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What did you think of this Episode? Text Us!
Host Bill McGeeney is joined by AstroBackyard's Ashley Northcotte, lighting designer and founder of Dark Source, Kerem Asfuroglu, and educator and advocate, Diane Turnshek.
See Full Show Notes, Lighting Tips and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Like this episode, share it with a friend!
Bill's Picks:
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, january 2024, walking in a frequently large planetarium. Hey, it's a new year. Hope you made some good nighttime resolutions this month. From Astro Backyard we have Ashley Northcote, diane Tershek joins us in detail, some fun news about a new video game that you cannot pin, and Dark Source, mr Kerm. As for Oogla, joins us all the way from Ireland. We're putting the pedal down to start the new year. Check this out. Astro Tourism may be at risk for Eli Nevada. Is there a balance between art and a nice guy? Well, we'll find out. And the EU releases a 75-page All Things Environmental Brief for mitigating light pollution. All this including some truly enlightening conversations.
Speaker 1:Let's jump right into the first light pollution news of 2024. It's time for another light pollution news, the show where we discuss all the happenings in the news of, around and in light pollution. I'm your host, bill McGeehaney. As a reminder, all transcripts and articles can be found over at lightpollutionnewscom. We also have some helpful and useful tips for yourself and, even better, for you to share to a friend or a neighbor Articles including things that they actually probably care about, such as fence and gazebo lighting. So I'm told on our SEO, yeah, why not turn your yard into an example of what good nighttime lighting looks like.
Speaker 1:Today is our first release of 2024 and I'm very, very lucky to be joined by a stacked panel of guests here, very glad to be welcoming in a new year with these exceptionally experienced individuals. First up. Chances are you know her, even if you don't Part of the secret sauce over at Astro Backyard YouTube channel, ashley Northcote. Ashley is a dark sky advocate and delicate with Dark Sky International and, as many of you are aware, the co-brains behind Astro Backyard YouTube, along with Trevor Jones. Ashley. Welcome to Light Pollution News.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much, bill, and thanks for tuning in listeners. I'm really happy to be part of this light pollution conversation today.
Speaker 1:Ashley, I had Travis Novitsky on last month and Travis actually released this great new book, A Spirit's Dancing. It has his photography in there, which has a ton of Orabolealis images. So are you guys able to see the Northern Lights up where you're at?
Speaker 3:At times we can see the Northern Lights were located in Southern Ontario, so sometimes they come far enough south where we're able to see them. Actually, this year we had a really great display from our front porch, which was pretty incredible. But yeah, it always depends on how far south that magnetic whatever is happening for the Orabolealis, how far south that that reaches. So sometimes yes, I usually keep my eyes peeled on some of the followers on Instagram, some of the other women or Orabolealis photographers, so pretty good at keeping us updated on when we can expect one in Ontario.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, do you guys just walk out at night and just look out the window? Even you can see it.
Speaker 3:The one we had this year we did it was like we walked down and we heard we were going to have one. We walked down into the front porch and, sure enough, we were scrambling to get cameras and get everything together to shoot it. But that's not typical for where we are A little bit more Northern Ontario is probably more typical. Get it more often.
Speaker 1:We also have Karim Asferuglou. Karim founded the lighting design studio Dark Source, which has been instrumental in promoting best lighting practices of lighting design. For example, karim, you've been busy recently participating in a joint effort to retrofit lighting for St Patrick's Church in Newport Mayo, ireland, helping to improve the conformity with the Newport Dark Sky Master Plan. Correct.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I know you work with Danny Robertson, who we're going to have on in a couple of months. They contributed to a recent release Compendium, dark Sky's Places, practices and Communities book. It all sounds like quite the whirlwind. So these are big wins. Right, as your name gets around, have you seen more demand for your services in Ireland and in the UK? Is there recognition from any of the major urban centers for any need of your expertise?
Speaker 2:There's definitely interest in Dark Sky. It's a very trendy topic at the moment and I think we had a long enough run with the excess of electric lighting to understand that maybe we've gone a bit too far in the wrong direction and there's definitely zest and desire. But urban centers is that complete different animal. It's a tougher nut to crack usually. I lived in London for about 12 years. We recently moved over to Ireland with my wife, rizan, and twins, so that was one of the reasons that we had to let go of London.
Speaker 2:But just like all darkness enthusiasts, you get chased away from urban centers and one of the hardest things of my job is to let communities, really enthusiastic communities in these densely populated urban areas and inform them. It's a big challenge to achieve Dark Sky because it's not only depending on them. You might be very close to a very big city and you might be the most ambitious and hardworking community but may not still achieve that because somebody else is ruining it for you and that's the problem that we face with dark, sorry light pollution. It ruins it for everyone, not just for the people causing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's so easy, for something that happens five miles down a road, 45 miles down a road, 150 miles down a road, is still going to affect you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. 50, 100 miles. These are like nothing in comparison to how much the photons can travel. You know, I mean once I've been lucky enough to visit Las Vegas and there was a time that actually they took us to the desert, which was really impressive, really great experience to be out in the desert to do some skygazing. But when you look back over to where the city was, the light pollution that is radiating, it just looks like a portal to hell is opening up to the sky. It just kind of gives you an idea about the level of impact. It says, but alas, it's not all lost. It's the easiest pollutant to rectify. You switch it off and it's gone and we're just learning how to implement that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a loaded question. Is it really the easiest pollutant to rectify, Maybe mechanically?
Speaker 2:but, psychologically.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if it is the easiest pollutant to rectify.
Speaker 2:But I think it's spot on. I think that's a very good point. Culturally it's probably the hardest to engage, because I think it's got to do something with chemical pollution or air pollution. We're obviously part of it, but obviously most of it is caused by maybe governmental decisions or big industries et cetera. But light pollution there's a lot of autonomy that the average common person can have over it and, as you said, culturally being able to switch on. I suppose be switched off about it is the most important thing, because once you get it, there are lots of ways to rectify this, not just switch off and not just down light into death. This is far more nuanced than that and we're looking for reduction across the board and that can be done through various ways color, temperature, dimming, curfews et cetera. There's a wild menu that we're not really utilizing at the moment.
Speaker 1:I agree. Well, last up but not least, diane. Diane Ternsheck finally on the show today. Diane, I've been trying to get you on now for six months, but I guess during finals time is probably the easiest. Huh, if you're not aware, diane is a lecturer and someone who really cultivates a curiosity in the lecture halls of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Right, diane, you have done over 50 interviews with major networks, helped the international artificial light at night conference. You've had your hand in science fiction. You've done a TEDx Pittsburgh talk. What's next? What's next on your agenda?
Speaker 4:Well, I decided to just say yes. Starting now, I'm just going to say yes to everybody who reaches out and says they want to interview me, but it's been a while drive. Just like Karen said, it's very popular now. Dark Skies is from the community level and the city and the state and the world level. It's just a hot topic and I'm lucky that people are reaching out. Every time I do one talk, I get three more invitations to do talks.
Speaker 4:The thing that started it was the city of Pittsburgh decided to put in Dark Sky ordinances in 2021. And the mayor asked me to come to the press release and talk to reporters. That was his mistake. He doesn't have a stock, but I was the little chirping bird that was like Dark Sky, slight pollution, and so they put in the ordinances and credited me with the inspiration to do so, even though I wasn't the one who directly championed them in the government. So it hasn't happened yet. We got a new mayor and what we're working on is not losing momentum and trying to get education and enforcement in play, which are two things that are not really happening right now. But there was a company picked to do designing of the new 40,000, 45,000 street lights and I have been talking to them, which I'm really happy that they reached out and that they're in communication. So when that's done, probably next summer, the street lights will start going in, and that'll take a couple of years.
Speaker 1:How receptive are they Diane? What are they looking for in the conversation with you?
Speaker 4:They have now finally identified where and what all the street lights that are currently in place are and they're looking at where they can take out street lights or put in new street lights. But the last time I talked to them they were looking into 2,500 Kelvin street lights, which I'm pleased about. I told them they should go to 2,200. So we'll see how that goes. The ordinances just say 3,000 or less, so anything more that they do is a bonus and I'm very happy about.
Speaker 1:We were initially slated here in Philadelphia to be 4,000 and now it's down to 3,000. And I think a large part of that, as I understand, is being pushed actually by not just some of the neighborhoods kind of rebelling a little bit, but also by the actual lighting firm. It's interesting to see that there's starting to be some mindfulness behind this. Even to your point, diane, you believe that, hey, I think you could still go a little better here, but there is starting to be some mindfulness by some of these companies going out there. So, all right, let's start off today's show, this one, this one. You know Matias Schmidt was a guest from a couple shows back and he's not here tonight. So I wanted to start off with this one because it's a. It comes from Christianity today and I know he would have something to say about that.
Speaker 1:This article is a masterpiece, even if you're not a Christian or religious in any way. Per the author, reverend Kurt Gatliff. God instructs Abram to step out of his tent and gaze into the heavens, look up at the sky and count the stars. If indeed you can count them, so shall your offspring be. Gatliff read this passage to his parishioners, then gave them the homework assignment to look up and marvel at the glory and the goodness of our creator, and this comes from Gatliff. When I stepped outside to do some stargazing of my own, what I saw was less than awe inspiring. Despite it being a clear night and close to a new moon, I could actually count the stars there were 12. Gatliff continues on. Most of us don't realize how bright our nights are because we've never or rarely experienced a true natural night, one unaffected by artificial light. Gatliff then proceeds to illustrate the role the nighttime sky played in Christian and Jewish scriptures. No matter the religion or culture, there seems to be a spiritual connection tonight. What is it about seeing the stars that elicit spirituality?
Speaker 4:There's a definition of spirituality that does not include religion. Organized religion and that's what I hear all the time from people is this feeling of connectedness with the stars and awe, inspiring, wonder and very much a feeling that the entire earth is a small little ball in space and the stars are above you and below you and around you and surrounding you out to infinity, and it's a heartening experience. It's something that's not easily forgotten once you're under a dark sky. So that's the kind of spirituality that I think of. I can see his point. The article was well written for a particular audience and it was inspiring, but I think spirituality is bigger than one religion.
Speaker 1:Diane, have you had a spiritual moment just looking over the stars? Have you experienced something that affected you?
Speaker 4:I mean that's why I'm doing what I'm doing is, I got a degree in astronomy and then I started having kids and I was back in Pittsburgh for decades without taking a trip out west, and finally I took a trip out to Utah and just realized what I had forgotten, because stars were magnificent and I just I couldn't believe that of all people, that I forgot this, and so I kind of pledged myself that this is something that I should help other people see, because the feeling is just incredible.
Speaker 4:You notice all kinds of things. The colors of stars are so different. When it's bright, like that with sky glow I mean it's bright with stars, not sky glow and you feel like they're nearby, like you could touch them. And the horizon sometimes, when the Milky Way is low, it looks like a horizon and it resets your internal horizon. So you get vertigo because you think that's the horizon and you start tipping over. There's all kinds of feelings that are hard to describe to someone unless they've seen it themselves, and nowadays not a lot of people have seen it themselves. So I'm left with saying words like amazing and beautiful and awesome, but it doesn't convey it until you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would very much agree with your statement, diana, that internal kind of spirituality and connectedness with the stars. And I remember my first experience with seeing the true Milky Way and an absolute sky full of stars was at the Cherry Spring Star Party many years ago, and I can just it almost felt like I was alone in this huge field of people. I'm surrounded by people, but I'm looking up like I'm having this private experience with just myself, and it was just. I'll never forget the feeling. But to your point, dan, it's so incredibly hard to explain to someone what that actually feels like, what your mind and what your body is going through when you're sitting under a sky full of stars like that. But it almost feels like healing, like it's doing something to your mind and it's doing something to your body in such a good way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely think that there's a sense of humility that you know, seeing the canopy of stars inspires when you're at the right place for a time with the right weather, and it always helps. Yeah, definitely, I'm particularly here in Northern Europe, whether it's particularly an important identifier, whether you'll be able to see the stars or not, but I think it's an interesting thing that, like you know, people have had access to stars visual access to stars without asking for permission for such a long time of our existence. And now, at times that this is not a granted thing, you know, you need to. You know be away from, you know, density, purple-later urban areas or light polluted cities or towns. But it's very interesting that, like you know, this is not just accessing the stars visually but also accessing your heritage. Your lineage and the sense of stars have inspired generations, you know, through, like you know, art, philosophy, religion. It's just very prominent. The theme as well, you know being connected to a greater truth out there. You know part of a cosmic reality and you know that inspired the imagination of being able to see the stars, maybe, like you know, never, you know, ever imagined to.
Speaker 2:You know, go to the moon, and you know now we're talking about interstellar experiences and, you know, colonize other places. But we have to remember colonization started with the night. We started first colonizing the night with the advent of light, because then we were able to explore further and light was never just about visibility Like we see it now. It was social, it was, you know, protection, it was heat, it was nutrition, it was combined quality of these things.
Speaker 2:Now we've gone so far, you know, so excessive in that respect, and completely banished, you know, darkness, which is very interesting. In the olden days, I think up until the 16th, 17th century, you would find, you know, lord is often sought within darkness, because we had a much more connection with darkness. But then you see, over the course of the last couple of centuries that actually lord gets more. You know, kind of the connotation is related to finding it in the light, and now I think we're in a much more diffused state, kind of understanding, in a balanced manner where to look for what. But I think imagination has always been an important part of this and spirituality definitely helps. I wouldn't be able to name too many constellations to you, but what you know, I'm a science buff, I'm interested in our place in the universe and that's my you know kind of gate to that spirituality and that resonates with me as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, karen, what your point for art? My insurance company, kindness of their heart, I'm sure they give me a calendar, and it's one of these generic calendars that you know. You just get it. You may or may not use it, but there's really no, it's not anything to write home about. This year was a Saturday night post, which is a collection of these, I think, norman Rockwell style illustrations, and the one that grabbed my eye was actually the one they had on the cover, and it was these two parents taking these kids inside after maybe a day at the beach or maybe a picnic, and behind you see houses in the back that maybe have, like their window, lights on, but then you have a starry sky. If you're an artist today, what would you be painting? What would your illustration be?
Speaker 2:You probably resorted to AI to come up with something.
Speaker 2:That's probably right. That's the ultimate problem, isn't it? Yeah, that's a very good question. I mean, like, your context is, you know, really identifies your interests, and it's like, yeah, it defines who you are and in a context that you don't have access to that, and what sort of art would you produce? I think you would perpetuate what you see. And that's the challenge.
Speaker 2:And often I think we're less now interested in what's out there than we're more interested down what's down here. We're preoccupied with what's happening down here too much, so much so even the satellites we're launching out there, etc. They're actually more about interesting servicing down what's happening on the earth. They're less interested in looking out there. Obviously, you know Hubble and James Webb and all that stuff, that state of the art and impressive investments. Obviously they're like very small to what Starlink is like launching out there, for example, and mainly interested in providing internet access.
Speaker 2:So when you're looking at these things and then we're understanding how fragile we are in this, you know our own solar system, that there will be no search party for us, and you wonder, with all these thousands of satellites, if there's a and there's been also near-missive events as well. Not only they're, you know, visually cluttering the access to the night sky, but also one event can completely wipe out and create a junk yard that will not allow us to penetrate and go out to the space, and these people who are coming with the promises of actually bringing us to the stars might be actually putting us further away from the stars, but that's another question. But in a short, yeah, culture is in a constant transition. I think we're, just like you know, once a better time trying to understand, come to terms of what it means to actually have this access to the other worlds.
Speaker 1:Circling back to the article Real Fast, gatliff. Actually he steps into the crime debate in an effort to kind of walk readers up to how we got to this point of seeing only two stars. Before I open this one up, I want to make reference to this great John Adams quote in the article. Being a history nerd, I found this really interesting and it's kind of telling. John Adams describes darkness as an avenue for robberies, burglaries and murders and suggests that light from street lamps would chase away all the villains and prevent the need for hiring more police. He actually the full quote actually says that their oil lamp lights are going to burn straight through to 9am and it will prevent the need for hiring more police. Man, that sounds familiar. That was 1785. I think people are still saying that today.
Speaker 2:That's a look. I've been conscious of that. I've spoken too much. I just said one thing. I'll just shut my mouth. It's the, you know, the early modern Europe, when you see, the first municipal lighting is actually it's coming. It was introduced with the intent of policing the night. So it's just like. You know, the rural or urban darkness was like. You know, it wasn't like where it wasn't efficient to be out there. It was pitch black, dark and you couldn't see where you're going. So the night wasn't that accessible. So, you know, up until like 17th century, you experienced something called second sleep. So people would rest the bed and wake up in the middle of the night. And you know you would have two segments of sleep and use that period in between for, like prayer, or prayer or, like you know, sex or whatever you might.
Speaker 2:Some actually were brewed here, but it's, I think, it always. We default back to this whenever there's a crime committed. It just goes like we're going to pump up the lights and you know, we're going to make sure that, you know, crime is eradicated. Well, actually, on the, for example, we've been lucky enough to work on a project called Pristine.
Speaker 2:These guys had a transition about 10, 15 years ago which introduced the light pollution problem to them, and what they found very interesting is that at the time, it was purely because they wanted to save energy which they've saved a lot but new lights were in the realm of 6,000 Kelvin, which caused a lot of light pollution for them.
Speaker 2:But what they realized around that time, when they switched off some streets, just mainly focusing on the main street illumination to save as much money as possible this is happening during 2008. They didn't get enough funding from Welsh government, so they had to be a bit creative and then what they found out is actually crime rates started dropping and purely like, obviously this is not the best way to solve crime, because it's not. You're not really definitely you know going there socially unfolding what crime is. But light is opportunity as well and you know burglars need to see where they are going as well, and often people don't think about it. If you feel like in our days, the burglar will also feel so. And anyway, that was an interesting anecdote that we learned from the relationship with the crime and illumination and darkness.
Speaker 1:Dan, I saw you nodding over there.
Speaker 4:I agree. You're just a brighter target for criminals. You're not the paper when it's light. It's interesting where we are in the corridor of Ed's and Med's educational institutions and medical facilities. It's the brightest part of the city and part of that is because the students want it bright so they can feel safe, and the administration wants them to feel safe. And it's to the point where there was a group of students who asked for a huge poll with lots of white lights to create a white light dome over not only the campus but the surrounding area where they may live. I mean, they were really adamant about this and I'm so glad they graduated now Wow, and they did.
Speaker 4:But they come from places like Singapore and Thailand, bangkok, beijing, and they've never been in a really dark place and so it's very hard for them to feel at home. Then you have the other people who come from places that are rural and they don't feel at home either. So it's a balance. I had an astronomy student. He was the president of the astronomy club and every year we go to Green Bank, west Virginia, which is the radio telescope facility, and it's really dark because nobody wants to live there. It's ringed by mountains and you can't, cell phones don't work and you can't have a microwave. So it's pretty empty in that valley and the sky was just amazing as good as cherry springs, if not a little better. So he's walking and he's walking and he says this is like walking in a frequently large planetarium that never ends.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:It broke my heart because that was the only experience he'd ever had that was anything like this, and his mind was trying to fit it into his life. It didn't work.
Speaker 1:Diane, it's interesting you bring up that light piece by students, because I know in the past come across student newspapers where students will claim how dangerous it is because the university doesn't have a very bright street or the university is actually forward thinking and they have motion detecting lights and the lights will come on and someone gets there, but the students are terrified or at least the writer is terrified that going down the street they're going to get attacked or assaulted and everything. Not trying to make fun of the claims that hey, you want to be safe on campus, definitely you want to be safe on campus. You didn't have any issues or feeling insecure. How bright does it need to be? I guess I don't understand where the upper threshold is. I guess because daytime you have assaults and crimes happen during daytime and the sun's out. So what does it need to be? How bright does it need to be? Does anyone have any thoughts? I'm at a loss on that.
Speaker 4:The human eye is amazing that with a short period of time it can adapt to the lighting conditions that are out there. People don't know that because they live in a land that is perpetual twilight and never gets dark, so people don't understand that. You just wait a few seconds and you'll be able to see. It's a cultural shift that we need. The value of darkness is great. People our lighting engineers and designers have to understand that dark shadows are what scares people. So if it's lower light levels but evenly spread out without very bright patches, so your eye pupil shuts down and then dark patches that you can't see into. It's gonna take a while, but I think we're on the road to getting that understanding. I think it go ahead, ashley.
Speaker 3:Sorry, but yeah, I was just gonna kind of hang on to kind of your point what we were saying. The article I read was based in the UK and it wasn't necessarily students, but it was young women who had complained specifically about lighting in a particular area, and so people decided to just throw more light at the situation. That would hopefully help them feel more safe. But the lighting that they used, they actually said, made them feel less safe because of how it was designed and how the light glare in their eyes. Their eyes could not adjust to the lighting, so they felt nervous because they couldn't see who was potentially in front of their face or there were physical barriers that they couldn't see around a corner because of a placement of a shrub or a bush or a tree or something.
Speaker 3:So it's I think just throwing more light at the situation is kind of the lazy way of addressing it. I think there's so many more. It's such a complex issue crime, right, and there's rather than looking at alternatives or waste, enhanced public safety or community programs or whatever it might be, it ends up just being more light and rather than designing our environments to increase visibility, placements of some of those physical barriers or structures that would actually help people feel more safe. It just seems like lighting is just the easy answer.
Speaker 1:I didn't know if I want to include this article in here, especially at the rate we're going, but since we're talking to your point, ashley, I think we will hit this one. I was gonna actually skip over it there's. So there's a story from Jeffersonville, indiana, and it gets to your point that there's Mayor Mike Moore has been on a mission and has asked you lighting who's? One part of the community has received 55 new omnidirectional acorn lights which are just shine everywhere, and then another area of the community he's actually using top down, top down decorative lights that are just solar powered because there's no utility access for putting in lights it's coming from.
Speaker 1:The citizens have been asking for more lights and in a Facebook post dated November 1st by Jeffersonville Indiana, you'll notice a couple of things. Well, first off, these lights all appear tall I think they're probably the appropriate size, but they're placed in residential neighborhoods and in second, judging by the comments, the whole town is pitch black and badly needing nighttime light. And in my mind, when I hear pitch black, like you said, ashley, it's because you're having glare, because your eye is never gonna be able to see anything but the fixture to light that's hitting your eye. Maybe I'm wrong with that? Does anyone? Maybe someone can educate me on if there's.
Speaker 2:If that's not the case, I think what actually and Diane explained is like it's a very good summary of this issue there are glare and intermittent illumination and, as Diane also said, these combination of these two really degrades your vision. As Diane said, we had a very adaptable and very advanced visual system, but when we have a very bright point and where we have a very dark point, trying to balance these two, your vision is working really hard. This makes trying to adjust to the bright point, makes the dark points feel pitch black darkness even that if that's not the reality. So there's a difference between looking at the source and the lighting effect. And if these lights were shielded, these acorn lights, instead of being just like omniluminescent you know multi-directional globes, orbs if they were just projecting the light onto the floor plane, you would actually what you would see seeing is the lighting effect on the floor plane, and when that is done consistently, that would also allow your vision to adjust much easier. And then this means you won't need high levels of illumination.
Speaker 2:So even as high as two lux or one lux would be more than enough, just to give you an idea of moonlighting, with range around 0.2 to one lux, depending on how bright it is and how cloudy it is and everybody's absolutely fine to navigate with moonlight. If it's only moonlight, you see what I mean. If there's other light sources that interfere with that, your vision is designed to always adjust to the. You know, rather than adjusting to absolute luminance, we, or our vision, is more calibrated towards detecting contrast and changes in contrast. This is why we don't realize when our surroundings get brighter as a whole, because your vision adjusts very quickly, both visually and culturally. You adapt to that new reality very quickly.
Speaker 3:I think to Diane's previous point too, in the last conversation. It's about sort of those, what people are comfortable with in terms of the amount of lighting. We saw in her example with the. You know cultural differences of some of the students. Some were less comfortable with more light and some were less comfortable with less light. So it comes down to you know, potentially, what they're used to. I know for us we're avid campers we love getting away from the city with our teardrop trailer and getting out into nature to camp under some darker skies and even in the camping world and I don't know if this is just, I won't get into that but people are lighting up campsites, even more so now than ever, and so it's this level of comfort. You know they're bringing all the home comforts of exterior, everything, and they're bringing it, you know, with them into nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't get me started on that one, ashley, don't get a whole new area that I could definitely commiserate with you on, because I'm a tent camper and it's always great when all of your neighbors are RVs and they have, like these blazing LED lights. They close the shades and go to bed and leave everything on and you're like, thanks guys, thanks, it's gonna be a great night. I'm glad I came out tonight.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I had. We've started a little subgroup within Dark Sky International to discuss dark sky camping issues and hope to spread some awareness around that. But one of the members was discussing the dark adaptation of our eyes and how people are just not letting their eyes get to that point, even when you're camping, because you're continuing to surround yourself with more light. So I think it's this matter of feeling true darkness and understanding that your eyes will adjust and then you will feel more comfortable without the presence of more light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good point. I wonder how much of that really you know, because people never actually experienced darkness with their eye. Well, moving on, I wanna push this a little further here because I think we've been on the same two articles now for about 20 minutes, so let me push this ahead here a little bit. So, 180 degrees from Jeffersonville, Indiana, Kalamazoo, they have dark sky-approved lighting and their Facebook post dated October 10th has everyone cheering for dark sky-approved lighting. So what a difference. You know a community's view on, I guess, night would be the proper phrase there, I guess. So how do you guys feel about sea turtles?
Speaker 1:Foley Beach, South Carolina, is actually replacing existing LED fixtures with 37 new turtle-friendly fixtures to minimize stray lights' impacts on a blue light-sensitive hatchlings. Each year, Kaitlyn and I go down to Navar Beach in Florida and we see a similar amber lighting in action. I'll say it really adds to the charm of actually walking on a beach at night, often with a constellation puppets passing across the Gulf. It's pretty interesting. It's not a perfect solution. As we all know, Buildings and houses set a block off of the beach tend not to be regulated in any way, so, as we've seen in a prior show, this can still affect sea turtles. However, do you think this kind of lighting may make people more amenable, Maybe, in that case, to what you're saying, Ashley, so that way they can actually utilize some night vision?
Speaker 2:It's an interesting thing, isn't it Like, in terms of you're trying to design a place mainly for the biodiversity, but knowing that it will accommodate human activity and if you find the right balance, if it's a win-win for everybody, as you said, it might actually become the unique selling point of a place and the character of a space as well. That it's amber or whatever, it's red lighting and we were talking about darkness adaptation is that we know that red lighting doesn't interfere with the darkness adaptation as much as the others. You know other colors and such an easy fix in the sense of you know, we know red light or amber is warm as candle warmth, we know it's astronomer friendly, it's biotervist friendly, it's human vision friendly, it's. You know, bonkers, that we're not really really taking into consideration enough for designs, for the experience of the built environment, and I think it's going to make a great precedent, and this is how it starts.
Speaker 2:And you know of all the projects we've been talking about or the community efforts you were talking about just a second ago, bill, I find it very interesting that people come with a design and say here it is, this is what we came up with, implemented it, it'll be all done Well and, as Ashley was pointing out, so for some people it works out some context and some communities are different than the others. Then why not try on your test? And every project I ever worked on, I always insist on a test. We come up with a design. It's not imposed, it's part of the conversation. Put it there, give it three months and let what people think about it and, just you know, digest their feedback and let them decide, because that's their neighborhood. If you see what I mean. We don't want to also harm this movement by imposing decisions on people, but we have a responsibility of showing them how you know what the responsible options would be.
Speaker 4:That's the key. What you just said was our responsibility to show them the options. I have had a real struggle with that. There's an area right near me and I have beautiful skies in the city of Pittsburgh From my house. It gets very dark. I've seen the Milky Way from here a couple of times in the city. But right near us there's going in a stadium. Youth football stadiums from the Steelers football team is about to be built and you know I on the one hand I'm like they're going to my skies, but this area where they're putting the stadium is it's a poorer area and the resistance to worrying about yet another thing that doesn't impact them immediately is strong.
Speaker 4:I have trouble getting any points across about light pollution and it turns out that light pollution is an environmental justice issue. There have been studies where they found that in these underrepresented areas that there is twice as much light pollution, usually in a city, than in other areas, more affluent areas. It's Asian, black and Hispanic populations, places where there's a high rental unit occupation. They have a lot more light pollution and you know part of it's they're targeted by law enforcement and part of it's that they have a lot of things on their mind to worry about and people just can't get into worrying about something that's not an immediate impact. You know that's maybe their health down the road is impacted and it's a difficult thing. But with this new stadium going in I'm going to read it's just redouble my efforts trying to bring some sort of education to the community and try to get some action on getting stadium lighting good stadium lighting in there.
Speaker 4:I've seen it. I went out to Arizona, the Dark Sky International. They took us out to a stadium and there was a beautiful soccer field with. You could see all the colors, jerseys you know good color rendering and two feet off in the parking lot you couldn't see a thing. It was black.
Speaker 1:I'm curious about the stadium lighting. The stadium lighting that I've seen to what I think might be Dark Sky compliant is, as a flat top, aim directly kind of onto the field, so it's shielded from the top and the light is actually aimed directly to the field.
Speaker 4:Is that what we're talking about? Right, but they're high enough so it doesn't get in the players field division. If you're, you know a goalie and the ball goes up, you're not going to be blinded.
Speaker 3:So To Krim's point too. I think this whole providing people with the options is such a fantastic approach, and I think that that more cooperative approach can be done when it's not like a last minute decision about lighting, right. I think oftentimes lighting is an afterthought and so everything is designed and at the end it's like, oh well, we need some lights, so we'll just, you know, throw some up. And I spent many years working in the waste management industry and it was very much the same.
Speaker 3:People build their buildings. They don't consider waste management practices or these environments producing waste and what they're going to do with it. It's very much buildings built. They don't think about integrated waste management systems. We'll just throw something in and call it a day. I see the same thing happening with. It seems like the same thing happening with lighting, just based on either the choices that are not given, that cooperative approach, that discussion, working what works best for the community in the space. I think that's something that could definitely be improved upon, that whole start to finish process of a space and the environment.
Speaker 1:There's some good points. Thank you, guys. Let's wrap up streetlights. I found this article from the Bolton of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It's a very interesting article because it appears to indicate that there's actually a maximum efficiency of road lighting. In some cases. The subject Sam Miguel they took him on in Argentina blew way past the efficiency marker. The study found that the city center was over lip doubling, sometimes tripling the minimum requirements. An interesting piece trying to identify an optimal framework to maximize street lighting efficiency. This is the first site, to my knowledge, that has attempted to ascertain a maximum boundary for street lighting efficiency. I know there's been concern among advocates who work in their community that adhere to the guidelines of the Illuminating Engineering Society, as I've been told, has no maximum lighting limitation. Maybe someone can help me understand here. How can you have guidelines and efficiency measurements for only one side of output, namely the minimum, not recognize a marker for diminishing returns on a maximum side? Karim, do you want to take a stab at that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's my pet peeve and I think it's such a good point you made there. This is why things escalated to this level. Why are we still looking at light only purely from lumens per watts and efficiency? Basis Efficiency is important, don't get me wrong. Leds are a fantastic source in many ways, like color consistency, rendering dimmabilities. If you're not dimming your LEDs, you're basically not using this technology. Right, that's the ultimate quality about LEDs.
Speaker 2:But sadly, the way we ended up in this place is, you see, the cooler color temperature LEDs tend to be slightly more efficient than the warm color LEDs, and it used to be much greater. It used to be like around the realm of 20 percent, etc. The gap is closing in. That's mainly caused by the fact that almost all LEDs actually were driven from blue LEDs, so the phosphor coating would additively change the color and as the light travels further, a tiny bit more going through a different medium of surface, that would basically reduce its efficiency or intensity slightly, because the more surfaces or the more journey that light needs to make through different mediums, that's basically impacts on its efficacy. And why aren't we quantifying what we're losing by just purely looking at the efficiency element is such an important question because it cannot be quantified with the same metrics, same approach. You got to look at the impact environmental impact in the broad perspective and quantify it, then compare it and I would say it will be a very, very strong case, you know, proving that we shouldn't be utilizing cool white LEDs.
Speaker 2:However, I have to highlight energy efficiency is a very important topic. If dark, sky-friendly lighting cannot tick that box, it will seriously impact on its. You know effectiveness in terms of being accepted, so it's an important theme. But bring ultra-energy efficient. Is that a necessity? Is this going to really solve the problem? For us, it's a bigger question. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's a good point. I love that article.
Speaker 4:Really helpful. It just said that here are three different things that we tested to show you how to hit the minimum. I think that's why people go over the minimum so much two or three times over the minimum because they don't really have the tools that are necessary to figure out whether they're in compliance with the minimum, and so this article was excellent in, you know, explaining how to reach that minimum without being out of compliance. I thought that was super valuable.
Speaker 1:I want to thank my guest, ashley Northcoat, karen Masferoglo and Diane Ternsheck for spending this Sunday afternoon with me, and I want to thank you, the listener. You literally are what keeps us running. I have a request to make. If you have found this show extremely interesting, stoked some emotions in you, why not share it with a friend? And you help us grow this show.
Speaker 1:We do not have a marketing department that well. Technically, caitlin is our marketing department. We don't have the big bucks that some other podcasts may have, but this is an honest to God, out of my pocket to your ear show. So please, if you love what we're doing here, help spread the word. If you'd like to say thank you or simply appreciate what me and Caitlin are doing here, you can help us offset our web server audio server or Caden's expert show editing expenses by simply clicking on the Support Us link in the show notes. $3 is all it takes. We really appreciate all of your support and you're already a supporter. Thank you for your continued generosity and support. Every little bit truly helps. Karen, what's the next project you got coming up on Horizon?
Speaker 2:Yeah, now that I'm in Ireland, my focus is, you know, ireland plays an important role in terms of communities are very resourceful here and you know there's a kind of interesting effort to get it right from the beginning. So the investment is quite aligned with, like, let's get it right from the beginning, which is, as I actually said, in my line of works. Everything's an afterthought. So you don't get like, you know, clean slate starts often. So some exciting stuff is happening in Mayo. Obviously the County Mayor, because the Dark Skies group there, led by Georgia McMillan, they're doing amazing stuff and I've been privileged to be working with them.
Speaker 2:So Newport Dark Sky Master Plan is an incredible, you know, genre defining project which I'm very excited to be working on. We just delivered the completed phase one, which is the St Patrick's Church, and then the neighboring West Port Estate, which is a massive area. West Port is a bit more like a known touristic destination, particularly for Americans I don't know who we're looking for their Irish roots and it's a very popular town and it's an incredible project that is really looking into reintroducing, you know, the native species and ensuring dark skies. You know it's a massive investment development. I haven't really seen something of that caliber ever anywhere else, which is very impressive. So sometimes this is not about you know, having the biggest budget. It's about having the right vision. In that respect, I happen to be very lucky, you know, in being in the right place at the right time. You know getting being associated and working with the right people.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited to see that project go ahead. Definitely following that over to.
Speaker 4:Oh, can I just add that I'm coming there in 2025 because the Allen Conference yeah, of course Allen. Yeah, I've been working with Georgia McMillan and Brian Espey. So the 2024 man of Dark Sky Festival is the first to the 30th of November, and then, in 2025, the Allen Conference is October 28 to 30. And then, immediately preceding it's immediately preceding, the man of Dark Sky Festival, which is right after the conference.
Speaker 1:And as the artificial light and night conference.
Speaker 4:Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely meeting you there, Diane.
Speaker 1:Diane is there a website out there that people can go to.
Speaker 4:Yes. If you just looked at artificial light at night conference. You'll find it Okay, sounds good. All the dates are already out. I'm running it with Annette Krobanish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds like a great destination to go to too.
Speaker 4:In.
Speaker 1:Bestport. Yeah Well, actually I saw this one. I wanted to include it to give give County a little props here. So spectacular spots across Canada taken. This is by Meredith Hardy over at the CBC, featured in the list. You can learn Indigenous tales of the sky at Metis, crossing up in Alberta. Or how about Journey to Nova Scotia, to the Tobica Wilderness area and maybe something not too far from home, canada's first dark sky park, the Torrance Barrens Dark Sky Preserve. It looks like a Bordel IV. How is that site? Have you been up there?
Speaker 3:We have made it up to Torrance Barrens one time, but it was for we were in the area for a different purpose, not for stargazing, so we happened to pop over there during the day just to see what it looked like. So we didn't get to experience the actual nighttime skies, but we did get to kind of roam around the site a little bit and read some of the dark sky education signage that they had up there, and so it was. I mean, I'd love to return and get some imaging done at that spot, but it's about I don't know, three and a half to four hours away from us.
Speaker 1:So how far away is that from say like Toronto?
Speaker 3:Maybe two and a half. We're an hour from Toronto, so yeah. Okay, that's not bad, that's actually, that's really good time then. It's interesting our drive to Cherry Springs State Park, which is about four hours. We have to drive that distance north in Canada just to get away from the Toronto Lake Dome, so we're four hours either way. So it's interesting that we could just drive to Cherry Springs and get those skies, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the club.
Speaker 3:That's right, yeah, but there's so many incredible places in Canada to see dark skies and escape the city lights. There's so many we haven't gone to. I did look at the article and noticed the Dark Sky Festival in Jasper. That's one that we would really love to make it to one day. It looks like an incredible event, and I know that I'm pretty sure Betty Maya went to that event this year as a speaker, so I hope she had a great time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very, very big festival. And since we're talking about festivals, down a little closer to, I guess, any Boston people, there's the Seated Dark Festival, and I thought this was really interesting because it's run by the Appalachian Mountain Club. There's two locations One that Amateur Strom is probably more familiar with, the Meadowisla Lodge over in the Bain Woods International Dark Sky Park, which is adjacent to the 100-mile wilderness part of the Appalachian Trail, actually Hike 2.0. That area is a nice, really nice lights up there. And one more accessible spot, especially if you live in Boston, 93 hours away, the Highland Center at Crawford Notch in New Hampshire. The event at Meadowisla actually takes place in October, while the Mount Washington event at Crawford Notch takes place in December, and you can actually stay in the lodge at Crawford Notch, so it's really convenient, and so maybe keep those dates in mind at home when you're putting together a 2024 plans. Kerem, the Meadow Dark Sky Festival, you've been doing this for a while, right? You've been partaking in that for quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Whenever I can. Yeah, because it's such a great event. They do an amazing work. So it's spread across. It's called Newport the Dark Sky Festival, but actually it's more than any about across. All these communities actually take part in it and it's a great event to see some great speakers and full of activities and, if you're lucky, if the weather lets you, ballykoroja Dark Sky Park is an amazing place. It's a gold tier, you know, pristine dark skies, which is right next to you if you happen to be there. So, yeah, I'm like I cannot recommend it enough.
Speaker 1:How's the turnout for the event?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I'm going to guess it's still modest. I'm going to guess it's in the realm of, like you know, 500 or so. It's not in the realm of thousands, I don't think so. And because, also, allen will be probably the biggest event nearby. And they picked Westport because, facilities wise, accommodation wise, it's an easier place where, you know, when people are sprinkled across three destinations it's a bit harder to manage. But it's still modest and, you know, humble. In that respect it's actually. That's why it's so impressive, because, like, that's the mighty end, like, you know, I don't know how they pull off every year, you know, organizing this event with, you know, little resources and then, you know, shout out to their resourceful, resourcefulness. I suppose they do an amazing job every year.
Speaker 1:That's great to hear. Well, hopefully it keeps growing and, you know, one day maybe we'll get in a thousands right? Well, there is news, oddly enough, in Astro Tourism this month. If you'll recall, a couple of months back brought to your story the Stargazing Route that spanned between two international dark sky National Parks of Great Basin, Nevada and Death Valley, california. Things may be changing for one of the towns along the way, the town of Eli.
Speaker 1:Here in the US, due to the Inflation Reduction Act, there's been a large shift toward renewable energy. Some of the renewable energy, in this case wind and solar, require additional battery storage to operate in averse conditions, such as night or when the wind's not blowing. In a case of Eli, a business by the name of R Plus Hydro is working with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to essentially create a battery inside a nearby mountain. The process would remove the mount on top and utilize groundwater to retain the electrons and I'm sure for any Appalachian folk listening, this sounds a bit like meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Speaker 1:Among the many complaints by the community, including the semi obvious ones, including borys, over the limited amount of groundwater, the loss of hollow tribal lands in the Sacred Water Valley and the loss of critical habitat for the threatened sage grouse. There's also one more possible degradation of tourism dollars from an antique night sky train tour, as is currently stands. The operator, mark Bassett, brings riders out from the nearest lodge, which is 60 miles away. The train stops off and tourists get out and take in a sparkling starry sky. According to the article, the train tour is wildly successful, with tickets selling out a year in advance. That's a year in advance for a train to take you to see the majesty of the night. The fear is the construction of the battery will bring unwanted lights that will negatively impact and even prohibit as your tourism dollars from being a reality in Eli. Is this kind of fear overblown for these areas that kind of rely on specific tourism dollars?
Speaker 4:I don't think it's overblown at all. Construction sites are lit up all night long because they worry about trespass and danger and criminals taking copper supplies or whatever. It's typical to just light them all night long.
Speaker 1:I mean street lights are vandalized as well for the copper, they light the street.
Speaker 4:So I would say it's not overblown at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of really small communities that rely on, maybe solely on just astrotourism or just like a boom during certain times of the year for events that cater to dark skies. So all that is threatened when light pollution is introduced to a particular environment. So I would agree with Diane I don't think it's overblown at all. It's overblown at all.
Speaker 2:Such a bummer for making money out of astrotourism or ecotourism is already hard enough, and some communities achieve that, which is massive kudos. And then there's a mega development. Obviously, yes, it will have a massive impact. I'd imagine construction lighting industrial lighting, you know on a mega project of this caliber definitely will have some impact, Regardless of color, temperature et cetera. I think you will need a lot of lighting to be able to facilitate that kind of work, probably.
Speaker 3:And then you know the potential of all these people who booked this experience of never, potentially never, seeing a sky like that, right, I mean, if they're booking a year out in advance, chances are that this is something unique. Maybe they don't often get a chance to see, you know, dark skies like that, so then you have this experience that's being taken away from people, which is sad.
Speaker 1:There's no middle ground here, so I want to move on to the next story and I think we can can really hit this. It's the same. It's kind of like the question I asked here for the astrotourism piece. So there's been a lot written about the Larraday Saints Temple out in Heber Valley, utah. Not going to rehash too much here and I'll be honest, I'm not the best person to be talking on this topic. In short, here's what happened. The church Larraday Saints wanted to build a temple. Immediately.
Speaker 1:Folks had concerns about traffic, water usage and sky glow as the impact of the temple. Well, after much contention, it appears that the church Larraday Saints got their wish. The points of agreement with the county include that all outdoor lighting will turn off at 11 pm. Until then, instead of washing the walls with 4000 K temperature lights, they'll be washed with 3000 K temperature lights and a static red light will be placed top the tower for aircraft. Really, this sat as a zoning dispute. Last month we had Stephen Hummel on and we had an article regarding Chester Town Road Island, which he seen the commissary with the need to compromise the night sky protections to facilitate community growth. So in this case it looks like both parties the county and Larraday Saints Church compromised to make this a reality. Is this type of compromise a good thing or is it a bad thing?
Speaker 3:I mean, judging by the points of agreement going from 3000 to 4000, it it's almost like you're just checking items off a box to compromise both sides, rather than looking at with the purpose, like, what is the purpose of the lighting being used? And I think that often gets overlooked by certain parties and I think that's where it gets away from people in terms of you know, I don't know the term white wall washing Is that uplighting on the side of the church?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's Could be down.
Speaker 2:Could be both.
Speaker 3:Oh, could be both, okay, but yeah, so you know we have lighting. Just what is the? What is the purpose of lighting up the side of a church, like it? Just it comes back to lighting is used for a purpose, or it should be used for a purpose, and in this case, sure, they compromised and went down to 3000 Kelvin, but you know for what I think is the ultimate question, right?
Speaker 1:So the image I have is here we have a Latter Day Saints Temple in center city and the wall washing is uplight and it goes directly against the walls. So to your point, Diane, I am not I'm not familiar with downlit wall washing, but that's I believe that's a style. They're going to keep it like a very similar style to to what they will build somewhere else, I believe.
Speaker 4:Right. The point about downwashing is that when the lights need to be serviced, you have to go up on a tall ladder or somehow get to the lights. That's the problem with billboards also. Billboards are usually uplift because it's easier to maintenance. You actually get it Like why are you lighting a wall? The point is, people like to do things just like they've always done them, and it's hard to change a tradition that you've had for a really long time.
Speaker 3:And I like that the outdoor lighting is turned off at 11 pm. That's great, but yeah, I totally understand.
Speaker 2:Karim you just had this right. I think one of the challenges the watchers that I tried to navigate is like there's an accepted cultural connotation of visual embellishment. The excess of light brought to us this visual embellishment that things look amazing when they're uplifted. But does that what a tree wants, for example?
Speaker 1:we never asked that question. A tree wants four lights. It wants at least four lights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and we came up with these things purely based on visual, let's say, taste or ambition. That doesn't really relate to the needs of the nature. Nature does not really have that kind of vocabulary that we're trying to impose on it. So, yeah, do you need to uplight walls? But I have to say I have to put my hand up and that was me about maybe 10 years ago when I first but maybe 12, 13 years ago when I was a junior designer, just very curious entered the world of lighting design and I was excited that I'll like everything I can get in my head.
Speaker 2:But I hope that one of the interesting things happened over the course of the time is that I remember seeing the city dark document. That was amazing documentary made that really open my mouth to this issue in terms of light pollution. This is why these kind of conversations are very important. It comes from the point of this is also dark privilege. We're having a crowd here that is very well-burst about darkness and we're trying to oppose a culture that has come from the light privilege, as we see what I'm in, and that open form of conversation is so important to inform other people about this issue. However, it made me because I deal with light on a daily basis to actually completely change my diet and approach and vision into this, and therefore we need to call things into question. Why do you need to uplight walls? That's a very good question.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe the bats like it, I don't know. We'll see more about that in a little bit. Well, I do have some good news on some ordinances. Actually, at least one shoreside community on the Delaware coast is considering a dark sky ordinance. Lewis, adjacent to the more notable for Hobart Beach, is evaluating a potential ordinance that would regulate outdoor lighting within the city. The town of Lewis may be more familiar to the birders who listen to the show as they sit directly across the Delaware Bay from Cape May, new Jersey, which is a kind of mecca for East Coast birding here in the US. Lewis is part of the Atlantic Flyway and common seasonal migration path for the birds. And then we also have a piece that came from Cornwall over in the UK Plans to turn down the lights between midnight to 5 am. The measure, which looks largely driven by cost-cutting plan wrapped in greenwashing justifications, is taking place. At the same time, the community is switching over to LEDs. One thing to know from the BBC article while lighting will stay at full capacity in areas deemed necessary, such as hospital entrances, road intersections and town centers, the Cornwall Council noted that other councils have not seen an increase in crime or road accidents when adopting similar schemes. Who would have thought? And of course not.
Speaker 1:A show goes by where we don't talk about One most favorite object that's been built to date this sphere.
Speaker 1:But in this time we're going to talk about the MSG sphere, the British counterpart to Vegas' gigantic glowing globe. If you'll recall the last time we visited our heroes, billionaire James Dolan was doing his very best to shove the MSG sphere down the throats of terrified residents. Other residents looked to Vegas in absolute horror to what would befall their community should a second sphere be built there. Well, on November 20, london Mayor Siddy Kahn rejected the MSG sphere's application under the guise of causing significant light intrusion, resulting in significant harm to the outdoor neighboring properties, detriment to human health and significant harm to the general amenity enjoyed by residents of their homes. To his credit, benevolent billionaire James Dolan did offer residents blackout curtains, simply out of the kindness of his heart. Then, on December 2, british House Secretary Michael Gove decided to utilize a call in to review the reasonableness of Kahn's rejection, to which billionaire James Dolan spokesman quipped. As you said previously, we will focus on the many forward-thinking suckers I mean cities out there.
Speaker 4:Go back to Lewis for a second. The ordinance. That's wonderful. I love to hear that there's places where there are burders and they're getting involved. The Audubon Society is so popular and powerful Other environmental organizations. When they get on board like that, it really gives us some good results. I'm happy about that. Sierra Club is another one. It's just they're in favor of light pollution mitigation and I'm thrilled. It does seem as if not everybody's always on board, but that was nice. The sphere One in Las Vegas is just so obnoxious it's ridiculously, unbelievably horrific. I can't even imagine that there would be another one somewhere in the world.
Speaker 1:There is one being slayed to be built in Dubai, and this is totally separate from the Madison Square Garden piece. Dolan is trying to get more of his fears, but the Dubai one I believe that's where it's at they're going to be separate in their own thing. I asked people on a Spotify app when you listened to a show one of our prior shows if the sphere was the future of venues. I would say, personally, I would say it is. I think there's an aspect of it that is going to stay around. Spotify, I believe there was the future. You have a new concept of experience and we're moving more towards experiential activities across the board. You look at new stadiums that are built, new arenas. It's not just the arena and stadium, it's like a whole platform where you have integrated shopping and concert halls. It's almost its own downtown that's being built in. Many new plans, say for one in DC. Well, actually one in Virginia, in Nashville, stuff like that. I think that may present some challenges to the narrative. I don't know where we go on that narrative from there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it seems like we're stuck in this constant state of distraction and entertainment. If the same efforts were put forth to encouraging people to get out in nature and do all these wonderful things, you wonder what that shift would be and if there would be more emphasis on protecting the environment and things like that. Similar to Diane, I love hearing about dark-skinned ordinances. There's actually one. They're doing a public consultation portion of it right now and it's not too far from me. I think it's the first Canadian one, but the first one that I've been involved with light pollution that's going through the process. I'll be watching that closely to see. It was actually initiated by residents. It's a farm town, a very agricultural-based. They started looking at it because they were getting so many complaints from residents about trespass and glare and things like that. Driven by residents, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1:Ashley, you bring up a really good point. I think to date you haven't seen people try and classify lighting as a nuisance. They classify light trespasses a nuisance form of lighting, but it doesn't have the same virility of saying a nuisance. Is that what's going on in this community in Ontario?
Speaker 3:It sounds like that's what sparked this initiation of looking at a lighting ordinance, I think. In terms of nuisance, I think it exists. Everyone has a story that they can tell you where they have maybe a neighbor or something. They've been involved in some type of situation where they've had lighting be annoying. Even now, all you have to do is drive at night and you're blinded by car headlights that are brighter than ever. The people that I talk to seem to not really know where to turn. Who do I talk to then? Do I talk to the city? I think the issue is there. I just don't know that. A lot of people are voicing their concerns, obviously in this city they have been the friends that I talk to. Once they find out we're into astronomy and light pollution and this sort of thing, it becomes a question of oh well, I have this neighbor and his light is really bright and it's shining in my window. I don't know how to approach him. I don't know what to do about it.
Speaker 1:What do you end up saying when that neighbor approaches you?
Speaker 3:If it's someone that I know, I would say you talk to this neighbor, what's your relationship like with them? Could you bring it up in a conversation? If they're not really chatting on a chatting level with their neighbor, I would maybe suggest writing them a little letter, maybe putting in their mailbox. I definitely encourage a conversation before just taking it to the next step, to complaining to the city or something or whatever that next step is.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've always had an idea of maybe get a giant mirror with that. I know a microcollegian over at the Stern Darkness. He likes to send anonymous letters to people. I feel like you don't want to be passive, aggressive, you want to be friendly and take that road yeah.
Speaker 3:Going back to that, a cooperative approach, maybe explain the issue of why you're asking them to. Maybe could you just turn it off at a certain time and not leave it on overnight Maybe there's a compromise there and explain maybe why it is that you're asking them to turn it off. I think most people not all people would maybe be receptive to at least hearing why but I know that there's a lot of it's my property. You can't tell me what to do and that sort of thing as well, so it's tricky to navigate. That's why it's always kind of better to know what the relationship is like. I would have no problem talking to my neighbor because we talk to them regularly.
Speaker 1:If you were launching something off of your property onto your neighbor's property, would they not have a right to tell you what to do? If you're throwing a ball constantly at their wall. They not have a right to say hey, that's actually affecting me, because that's what you're doing with light.
Speaker 2:Not that if your neighbor is throwing a party and it's very loud, if you knock on the door, it's perfectly acceptable that oh sorry, I didn't know I will turn it down. But as soon as it's lighting well, you got curtains. I think we have mitigation measures in our built environment makes it less likely to be named as a nuisance because you have the measure to control it in some way. But it's definitely not the right attitude because then this means everything is meant to be blocked by a curtain street lighting, whatever neighbor's lighting, et cetera, because you have that mechanism. But that's not what it's meant for. It was initially designed for daylighting. So I find the culturally also interesting, the level that we can tolerate the light pollution or not nuisance as well.
Speaker 1:Well, this one is definitely going to challenge your level of tolerating light pollution. I want to get your thoughts on some art related articles. An intensely bright exhibit of unity lit up San Francisco's main commercial area for a four day span, between November 13th through November 16th, in support of APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 2023 Summit. The lights, including 12 laser beams, angled upward three degrees from the Harry Bridge's Plaza to the Twin Peaks Park area of the city. The lasers ran all night, from sunset to sunrise. Apec planners initially cut the laser exhibit from their budget due to cost constraints. However, two nonprofits, illuminate and the Civic Joy Fund, were able to cover at 150K price tag via crowdfunding campaigns. Illuminate San Francisco is an art based nonprofit who uses light as a main feature in public arts exhibits. The organization does appear to have deep pockets, apparently mostly from donations. Illuminate is the same organization behind an attempt to relight the Bay Bridge with double number of LEDs wrapping the sides of the cables to make the artwork more visible to the entire Bay area. They currently have raised over $8.5 million and are looking to close the gap in increments of $1 million and are currently sitting at 500K for this current round, according to Globe.
Speaker 1:At Night. The Bay area, inclusive of San Francisco and Oakland, and surrounding areas. California experienced 7% year over year increase in sky brightness and a 10 year span from 2011 to 2022. I should note that future Democratic hopeful, gavin Newsom, shot down AB38, a responsible lighting bill that attempted to curtail reckless lighting practices in public land. Alex Lee reintroduced AB38 in California Assembly in December 2022, or by a husband since held in suspension. The justification for the initial veto by Newsom was cost. I'll leave you at home to debate the merits of Newsom's justification. Last month, I had Bonnie Pangon and she made some remarks about the night sky becoming a giant canvas for art. I feel like Illuminate justifies their careless attitude toward night under the oblivious cloak of art. I will point out, illuminate did receive the blessing of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance in 2016. Despite that, I can't believe that brighter lights will not spill over into reflective water or to actually affect birds as they come off the bridge. Does it have to be art versus dark skies?
Speaker 4:It's a thing that's growing. I've seen it all over the country. In botanical gardens they get a lot of people that come through in the spring, summer and fall, and so now they've decided that winter is the season to light up all the botanical gardens with twinkly lights, because they're pretty.
Speaker 1:Like about 1.2 million of them, right, they're usually advertising millions, I think.
Speaker 4:In Pittsburgh, the Science Center has a big lit up cone on top. We have the mattress factory has brightly lit up white pixel sticks on top, because that's art. They're lighting the three sister bridges. They're putting 604,000 more lights on it. I just feel like it's like one step forward and 600,000 steps backwards. It's working so hard. I think art it's something. There's a ton of artists now that consider themselves light artists. That's what they do. Their art is in light at night and they had an exhibit recently up and down streets in town and it's just growing. I do not know how this is going to end. You know what it's going to end. It's going to end with light on the moon because we have lasers and we can put them there, and that's going to be art.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sky is the limit, literally.
Speaker 4:I'm sad.
Speaker 2:It's also the assumption that people often assume it's temporary. For example, sometimes for festival illumination or, let's say, for art purposes. These light fittings or luminaries are actually 100,000 times more powerful than the ones that you're using on a daily basis or street lighting purposes. The damage you're causing with a short span of time is tremendous. Even goes for sports lighting as well. The crazy thing is the lack of imagination involved with these. If you shine light lasers to the sky, people will look at it because evolutionarily we're not far away from mods and flies in the sense of we are drawn into brighter illumination or images etc. So it will attract attention. That doesn't necessarily mean you're successful in delivering a very beautifully composed art piece. It's just basically we have no other option. That's why that's the oldest trick in the book, that with the advertisement etc, it's always highly illuminated surfaces are utilized. But I like to also just quickly go back to the MSG sphere thing, because it was very close to home for me. Stratford is a well-built environment in the sense of it has a very new look and feel to the rest of London and I assume they probably imagined that they could bring this alien craft from Vegas and just basically landed in there, but there are lots of people living there still and I have to say hats off to Saad Akam for taking this decision. It's an incredibly bold decision, set a precedent for us that we cannot hold now, although it's still not done and does that, as Michael Goh said, like conservatives at these stage here in the UK I'm sorry I'm no longer in the UK I have to remind myself that there is currently that there's a push and pull between both parties politically. So whether it's going to sustain is a different question. But a big shout out to the MSG Stop, msg Sphere Community Group. They've done an amazing work. They worked so hard, they organized it and it was David versus Goliath. They reached out to as many people as possible. And also shout out to Saad Akam's design council. There are lots of really great experts in that and the advice that was given to him was obviously he made the best decision for the sake of the inhabitants living there because also the planning application made it clear that they didn't take into the strain and the resources this development was going to bring.
Speaker 2:So it's not only about light pollution, obviously, but it was a big aspect of it. But what I like to draw a kind of parallel between these two things lasers and MSG, sphere and stuff. It's a magnificent sphere ball. That is a state of the art, engineer right, and I've seen the concerts. In the interior it looks amazing and they could have just stopped there. But the interiors that are so gorgeous and amazing, like it's mind blowing. Had they made that exterior just switched off, that would have been such a massive statement in the context of light polluted Vegas because it would still interact with its surface and you know the ambient, abundant ambient elimination. But the challenge we see also the lack of imagination. Everything is turned into a canvas and screen and there was little creativity given. They're just projectors, screens, they're no different than your mobile phone but, you know, million times brighter. And that's the biggest problem we're facing as well the lack of imagination.
Speaker 1:Do you guys think this is just a fad, like right now we're going maximum in one direction. Is there going to be a recoil down the road?
Speaker 3:I mean, will they just continue to try and top it right Like that? There has to be something that's the next best and greatest thing? Like is it really? Are we going to start spiraling out of control? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Ashley, yeah, to your point. This year every baseball stadium got a new, massive, three times bigger than the old LED screen, and so there's a point where you can't physically fit more LEDs, I think. And in the side of a ballpark. I went down to hockey game the other night and the screens all crashed. They crashed in the shootout of the game and you actually were watching the game. You found yourself not fighting because you don't realize you're fighting. The whole experience of professional sports is really it's almost traumatizing these days. But you're fighting the constant, the two LED wrapped advertising things going around the stadium, the giant massive super HD jumbo tron thing that they got. You're fighting all that just to watch the game. And they went out and you're just watching the game and you feel like, oh, I feel so relaxed and I'm enjoying the game. This is great. Maybe this is just me. I feel like we're going way in one direction and 10 years down line we're going to be like, hey, remember back when it was cool to have these giant, massive screens everywhere?
Speaker 3:I mean I hope, yeah, I hope we look back and make it a different decision, but sorry, to go ahead.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm usually incredibly optimistic, but not in this case, because we did see all those drones, the fleets of drones that were lighting up the sky, and there was a proposal to put an artificial moon in China that would light up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, remember that.
Speaker 4:We're just going to get better technological innovations that will do things like that by lighting from space, so that all the solar panels will work all night if you just light up the whole area.
Speaker 1:Right, you got anyone have any crime except under the solar panels. Have to make sure there's multiple lights underneath the solar panels. That's right.
Speaker 3:We are actually getting that drone show is coming to Niagara Falls because they do a huge fireworks show. I feel like it's every night. It's probably not every night, it just feels like every night. So I don't know if they're replacing the fireworks with the drone show, but I mean, they both have their cons, but that was the illumination of the actual falls themselves. So yeah, it's its own thing.
Speaker 2:I think it's creating, it's starting to creating a duality. I'm like. I'm definitely the glasses are fainting helpful. At the same time, where the cities are getting definitely out of control, we're seeing smaller communities, rural communities, getting much better, clamping on the diminished infrastructure and resources lost. Then what we're seeing is then the small communities end up inspiring bigger developments. You must have heard like in Saudi Arabia they're doing this massive Etsy development where dark skies are incredible, like it's ultra luxurious hospitality, but dark skies is the biggest selling point for that area. So we often forget that it was actually the small communities made this movement sexy. But dark skies don't belong to anybody. That's the beauty of it. So we're very happy to see this president also poking up elsewhere as well and hopefully they will allow the culture to shift. But I think definitely in the cities it will get worse first before it gets better.
Speaker 4:The big problem here is that you can have 99% of the people understanding once you see bad lighting, it's hard to not see it anymore. You can have 99% of the people understanding this and then one person who can ruin it for everybody, because I mean, I've actually seen weaponized lights in a residential community where they intentionally bought big spotlights and put them all over shining red at their neighbor who they didn't like.
Speaker 1:Isn't that the whole premise behind the Chicago crime lab study in New York City? Weaponized lights.
Speaker 4:That is what ended up happening. That wasn't, I think, the intent, but that seems to be what it's developed into. They are still there. It was a study and then they just left them there.
Speaker 2:Well, these mobile float light projectors that were meant to be temporary and now they're like permanent, isn't it?
Speaker 4:600,000 lumens on generators Thinking smelly, loud, gas generators shining right at people's windows.
Speaker 1:I would be interested to see what the long-term implications of that study would be, as my initial my gut would say that the initial shock would probably change behaviors, but over time people get used to things. They don't care about environment. If there's always something in the environment, they're just going to tune it out and they'll just go back to their normal activity.
Speaker 4:I don't think the study is going on anymore. The lights are still there, but I don't think the study is still happening.
Speaker 2:This particular case was brought to my attention by other lighting professionals in the US, Like Justice Grip, it's Edward Bertolimo and Mia Sheafer-Ozburn. It was dreadful and it's such an extreme case. I don't think because they had lots of interactions with the community and basically consulted them. Nobody can be happy with that level of treatment. That's such an extreme example. It's obscene that it's still out there as well. It's unacceptable.
Speaker 1:Before we switch over to our ecology segment, I want to just give you guys a chance to tell people where they can find you, diane, if you want to give a shout out to anything going on your end, any new projects and where people could be able to reach out to you.
Speaker 4:I'm easy to find DianeTurncheckcom. I try to put all my interviews up there If people haven't yet interested in seeing V-Talk ad nauseam about the subject. Yeah, I've been working with a group called the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon to make video games transformational video games to change people's minds. In the spring, a team put together a game called Lost in Light where you were a bird in a flock of birds and you came up in Pittsburgh over Mount Washington, which is very dark. There's a lot of parks there and you came up over and you see where the three rivers come together with the bridges which will now be lit, and the birds in the flock get dazzled by this city lights and they fly into the city, attracted between all the buildings, and crash and die. And that's the end of the video game. And a screen comes up showing how many birds die every year. Up to a billion birds die in the US from artificial light at night and building collisions. And that's it's a Kobayashi Maru. That's the game.
Speaker 1:Wow. I like that Bring it in the Star Trek into this. This is good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they took that to Games for Change in New York City.
Speaker 2:Diane, like you know, is there a happy ending to that, or is it? Collision is your only way out.
Speaker 4:That's it. Light pollution kills birds. There you go.
Speaker 1:This is going to be a five star review. Right there on the App Store, do you get to choose the bird? You are?
Speaker 4:No, they're just one of all the same. They all look the same, the birds.
Speaker 2:This is not angry birds, bill. Sorry, there is no good ending to this Working with students.
Speaker 4:I guess that's the thing is. I'm working with a lot of students who have different projects that they're working on what's the name of the game again?
Speaker 1:Lost in Light, lost in Light, okay. So if I want to feel even worse about our current situation with Night and I'll play Lost in Light, that would be a great good game to play in October, I think. Ashley, what's going on with you? You guys did a ZWC Star video that I'm very excited because I believe that I'm getting that for Christmas. So I watched the video and I was like all right, can't wait. I'm hoping to take that with me down to a big bend for the Eclipse this year.
Speaker 3:Amazing. Yeah, we just. I think we had it for maybe a week by the time we put the review out. So we're going to have one clear night with it, but it's I can already tell it's going to be a lot of fun and it is going to be amazing for travel. So we are also we're traveling to New Brunswick for the total solar eclipse in April and we're hoping that we can bring that on board when we fly to go to the eclipse.
Speaker 3:That'll be kind of our backup camera that's operating in the background while we're, you know, taking pictures with our cameras and whatnot. But what's most exciting, I think, is how it appeals to just anyone and everyone who's interested in space or astronomy. You don't need to know anything about astrophotography. You don't have to put together this huge rig full of all these different pieces of equipment and it's just going to get people out and exploring. And as an educator, I can see the outreach and education potential and I just think the more we get people out under the stars and under the sky, under our dark skies, I think the more interest we'll get in people wanting to protect that. And so I think, more than anything, it'll be great for just astronomy in general and getting people interested.
Speaker 1:So I mean Actually I used to do a lot of outreach here in Philly, actually through City Skies, which was a NASA-funded program through Franklin Institute, and you'll go to different sections of the city and I bring my DoB, my DoB Sony and Telescope. It's a big light bucket and kids just like looking at stars, but now you can actually show them really cool things like nebulas and galaxies, I presume just on a phone from a little tiny device and on top of that I just picked up like a $150 pair of these military gray binoculars and I'm hoping you know in the future if I do star parties, now I can actually show people like you can look on the screen to see stuff you can't see necessarily with your naked eye, and then you can look right here to see stuff you know, just using both your eyes, so that way you don't have to actually look, you know squinting through one eye piece or whatever. It's an amazing game changer. We're going down a path where now city kids have a chance. They have a chance to exploit our curiosity.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah, it's going to be pretty incredible. I think it's going to be really popular. I mean, I already know, just based on ears in the astrophotography community how many people are interested and at least obtaining or using one. But, like you said, yeah, live stacking, you know, right on your phone or your tablet or whatever's connected, and just as each exposure comes in, your image is getting better and better. And you know, here's the Orion Nebula, like for everyone to see who's surrounding you. So, yeah, that's pretty exciting, like to be able to show somebody.
Speaker 3:I know we did an outreach event at a local school and we also brought our dog, our 14 inch Skywatcher dog, and just the the. Oh my God, I just assumed you just just saw Jupiter and I can't even believe it. My mind is blown. Like just the excitement that comes out of kids is just to foster that and to be able to push them kind of to that next level you don't know what you know they're going to end up studying or doing later in life and to inspire. That, I think, is important.
Speaker 1:So so true. Where can people find out about anything you're doing about Astro Backyard?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so people can find all their beginner astro photography information at astrobackyardcom and on find astrobackyard on any social media platform. My personal Instagram channel is nights guy underscore ash, so you can find me there on Instagram. And yeah, we're just making plans for next year, getting some exciting travel set in the books. We're going to a new star party next year, the winter star party in Florida Keys.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you guys taking the train car or the car train.
Speaker 3:We're going to fly we're actually going to fly just because it's such a long way for us. I think it's like 28 hours or something from here. It's yeah, so yeah we're going to fly, but it'll be nice to escaped the winter in the middle of February and go to some nicer weather, and yeah, that'll be exciting.
Speaker 1:That'll be a great time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm excited. Star parties are always a fun event and it'll be nice to experience a new one especially ones where you can wear shorts. There's a few far between and some new targets.
Speaker 3:You get some new, more southern targets down in the keys, so that'll be exciting. And then just one plug for some of the dark sky initiative. I mentioned it a little bit earlier how we kind of started this little affiliate group with dark sky international called dark sky camping, where we're hoping to educate people about appropriate use of lighting while they're out in nature camping. So if there's any listener out there that would love to join that movement or be part of that group, I would encourage you to maybe reach out to dark sky international and become an advocate and you can join us there.
Speaker 1:Excellent Good stuff. Karen. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to say type my name because that will take forever lighting a dark skies design studio, you'll be able to find me. My name is Karen. I'm the founder of dark source, a light and sound practice driven by social and environmental values, and you know I've been very privileged enough to be working with some amazing communities and and also looking at being adjacent to interesting people such as this panel. It was very inspiring to me. We really appreciate it. And the last big news that we have is I don't know if I'm officially allowed to say it, but I might come back to you to edit it out later on but we just been awarded by becoming the first dark sky community in Wales through with pristine in Norton.
Speaker 2:We've been working on this project for about five years now and it's a it's a testament to, you know, the resilience of the community and the incredible support that we received from the town council and the police counter council, and it's it's an incredible achievement to be able to do these things, because my job is not just design, it's communication, mediation, mobility, engagement and, you know, coordinating standards and talking to authorities. So it's it's such a great kind of resolution and for all of us to arrive at this point, so hopefully there will be many more. You'll hear from us soon. Can't wait.
Speaker 1:Can't wait. And how many? Just out curiosity, how many people were on that team that worked hard? Or, of course, the five years.
Speaker 2:A lot. I mean, like you know, with the best will in the world, everybody's, you know, on board with it. It took us five years, can you imagine, like if there was enough resistance to block that from happening. But you know, it was kindled by a local astronomy group that grew in Snowballs and the town council when they, you know, took that on board and took it to the heart. And that's the initial gateway that I always try to remind people. Your local councillors or politicians are your community members, so they do care, and that's the biggest part of communication and I'm looking at that territory goes through the right way of explaining that this is not about pitch black you know darkness but having the right light at the right time at the right place.
Speaker 1:Well said. Okay, before we jump into ecology and health and finish out the show, just want to remind people. If you're listening to a show for the first time, thank you and be sure to hit subscribe. You know whatever player you're listening from. You can also sign up for our once a month newsletter announcing new shows via our website or at light pollution newscom, and feel free to say hi. You can always reach out to me, bill at light pollution newscom, or by going to Instagram, light pollutionnews or LinkedIn light pollution news and this is really cool.
Speaker 1:I do post random stuff that I come across when I'm making these episodes or pulling together different things, or stuff that people just send over to me that I'm not going to include in this show. Go to our Reddit at r slash light pollution news. Stop by and say hi. Okay, let's jump into ecology. And well, actually, before we get there, diane, you had something you wanted to share a policy brief from the European Union. This came out in November, which details justification action for mitigating the problems of excess or misdirected lighting. Why don't you tell us a little bit about this brief? The term brief is a bit of a snowboard documents quite large. I think it pretty much covers all known light pollution. Ecological research right.
Speaker 4:It's 75 pages so it's brief, but it covers so much and they don't go into a ton of depth about everything. This is more of a beginner guide for politicians is how I'm looking at it. It covers all the subjects from the history of light pollution what light pollution is and all the definitions, and it's a service for people who don't know about light pollution but have to get involved with it. Forecasts environmental policy. So I love that. It's tagging with the environmental groups, which is new and it's wonderful. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for everybody to get on board. The environmental groups are such powerful, well-connected groups. It makes me happy to see this and it's forward thinking.
Speaker 4:So it's issues on the horizon, it's the future brief they do have the little disclaimer does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Commission on there, but it's for them and there's a lot of new tech that they have up on the horizon. So they actually in among the beautiful diagrams that we've all seen about what light pollution is and how do you stop it and the bright light at the right time with the right wattage, the right color temperature. All of those diagrams. It's got things like headlights. You could have tech in the headlights to change the brightness depending on your surroundings. Things like the highway lights that are completely off, because in the future, if there's driverless cars, you're not going to need lights. They don't use visible light spectra a lot of times, and so you would only have the lights that were capable of going on for accidents or highway exit ramps and things.
Speaker 4:The new forms of lighting. They talk about nanomaterial, phosphorus and organic LEDs, and so there is in. There there were new things that I had never seen before. So I'm going through, I'm going through, I'm going through and it's all like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what I found it very interesting. So, future brief about everything that we know briefly, and then what may come in the future.
Speaker 1:And for you at home, we do have this right. Just check out the links in this month's show and you can go right to that policy brief in there. I wanted to go to my representative and say, hey, I think we should really consider having a good lighting ordinance in our community. What I showed that representative of this, or what do I do with this?
Speaker 4:You would if they had asked for it. I wouldn't just drop it like a leave behind when you go to talk to them and be like, oh, by the way, I've fled, there's 75 feet and a lot of this stuff they talk about like I have test WF photometers here and I use the dark sky meter app all the time they talk about, and they even talk about earth hour and things that I think are important, but not necessarily for that purpose. I think that would deal a bit much for them, and I do because I've reached out to my city commissioners and I end up just telling them to go to the Dark Sky International website and you'll find all the information you could possibly want there. But this brief is wonderful for, I think, students who are interested and know nothing to get into the field, so I think it's a good, solid compendium. They could have sold this as a book instead of giving it away free like this. This would have been a great book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know how to do that and I think there might be only five or six sales. I don't know if you sold it as a book, but as a freebie. I think it's a great resource that you can, like you said, for anyone who's serious about trying to understand the issues. It's a great little. Everything's already bound and I think that's one of the biggest issues. One of the reasons why I started this show is one of the biggest issues is so hard to have all that information. It's so hard to have a one source, one stop shop, and Dark Sky does a phenomenal job. They do a great job On the news side, like we have so many news stories coming through, so I decided well, you know what? Hey, update people each month on what's happening out there. So, since we're here, we're on ecology, so we know more about bats this month from globally ecology and conservation.
Speaker 1:Dim lights still impact bats. Specifically, little brown bats were the big losers from light pollution. Little brown bats not only made up a small percentage of the population around exterior lighting, but similarly experienced decreased foraging activity. Even when very dim, less than one lux light source was located up or is a 75 meters away, it was found that big brown bats experienced a reduction in foraging upwards of 25 meters from light source. That's big brown. The light source using this study had a max lux of 75. From integrated zoology, researchers identified steeper drop off and forging behavior for echolocation vocalizations and increased freezing behavior, which is a temporary pause in a bat movement when exposed to LED lights. While all LED colors impacted, the Asian party colored bats that were studied within this experiment green, yellow and red appear to be the most detrimental. In urban ecologies, a comprehensive study of bat populations in Mexico City found that bats sensitivity to environmental factors from environmental pollutants of all types, inclusive of light, made them a prime indicator of urban habitat health.
Speaker 1:Now on to the rest. Light colors have an impact on predation. A study in basic and applied ecology looked at the rate of yellow and brown snails as they were attacked under a natural night setting under broad spectrum artificial light and a warmer, mitigated artificial light. Both sets of snails saw a dramatic decrease in the predation under broad spectrum artificial light. In fact, predation chances even flipped in favor of the yellow snail under broad spectrum light. When using mitigated lighting, predation rates similarly decreased to a lower extent, with the yellow snail edging out the brown snail Using 3000 Kelvin LED lamp. Researchers in plant biology found artificial light impacts duckweed. The study paired a set of plants utilizing LED lighting all night against the control, which retained a dark night setting. The study found a substantial growth variation in favor of the plants given artificial light. The total leaf area of the experimental group exceeded the control, but also showcased increased protective dark pigmentation, for which researchers believe is a defense mechanism to reduce the stress induced on cellular damage.
Speaker 1:Oh, and let's not forget birds. An interesting study in the proceedings of the Royal Society be on common pallid and alpine swifts reveal a possible flight connection to the moon. There appears to be a direct relationship between common and pallid swifts flight height to the moon's level of luminosity. Similarly, all three species extend their nighttime foraging under increased moonlight. There we go for the ecology rundown. We have one health related article this month and that's a study from occupational and environmental medicine which they did not find a correlation between artificial light at night as it pertains to cardiovascular disease driven deaths versus natural causes driven deaths. This study looked at a sample size of 273,000 individuals and researchers in this case looked at mortality rates and attempted to correlate those rates against a brightly lit environment, as defined by the use of time varying satellite data. That wraps up our studies for this month, moving forward in designations.
Speaker 4:And I just ask that very last thing. You said satellite data. That was the DSP satellite, the old one, not the VIRS satellite with the day night band. That was the old one. The new ones have better spatial, temporal radiometric resolution. No one should be using DMSP data. All the medical studies keep using that, despite the fact that Chris Kaiba and others have written many times about how that is not accurate enough to say much of anything about when you compare it to the medical studies. So as much as I really love that people are trying to do this work, why are they not using the latest satellite information? It's very frustrating. I don't know how the medical community is not hearing this refrain that light pollution researchers keep saying over and over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's virtually blind to cool white lighting, which is the most abundant form of light pollution. So it's only detecting the warm color temperatures, which is very old school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that study, I think, had a pretty steep curve to begin with.
Speaker 2:Yes, the vertical they are looking for is like that's the far-rich. I mean, there are definitely other identifiers that they skip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we do have good news, in addition to Karim's future designation that he spoke about. So here we go. We have the 92-acre Cigaro National Park in Arizona as an urban night sky place. Wyoming receives its first dark sky park designation at Sinks Canyon and someone's going to have to help me with the pronunciation here for, as Poland receives its first dark sky community, someone please help me with this. Is it Sopotnia Walka? I'm giving it my all.
Speaker 2:I'm going to guess it's Sopotnia Bielka, but I have no idea. Yuck, I love it. I think that's it.
Speaker 1:That's great, and pay attention if you live in the land down under the Sunshine Coast, located an hour and a half north of Brisbane, queensland, australia. The community is attempting to preserve 900 square kilometers it's roughly 560 miles of the Mary River catchment as a dark sky reserve. Dark sky reserves require a minimum of 700 square kilometers of dark sky, along with dedicated community commitments to maintaining those dark skies. So good work to all those communities and hopefully maybe they can have this as well. The town of Cottonwood, arizona, is looking for a few good dark sky committee members, and the reason being is because Cottonwood became a dark sky community dating back to 2019. So they actually have positions, that which they're trying to find people who coordinate dark sky Fence, education, outreach, annual reporting and do sky readings. So there you go. That's what it comes along with becoming a dark sky place, and I'm going to finish tonight up because you guys have been troopers. This is a good one. Finally, tonight, you know, sometimes you come across student run college newspapers and the writing is exactly as you expect. It's not sensational, but it's also not without heart. Meg Richards, writing for Emerson University's Berkeley Beacon, weaves together a familiar story to us all. In short. Richards is surely suffering from a John Barrettine turns the catalysia. Let's finish tonight with a reading from Richards, op ed.
Speaker 1:This past summer my boyfriend hosted bonfires on his parents farm for all our friends and coworkers to hang out at. During the final bonfire this summer, we decided to sleep outside on his trampoline and look up at the stars. Since he lives in a property with a lot of open space, it was the most stars is seen at once. Suddenly, before we dozed off, we saw shooting star in our sleepy haze. That star has been amused for all my shitty poetry and watercolor paintings ever since. You can see watercolor paintings in this article, which is actually quite funny.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite pastimes in Virginia is stargazing With the open countryside, just the stones throw away from my house. I maintain that we have a perfect view for stargazing. When I come home from a long night of work, the best way for me to decompress is to look at the stars for a good 10 to 20 minutes before heading inside to debrief with my parents. There's something about looking up and being reminded that the universe is so much bigger than us. It melts my worries and qualms away instantly.
Speaker 1:Once I came to Boston, I could no longer use this therapeutic technique. My first outing in a Boston common at night marked a moment. I couldn't find a single star, even on a clear night, amidst the glow of buildings, car headlights, buses and street lights. The city's lights polluted the night sky, making it impossible to see any constellations, let alone a shooting star. When you consider the multiple skyscrapers, marquees and street lights that a city like Boston has, it's no wonder that a once incandescent scene in the sky is nothing more than dull, gray and starless. As of 2020, massachusetts was the only state in the Northeast that has yet to pass legislation combating light pollution. This light pollution map shows how light pollution affects different areas in Massachusetts. The light gray area, also known as Boston's classified as sky, is bright and discolored everywhere. Most people don't look up Until then. I will go home a couple of times a year and soak up the stars. I will sleep outside and point out my favorite constellations with my dad. I will take low quality pictures on my phone and think of Boston, who doesn't yet know the power of the stars, reminding you how small life is and how big it could be.
Speaker 1:I want to thank my guests today. They interned check Ashley Northcote and Karen Esfragla. You guys were amazing. I had a lot of fun. I hope you guys had a lot of fun. I would love for you guys to join me again sometime. Light pollution news is recorded on the second to last Sunday of every month. We actually recorded this one early due to the holidays. You can learn more about today's show by heading over to lightpollutionnewscom. I'm your host, bill McGeeley, reminding you to shine the light only where it's needed and have a great start to your new year. Thank you again for listening and thank you all for your continued support.