How many times have you seen an empty skyscraper late at night, fully lit, with no actual employees inside? What about the abundance of bright empty parking lots, blinding streetsigns, blinking traffic lights on desolate roads, and lonely streetlamps? Or the glaring signs that shine into our windows and keep us up at night?
“People are a lot like insects. We’re attracted to bright light.” This is what Bob Gent, President for International Dark-Sky Association’s Board of Directors, told me during a recent phone conversation. The problem is, insects tend to die when exposed to too much light, he laments.
Light pollution affects the entire globe. It wastes energy, upsets ecosystems, and causes adverse health effects—and is especially bad in areas where there are no lighting ordinances or zoning controls. The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), based in Tucson, Arizona, a nonprofit formed in 1988, wants to change all that. With more than 11,000 members in seventy countries, their goal is simple: to preserve and protect the night sky and our heritage of the night skies. Bob Gent, a volunteer for IDA for more than twelve years and the former president of the Astronomical League, cares about the loss of the night sky for many reasons—and he gave me some compelling evidence why I should, too.
Gent remarked that it’s an important part of human heritage to be able to gaze at the Milky Way. “The sky has been an inspiration to scientists, artists, and musicians, for thousands of years.” But slowly, we’ve been destroying the night sky. Urban sky glow blocks our view of the universe, and is a particular challenge to astronomers or anyone who likes to stargaze.
What with the high cost of energy—and our already heavy reliance on importing fossil fuels like oil—why waste it? Light pollution statistics can be hard to quantify, but IDA clams that 30 percent of outdoor lighting is wasted. If lighting were redesigned, the U.S. could save thirty-eight million tons of carbon per year. Dr. David L. Crawford, Executive Director of IDA, writes, “We are faced with the peril that the only way future generations may be able to “see” the dark skies that our ancestors enjoyed is through a simulation on a computer screen, in a planetarium dome, or on television. Another consequence of poor lighting is wasted energy because much of this light is wasted light. In the U.S. alone, over $1 billion a year is wasted to produce unused light, which is the major source of light pollution.”
Ecosystems are continually disturbed by light pollution. According to Gent, light can have devastating effects on the long distance migration of birds. Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), a nonprofit based in Toronto, has been following bird migration, ever since an abundance of birds started dying while attempting to fly over cities. Birds fly at night, normally guided by the constellations and the moon. But light, glare, and glass causes birds to crash into buildings and die from head injuries or flap about and die from exhaustion. In 2005, New York City—with help from the National Audubon Society—adopted their first citywide program (aimed at high-profile buildings such as the Chrysler Building and others) to dim the skyline, especially during the peak fall and spring migratory seasons.
Light pollution may contribute to diseases such as breast cancer as well. At IDA’s Annual General Meeting in 2006, Dr. David E. Blask of the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, New York, talked about how light may affect your health, including the role melatonin may play in breast cancer. A low level of artificial lighting during the nighttime hours reduces the body’s production of melatonin. Suppressed melatonin can promote the growth of breast tumors in women. Exterior stray light (light trespass) suppresses melatonin as well. Shift workers are especially at risk because their bodies’ natural rhythms get confused. Blask contends that women working night shifts are at a 50 percent higher risk; and women with higher levels of melatonin (and especially those who sleep nine hours a night) have a decreased risk of developing breast cancer.
