Could L.A. County get darker? Pasadena Star-News reports the L.A. County Board of Supervisors directed staff to draft regulations “aimed at preserving ‘dark night skies’ in rural areas throughout the county.” So I’m republishing this post, originally published on Jan 26, 2010.
Some of my friends find it odd, but I sleep with an eye mask on at night. Even when I turn out all the lights in my apartment, enough light seeps into my place from the lit-up storefronts, street lights, and porch lights outside that I have a hard time falling asleep without the mask.
That’s why Borrego Springs, Calif. seems like the perfect vacation spot for me. The small town of 2,500 people just became the second community in the world to be named an International Dark Sky Community by The International Dark-Sky Association, a nonprofit with 53 chapters around the world. According to Miller-Mccune, Borrego Springs has no traffic lights, fast food joints, or big-box stores — and just 25 streetlights — hooded and downward-facing so as not to create light pollution! (via Triple Pundit)
If light pollution sounds like a rather drastic term to describe regular street lights, consider the health consequences of too much illumination. According to Miller-McCune, “disrupting the circadian rhythm can cause insomnia, depression and increase the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease.” In addition, light pollution can also encourage cataracts to develop. In fact, last year the American Medical Association went so far as to approve a resolution advocating light pollution control.
Too much light’s also drastically affecting other species and their ecosystems — so much so that a book, Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, has been dedicated to exploring how over-illumination affects everything from migrating birds to sea turtles to salamanders to plants.
And of course, light pollution means wasted energy — something the annual Earth Hour event tries to point out. Miller-Mccune reports that “The Dark-Sky Association estimates that wasted light squanders the equivalent of 32 million barrels of oil or 9 million tons of coal each year in the United States alone.”
Many of us tend to equate bright street lights with safer streets, but the International Dark-Sky Association says too-bright lights can do more harm than good (PDF): “Overly bright lighting creates a sharp contrast between light and darkness, making the places outside the area of illumination nearly impossible to see. Bad lighting can even attract criminals by creating deep shadows that offer concealment.”
Interested in making your community an International Dark Sky Community? Any ‘hood’s eligible according to International Dark-Sky Association, though of course, big cities with lots of light life will have a tough time meeting the guidelines. Still, cities and towns can do a lot to reduce unnecessary light pollution — and a new film by Ian Chaney (The Greening of Southie) called The City Dark looks like it’ll shed some more light on the issue when it’s completed later this year.
In the meantime, to reduce light pollution in your home and community, check out the International Dark Sky Community’s tips in its “Introduction to Light Pollution” brochure (PDF) and get started.
Photo of a Honda dealership at night by gfoots
This is a huge problem for me and my neighbors don’t seem to believe me that light pollution is very problematic. Their front door light is on all night long without a timer/motion sensor or anything, which means it shines into my living room and bedroom all night long. The same building has lights mounted flush with a wall that then illuminate a full 180 degrees, which includes directly into my bedroom window! It drives me crazy even with the window shade I have. I have no air conditioning in my bedroom, so the only way to cool down the room in the summer is to open the window and shade. So I either overheat or have light shining into my windows all night. The other problem with blacking out the windows is that I wake up with the sun, which means any sort of window covering is disruptive. I’ll have to print out some of this literature and pass it on since the people that own the lights think I am making things up when I’ve mentioned things like an increased cancer risk.
Comment by M — January 26, 2010 @ 11:45 am
I took an entire class with the author of that book, the Ecological Consequences of Artificial Nightlighting! I wrote a paper about the different research behind higher rates of breast cancer linked with people who had slept in rooms that had some sort of artificial nightlight. Bottom line, make sure all your windows are closed and lights are turned off when you sleep! This is so, so important.
I feel especially sorry for those living close to those electrical screen billboards all over LA these days. People may not know about it yet, but it is definitely NOT good for your health!
Comment by machiko — January 26, 2010 @ 5:34 pm
Pretty amazing!!!
Comment by Jeffry S. P. — January 27, 2010 @ 10:55 pm
M — In addition to the health issues — Since it seems like your neighbors unfortunately don’t care that much about your feelings about how their light affects YOU, you might want to consider showing how their light affects THEM and their safety with that safety brochure I linked to above. I’m guessing they have such bright lights b/c they think it keeps them safer (and unfortunately care more about their sense of safety than your disrupted sleep), but obviously this isn’t necessarily the case.
In the meantime — Have you tried an eye mask? :)
machico — Do you mean the editor of that book? It’s a collection of essays by many different authors. If your prof. was Travis Longcore, I had the privilege of hearing him speak at greenXchange a couple years ago. He was v. inspiring!
Comment by Siel — January 28, 2010 @ 4:32 pm
I had only a vague notion of the location of Borrego Springs, so I pulled it up in Google Maps.
And discovered that it’s directly adjacent to “Hellhole Palms.”
Don Hosek´s last blog ..The countdown
Comment by Don Hosek — December 15, 2010 @ 11:16 pm