The French surrender to Astronomers – my town likely to be next

Screw the CO2 – I can’t stand the waste (something my parents drilled into me – don’t waste anything) of poorly-designed lighting, and the fact that the sky where I live is orange. I’m sorry, Anthony, but “We’ve come so far to rid ourselves of the dark…” doesn’t ring true. Or maybe I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t want to live in perpetual light… and I most certainly don’t want to be dictated to by AGW zealots, or by those who’d call me a Luddite. A dictator is a dictator whichever side of the fence they come from.

While, I’m not for closing businesses and such, I am for doing what we can to reduce light pollution, I like taking pictures like this, and I need dark skys to do it.

Burglars rejoice!

As an amateur astronomer living in the south of the UK light pollution is a bane, but only for looking at deep sky objects or seeing beautiful sights like the milky way with your eyes. I can still take holidays to Wales or Cornwall to avoid light pollution, but it’s the UK ,you can’t guarantee the views unfortunately :(. I don’t want people to turn off their lights though that’s unreasonable. Most Light pollution is very easy to tackle though, you don’t need laws. You just need to sell the cost benefits of street lights that shine on the streets and not everywhere else as well. This improves efficiency and saves council tax for other things and leads to brighter streets below the light, with minimal light pollution as streets are not that reflective of light. Just with those measures I wouldn’t need to travel far outside my city for great views at a whim.
I understand though most people don’t care about this, so it’s not something I get het up about ( except when I get frustrate trying to get a decent view of Saturn from my garden!!)

‘“Interactive lighting,” they call it.
Lights that only turn on, or go brighter, when people or cars pass by.’
Hrm. So, if someone is just loitering suspiciously waiting for the next passerby, the lights will helpfully go out around them?
Oh well. Maybe they’ll be temporarily blinded when the lights go up.

Lighting doesn’t do a very good job of deterring crime, possibly because the more light there is the easier it is for the criminals to see what they are doing and to see whether anyone is watching them. If you want security lighting, use motion sensors so that the light going on will tell you if something (or someone) is nosing around.
And light going up into the sky, the way the vast majority of streetlights are designed, is just wasted energy.
Light going sideways from those same streetlights forces the eyes of drivers to adapt to that brightness instead of to the much lower brightness of the street… thus making it harder to see rather than easier. Full cutoff fixtures (ie- pointed at the ground only) can achieve better street level visibility with less wattage.

“The move, announced on Wednesday, is expected to save 250,000 tonnes of CO2 – enough energy to power 750,000 French households for a year.”
I don’t think that is correct, it sounds like an exaggeration to me. Isn’t 250,000 tonnes of carbon just about 130,000 barrels of oil? And France consumes about 700 million barrels of oil a year. I don’t know, this claims sounds a bit fishy to me. How about you?

Shutting or dimming the lights in tall buildings might actually save a lot of birds too.

It kind of fits.
Think Sorbonne. Think sustainability. Ideas that quickly leads to opression, because you will have to force it onto people. You will have to do something with those that oppose it.
http://liberapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Pol_Pot

I’m with Steve Schaper and elftone on this.
I don’t want to have to travel to special dark areas to see the milky way.
There’s nothing wrong with using efficient reflectors or directional LED sources to stop light pointlessly shining upwards into space.
Just because we don’t believe in CAGW doesn’t mean we are supposed to encourage wastage and pollution!

I’m with Steve. I wish we could have less light pollution in the Uk but as an amateur astronomer that’s a selfish thought.
I don’t think many Americans comprehend what living in England is like. We are a country that’s roughly the same size as New York state or Iowa in area yet with 1 fifth the population of the whole of the United states. It’s crowded.
Sure there are still idyllic green spots of solitude but there really are very few areas where you can spend an evening looking at the sky without any disruption from artificial light. It’s not a problem, but it is a shame.
I’d support any plan to reduce light in suburban and rural* areas of the UK but not based upon the premise that it would help reduce commissions and as such combat temperature rise. But simply because there is no need to be wasteful and sometimes it’s nice to get away and just look at the stars.
*Our cities are so crowded and busy that it would be dangerous to reduce light in those areas due to security and safety issues given the number of people who like to engage in nefarious activities in the dark.

elftone – actually that is what night time lighting was for – to reduce crime. What hides in the dark is exposed by the light.
Now we can debate whether or not we still feel that way or not – outside of just generally wanting to be able to see where we are going. In this case as a CO2 savings that is given as the justification for this action it is pretty useless. Nuclear power as others have noted – and the absolute failure in any confirmed research study that shows CO2 having much influence on the climate – I think the CLOUD study at CERN suggested maybe ammonia but pretty much said CO2 is inconsequential.
Nothing wrong with saving money and not wasting things needlessly, no problem whatsoever with that – but lets call it for what it is. Personally I dislike streetlights because I do also like to see the night sky, but I live in an area where crime is low and even then the lighting is limited.

We could go back to coal oil, my bad.]:{
Alfred

http://darksky.org/about-ida is worth a visit. I’m not one that believes we must turn off all the lights, but after working in places where excessive nighttime illumination was causing very real threat to endangered populations I thin we can do better.
Much of the night lighting is an incredible waste of resources that offers no reasonable benefit. Lighting a downtown skyline all nite a perfect example. Some areas do need lighting to address crime and safety – however, many, many places – rural and otherwise – do just fine with minimal night lighting.

OT: ‘FATHER OF THE PRIUS’ DECLARES ELECTRIC CARS ‘NOT VIABLE’
“Hybrid car pioneer and “father of the Prius” Takeshi Uchiyamada says the billions poured into developing battery electric vehicles have ultimately been in vain. “Because of its shortcomings–driving range, cost and recharging time–the electric vehicle is not a viable replacement for most conventional cars,” said Uchiyamada. “We need something entirely new.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/04/Father-of-the-Prius-Declares-Electric-Cars-Not-Viable

Hm, given that France is the country which is leading in nuclear produced electricity, is this austerity set in place in order to help the Germans survive the current winter?
Merkel begging for electricity!

Criminals throughout France celebrate.

Interior lights in offices and other non-residential buildings will have to be switched off an hour after the last employee leaves
===================
So I guess the night cleaning crews would be employees…

i don’t know if anyone mentioned the fact that the French produce some 80% of their electrical power by means of nuclear power stations that produce zilch CO2 emissions. So, switching off the electric lights in France to reduce CO2 emissions is a big lie. Fact is that the French government is broke.
There is no state on this planet that has taken a left turn and not found itself worse than it started.

Count me in as wanting a reduction in unnecessary light. Must be no crime during the day with all that light to scare the criminals.

Actually, as an amateur astronomer, i find light pollution to be a very real problem. Also, lots of people have disconnected from astronomy and science as they can’t even see the night sky anymore, it is as if they don’t know it exists.
Light pollution can be managed by turing lights towards the ground, not up. You will find it more effective that way too, it will not blind your night vision as direct light does.
As for CO2 as an excuse? forget it.

I predict a jump in petty crime and vandalism and increased flashlight sales. Gun sales should also rise. A midnight stroll along the Seine will be even more exciting.

Rhoda R says:
February 4, 2013 at 2:05 pm

Seems to me that most of the so-called pollution IS from street lights or security lights and, frankly, I LIKE those.

But there are lights with shrouds that block much of the light pollution from those types of lights.
I live between two cities that have huge light domes, but I live next to a national park which gives me better skies than would be expected from my location, except for the driving range with the stadium lights(summer), and the two ski resorts, and runs stadium lights pointed at a snow covered mountain until about 2:00 am (winter).

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and light pollution was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be dark: and there was darkness. And God saw the light pollution, that it was wicked: and God divided the light pollution from the dark.
I know it is blasphemous. However, not more so than the very concept of “light pollution”, which goes against millennia of divine wisdom.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (which we have aplenty)

You’re off base in complaining about this. Just because THEY chose to interpret this in the context of CO2 and the rest of that BS doesn’t mean that we have to. Light pollution is its own issue, ‘global warming’ be hanged.
Light is pollution, when you don’t want that light. If your neighbor blares his stereo at your bedroom window at 3AM, you can call the cops. Rightly, they will do something about the fact that he is intruding on your peaceful use of your own property with sound pollution, likely disturbing your sleep. But if he shines a #$%^ing floodlight at your bedroom window at 3AM, also disturbing your sleep, he will likely get away with it.
Let alone the true loss of the beauty of the night sky for most people. 80% of Americans live in metro areas, and do not have the opportunity to view creation from their own back yards. I have a difficult time enjoying the towns 4th of July fireworks for the neighbors’ porch lights shining onto my property, nevermind a meteor shower. Getting to the country is inconvenient for all, and near impossible for many. Not to mention that when you get there, every $%^&ing farmhouse has a streetlight next to it.
So much of this can be avoided, by simply not wasting light and illuminating only that which you intend to (and which is yours to illuminate).

I hope this is not the shape of things to come:
“The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our time”
(Sir Edward Grey, outbreak of WW1)
Not open warfare of course, but idealogical and economic – just as bad, the one often leads to the other.

Light pollution is a real issue for astronomers, both for amateurs and for professional installations that have had nearby cities grow up in size over the decades. There are a number of ways to reduce light diffusion up into the night sky, while still having plenty of safe lighting shining down toward the ground where it is needed. This is a well known issue in astronomy circles and should not be dismissed without understanding the issues.
Whether the French news item Anthony highlights is really an attempt to improve astronomical observation conditions or a back door attempt to push some green agenda is a separate issue . . .

How is saving energy and preventing lights shining into the sky “Luddite” ?
The point here is that its perfectly possible using good lighting design and controls, to light areas that need it AND have a reasonably dark night sky.
And why object anyway to turning off office and shop lights left blazing away uselessly all night ?
Some good comments on this thread that shows the original post was misguided.

Glad to see a number of comments here attacking the dusky-peach skyglow from sodium streetlights [even if the original article was about bossing shopkeepers around using the hockey-stick of CO2 denormalisation]. Migraine-inducing levels of artificial lighting are a political feely to address “fear of crime” – they don’t reduce actual crime. I’ve linked a few studies about that on my old blog [clicky name], finding negative correlation between light-level and crime-rates.
What headbanging levels of streetlighting does is condition us to fear the dark. Please Big State, protect us from its evil and the bad men who are sure to lurk under its cover. It is also tangible evidence of a small portion of tax money being spent on non-naughty public service type activities.
The sodium orange vomits on architecture, reducing sense of place – everywhere starts to look like everywhere else. Because if there’s one thing the British political class can’t abide, it’s “localism”.

As an amateur astronomer, I agree with the policy. I would love to see the Milky Way from my own backyard .However, there are good ways to reduce light pollution with the correct fixtures without having to turn all the lights out.

After reading most of the comments above, I think most would agree that it comes down to balance.
Street lights often shine into bedrooms at night, so having them going off and on at night could wake light sleepers. Reflectors to redirect the light where it is needed and not everywhere else makes sense. Driving between towns and cities overnight, going from darkness into overly bright intersections and like, is very hard on the eyes and unnecessary.
Voluntary efficiency should always be encouraged. This requires mass public awareness and discussion. Waste not, want not.
There is a town in New Zealand that has limited itself to a maximum amount of light pollution as there is an excellent observatory nearby, which has driven some innovative solutions.
It comes down to knowledge, context, understanding, perspective and priorities.
What do we value most?

How about removing useless daylight headlamp running in the countries where it is mandatory?
Since: “….the third statistical analysis conducted by NHTSA to evaluate the effectiveness of daytime running lights (DRLs)…the analysis found that DRLs have no statistically significant overall effects” this could save, in Canada, about $1 million per day in fuel costs and restore the ability to signal other drivers by headlamp flashing.

Let there be Light.
When flying into Costa Rica from the north one notices the darkness over Nicaragua and upon crossing into CR airspace the incredible network of lights on the ground below. Is this a good thing?
Well, having lived many years in the countryside here and knowing how bureaucracies work, let me tell you a story, perhaps not as entertaining as Willis, but maybe as informative.
ICE, the monopoly electricity company has a program to illumate the countryside. One can find country roads that run for kilometers without a habitation, but illuminated. At night probably not one soul passes by as the lights shine. Why? Because there is some department in ICE the employees of which are dependent upon extending road illumination or else – or else, what? Certainly not losing their jobs, but that is a different story.
On the other hand, ICE regails us not to waste electricity, and has all sorts of programs and propaganda urging citizens to save little electrons from an untimely demise.
No, there is almost no such thing as a nighttime sky here. We are lucky to be able to discern the full moon as it rises (slight exageration for the sake of the narrative).
Electric light is perhaps the miracle of the last 2 centuries, but sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. I raise a Pilsen to Thomas Edison.

It would nice if the outside fixtures commonly in use today were replaced with the sky friendly ones as their service life ends. Last time i read about them they were comparable in price – same amount of light – just aimed down where folks actually need to see and not at the International Space Station. the nightly blue and orange glows that the present lighting produces can be seen far beyond the horizon and in my opinion is just as much an eyesore at night as the windmills decorating our wilderness areas are in the day. I really miss seeing the big meteor showers from my house, and there are two notable comets coming this year. It’s not always possible to drive to a location hours away from home to a low light area as some here have suggested. Especially on the east coast of the US. Check out “http://www.blue-marble.de/nightlights/2010”

Did they offset that 250,000 tonnes of CO2 against the torch batteries the burglars will be using?

I have thought for some time that it would be good to have a monthly lights-out evening in Los Angeles so my students would know what stars look like. One would think that economics would motivate store owners to turn off the lights to save money; however nighttime lighting is good advertising and the nature of business is not to give your competitors an edge. (I remember during the Arab oil embargo running very low on gas at night and going some distance off the freeway in Moreno Valley to an illuminated (Arco?) sign, only to find when I got there that the station itself was closed.) So I suppose there is a perverse logic in requiring everyone to do it.
But maybe “physician, heal thyself!” is applicable here. The government itself is the major illuminator. Before passing laws for the rest of us, a conversion to motion detection and directional LED street lights could save a lot of tax money. (BTW, I think I read that coherent LED lighting can be tuned to a narrow wavelenth that astronomers can filter out. Someone here can probably comment on that.)

So, in Phil Wright’s, opinion everyone should organise their lives around his hobby

A nice illustration of light pollution over New Zealand’s captial city can be seen at:
http://markg.photoshelter.com/image/I0000nnUP_7sHv0I
The pollution arises from wated light that is deflects upwards. It can be substantially eliminated by the use of cut-off lighting. This provides enhanced illumination at ground level for a lower energy input. Security is markedly improved. Costs are less.
We are not talking North Korea or luddites here. Rather think Calgary. They did this years ago:
http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/Roads/Pages/Traffic/Traffic-signals-and-streetlights/Streetlight-FAQs.aspx

I would love to have most lights turned off, I hate the permanent orange glow of the sky that prevents any decent view of the stars. I equally hate my security obsessed neighbour who insists on leaving outside wall lights on all night every night.
The odd thing is however that if you go somewhere without lights, the rural village where I grew up or modern rural France, it is very rarely completely dark.
Go outside at night, let your eyes adapt, and on most nights you can see further and more easily by the natural moon and starlight than with street lights and security lights which dazzle and cause shadows and actually prevent you seeing anything beyond the pool of light they produce.
On the occassional pitch black night one carries a torch!

Being an astronomer, light pollution is a real problem and most of it is totally unnecessary as it is poor lighting which causes it. I am also dependent upon safety lighting as well. The answer is not no lighting but rather proper lighting. Simply put, if you can look around (not up) and see the light bulbs, then the lighting is not doing its job. The bulbs should be shielded and only what is being illuminated should be seen.
Light going out horizontally or even up causes problems. A simple example I have to endure is the baseball stadium lights at a local park which are busy illuminating the other side of the freeway and blinding everyone driving by on the freeway. What’s amazing is that no fatal accidents have happened there yet. BTW, I live 50 miles from the nearest city and 7 miles from the nearest small town so I have to put up with light bubbles only from one direction.
Having lighting without the lightbulbs blinding observers means less light works better than even much more light with the bulbs visible when it comes to seeing things.
As a user of safety lighting, I’ll have to say that it’s vastly overrated. When there’s no patrolling or security cameras present, having poor lighting with visible bulbs is where people tend to hang out and totally blacked out areas are avoided by everyone.
For anyone interested, I’d suggest going to the Dark Skies Association and reading about the situation. Full cutoff light hoods and common sense application of lighting produces a better job with less wasted power. BTW neither I nor the DarkSkies organization are part of the lunatic left nor do we advocate eliminating safety lightning or tyranical control of power usage. We do tend to believe in light tresspass as well as in private property rights.

There is no better way to encourage looting. These people have lost their fvcking minds. I live in a country where we used to have power outages 1/4 of the day. It was terrible. Today, it is only about 1 hour a day. I can comment on this because I know what it’s like and it’s no fun losing food in the fridge when you have had no electricity for 6 hours, your computer going off mid-paragraph et. al. These fvckers have no idea what it’s like.
Please good people, do not listen to these insane Warmists. They live comfortable lives and their ultimate plan is to wipe out most of humanity while they, and their offspring survive. Just look at the saintly Al Gore 2 mansions, Pachauri the oil extractor technician.

Add me to the list of amateur astronomers who regret the loss of the dark. I am not against lighting per se but I am against wasteful lighting without purpose or value. I deeply regret that my children do not get to see even the thin sky that I used to see at night. Well, once when we took a family vacation to the mountains but they do not have the chance for casual study on a random summer night. Summer skies to them are gray to orange. If they never have the chance to develop that sense of wonder in the boundless skies, where will our next generation of professional astronomers come from?
Regarding looting and safety? Yes, there is some value. In the vast majority of cases, however, the light is inefficiently blasted out without regard for need, directional control or spill-over. I used to live behind a local school. In response to some minor vandalism (graffiti), they put up klieg lights that would have done any concentration camp proud. Sleeping in any bedroom facing the school became an exercise in futility. Stress levels shot up and property levels dropped. Worst, it didn’t stop the vandalism because the kids quickly realized that the school wasn’t actually watching their new, well-lit perimeter.
The safety issue can be further complicated by the night-blindness induced by modern lighting. It is infeasible to light everything – shadows will always exist for people to lurk in. When your eyes are blinded by gratuitous streetlights, you can’t see as well as if you let your eyes adjust to the dark. I’m not saying that lighting is all bad but neither is it an unmitigated good.
Socially, it’s an issue of balancing rights. Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. How far does your right to light the skies (for whatever purpose) go before it unfairly infringes on my right to enjoy the peace and solitude of a starry night?

I think this is a good idea – I like to see the stars at night – and you don’t to have an opinion either way on AGW to oppose waste.

I’ll add my two cents on astronomy and light pollution.
I’m a member of the local amateur astronomy society, and we try to address it by education and persuation. Heavy-handed proscriptive edicts only raise people’s hostilty (sound familar?).
There are plenty of lighting options available that lower electricity use, provide more pleasant light, and still serve as a deterrent.
Most people listen when it’s presented in those terms. We even got cooperation from one of the local billboard companies, who agreed to install downward-only lighting near our moutain-top observatory (well…hill-top really).

On the plus side, this is certainly good news if you are a Wolverine living in France. Wolverines are primarily nocturnal creatures and thrive in darker environments. I foresee a resurgence in the French Wolverine population as a result of this.
Viva Le Carcajou!

Office lights are usually high frequency fluorescent tubes and are extremely efficient.
Offices full of computers nobody ever turns off is another matter entirely. A 300W pc is approx 5 EU cents/hour to run. Unused 16 hours/ day for say a banks 1000 units. .. 800 Euro’s/day. For 365 days (we’ll assume no holidays) is a grand total of 292K Euro’s/year.
.
Now lighting costs aside. That money would buy me a nice bacon buttie for my birthday.

Why don’t they install street solar lights, instead of turning off all street lights for safety sakes.

I’ve said it before Anthony, and I’ll say it again to everyone here. Light pollution is not a joke. Entire generations of people are raised entirely in cities now, and they have no concept of the majesty of the universe because they do not see it except by NASA’s good graces. The night sky belongs to everyone and being able to see it affects you personally whether you realize it or not

“Darkness works both ways, the bad guys can’t see the people to mug.”
A half-decent pair of night-vision goggle costs about $300 last I looked. You wouldn’t want to try flying a plane with them, but they’d be fine for mugging.

If i know my Parisiens, and I do, when le tout Paris decides it doesn’t like this, and I suspect it won’t, then God help the Elysee palace. Still no doubt under some administrative order or another, I imagine the lights will be back on again, if not by Xmas then early in the new year.
Kindest Regards

atheok says:
February 4, 2013 at 6:26 pm
My thanks to all the science oriented astronomers visiting this thread!!
To all of you urbites who dread the dark places in the night, keep your light usage private within your house!
*************
Great! Now address your comments to the criminals who take advantage of the dark to rape, murder and rob!!!

Some of the ignorant comments here beggar belief. Let’s get one thing straight. Street lighting does not reduce crime. Where lighting curfews have been re-introduced criminality has declined by as much as fifty percent. Most crime occurs in daylight, and lighting everything up encourages criminal elements to behave at night more as they would during the day. Consequently our most crime infested areas are often the most intensively lit.
Vanity lighting in all its forms is inexcusable. This includes floodlit buildings, monuments, so-called art projects, skybeams and lasers
Lighting should only be applied sparingly on a needs must basis, where needed, when needed, in the correct amounts and using appropriate 45 degree full cut-off lighting technology. In suburban and residential areas street lighting can be motion operated and subject to 11.pm. curfews. Local authorities are not under any obligation to provide lighting, but if they do, their only obligation is to maintain it in good working order. If people go out after curfew they should use their mukh and take a torch. If you don’t and you have an accident, then it is your fault. When all is said and done, darkness at night is normal.
France has embarked on a policy that should be adopted everywhere, and the sooner it happens, the better. This not about becoming like North Korea and comments to that effect are puerile to say the least. The negative environmental and medical effects of excessive lighting are now so well established that there is no need for me to elaborate further. A simple Google search will reveal all.

Love the idea! All my neighbours having fitted insecurity lights make my night time a living hell, now I don’t give a monkey’s about co2 but being woken up by these lights is getting tiresome.
Switch ’em off I say.

That’s the price the government has to pay for having joined with the Greens at the elections. Always better then the greens demand to stop all nuclear reactors. But as with all french laws nobody likes they’ll get ignored on such a massive scale that it’ll pass quietly into history. After an initial few months of harsh control lights will slowly creep back.
Also most of france see Paris (ile de france) as some weird entity not really belonging to france. Here in the south anyway they choose themselves which of such kind of laws they want to enforce.
For example, there is a law that says that 10% of each town bigger then x inhabitants must be controlled rent, if not you get fined. My town doesn’t get anywhere near that so they get fined 4 million euros yearly. So they applied for a departmental grant to pay the fine which they got.

It’s not light pollution inside the buildings. That’s where they want the lights off.

Shops and offices throughout France will be forced to turn off their lights overnight in a bid to fight light pollution, the country’s environment ministry has announced.

No more partial lighting of business premises so that security patrols can easily see intruders inside the buildings through the windows.
The “pollution” that the law purports to curtail is that of notional CO2 emissions from the production of a small amount of electricity. Calculated on a soggy beer mat made of hemp using pure assumptions.
It’s not the light from the street lights.
It’s not the light from the public places.
It’s not the light from the palaces.
It’s not the light from the millions of motor vehicles.
It’s not the light from anywhere.
It’s the “CO2 pollution”.
Activists and politicians with not respect for language or the intelligence of others have decided to hijack yet another term that has a useful meaning and pervert it to their own interpretation. Sadly; some of those who want to enjoy the brilliance of a clear night sky will not recognize that “light pollution” means something else to those who wish to be their masters.

I don’t get it. Why not? What’s wrong with energy efficiency? It is not “luddite”. This must be one of the worst posts ever on this site.

As an architect I know it’s rare for exterior lights to shine directly towards the sky. By requiring cutoff fixtures, more poles have to be installed at much greater costs. This means low output led and solar fixture are more cost competive with traditional light systems.
The only way to make the astronomers truly happy is the North Korean solution. No lights for you! For the rest of us, the light bouncing off the ground is enough to blot out stars.

Geez, did anyone actually *read* the article? They want office buildings to turn out the lights when no one is there. They want lights in business displays turned off after 1am, i.e., when no one is going to see them (exceptions for areas where it makes sense). They are not talking about turning off street lights, or indeed turning off any lights that people actually need.
Light pollution is a mess for anyone who would like to enjoy the sky at night. I am old enough to remember seeing the Milky Way at night; I haven’t seen it for decades. I expect there are lots of people younger than me who have never seen it; anywhere within 100 miles of any major city, you can only see the brightest planets and stars.
Energy is cheap enough that many businesses leave their buildings lit all night long. Signs and outdoor lights spew their light in all directions. You don’t have to buy the bogus CO2 argument; this is (a) wasteful and (b) creates light pollution, which some of us really do care about.

This year there could be 3 bright comets (hopefully as good as hale-bopp), I’d love to get a great view.
In the south-east of England it is very hard to get a clear view of the skies due to most of the light produced going where it’s not needed (i.e. the sky).
Last year we had all our street lights changed to direct the light downward and be more energy efficient and this had the following advantages:
1) It has the streets are much better lit as the light goes down where it’s needed;
2) Our bedroom is right next to a street light and it is no longer lit up like a Christmas tree 🙂
3) We get a better view of the sky, when it doesn’t rain (very rare since last April);
4) The local council saves millions of pounds in electricity bills, which means the money can be spent on other services;
5) The lights themselves have a much better lifetime and thus need less maintenance;
6) The light is now a white light and you can see much better than with the old lights.
I don’t give a toss about the CO2 and I’m not aware of any negatives.
Having seen new technology used it’s good to see that it is a massive improvement.

Of course there’s an element of exageration, it doesn’t seem to refer to street lighting. Call me a luddite, but I wish to add my two cents via 3G and iPad 4.
Anyone with a proper education shuts off all unnecessary power consuming equipment when leaving a room. I fail to see how keeping lights on from 1 am to 5 am, say, benefits anyone. Plus, I’m paying it!
Around here there’s a car park for about 30 cars. It has 13 lamp-posts. Is this normal? When I think of it I almost weep imagining my money pouring out of them in the night. I entirely fail to see why must I save energy and money when my tax money is thrown through the window like this.
There are solutions for intelligent public lighting. Sensors and lighting on demand.
Most crime is commited in plain daylight (and the most heinous and murderous in investmeNt banking).
Young people no longer know what a star looks like. Believe me, they’re surprised enough to see the moon. The night sky belongs in science-fiction sceneries. That has personal and cultural impact.
Most public lighting is innefectual, as badly conceived and installed reflectors spill light upwards.
And yes, not only do I detest useless waste, but I’m an amateur astronomer too 🙂

philjourdan says:
February 4, 2013 at 1:11 pm
@Michael Hart: re: “Ummm… the vast majority of French electricity comes from nuclear power.”
maybe the french just want to see who glows in the dark?
———————————–
The very next line.
Now that’s too much.
very funny
cn

A good idea, too much artificial light in the wrong place.
Turn them off after midnight.
Let’s see the night sky properly again.

Light pollution is a valid term. Lights should not shine upwards (why? to illuminate tree’s?) or should not shine into your bedroom, while you are trying to sleep. Saving energy is valid and it could be argued that you are not creating CO2 to some extend.
This should not institute turning all lights off either. But certain designs of lights have to be replaced with ones which only shine downwards.
Seeing a light bulb is bad, because it means stray light (wasted light) because it blinds you.
It could be argued that some lights are not needed and either are dimmed down or turned off.
How about motion detection?
We don’t want to make it easier for thiefs to break in our houses either.
But it is certainly true that many people are not able to see the milkyway, which is a shame.
Light pollution is real and a term not only used at Wikipedia, but also at National Geographics
(http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/light-pollution/klinkenborg-text).
Everybody is called to action to contribute!

Do you sleep with the lights turned on? Do you really think the light scares the criminals? I don’t think so, this is just a comforting thought and nothing more. Even so, they will chose the shadows and you will never see them because of the contrast and the glare in your eyes. Light pollution is wasted energy. There is nothing useful or beautiful in light pollution. There are studies which suggest a dramatic impact of light pollution on the ecosystem and humans. besides, all of us who really like looking at the sky (as any scientist and amateur astronomer will do) are horrified to see an orange dome above our heads instead of stars. I usually like the postings here, but not this one. since when have you gone in the other extreme: that we should waste nevertheless as much resources and energy as possible, even if CO2 emissions were not such a big issue related to climate.

One of the joys of going on holiday to a warmer country far from any cities is lying on my back in the pitch dark and seeing the milky way with my naked eyes – oh and browsing a few objects with a pair of powerful tripod mounted binoculars.
Light pollution is pointless waste. Street lamps in the UK are just ridiculously badly designed. I would say about 20% of the light shines straight up into the sky. What is the point of that? Stick a decent sized reflector on top of them and we would get more effective lighting at ground level, a reduction in the electricity bills as you would need less powerful lights, and reduced light pollution. It is plain common sense.
I agree that it does not need legislation, just a bit of informed lobbying and education of local politicians to make sensible choices when choosing what lights to use when putting in new or replacement street lights.

Find out why an Astronomers torch shines a red light.
Bright white LED lights gifted to the councils are garbage for clear street vision. Anything towards the blue desensitises the eye creating stronger dark zones so will killer cyclist will come out you from hiding in the shadows. >:-))
Red creates less eye desensitisation in the dark.
Rhodopsin (the chemical we use in night vision) is damaged by short wavelengths more than long ones and by bright light more than dim light. So to best preserve night vision you need two things: light as dim as possible, and light as red as possible.
Tests done decades ago by the US air force established that red cockpit lighting did least damage to pilots’ night vision.

AndyJ says:
“February 4, 2013 at 6:01 pm
@Wamron you incomprehensible, illiterate child.
You are a cretin. “gedditt”. So, if people here deny you of your pleasures because you say its the right thing to do onto others. That would be ok will it?”
ACTUALLY….nobody here is “denying” you anything. You admit its just your “pleasure” that is all..and YOU want to deny EVERYONE ELSE their safety, security and…indeed, their “pleasure” (eg, being able to walk in a city at night) to suit you and your selfish affectation (“oh Im an astronomer”). THAT failure of reasoning majkes YOU an idiot! You aren’t an astronomer, you are a tinkering selfish uncaring unempathic fool.
“Seems uneducated losers like you come on here when mummy has taken your xbox away so you might get some sleep before school..” Only a complete and utter pillock paints a stereotype like that based on a person who doesnt conform to the meritricious AFFECTATIONS of a perceived social role : I am university trained at both Bsc and BA, being both a qualified scientist and an exhibited artist with five books published of which one is an encyclopedic 400,000 word work on my field. I have run my own business accross several countries for twenty years and I do not possess a television All this while AndyJ piffles aroundwith a telescope pretending to be Lord Herschel.
“People who have a scientific and life interests in the world outside an LCD will count many real world hobbies through their lifetimes as unforgettable experiences that sad little scrotes like you can never comprehend..” Well Ive corrected his pathetic, anal-retentive, miserably shallow prejudices and bigotry already, but I might add that anyone who rates a pathetic pseudo-scientific hobby (playing with atelescope doesnt make anyone an astronomer, just someone locked in a fantasy of something they aren’t) ..cannot have had much by the way of interesting “life interests”. I have travelled to destinations in the US, Australia, India, and Europe since childhood, my siblings include engineers and a scientist with a theorem named after him, I have had sex with women a telescope twiddler who plays with his phallic toy could only dream of (recently I might add and numerously) and I have been a guest on TV shows and on stage in Europe.
I mention all this and quote Andy j in his lame entirety so as to highlight the way the stereotype-governed narrow little mind of such creatures work. He knows utterly nothing about a topic (me)and rushes to paint a detailed picture (X box etc) based on vivid imaginings in his fetid pent-up pathetic little excuse for a “mind”.
Some would tell him “get a life”. But I cannot see there is any hope of such a person ever getting a version of a life many would want to suffer.

Well done, the French. If only I could get rid of the sodium light glaring all night in my bedroom.
It used to be nice & dark at night, you could see Orion on stepping outside the front door, then the local council decided to limit the road to 30MPH. and installed streetlighting. Traffic is now *faster*, as drivers can see the road clearly, and there’ve been a couple of accidents from people screaming round the corner without slowing down.
Must try light pollution complaints. If I had an attic window I’d be shining a laser down on the daylight sensor..

…..oh…and given his evident inability to recognise the astronomical facilities and characters I earlier referred to, I suspect I actually know more about astronomy and certainly far more about space science than he does as well!

I hope and suspect that LED directionality will remove the problem.
Zurich, Switzerland has an observatory which, today, is essentially unusable due to street lights. It was built back in the days of gas lanterns. With directional lighting, once again it will be usable.
Like many have pointed out, directional lighting is efficient lighting. I’m all in favor of efficiency when it’s my pocket being picked for taxes to support the lighting costs.

They just want to turn off the lights in shops, offices and on buildings after 1 am.
The standard street lights remain on.

Agree w/others — it would be easy just to install lights that cut off any horizontal/upward light. The overall wattage could be greatly reduced & not compromise the ground lighting, while reducing the upward light pollution. But warmers ignore simple solutions.
An OT rant — why in the heck do newer vehicles have glaring BLUE lights that destroy nite vision? Lights at nite should be RED or yellow. Duh.

“Where lighting curfews have been re-introduced criminality has declined by as much as fifty percent.”
Well, yeah. After you turn off the street lights, potential victims don’t risk going there any more.

Not to sidetrack to much, Willis, but the ‘breakfast police’ exists already in the form of insurers. Health insurance is less expensive if you are thin, life insurance too.

Especially since the french law mostly concern officebuildings which are actually only the officebuildings in Paris, La Defense, which is one huge area with only pompous officeblocks.
That’s why the law came about, since the ‘Green’ members of parliament only see Paris and imagine that the rest of France can afford to leave their lights on all the time.
That’s a;ways the problem with Greenies, they have a very narrow vision of reality.

Erny72 says:
February 8, 2013 at 9:58 am
…
———————–
Erny,
Forcing private sector to consume less power by law is one argument, protecting people from bagpipe players on the street at 3 AM is in principle a separate one. Although we can only approximate what is ideal and right in a code of laws, merely because our system is imperfect, is no reason to allow majority tyranny or majority whim to rule.
In my view, the issue in both cases is property. Case 1: If it’s my property, and my power bill, then nobody has any business forcing me by law to turn my lights off. This is a big one, because it sets an extremely bad precedent; the government has no business disposing of my property unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. Case 2: On my property, if I can’t hear myself think because some fool is playing bagpipes on the corner, once again my property rights need protection. It can be hard to draw the lines, and I doubt they can be drawn perfectly, but that just makes it all the more important to pay attention to them.
Government needs to protect each of us from each other. To do that, in large part government needs to protect our property from each other and from itself.

Light and noise can both trespass onto other property imposing costs (in economics they are externalities) on others. I acknowledge a role for government or courts in keeping such trespass to reasonable levels. I agree that government shouldn’t be one of the worse offenders, and that whether lights are on or not shouldn’t be regulated beyond the extent to which there is trespass. Regulations should only require the light to be properly shielded and directed. As to crime and security, I figure in the dark, the advantage goes to those familiar with the territory, so less light means more security to me. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to see the Milky Way from our cities!