetlights after 10:00 at night, because last time I checked, cars had headlights. And if somebody is going to go out at 2 a.m. for a spin, why do we have to light the entire country for them?

And the picture of the worldwide light pollution was interesting how the U.S. was divided in half right at the Mississippi river.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
What is interesting are the areas that are almost totally dark, like North Korea...

Maybe it's just that only lighted areas are pisons/forced labour camps and palaces of ruling group.


Here's lot more images:
www.darksky.org...

Well not to hijack this thread, but the fact that Almost all of North Korea is totaly dark says a lot about the development of that country.

Originally posted by E_T
(...)
So instead that production would be made to correspond need of electricity markets are adjusted to make big corporations happy.
(which is general direction of this capitalistic globalisation, instead of adjusting markets to correspond needs of people/countries it's those which are "adjusted" to correspond capitalism/corporations greed)

That is partly right. I mean, it is right, but given the fact that, producing less electricity makes it more costy, it balances that to the other side.

Originally posted by shaunybaby
(...)
if these things are implimented now then there is no need to worry when oil runs out. we can already build electric cars so why do we use petrol and diesel ones?
(...)

Ask that question to the ones who own oil and money (Mr. Bush amongst others). They do know why electric cars are not commercially interesting, and it is not because those cars are a bit more expensive to buy. Oil rules, because it is money, and money rules because it is power. That's how the world is. Given that, oil is power.

Now, to be at least for a word back on topic (), this wouldn't change the light pollution at all. Whatever the source of power, the human seems to feel an irremediable need to have everything lit up at night... Even if no one sees it!

I found this image of a city at it's worst:



Red represents bad lighting, while green is good lighting. There is only one streetlight in that entire city that is properly shielded.