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This month, host Bill McGeeney is joined by Ziz Knight, cofounder of the newly formed, Dark Skies Los Angeles, and Drew Evans, of the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition / Astrophotographer.
See Full Show Notes at LightPollutionNews.com.
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What did you think of this Episode? Text Us!
This month, host Bill McGeeney is joined by Ziz Knight, cofounder of the newly formed, Dark Skies Los Angeles, and Drew Evans, of the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition / Astrophotographer.
See Full Show Notes at LightPollutionNews.com.
Like what we're doing? For the cost of coffee, you can become a Monthly Supporter? Your assistance will help cover server and production costs.
Light Pollution News October 2023 A Permanon Super Highway. We have a very fun panel for you today, including Ziz Knight of the newly formed Los Angeles County Chapter of Dark Sky International and the Deep Sky Photography Master himself, mr Drew Evans. This month are we talking about light pollution overall. What is a dark sky resort, and is it a good thing? Burn migration is in full swing. What is your community doing to help birds safely pass through, and is environmental justice really a thing with regards to light pollution? Let's get started.
Speaker 1:It's time for another Light Pollution News. All this and much, much more coming right up. Welcome you home to another Light Pollution News. I'm your host, bill McGeehaney, very excited about this month's show. We have another good one here and today I'm joined, but I think maybe one of the most fun panels to date. It's an all-pacific time zone panel this month, joining all the way from Los Angeles, california, I'd like to welcome Ziz Knight. Ziz, you recently had some big news you created the Dark Sky International LA County Chapter just past March. Was there something specific that inspired you to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so first, thank you for having me on here and this is going to be really exciting. But yeah, I joined Dark Sky International formerly the IDA, and March 2023. And when I was looking for a chapter or something to do as an advocate, I couldn't find one. I was very shocked to see that LA did not have a chapter at the DSI, so got in contact with a fellow resident of LA on a Josan hunt and we decided to start the chapter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Ziz, how big is LA County? Does that stretch all the way out to Joshua Tree?
Speaker 2:Not quite. I don't know off the top of my head like how large or the population size of LA County is, but it's substantial.
Speaker 3:I would imagine population there is probably absurd looking at a little bit, I'm sure. But yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Well, on the other end, alongside Ziz, we have the very accomplished Asher photographer and I'm hoping, drew, that you're a dedicated Philz fan. We picked up the wall card series tickets last week, very excited. By the time this airs, hopefully, the excitement will still be going on. But yeah, welcome to the show, drew.
Speaker 3:Drew Evans. Let's hope Go Philz. Thank you. I'm honored to be part of the show, obviously coming from Billy, a big Philz fan, big Eagle fan, a Wires fan, especially a daughter plays hockey locally here in Flagstaff and down the valley. But yeah, honored to be part of the show. I think there's a lot to talk about. The long story short. We did move from Philadelphia four years ago, coming up, we did just to get away from, as I mentioned, is the population, you know, the nice guys, of course, and really to help my passion with asher photography and we are absolutely loving it here in Northern Arizona.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, so you moved like seven magnitude of portals, yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know if the range is on the chart there, but yeah, we went from Portals seven Portals eight. We were actually just north of Philadelphia, bucks County, pennsylvania. The light dome facing south for us in Bucks County was absurd. It really there's a small percentage of the zenith, you know, you can look at to see some stars, you know, maybe a dozen on a great night with a new moon, two thousands here in Northern Arizona. So we went from a Portals seven eight to a Portals two of about 10, 15 minutes south of the Portals one, which is absolutely incredible if you've ever seen stars like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if I have. That's absurd, drew, you first started doing photography with a Canon Rebel.
Speaker 3:Many years ago. It was pretty much. It was a Canon 350, I believe, unmodified. So once we got a little cash, it was probably my early twenties and 350 was modified eventually to with a, an IR screen to it and really just help with that photography. But it was a kind of you know everyday camera with a 350 Canon and the digital rebel. Of course everybody was using them at the time. It's come a long way, to say the least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely has, Definitely has. I'm personally myself, I'm like at your level 2004, 2005, somewhere in that range. You know, like I have a 60 that I use. So which is my workhorse? That's what I my daily, everyday cameras.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the 60 is a great camera. The 60DA, I know we kind of did a little modification to the 60 for raster photography. I actually used that a few times many years ago. It's a great. I'm not sure if it's APS-C or full frame, but it's a great camera for astro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now it's full frame, Yep.
Speaker 3:Fantastic, yeah, so that serves kind of purposes. You can use it both daytime and nighttime. But yeah, I think that's where I started in. Throughout the many years I'm still learning, still graduating other pieces and it's become more of let's see if this works for a couple months. If it works, I'm holding on to it, If it doesn't, I graduate and sell that and move on to something I think will look a little better. But I was definitely the challenge on the use because it's doing astro.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah. Well, ziz, I don't want to leave you on a dust like so you know, are you a Dodgers fan out there?
Speaker 2:I'm not really a sports.
Speaker 1:Not a sports ball person.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I'm pretty sure I know teams in LA so, but yeah, not not so much.
Speaker 1:Well, the football teams leave every five or six years, so it's kind of hard to keep track of that we're going to test you, the Raiders are now in Vegas.
Speaker 3:In fact Vegas is not getting into the sports topic too much, but you know Vegas is, along with Phoenix, is the two most biggest metropolitan areas coming from here.
Speaker 1:So, Drew, can you see the glow of Vegas?
Speaker 3:No, not at all. We're at such high elevation Our home is a little bit over 8,000 feet elevation we just barely see Flagstaff, which is about 45 minutes south of us. So on a cloudy night you can see the. You know the sodium color of the light they use down there to prevent dark skies that are in the amber color, and you can just see that on the, on the cloud cover. When it's cloudy at night time it's barely visible. The light, the one, Flagstaff, which is only 45 minutes south Vegas. I'm so glad we don't know where you're, Vegas, because it's like looking into a light bulb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially with a new sphere. Was this I was going to ask?
Speaker 2:about that, that sphere that's brand new. What is that? What is that called? The one in Vegas, the?
Speaker 1:I don't know. You know it's left in my mind. I know the one that they're trying to build in London is just the MSG sphere, but it's the same company, madison. Square Garden trying to put these spheres in different places.
Speaker 2:And essentially what they are is there?
Speaker 1:they're more, I guess, augmented reality concert experiences, right when you go inside and so yeah, to your point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they just called the sphere the Venetian. I saw whatever was being built, but yeah, talk about absolute light pollution out of that thing. It's just one giant LED bulb.
Speaker 2:from what I understand, the videos I've seen of it, which I will say they are quite impressive. But yeah, that is quite the bright sphere.
Speaker 3:Have you been to Vegas?
Speaker 2:I have. I've been to Vegas, but not recently. I don't frequent there often, but it can be the fun little trip every once in a while.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hey, that amazing to me. My daughter plays travel hockey, like I said, and she has some trips to Vegas every season. Within a half an hour, you know, you're going from complete desert to. You know, wow, you come down from the valley, from the mountain, and you're just in this giant light pit. It's from one extreme to the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. Well, how about we get started this month? So I want to start this month off with a wonderfully written essay by Lauren Colley of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Colley begins her essay citing an episode of the Simpsons whereby Lisa, after falling in love with astronomy, takes to the streets to campaign to reduce nighttime lighting levels in Springfield. Eventually she succeeds, forcing Mayor Quimby to shut off all of the town's street lights. Per Colley in a darkness. The townspeople revel in their newfound freedom. Moe and Selma kiss passionately on a parked bench. Bar attempts to steal the hood ornament from Fat Tony's car. But the new arrangement doesn't last long. A surge in crime forces Mayor Quimby to turn on lights on again, this time to the highest setting called Permanon. Quimby completely eliminates night from Springfield. The city's rhythms go haywire, marge overworks herself, birds begin tunneling underground. Eventually, lisa and Bart team up to shut off the power once more and all of Springfield gathers together to watch Meteor shower naturally light up the sky above.
Speaker 1:The gist of Colley's extensive essay is not to poke fun at light pollution as the environmental concern du jour, but rather try and ground the concept in what it is and what it isn't, in what it should strive to resolve and what it shouldn't. Colley takes shots at segmentation of what some might call the people of light versus people of darkness. Colley also pokes at the very much beloved study by street writing advocates, new York's eerily named Project Omni Presence, which weaponized light against high crime communities housing predominantly black and brown neighborhoods. Project Omni Presence weaponized a white light equivalent to 200 car headlights.
Speaker 1:Colley recalls a telling conversation with David Smith of the UK based insect charity, bug Life, where he lambasted the concept of dark sky places which work for things like astronomy. But Perth Smith only serves to immobilize and jeopardize insect species to the confines of dark reserves that we provide for them. I found Colley's essay to be very compelling and thoughtful. It's one of those pieces of writing which may lead everyone to identify a unique takeaway. Colley appears to be questioning our language and ideas around mitigating light pollution. So folks help me understand. Do we use a particular vernacular in talking about light pollution that detracts from accurately bringing attention to the issue?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think in the terms of light pollution, it's a very, I would say, ignorant subject. I think many people don't know of the problem until they're told of it. You know, especially you know big major cities like East Coast and West Coast. It's an issue that, until it's brought up to them, no reason by their own, but they're very ignorant in fact, and there's certain terms we can introduce to them that'll help the cause.
Speaker 1:One of the things that she did in her essay was she tried to look at some of the ways that we speak specifically about light pollution and in many ways people will talk around the issue and they won't actually talk directly about what it is and what it does and what its impact is.
Speaker 1:We mentioned specifically in regards to certain people talking about a necessity for solitary, a solitary nature or solitary perspective. But again, that's kind of biasing the idea of the understanding of what light pollution is, because really light pollution is about impacting individuals and when you do dark sky mitigation you're trying to provide a place where people of all levels, of all stripes can come and actually experience a natural night right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I will say, when I was reading the article kind of spiraled into this rabbit hole because I was doing some research, because language is super important, it can affect behaviors and I felt that was really interesting. So I kind of spiraled down that hole of kind of looking at it and basically I got down to this part where it was I was tying together light pollution and the western philosophies in regards to light and dark, dualism and its effects on language and light pollution. So I did this whole thing like a research on philosophy and how it affected language Full circle.
Speaker 1:What was that.
Speaker 3:Full circle on it.
Speaker 1:It says we're able to find any instance where darkness was good.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean light and dark and light being considered really like good and positive and dark as a negative thing. I mean that is really rooted in western ideals and nice ideologies and there are definitely areas and cultures that really appreciate darkness. Darkness is not necessarily bad, yeah or evil.
Speaker 2:Or evil. Yeah, and that's so typical that light, dark kind of fight in the states and west in general. But yeah, I mean there's always a balance, and so this extremes with the dualism being either this or that. There's never that in between which most things are always on a spectrum.
Speaker 3:One or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's really harmful to have such like an all or nothing kind of attitude. So when I think about the light pollution and how ingrained the idea that light is better, that it is a symbol of enlightenment literally in the word, enlightenment and progress is compared to the dark is bad, it's going back, it's stepping back from progress. So I don't know if that ties in at all, but I really want this interesting spiral.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, to your point. It seems like the phrase and the emotion and the connotation to round light only apply to that pollutant. You don't see people talking the same way about noise. You don't see people talking the same way about water or some land contamination. But people, they appear to have an emotional connection to that idea of light.
Speaker 3:Light and or yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean it's just light. I mean I can't stress enough how it is considered better and that darkness is just not desired. I don't know.
Speaker 1:What do you think that? What do you think? Light is better and darkness Is it? In the phrasing that we use when I try and do outreach, I look at the moment you say the word dark. You lose people. So I like to say starry night which tells me and tells the other person, kind of like my thought, the end goal right to dream the way you're trying to achieve a starry night. If you say dark night, that's going to turn a lot of people off because of the connotation you just mentioned here, right?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think I mean this roots back. I was going all the way back to like Plato and Aristotle and how, like I mean, western philosophy is based off of that. I was looking at Descartes and the mind body, dualism and that could be related to it, this light good, dark, bad, and I could probably write a paper on it. But it's just so deeply rooted that light is good, dark is bad, like it's prevalent in Judeo-Christian ideals and ideologies. You have light basically representing intelligence and reason, and darkness as more primal and not desired stepping away from it.
Speaker 2:So it's hard, when it's so ingrained in a culture, to try to change anybody's mind. When it's, like always in the background of our you know society where, yeah, it's just that way, it can be applied to so much, the way even even seeing, which is related to you know, light, because that's how we see, is light bounces off and that being associated with light is even seen as well. It's what was it? Ocular centrism? So it's rooted in that as well. Like seeing equals understanding, like, oh, I see, or agreeing with someone is, oh, seeing eye to eye. Like it's just so deeply ingrained that light is good and, like you know, I keep repeating the same thing, but there's. There's just so much, and doing the like spiraling rabbit hole that I did was just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the collective consciousness of this idea. Like we don't even think about it. I don't know. Does that make sense in my kind of sense.
Speaker 1:Well, let's move on a little bit here. Some little better news. I think the last article was interesting because it really got to the pieces that we don't think about, really the vernacular. But it's 2023. Looks like the year that Asher tourism actually cemented itself in pop culture. So nearly every month since we started this show, we've seen an uptick in articles showcasing tourism of some type related to night sky.
Speaker 1:And this month the big news came out of Utah. A resort company named under canvas became the first resort to earn a new international dark sky places designation. A dark sky resort status. Located 15 miles up from page Arizona, under canvas Lake Powell features 50 safari style canvas tents, each furnished with West Elm decor, were burning stoves and in sweet bathrooms. Some even have stargazing streets with a viewing window so that you can stare at the sky for hours from the comfort of your bed. The executive director of dark sky international, ruskin Hartley, believes it. The new dark sky resort designation will allow recognition for all levels of vacation rentals, including from the mom and pop Airbnb's all the way up to the major resorts and lodging partners.
Speaker 1:Far removed from the dry deserts of Utah and Arizona, the dark skies of Africa are becoming interesting experiential destination for those who wish to pay for it. Why not take some of the most mesmerizing night sky objects, including the Southern Cross and Maginolite clouds, from the spectacular Botswana night safari? If the safari isn't your thing, what about Europe? Why not head out to Portugal for kayaking by starlight, a dawn hot air balloon, some homegrown red wine and even a night swim? Per national geographic, portugal's Alcova region is the country's first starlight tourism destination. The region, anchored by Europe's largest artificial body of water, the Alcova Reservoir, only experienced a fraction of visitors to its neighbor, the Algarve, and offers you a star stud of view of the night sky.
Speaker 1:It's been noted, from appearing last month in a line from Sense Turner's brilliant Requiem for a Night Sky to this article from Upworthy how Light Pollution has Turned Looking at the Night Sky into an Incredible Rare Luxury, that enabling fairer access to Cedar Stars is becoming a privilege for a few. We've spoken about this a couple times on this show. It's the Dark Sky Resort, such as the one for under canvas that, under canvas, has attained a very path to creating fairer and more equitable opportunity to see for anyone to see a natural night. For further context, if you live in New York City. You have to head upwards of an hour outside of the city to a handful of state parks which may or may not provide a natural night experience. Of course, you need a car and you need to drive an hour plus. The first part might be a challenging in and of itself. I'm curious about your thoughts.
Speaker 1:Well, initially because I'm asking a more equitable opportunity for anyone, I don't really think so yeah, do you see the Dark Sky Resort destination as fitting as a way to enable more people a more equitable approach to seeing Dark Skies? Or is it just?
Speaker 3:going to cater to luxury vacations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was looking up all these statistics on who's going on vacation all this kind of stuff income and PTO and everything like that to see who's going on vacation. Certain groups of people are just unable to go. I don't think labeling Dark Sky Resort, which is amazing like anything that we can do to have some sort of awareness. I just don't think it's going to do much for anyone equitable or fair, regardless if it's an Airbnb because it's just so expensive to travel, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Drew your thoughts. Yeah, I agree. I mean from people who can't afford to see the lights guides from inner city, even suburban areas. It takes a while. Case in point, when we moved out here it took forever to even just go research where we want to move to the southwest. We always wanted to be out here, but it's definitely. It sounds like these opportunities for wanting to see Dark Skies and the Milky Way are far beyond the reach of many.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I absolutely agree the chapter here. My co-founder and I really want to start programs to take people out to underserved communities, out to see Dark Skies, because they may not have the needs to do so, like transportation, like it says here, time and I'm thinking more like younger people and kids to take them out.
Speaker 1:Well, on your point, there on the East Coast, we're talking New York City. It's not just a car rental which, depending on type of car, where you're at it, could be exorbitant depending on time of year, but you also have the tolls coming out of New York City. That's another piece of the puzzle. You got the traffic, the time, the time, so it may be an hour map drive, but that may take three hours to get out to. There's many different pieces of the puzzle that I think to your point. A Dark Sky resort sounds great and I think it's definitely going to open up more people to see a natural night. At the other end, are we doing anything for people who have never experienced a natural night?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and who like the information, like if someone's going to go on vacation who may not be able to go on vacation often do they know that Dark Sky vacations exist, like are they aware of it? I would assume that the people who are going to it right now have access to that. They're aware of it?
Speaker 1:I don't know how far the saturation has gone down, but the month in and month out we're seeing more and more and more Astro Tourism articles.
Speaker 1:So I would expect that to continue, unless something major happens. Well, since we're on this topic of Dark Sky designations, we do have two new Dark Sky places. To welcome Exciting news out of Japan, the Minama Rokuroshi in Ono City became the first urban night sky place in Asia, and a province that has grown considerably closer to my heart over the years, If only for its brilliant mountain biking trails, the tasty poutine and incredibly delicious well-made sour ales. Quebec's Montreblanc National Park gained status as the sixth international Dark Sky place. In Canada, Montreblanc joins Montmagantic, Parque du Mont-Bellavue, Alquiatou Provincial Park, Bonacourt up in Alberta and the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park.
Speaker 3:Yeah, western Canada is absolutely incredible. I was lucky enough to visit Vancouver and a little bit north of there about a decade ago. Absolutely stunning and, you know, dark Sky's beyond that too, man, northern, anywhere in Northern Canada, despite the cold, high altitude, really, really pristine skies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't seen a night in Western Canada, because every time I've been up there it's been like August or July, so not too much night to be had up there, but I'm sure.
Speaker 2:I went to Alaska literally last year and we were in Vancouver area when we go up and I was all excited to see like a really amazing clear sky and all just super stoked and every day was cloudy Because yeah, that's the way it goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unfortunately, Well, now seems like great time to take a little quick breather. I'm so lucky to have you guys here, got a really fun panel of this night and drew Evans. Before we go any further, I want to thank you at home for joining us today. Hearing back from you, the listener, is what fuels us to continue to find great, great guests and to build this show the best we can. In fact, we may have something very special for you at the end of this year, but that's neither here nor there right now.
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Speaker 3:Treasure those lists for sure.
Speaker 1:Drew, I'm changing the subjects here a little bit roughly, but you may have the most impressive home observatory story setups I've ever seen, and I'm not exaggerating, because Drew has a roll off observatory that many of our listeners would have dreams about. How long did it take you to assemble everything for that setup you have?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for the foundation it took about six, seven months to get up and running the our home, of course took a little bit over two years. You know we, like I said, we moved from Philadelphia out here to Flagstaff and it was the biggest challenge in my life. You know I've been out for a decade of my life building our cabin out here but you know, from finding contractors, keeping them on board to getting them up here to work and really was the house, that was more of a struggle than the observatory. After the house was built, Of course, I really, really laid the foundation where I wanted to put it. We have not dirt out here in Northern Arizona, but the many volcanoes, ancient volcanoes, around this land laid real heavy cinders. So we have a lot of cinders in the soil that really have to get leveled before any foundations in place. So it was a town, you know, really from one step to the other, but about six to seven months.
Speaker 3:Again, I found a really good contractor in town who built something similar just out of the Flagstaff. I brought him up from here in North of Flagstaff where we are, and it's 18 by 18. So 18 by 18 feet and the roll up works excellent so I can control completely remotely from inside the house. Many were with an internet connection around the world. Essentially, provided there's clear skies and a roll is off, I have everything automated so I can shoot to my heart's content and close it at the end of the night. But yeah, it's a really really interesting piece of manufacturing and work put into it, and to have it on the board with two skies is incredible. I do have an old sky camera which I will share with listeners. They can have a look at really hard night skies at any time. They want daytime too, but seeing board with these guys from the old sky cameras is really cool to see.
Speaker 1:Drew, how many piers do you have?
Speaker 3:So I have three. One is more of like a wide field. I have refractors up to 900 millimeters on the one. I have two other large ones with Ioptron's TEM 120 mounts, which are very big beefy mounts. I have a 100 millimeter STP on one and a 20, 2100 millimeter on the other. So one really for wide field, taking wider spans of the night sky, and the other two were really really focused Zoom if you want to, you know, if you want to call it zoom, zoom, zoom telescopes for those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, I'm shocked that you still have anything out there to look at at this point.
Speaker 3:I thought it would be. My friends always joke around. What are we shooting next? You know the new moon's coming up with the next subject and we you know the Astro community is always very affixed on, you know, the same targets over and, over and over. But I enjoy that too. I enjoy seeing what I shot last year, trying to improve on that, trying to put more hours into it. You know just getting better data, you know, because sometimes you know one night session, you know it'll sort out well and you'll get very high winds or the scene will go down and data is so very important with collecting.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely. Well, this segues nicely into our next batch of articles, and I know you do a lot of deep sky objects, so have you ever used them to help promote a calls? Have you ever used any of your photos to help promote a calls?
Speaker 3:True, it's a great question. I have donated some of my time here to NAU. They have Northern Arizona University, they have travelers who come up and see the Grand Canyon and NAU Licks to also talk about our night skies. So what I do is I go out and talk a couple of hours about how to keep our night spads out and maintain them and I use a lot of bar again, wide field astropropography, you know on the smaller scopes, nothing really over 400 millimeters to show them exactly what the night sky should and continue to look like. So nothing concrete, Bill, from a concrete promotion as far as that, but just going out and demonstrating some of my photography and sharing it with our visitors here.
Speaker 1:Well, we have this Boston area photographer, this Babak Chirveshi, who's recently showcased his photos in Boston magazine. The article highlights some of the brilliant nighttime shots from all over New England. These are wide angle camera lens Milky Way shots. They're not going to be the deep sky stuff that you're talking about, even with, I presume, like a 60 or 80 millimeter right. Right, Drew, you're having a tighter field with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. So, you know 80, I think my smallest lens may go down to like a 35 millimeter Sigma lens, Sigma Art, which is great, super wide. I tend to really start around the 100 to 400. Well, I still call wide field, but yeah, his photo is a Raxon one. I see some Aurora. He uses kind of like a light display in some of his buildings, but yeah, he's perceived on his article. Yeah, they're excellent.
Speaker 1:What great stuff to help promote nighttime. The actual article is put together at the same time. We see two bills making their way through to Massachusetts House 2023. Senate Bill 2102 and House Bill 3164 are at some stage stuck in legislative limbo.
Speaker 1:Both bills appear to lay out some common sense protections, namely barring the usual exemption roadway lighting, canoxy 3,000 Kelvin temperature any vanity lighting that receives public funding cannot exceed 500 lumens, and building facades, along with some sports fixtures, must be set up purposefully to minimize their neighborly and environmental impact. There doesn't appear to be anything odd or unexpected either of these bills, and to the untrained eye, they look quite conservative. So now I'm going to switch over to your stages, where assembly member Alex Lee is reintroducing AB 38. This is one we've been following for some time. Lee's home community, san Jose, went through a lengthy battle over the installation of the trial billboards brought about by Clear Channel in 2022. Clear Channel apparently bought its way to victory, despite massive public opposition. The city council voted all but unanimously to approve billboards, with the two opposition votes coming from the only mayoral candidates for that term. In 2022, california Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a proposed piece of statewide legislation on light pollution, citing fiscal constraints. Leah since reintroduced it again in 2023.
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately, the bill by Alex Lee was held, which I guess I'm not super legal savvy. But to be held, I guess it means it's dead, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:And so it's knocked down again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's decided. You know fiscal concerns again, and so that's really quite disappointing.
Speaker 1:The state of California, the state that's spending billions to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But the positive thing is that we met with Alex Lee's legislative director, Eric King, and while talking to him it's actually quite, I'm quite excited because he's working on a lot of really cool stuff. He really wants Alex Lee to really lead the fight of, you know, light pollution in LA. So things, things are looking OK. It's, you know, not not great, you know, but you think it would be relatively simple, you know, in the slow process over time to do it. But I think there's going to be really good stuff to happen in the future. Maybe this is going to light a light of fire under Alex Fire. Use the phrase light there?
Speaker 1:Yep, I'm curious Is California a place where you need to have a more of a local ordinance, a local community drive up, because the state level seems to be an avenue that is not possible? Right, and I want to give you two examples of what's going on around the nation. First, we have light pollution mitigation efforts taking place in a place like New Jersey, which isn't really known for any ecological mindfulness. The shore side community of Cape May is actually considering a mitigation ordinance. I should note that, in addition to being a thriving shore and Bayside community, the unique geographical southerly point of Cape May attracts upwards of 200,000 birds in a single day of the fall migration. So what happens is birds are not expecting the landmass to just suddenly end and they fly to the point and then circle back before gathering up the courage and make the journey across the Delaware Bay in the Cape and Lope and Delaware and in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1:We also have some good news, and it's from the island of Nantucket. One might be described as a textbook lesson in community involvement in education. Nantucket lights founder Gail Walker successfully worked her community to garner buy in for local legislation that includes a five year ramp up for light shield requirement, using lighting temperatures for exterior lighting that is in alignment with the Massachusetts Medical Society standards, limits on lumen maximums throughout their lighting and the requirement that all unnecessary lighting must remain off from 11pm to 6am, so says in California, is it more conducive to have a path at the local level than is at the state level?
Speaker 2:You know I would think so you guys start. I feel like you need to do bottom up, so you start small and then progressively get out and out. But you know, I'm just not, I'm not too politically sad.
Speaker 1:There is Point Reyes which, granted, that is a little bit of a biased community because it's right by National Park, it's in more protective space is really the community members there are almost universally from what I read in Esquire appear to be on board for having a responsible lighting ordinance. However, I know it's a trend with a lot of these communities is that usually it's people who are older in life that are pushing for these ordinances because they have a memory, they remember what it was like. I don't see this from. This is just asking you, as someone who you know, your early 30s do you think folks in their 20s and 30s would be as invigorated if there was a community? Was a young community somewhere in your name, whatever place, would they be as invigorated to have an exterior lighting ordinance on the books?
Speaker 2:Well, I, I feel like the younger people are a little bit, you know, they're open to change and are, you know, very aware of climate change as well and how that is affecting. So I think yes, but the other thing, is we not a lot of the majority of my age don't own houses or have lots of control over exterior lighting, like re, rent, rent? And so I think yes, if they're aware of it, if they have, you know, some control over exterior lighting, they would yeah, I feel your pain.
Speaker 3:I feel like I've run away from the problem. You know the East Coast. I found my wife and I found an area where we wanted to be. That was dark and you know the struggles continue where we left from.
Speaker 1:I can see 35 stars in my. What are you talking about? It is amazing.
Speaker 3:On a good night right and on with a new moon. I remember, you know, even when we go back to visit family and friends, it's, you know, it's a shock. It's like, oh my God, you know what, what is happening and there's, just like I said, I think, just the ignorance. I think the more and I know Flagstaff is running real good job of that with their ordinances is just letting people know. You know what will happen, or what will continue to happen. If you know, if we don't preserve our skies Again, I feel like I run away from the problem. You know, thankfully there was an opportunity for us, but you know, I envy your work. It's something that you know has to continue to be spread.
Speaker 1:Drew, does your community have any kind of a night sky dark sky ordinance? Yes, we.
Speaker 3:Flagstaff was the first international dark sky city in the world. I think that was put back in the 80s. We are very, very strict on our low pressure sodium lamps. I know they use a lot of narrow spectrum amber LEDs as well throughout the city. So even when you're flying over Flagstaff at night you'll see like an orange glow from the city no white lights whatsoever. You know there's a few scattering of LEDs below the car lights and whatnot, but they're extremely strict with their dark sky ordinances here. You know it's at times throughout the week. You'll see trucks driving around just inspecting whether people have, you know, the down shaded lamps installed properly and you know it's something from the very beginning that they've always adhered to. Super proud of that to be a member of the coalition as well.
Speaker 1:I have a feeling that it's a lot easier to have that on the books instead of trying to convert people over.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and that's where I think you know I, you know, I respect this is effort to it's kind of, you know, retroactive of everything that we're trying to do here. It's it these were, these were in place before skies really got really right here.
Speaker 1:People adhered to them and it's 100% more of an effort trying to retroact everything that's been done, especially with population centers you know and your point you mentioned about flying over, so we went up to Alaska this summer and the flight back we actually had some hours of night and we flew back red eye out to Minneapolis and it was probably one of the coolest flights I've ever seen in my life, because you are going over to Rockies, there was no light coming from the ground and you could see the full, a brilliant Milky Way out the window and I've never seen that, ever on a plane, and it was pretty astounding. Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just your friends, the mountains. I'll tell you what, even flying from you know, the short puddle hopper flight from Phoenix to the flagstaff, we've done that a few times the mountains kind of like the skies are so dark you don't even see the horizon, so that the mountains you'll see them on the horizon, are very dim and then you know, you go right into black sky. But it's especially from elevation, you know, it's a really cool sight to see.
Speaker 1:Well, before we depart from our policy segment, I'm curious to hear your guys thoughts on this one. This is interesting Should Greenwich, connecticut, ban exterior landscape lighting under the guise of protecting birds? New regulations are being considered replacing outdoor guidance dating back to 1993. The proposed code aims to reduce total business Lumen output by 30% or have them turned off completely an hour past closing time or after 10 pm. An extension of the code will prohibit landscape lighting. Drawing from the unified eye of business owners and ostentatious Residents alike, is this overreach? Isn't it one thing to say like you have a common sense framework for eliminating upward lighting, but is it okay to curtail purposeless vanity lighting which people seem to love, such as Lights pointlessly focused on trees, flower beds yeah, side of you're not nearly as attractive as you think it is. White stucco house is. How do you guys feel about that? I, you know.
Speaker 3:Appearance speed up. Obviously people are gonna do the best for people in their homes or businesses or whatnot, but to the effect of it, you know interfering with bird migration and and I think it's a wise call I think there's little steps that can be taken prior to that. You know, just turn certain the lights facing down. You know they don't have to be facing into trees, into the sky, certainly you're not illuminating anything more than you know you're building. So there's little steps. I think, instead of jumping into removing all lights completely, there's little steps to be done, like like jam reporting you know there's shrouds on top of lighting instead of going to that extreme of removing remote completely, what about the?
Speaker 3:types of bulbs to yeah, the types of bulbs to what about the glow, drew?
Speaker 1:You're gonna ruin the glow.
Speaker 3:The types of bulbs as well. You know there's there's amber LEDs that that illuminate around our house. You know we replace all with amber LEDs that are kind of like a reddish color. They don't kill your night vision, they don't interrupt the birds, insects too. But there's there's little steps that can be taken before really jumping in with both feet.
Speaker 2:Well, I will say this. So my apartment complex just redid all of its lighting and it's now shining up to highlight trees, which already is not a great thing for trees and is just extraordinarily bright. So it's not great and I feel like for businesses and landscaping, like who's looking at the? Who's looking at your building or landscaping at night playing right, I, I, what is that for? You know, I think you can probably turn it off and you know later in the evening because nobody's out to be, you know, shopping or whatever, or Cares where your house look at the lake.
Speaker 1:Do you use social media?
Speaker 2:I assume right sis you know, I'm not not really Not social media savvy. I kind of don't do much, but so yeah.
Speaker 1:This isn't that. The appeal, though, is, just like you have social media, you you kind of want to create this artificial, magical landscape. You want to have it look pretty. You know, we want to have a look in a way that is very attractive and and lure someone in and and Makes it look kind of, you know, like a little bit like Disneyland. Isn't that the appeal? Isn't that what people want to see?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, I feel like that's totally fine, but you can turn it off after a period where not a lot of people are out and about to Admire your landscaping or you know building, like, have it for X amount of time, have you know appropriate responsible lighting, and then you know dim it down or something like that. You know it. I Just don't think it needs to be on all night.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, and there's, like I said too, there's there's methods of reducing the lighting as well. You know the types of bulbs are to use, where they're directed, and you know, like you said, the timing.
Speaker 1:Is there a more responsible way to make your yard look like you know? I don't know.
Speaker 3:We had. We back in in PA, you know Lux County, we had Landscape laying at our house. You know, went on it at dusk and it shut off at midnight. And you know I know the down. You know there's no reason to have the lights just pointed directly up into the sky. We traveled the other ground lighting, we tree letting that that started about halfway up the tree. So you know there's ways to reconcile. You know, if you want Illuminated yards and businesses, there's ways to reconcile and and help the night skies as well as having what you like.
Speaker 1:Sounds great, true? On that note, we do have some articles out there on light pollution news calm where we have Suggested some certain styles and some certain fixtures which we get no kickback on that. We do not have an affiliate with any service out there. But let's, let's switch gears, shall we? So? Did you guys know that astronauts on the ISS experience 16 some rises and sunsets per day? That's because the space station orbits the earth every 90 minutes. Combined with the strangeness of having your sky sit neatly packaged in a giant sphere below you and and near a constant weightlessness, one's got to wonder how on earth or more aptly, above earth, to do folks sleep. Sega space architects have built a lamp that they hope will help passengers be able to sync up their circadian rhythm. The lamp, which now sits in European space agencies Andreas Morgansons crew cabin, glows red to simulate a calming sunset and will glow blue to evoke colors of a morning sky. Researchers at RS University in Denmark are using Morgansons asa Guinea pig and what they hope will help provide a closer grasp to mitigating circadian issues in space and Possibly shed some understanding on the ones down here a bit closer to land.
Speaker 1:We have the Percy light study, which attempts to measure the impact of modulated lighting on residents of a Dutch nursing home Impaired by dementia.
Speaker 1:It's a 30 month study that gauges how the effectiveness of proprietary lighting system Will improve patients mental state, while also improving the condition of nurses on site, nurses who were exposed to consistent lighting on all hours of the day. And Staying in our tech theme, there's this very interesting study out of smart cities in Finland. Researchers put to the test always on street lights versus Present sensing street lights that trigger as vehicles approach. The results indicate that drivers were well pretty indifferent to either the always-on or the presence sensing street lights, meaning that the present sensing light fixtures performed on par with the always-on fixtures in the mind of drivers. To be sure, this is an early study, so more research is needed, especially to understand how such all off-on smart lights would impact pedestrian psychology and, simply, those neighbors living nearby. A very interesting set of of news articles we had there. And Drew Liz, what kind of street lighting would you prefer? Would you prefer that always-on or do you prefer the flicking off and on, depending as a car drives by?
Speaker 2:I mean Prefer is the responsible lighting. You know, and I think you know, knows this, this fix a lot better than I do on that. I just know the you know five Principles of responsible outdoor lighting. So I don't mind it's looking on and off, I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I Again. I'm for whatever preserves our skies. I think live staff has done an exceptional job on setting an example in municipalities and cities how to follow the procedures. Like I said, the, the, the amber bulbs, the, the low illumination LED has worked phenomenally here. I think you know to keep them on all night would be wouldn't be a problem as long as they're, they're put in place effectively. You know they're not pointing towards the sky, but it takes. It takes an army to really really explain and and and go beyond that ignorance level of showing people how effective they can be. So I would stick with what works. I can even post and or share a link with you guys and let's show you how we're doing. We're here in a black step.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, drew, because as this late says, is your dear apartment, and if the street light was going on and off all night, I think that will probably be more jarring annoying. Right, right, although why not just, if we're gonna do it that way, why not just have it dimmed down? And yeah, the brightness may not be as noticeable by individuals that change in brightness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if the funny story here is when we first we've been in our, our house about a year now first time we moved in we had, I think, just regular orange bulbs outside which were recommended near the dark sky friendly. It's our neighbor, I think. He's about a half mile away in back. He'll give me a text. He's like Drew, you know, you got to find something different in your house. Looks like cracker barrel tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, windows. So I, what I did is I actually painted the shrouds. The shrouds were white but they're facing down. I painted the shrouds, I took the bulbs out and I painted the inside of the shroud black and it did a phenomenal job of non-reflecting that light even further. So it dimmed the lights even more. But a funny story there. You know, we adapted to what he, what he had, what he preferred, what he's been seeing probably the past 20 years. And again, it's all about adaptation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no doubt. Well, before we go any further, I want to just pause to remind you at home if you have any thoughts, questions, ideas or even articles you'd like to share over to us that we should know about. Feel free to shoot all of that and more, over to bill at light pollution news dot com. That's my email. You can message us over at Instagram at light dot pollution dot news. We always love to hear from you. I'd like to give our guests a chance to talk about something that they've been working on. Is there anything coming down to pipe, anything that folks may find interesting on your side?
Speaker 2:Well, mainly just focusing really on getting the chapter rolling. That's really my focus at this point.
Speaker 1:How can? If someone's listening from LA, how can they go about connecting to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can email us at LAcountyatdarkskyorg and we'd love to hear from people who are interested. As I said, it's in its infancy, so it's kind of slow going right now, but we're creating some really good relationships with other groups. But, yeah, not anything big on the horizon at this point.
Speaker 1:Drew, anything new with you would like to share.
Speaker 3:I've had a ton of data this past summer. We're getting into fall now here and relatively light monsoon season Sometimes monsoons you'll be clouded over for weeks and weeks, but August, even July we've had some really good nights. I have a ton of data to work with. I'll be posting a lot more pictures of some of the subjects I've been shooting astronomically. Like I said, I just got my observatory sky dome and all sky camera up and running. I'd love to get that really fine tuned and I'll be able to share that with everybody. It's a lot of data I'm working with right now and you're going to look at.
Speaker 1:Drew, you made me think of something when you said monsoon season out of 10 years ago or so it was hiking through the.
Speaker 1:Sierras, we sent back our tent. It's like who needs a tent in the Sierras? But it was monsoon season. I think it was supposed to be like maybe a quarter of an inch total for two months as part of monsoon season. It rained religiously for two straight days and I talk about some poor decision making in the monsoon season in the Sierras, but it is what it is. I'm sure you guys have a similar experience out there.
Speaker 3:When it comes, it comes. It's relentless. You'll get two weeks of just straight rain, straight clouds, it won't go away, and then overnight you have a month of clear skies. It's pretty remarkable. This past winter even, it was the second most snowy winter in Flagstaff. We had over 200 inches of snow. Our front door. You'd open the front door and you couldn't even get out. It was about an eight foot drift. So when it comes, it comes. But I'll tell you what the weather here is phenomenal no low humidity, 20, 30%, 8,000 feet elevation, clear skies. But yeah, those monsoons will kick your ear out.
Speaker 1:Well, let's switch over to some fluff pieces that I love for either of you to weigh in on. This is coming from the website, the Spruce, to list the number of followers by their social media channel at the bottom of each page. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the following from their posts. Top 10 best outdoor motion sensor lights of 2023. So, on a scale of one to five, with five being the most annoying and one being the most unassuming, how do you to rate the following in terms of terrifying your neighbor?
Speaker 1:First up, the Leon light security light showcasing 1800 lumen output with a delightful 5,000 Kelvin white as a Sunday afternoon color spectrum Bonus per the Spruce. This one has a range of 69 feet and can be aimed in a direction most likely to incur nightly intrusions. Translate directly at your neighbor's windows. And is it just me, or do these fixtures always resemble robotic faces? Maybe I'm watching too much sci-fi. What do you guys stand? Is this a one, five, three? What are we looking at, with five being the most annoying and one being the most unassuming to terrify your neighbor?
Speaker 2:Pretty intense, I would say. I would say five, four, five.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd go with the four or five. I think it's absolute overkill. I mean 1800 lumen. It's like a car head light in your neighbor's windows Total overkill.
Speaker 1:Next up for a best and brightest is Sassy's motion floodlight, and it looks like a plane with wings set for a bombing. Run On each side of the sensor, three perfectly unshielded LED fixtures combined for a total lumen output of 6,000. But don't worry, there's no dimmer setting for this guy. So now you can blast not just one neighbor, but even blind ones living a few houses down.
Speaker 3:Insanity.
Speaker 1:So we have one more I'm going to look at here. We could go on all day. This is kind of the unique one out of the group, so I want to see where it sits on your numbered chart. Guys, how about the Uri Lighting EFL 130Y MD flickering flame lantern? This fixture design harkens back to an old oil lamp flickering away with a fake flame until there's movement. Then bam, it's got you sending out 1200 lumen white light in all directions. Where do we sit on that?
Speaker 3:Well, it's not 6,000 lumen, so we're a little downgraded there. The amber bulb it's probably a little better than the bright white 5000K, but still I think it's a little overkill. It does have a nice little shroud on top, but it's still throwing light everywhere horizontally. Not a fan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agreed, not a fan. I do like that. It's a skeuomorph, though, you know harkening back to lanterns and using that.
Speaker 1:It has a nice little design, right.
Speaker 3:It is motion detecting. It's not on all the time throughout the night, but yeah, I'm still a fan of the shrouded, I'm still a fan of the you know the Lysodium amber light, just always pushing down and still provides enough light.
Speaker 1:Well, enough of the bad fixtures, let's go over to the good fixtures. Metropolis ran an article showing all four dark sky friendly lighting fixtures, and all four are priced high enough to be out of most people's budgets. The article showcases the apparent disconnect between dark sky friendly lighting and what the average Joe wants to spend. Many of the fixtures I see that bear the mark of dark sky international either aren't priced to consumers, while it's aren't utilitarian enough for what the average consumer is looking to use it for, meaning the fixtures don't really answer to why of why you buy lights to begin with.
Speaker 1:So, on a drew. Maybe you're aware of some good fixtures in a local harbor store anywhere, but where? Why are they missing a mark? What's going on?
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what the big thing is they're out of price point. You could see a lot of these are priced high. A lot of people aren't going to spend that extra money just to be able to adhere to ordinances. I mean, they're great looking lights. They are approved by, you know, the IDA. There's different options, you know. You can buy a shrouded light and a cheaper bulb, which is what we did. I think they're really missing a mark based on price point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they definitely are, and I think that until you get that price point down, people aren't going to care about having a responsible light. So let me relay a story. I was in Home Depot the other day and it just happened to walk by the exterior lighting area, you know, and all the lights come on because they track everything's motion.
Speaker 3:And it was like walking into a like a like an amusement park as soon as you walk down aisle 12 of lighting right.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, and there's only one one good fixture there. Everything else is terrible, and I want good fixture. It really wasn't even a fixture for what people are going to use it for. You know, we were talking about floodlights, where they have no shielding.
Speaker 3:Much less.
Speaker 1:You know, it'd be nice if they have little bit of shielding. They have no shielding, incredibly bright, and they're built to be aimed directly at a parallel with a wall, right. They're not built to be aimed downward in any sense of the idea. So I wonder, you know, I see that as constantly being an issue If you want people to, you know, go out there and install, you know, nice guy friendly fixtures for their house and but there's nothing to have on the market.
Speaker 3:Right, I mean you know, like getting back to price point, on some of the examples you've given me, over $250, $380 for a fixture. It's literally a $20 round you can buy at Home Depot or Lowe's or anywhere and you know, put a light for any bulls in there, put something that's you know that's 3000 K and you know 20 Watts and you know it'll suffice.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, let's talk some birds. It's about that time of year again and I know some of you I'm sure it came way too fast. It's fall bird migration season. Here in North America, many communities participate in the Audubon lights out campaign, whereby various commercial towers will dim their vanity and non essential floor lighting to reduce the lights impact on birds passing through. In St Louis, the national park service chose not to illuminate the gateway arch during the month of September, as St Louis sits on the Mississippi River flyway which witnesses around 40% of the nation's migratory waterfowl pass through. In Texas, again we see former first lady and Texan by nature, founder, laura Bush come to bat for practical ecological issues. This time a lights out campaign per former first lady.
Speaker 1:Taking action now is vital because every spring and fall, between a third and a quarter of birds migrating at night through the United States travel through Texas. To hit the point home, there was a corresponding exhibit at Texas A&M showcasing light pollution's impact on birds, including the display of many birds that were killed from building collisions. It's estimated that 80% of migratory North American birds do so at night. The sheer distance birds travel, largely at night, are astounding anywhere from 15 to 600 miles per day. And the speeds at which they do it are even more incredible anywhere from 15 to 55 miles per day. Did you know you can even bird at night? All these details come to us from a great multi-part series by Scientific Americans, science Quickly Podcast.
Speaker 1:Birding at Night presents some challenges. You really can't just visually identify birds. Instead, you must essentially create an audio bucket, which is exactly what it sounds like a low-dose bucket converted into a giant microphone, and we'll have a link to a tutorial for any of you interested. You can just go out there and you can see how you can build your own one of these over on Light Pollution News. So once you capture the audio, how on earth do you tell what kind of bird it is?
Speaker 1:Night signatures are very distinct and different from daytime chirps. Utilizing over-the-counter software, hobbyists can implement audio identification software to assist with identifying the cue. As the astronomers use large arrays of a visual, radio and X-ray observatories, birders utilize what's termed nighttime bird surveillance network to distinguish individual species. These are sensory groups of nighttime audiophile bird observers. On the professional end, radar is used to forecast a bird movement, aiding and predicting when precisely cities should expect bird flyovers. Through technology and citizen science. Avian fans are looking to help provide a more dynamic approach to nighttime lighting policies which will sharp a bird safely across the continent. Joe, have you ever, in any of your long-time exposures, when you're not using telescopes, have you ever had birds come across through any of those photos?
Speaker 3:Birds really aren't the issue. Even satellite trails, planes, aren't the problem. There's scripts put in place when compile your data. Since somebody has local normalization, say that 10 times fast. There's a script called local normalization that will remove artifacts from planes, from birds, from satellites, you name it, insects that go across the lens. But I'll tell you why. It's really cool when I posted a live stream last night on Facebook. You'll be able to actually see birds going across the moon back and forth blocks. But to answer your question, there really hasn't been any negative experience with imaging from an imaging perspective on exposures.
Speaker 1:Drew, you'll have to get those videos over to me. I'd love to point people over to see what you saw. That's great.
Speaker 3:For sure, yeah, definitely send them over.
Speaker 1:Well, sticking with birds. We now have greater insight in how so-called common birds handle light pollution. Per North Carolina state, robins appear to be the biggest beneficiaries of an endless daytime. Robins utilize artificial light, much like people would, to extend their daily activities past the confines of sundown. So that means they're out there picking through the yard from whenever the lights go on to really when the lights go on, so lights are always on. Great cat birds and reddens, on the other hand, appear to incur the most difficulty in light polluting environments. It's another sizable number of bird collision deaths involve great cat birds.
Speaker 1:For a study that we saw last month in the Science of Total Environment, sleep deprivation actually hinders birds. A 24-7 daytime impacts the cognitive abilities of songbirds. A little bit of the ecological impact just on birds. But let's round up the remaining ecological news that came through this month. Also, per the New Zealand Journal of Zoology, artificial light at night impacts how critically threatened long tail bats behave. Using LED floodlights, researchers count it significantly lower bat detection rates on nights when the light was on, versus compared to when the light was off. The control site that lacked the floodlight saw no change in bat detections over the same period. It appears that even oysters, creatures that lack eyes, have circadian rhythms thrown into a knot by persistent artificial light at night Light that doesn't even reach the level of the full moon. Per a study in June in a marine pollution bulletin, when exposed to artificial light, oysters open their shells at inappropriate times, opening up the shells being an activity that's done typically midday, for the purpose of everything from eating to mating. It's already known that artificial light lists a biological response from coastal organisms spanning over the tune of 2 million square kilometers of ocean, so it shouldn't be a surprise that we have yet another article on light pollution's impact on coral reefs. Artificial light has been seen to exhaust coastal coral reefs, specifically creating more poor skeletons compared to controlled corals. In a marine pollution bulletin article, light pollution alters the skeleton morphology of coral juveniles and pairs their light capture capacity. It surmises that Alan actually erodes the daytime photosynthesis ability of corals Staying underwater.
Speaker 1:A study from the Science of Total Environment indicates that artificial light at night also impacts the reproductive fitness of fish species. The Japanese medica was used in this study. Evidently, medica fish have a rigid hierarchy dominated by aggressive males. Under normal day-night cycles, subordinate males, though receiving less time with females, were able to procreate. When exposed to artificial light. At night, the sperm quality of the subordinate fish actually decreased, while the dominant males continued to successfully mate. And then finally, apparently, some species of plants are more susceptible to artificial light wavelengths. In a study from Ecological Processes, it's found that the bushy Japanese eonimus experienced decreased stomata effects for light containing blue and red wavelengths. The stomata for those who at home have no clue what this is essentially the pore of a plant that helps exchange gases and moisture. Meanwhile, the garden rose, which was examined side by side, was not at all affected by artificial light.
Speaker 1:Well, we still have a little bit left, friends, so don't turn away just yet. I want to thank my guests, ziznite and Drew Evans. We had to start a little bit earlier than usual. Drew, your daughter has a hockey game this afternoon. I guess she's going to crush some skulls. Take them into the boards.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, yeah, for amending the schedule, the normal schedule. Yeah, so, like I said, she plays travel hockey for a girls elite team down in Phoenix. We've done about a good two and a half hour drive several times a week to get her on this team. But she plays goalie. She's not crushing any skulls, she's getting pucks shot at her skull.
Speaker 1:Takes a special person. Takes a special person for going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, special parents too. But yeah, thank you for amending.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no problem I really appreciate this opportunity.
Speaker 3:It's fantastic to let your passion be spread to everyone else around the world.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely. So. We typically record on Sundays, which is towards the end of the month, and this is always one of my favorite days of the month because, after pulling everything together, I get to hang out with you folks Always some really cool folks, always fun to talk with People like yourselves and have that experience and especially people like Los Angeles. We have a guy from Brussels. It's always fun.
Speaker 1:So, if you like what you've been hearing, how about join us every month by subscribing to this show on whatever podcast player you're using? We're in this to generate conversation and awareness around light pollution. So why not share the show with your friends, or maybe even your enemies, if you really don't appreciate the show? But why would you have lasted this long? We'd love to open more folks' eyes to the issues surrounding light pollution and if sharing isn't your thing, for low cost or price of coffee $3, you can help us defer some of the expenses that it takes to bring you to show. Every bit goes to help us further conversation around light pollution to new people and new minds, and your $3 will go directly to offsetting server and production costs. This is again how can people get in touch with you? How can people learn more about what's going on over in LA County.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So once again, if you're in LA County, email us at lacountyatdarkskyorg. If you're not in LA, head over to darksky darkskyorg and become a member or an advocate, or both. Like we would love to have people, more people.
Speaker 3:Awesome stuff.
Speaker 1:Drew, how about you? Where can people find your spectacular, spectacular photos?
Speaker 3:Again, appreciate it, outreach. Wherever you can Google me, just Google my name, drew Evans Astro. You'll see my Astro bin, which has all the images I've taken over the years. My Instagram is on there, my Facebook is on there, et cetera, and, like I said, the most of the building there, yet A dedicated website myself for my observatory, which houses the old Sky camera. Anybody can take a look at our night sky at any point in time. Yeah, reach out. I'm looking forward to hearing from anyone.
Speaker 1:Excellent, all right. Well, I have a couple of stories here that may have you thinking twice about your position, on both billboards and streetlights. First up, the city of Oakland, california, approves a deal with Becker Boards LLC, an out-front foster interstate LLC, to essentially double their billboard signage. Before you grimace, the agreement between the city and the billboard companies forecast and gross revenue of $73 million over 41 years. That flatlines to around $1.7 million per year. How exactly can you forecast out 41 years and why on earth are you entering a 41-year contract? That's beyond me. But that's neither here nor there. The $1.7 million additional per year is supposedly supposed to go back to the city and to allied community organizations. Then, next up, because streetlightings actually make streets safer. After all, and this one comes to us from WFAB 9 down in Baton Rouge Lack of lighting impacting cities' efforts to fight crime.
Speaker 1:Yvette Wright's son, taiwan, was shot twice on a street with no lights. Despite laying on the road screaming and shining his phones light up and down, nobody apparently noticed him. Thankfully, taiwan was able to call 911 himself and he did survive the attack. In another instance, a resident on the street with lights had at least one car with windows smashed in. A local resident's feel that more lighting would deter such vandalism. We can take these stories one by one or ad hoc, but I'm very curious about your thoughts on these two stories In one regard.
Speaker 1:I hear time and time again that there's such a concept as discriminatory lighting disproportionately affecting minority communities, and it's often tied to an idea of economic disadvantage. However, I see stories in the media constantly that show individuals within communities that are considered economically disadvantaged as clamoring for more lights, not less. So is it fanciful to think of light as an environmental justice issue? Should the narrative be flipped whereby such communities actually are underserved by street lighting? Then, on the other end, we have our good friends and billboards. Are billboards actually good for communities? I'm curious to what you guys think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll let you lead off. This is definitely more of your realm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I know, when it comes to lighting, that it does seem to be light pollution that affects underserved communities far more, but yeah, they do tend to want more lighting because of that concept that it's safer. Another thing is with the homeless population they want to be underlighted because it's also considered safer. Drew.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely think the communities that need the lighting would prosper from it. But I'll get back to the point of over exceeding the amount of light. I mean there's a cutoff point, there's the type of bulbs we use. I don't think any community should be without proper lighting, don't get me wrong. But there's ways to enforce that lighting.
Speaker 1:Then on the other end, I hear Dark Sky talk about an environmental justice issue around where light and light pollution affects. So, drew, what you're saying is that, hey, you know what, that's fine, we get it. You need to have more light. This community, just in order to function, it needs more light. But you're saying put in fixtures that are responsible. I guess, to the other end, when brightness is the measure of safety, doesn't that negate the fixtures that are responsible? Putting in those good fixtures?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't. Again, I want to be a pessimist, but I want to see the data, like he says, where that level of brightness safety is subsided by the level of brightness. I don't see that. I see brightness as brightness and I think there's certainly not going to be any crime or specific activity based on the amount or the lack of brightness that's in and around the city. I'd like to see some data there. I'm a big data guy.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll circle back if once some data. I feel like with all these conversions, we're going to have some data. I will say this maybe the fact that these communities that we're talking about here, if we're going to talk about economic disadvantaged community, maybe they feel like no one's paying attention and maybe having the light there is a sign that you are trying to at least help them with their problems. Maybe that's part of it.
Speaker 3:Again back to the electronic billboards. I've read a lot of articles in the past, even in LA. I think there was an article in LA a few days ago that they're really overpopulating. They're going from the regular billboards that have the illuminated light looking down to these huge, gargantuan LED, which is like the globe, all up and down the freeways. Even Comcast building I know all the Comcast buildings built that ginormous spiral. I don't know if there's a spiral or needle on the top of that thing. That thing just points directly up in the air for no reason. I'm surprised there wasn't any feedback on that prior to building. Well, about bird migrations and the tracking birds or insects. That's like a giant illuminated needle. Well, to your point, I'm just imagining seeing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to your point, Drew, that actually it killed so many birds that it spurred the impetus of lights out and actually helped Philly become one of the leading examples of lights out, because Comcast didn't want to be seen as killing all these birds, but they had a huge bird kill in October of I want to see 2020 or I think that's the year and it was right there at the site of Comcast so in some of these downtown towers and Comcast.
Speaker 1:for those of you at home, we don't know what the building looks like. Think of a giant. It's like a vape device at the one side, lit up for miles to see, and Drew Comcast, just one of themselves, because down at the Wells Fargo Center they decided to put massive billboards on the side of the arena itself.
Speaker 3:Of the arena, unbelievable. Has there been any feedback or pushback towards all this? I mean, we obviously have the data with the killing birds and I just remember when we were in Bucks County when they put that thing up in 2020, we were just moving out of Bucks County and that feature was put up and we could see it. I mean, we were a good about 30 miles away from the city and you could see it, the big needle in the sky, and it was just horrible to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they always have to remind you of how badly they screwed up for Bill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's not just the night. Guys are screwing up. They're screwing up services. Their service is horrible, but that's another topic.
Speaker 1:Well, when we have another story here this one comes to us from Lexington, kentucky, and it's a different take on street lights it looks like taxes arise in the covered expense of street lighting, which has exceeded budget by the tune of $2 million per year. By an 11 to 4 vote, lexington will raise taxes for businesses and homeowners, as street lights have not raised enough revenue to cover expenses needed to operate street lights for the city. That is a very strange quote. If I've ever did read one, I can't imagine how a street light raises revenue. But sure, yeah, this is again. This is something where a lot of communities, when they do conversions, they try and pass it over as a crime mitigation technique to kind of soften the economic blow, because he usually sits around one to two. So over 2.5 million for a full LED conversion. I'm not sure if that's the same thing. Here at Lexington, I believe that they're actually just fixing a lot of their street lights, but the more street lights you have, the more you have to maintain them.
Speaker 1:And then also the more street lights you have and I know in San Diego this is a big deal the more people tap in and try and steal the electric from them. So it is what it is. So let's wrap up the news here. Dark Sky International announced winners of their annual Captured in Night photo competition. This year's winners were truly mind blowing. The contest spanned 10 categories, with some of the most well-composed photos I've ever seen, including a Wang Tianwei's brilliant Milky Way fish eye view of the Percy of the.
Speaker 1:Shower, yeah, spectacular. Do you see this one? Ethan Su's astounding Lily Blossom foreground with a mountain lit right there in the background. And then I thought this was pretty cool. I don't know if either of you guys looked at this one. Joe Casey has composed an interesting conceptual shot showing what it would be to look the city of Milky Way out of one's bedroom. And then my personal favorite, tang Yu Kai's composition of a firefly crazy foreground matched with a spinning Star Trail background. That was just yeah.
Speaker 1:That was really neat. Have you ever entered a photo in a competition?
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what I'm not into. I mean, there's sites I post my photos on. If they win, they win. If they don't, they don't. I'm not really in the hobby or my passion to win anything. It's always secondary in my mind. I do it for my satisfaction and to share my pictures and the night sky with others, but no, I really haven't. I really haven't made an objective to hey, I want to win this for the contest or whatever, but it is what it is and if they do come across, I have had a few publications, and not last year or the year before, I think it was 2021, recognized one of my images, apod. Apod, which is a photography photo of the day, which was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 3:I'll throw my images around and so be it. They win, they win, but it's always secondary in my book. I enjoy it for the passion and just seeing what my data transpires to come to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no doubt Is this. Did you have any favorites from this competition? Did you see any ones in there to really call your eye?
Speaker 2:I don't see the photographs of this competition but I did see. I think it was National Geographic's photo competition. I think it was that, and there was this image that was the sound representation of a black hole. It was only going to because they used I believe it was water. It won the conceptual prize and it was really cool. I really liked that. So I haven't quite looked at the competition for the dark skies.
Speaker 1:Probably should Everybody's so, buddy-mired, don't worry, you'll be good. Okay, good. So do you do any landscape photos? You do any? Go out to Joshua Tree and try and get the Milky Way, do anything like that.
Speaker 2:Well, I have started to peek. It's peaking my interest because I'm being surrounded by it and I did used to do photography, like about 13 years ago.
Speaker 1:So I still have my old 2009 DSLR, so it's like you probably have the same rebel that Drew started Right.
Speaker 2:So I'm kind of interested in it. I need to learn, I need someone to really show me what's going on, because I was very much an amateur when it came to photography, so maybe potentially in the future.
Speaker 1:Well, when you go out there, we got some great captions. So I stumbled across this. This is a random website that appears to just be letting AI generate everything, and AI came up with these exceptional captions and you got to tell me which one or any of them you like using. So next time you go out, say it's a crazy, incredible Percy of Meteor Shower with the Milky Way out at Joshua Tree, maybe underneath your Instagram post gazing at infinity in the dark? Or how about in the darkness we find our true light? I want to thank my guests this night and Drew Evans for bearing with me on those horrible Instagram captions right there. Thank you so much for joining me today had a ton of fun with you guys. I hope you did as well. I really appreciate you guys coming on here and spending some time with me. As a reminder, you can find the links to this show and more over at lightpollutionnewscom. I'm here with SpomaGini helping to shed the light only where it's needed. Have a great and spooky October everyone, ok, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you again, music.