Dark Sky Lighting
savingourstars.org
savingourstars.org
- The circadian rhythms of birds and nocturnal creatures are less severely affected
- Amber lights produce less insomnia
- The dumb streetlight across the street doesn't blind me from my bedroom window
I had this issue, and I contacted the power company to re-aim the offending streetlight.
The city of Flagstaff page says the following: Though it is still generally true that any LED product described as “Amber” will have lower impacts, as of early 2024 we cannot recommend any particular product as the quality control of the consumer-grade product lines is not providing products with consistent spectra.
It looks like this is still a nascent product line for residential lighting.
So we had it right well over half century ago as far as street lighting went.
Sodium lights were acutally kind of nice because they're mildly filterable with dinodymium glass.
https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/115840278905803451
https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116796122687129600
https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/03/31/starlink-spra...
"a 100 W light bulb turned on every night for a year takes equivalent energy output from burning half a ton of coal"
I get that this film is probably dated, but there are so many things wrong with this:
1. 100 W for 8 hours at night * 365 days in a year is 292 kWh; a ton of coal burned in a power plant produces ~1,000 kWh. so, much less than half a ton. still alot though...
2. modern 100 W light bulbs typically use LED and only require ~14 W of power (so ~14% of the power draw)
3. neither of the above actually matter though because power at night is essentially free; wind turbines, hydro, geo thermal, etc. all continue to work at night and can't be easily shut off, even though demand for power is much much lower.
given that energy waste is not an issue, the benefits of solving this problem are restricted to being able to view stars, preventing a few birds from running into buildings, and requiring residents near outdoor lighting to install curtains (though it seems like even with lights that are dimmed and pointing downwards, most people that live near them would still install curtains anyways, whether for darkness or just privacy...).
This must be weighed with the benefits of having lights on in the first place.
You are limiting yourself to residential light bulbs, which previously typically came in "100W" (actually 1,600 lumen) and "60W" (actually 800 lumen) varieties. Yes, the modern indoor 1600 and 800 lumen bulbs now use less power.
But if you look up street lights, you'll find HPS/Halide can use 100-400W, while modern LED use 50-150W. Also architectural lamps that wash against the side of a building may have different outputs.
Given the hundreds/thousands of street lights out there, if (say) half the light is going up (or even sideways) that's a lot of waste: we could all the photons that are going up/out could be redirect down then we could reduce the power needed even further.
> 3. neither of the above actually matter though because power at night is essentially free; wind turbines, hydro, geo thermal, etc. all continue to work at night and can't be easily shut off, even though demand for power is much much lower.
And what does this light do to people's (and animals') circadian rhythms? What does the excess glare of street lights do to road users (like drivers), especially after it has rained? What have we lost 'culturally' by not being able to see the stars?
I love the concept, but not sure how we can convince everyone to follow.
Simply existing in a city should not compel you or other creatures to stay awake
If a person wants to stay awake at night then they can take that upon themselves
The article would be a lot shorter if it were as easy as individuals taking on their own citywide lighting choice and perspective. Signed as someone who now lives in a much, much smaller "city" than before :).
No, they don't actually.
The posted page goes through great effort to frame the problem from every perspective it possibly can precisely because it has spent enough time on the topic to understand how people won't agree it does/doesn't make obvious sense for a city to be dark because the sun went down. It's not because the author forgot to think of using a 3 line comment declaring it obvious instead, they know many people have many different angles they consider the important reasons it should be light/dark.
Next up in Zamadatix's Magic Mirror Funhouse: "It's purely a matter of opinion whether or not you want your city:...
1. Constantly blaring a siren (for no reason at all other than my opinion) at 100 dB
2. A thin layer of battery acid covering the ground in all public places
3. Live shooting ranges operating on every avenue
4. A perpetual smog that smells of rotten eggs
Many people have many different angles they consider important reasons for the sirens/battery acid/live shooting ranges/smog."
Again: You can go sniff your rotten egg smog on your own time, outside of the commons we all share. Whether its my obligation to find my preferred egg-free air or your obligation to find your preferred rotten-egg air (privately) is not really just a matter of opinion, even though we may both have opinions on it.
My opinion is it'd be nice to have dark skies. I'm talking about how we can properly dismiss the alternative views, not why I think x is what you as an individual should want to prefer or not.
If the majority of people want something of the commons other than what I want then I'm going to assume my preference is the one that seems like rotten eggs for some reason to a lot of people, figure out why it is, and debate it. I'm not going to assume they just need me to state I find the opposite a problem so it's on them to of figure out - I'll just be left with what I see as a rotting eggs smell and nobody who cares because it doesn't seem that way to them.
If GP wanted to raise issues like safety, then we could have a conversation about that topic, where there are legitimate positions to hold. But they didn't, and neither did you!
They said dark lights make them sleepy and you argued there's no "default state" of darkness at night, it's purely opinion. Both of these specific arguments are very bad.
You'll be hard pressed to convince everyone the null hypothesis should be either A or B, which is the biggest reason it doesn't get anywhere to argue from that stance alone. For more than the lifetime of anyone living in a city, the baseline expectation of a city has been "light pollutingly bright". Similarly, making light is something a city has to do so one may argue the baseline is "a city is dark unless we do something". But is it still a city if you do that for all things about the city? There are dozens of arguments why the null should be A or why the null should be B. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter unless all you want to comment is "the null agrees with me so it's your problem" so we don't actually need to halt until everyone to agrees what the null is to debate what we should do.
So instead of commenting to ahmedehab_01 it's a feature & not a bug, their problem to deal with (for which they'll think & say the exact same in reverse - which as just as valid unless you can first get everyone to agree what the null should be) we can just skip to talking to the merits of their point, as you already did here.
I.e. yeah, white does keep people up more. Amber's impact was low enough it's not an impact to safety though & the inverse (not being kept up as you walk around a city) . There's no option which has every benefit so we need to weigh all of the impacts as a whole, which means it may have a few downsides like making you sleepier walking around at night. That speaks directly to why we should turn down the light pollution regardless of the null, and is exactly how the article went about it (which could be referenced again for the safety portions or the like). It's not even 100% clear ahmedehab_01 was saying "because of this, we shouldn't have dark lights". They may have just been casually lamenting one particular downside. The chain kind of forced it to be taken as a debate opener, and then forced a choice of which null should be assumed, and then went a long way of debating that, and then finally talked about what was really said only at the end.
I used to cycle home in pitch black, watching the stars. Never had any incidents, others would notice me or I them before anything happened
I never have to use any light, light form stars, moon and glow from nearby villages is enough to see the road, it doesn't contain any potholes or other tricks. Watching big 100km lake, villages and towns on its shores, with alps in the distance.
All that being said, its a terrible idea to expect whole villages or cities should work like that. Paired with cyclists is much worse, is it really that hard to imagine why? Even for cars, there are many things my head lamps reveal a bit too late compared to seeing people or obstacles well ahead, ie unlit clueless cyclists like you would be one strong category.
For one, as a city dweller, I would be absolutely terrified walking around at night, having to rely on a flashlight to see anything. Not just a "scared of the dark" thing, but good outdoor lighting discourages things like robberies and assaults. And sure, cars could just use their headlights, but still, visibility in populated areas would be very bad, and safety for pedestrians at night would be awful.
As for pedestrian safety, button-activated lights over crosswalks are one potential alternative to always-on outdoor lighting. It might lead to a considerable safety improvement once people got used to the light being an indication that pedestrians are likely present.
Why is the "e" in "responsible" on a new line?
Dark-Sky
Lighting is
Responsibl
e Lighting.LMAO
Typically under these bright blue narrowband LEDs I still find myself squinting and unable to make anything out, despite the intensity of the light. The whole industry of public lighting is a massive scam that is completely out of touch with the research.
> See 6 important reasons for using it, or skip to What is Dark-Sky Lighting?
It took SO many scrolls to get to the point. So the frustration is justified.