August 2024: A Right to Night?

Host Bill McGeeney is joined by Betty Buckley who made this great film, the Stars at Night and by Leo Smith, who is now starting up a new Coalition to Reduce Light Pollution!

See Full Show Notes, Lighting Tips and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Like this episode, share it with a friend!

Bill's Picks:

• 'Security' lights intrude on dark skies, Trisha Hussey, Santa Fe New Mexican. 
  
  
• Feelings of safety for visitors recreating outdoors at night in different artificial lighting conditions, Journal of Environmental Psychology. 
  
  
• Personal light exposure patterns and incidence of type 2 diabetes: analysis of 13 million hours of light sensor data and 670,000 person-years of prospective observation, The Lancet Regional Health Europe. 
  
  
• Bring Back the Light: The mission to save the fireflies in Bali, Obamate Briggs, NewScientist. 
  
  
• Dutch astrocartographer Wil Tirion will be remembered as the creator of the most beautiful star maps and atlases of our time, Govert Shilling, Sky and Telescope. 

Chapters

• 8:17 Stars at Night Documentary
• 15:57 The Right to Night
• 29:26 The Future of Street Lighting
• 33:29 Impact of Light Pollution on Health

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:06

light pollution news, august 2024. A right tonight our street lights long for this world, and when more people feel safe in unlit spaces, if we took a harder line of preventing crime. Oh, and fireflies in indonesia. Learn what one conservation group is doing to bring fireflies back. We finish up our august show, joined by betty Buckley of the film Stars at Night and Leo Smith, who's working to grow his new coalition to reduce light pollution. Let's jump to it, jumping in where we left off light pollution news for the second half of august.

Bill McGeeney: 0:55

With my guests, we have the man with a hand in the very craft of dark sky facilitation, mr Leo Smith and filmmaker from the Stars at Night, betty Buckley. If you're not familiar with it, jump over to show notes where you'll see a link to view some of the trailers. Or, better yet, you go to the Okitex Star Party where it will be shown, betty. So I want to talk about this show and I know in the first half we mentioned that or you mentioned that the show's kind of answering some questions that you had. Why don't you tell me about the production of the Stars at Night?

Betty Buckley: 1:30

The Stars at Night began as an effort by me being a member of the Comel County Friends of the Night Sky to build awareness and education about light pollution, like we were talking about in the previous episode about light pollution, like we were talking about in the previous episode. So much of the issues around getting people to adapt is just education and awareness. And since I am a filmmaker I'm also a teacher at Texas State University. I teach the business of film and producing I thought, well, maybe I should use my skill set, which is filmmaking. I'm not a scientist, but I have a very big interest in astronomy. I've made a film called Easter Island Eclipse in 2012. I've made a series for Curiosity Stream that I produced all the clips across America.

Betty Buckley: 2:18

When I had the idea, I just pitched it to actually my producers a former student of mine and he liked it and I thought, ok, the idea was why are humans so connected to the stars? Why do we feel emotion and where does that come from and how is it communicated? So the big question is could the stars be connected to original storytelling, which, of course, you know it certainly is today. Look at Star Wars and so forth. I was just curious. I just had this question. So I asked Tyler Norgren, who I featured in my series Eclipse Across America for CuriosityStream. I said do you think there's a connection between the stars and storytelling? And he said oh, absolutely there is. And he really surprised me by saying that because I was kind of shy in asking the question, to be honest.

Bill McGeeney: 3:11

What made you shy? Why were you thinking there might not be?

Betty Buckley: 3:14

I just felt like was it kind of out there as a little woo-woo to ask that question? But I was just curious why I felt personally this emotion and where did it come from and how was it translated to people. So I asked him that and he said absolutely. And then I was sharing this idea that I wanted to make a film with Amy Jackson from the Hill Country Alliance, which is an organization that I think might be really interested in the coalition to reduce light pollution, because Hill Country Alliance brought Amy Jackson, who's a night sky educator, to help us organize. So Hill Country Alliance helps facilitate the organization of grassroots organizations all over the Hill Country and all over Texas.

Betty Buckley: 3:59

And we used to be very few and now there's 20, 30't know 20, 30. I don't know how many there are, they're growing. So the idea started there and then I just thought, well, I'll just start. And then we had this thing called a pandemic, literally Like we were all going to meet to organize our group, the Comel County Friends of the Night Sky, and we couldn't. We were going to meet at the library and they're like, nope, library's closed. We're having a pandemic, stay home. So we started meeting on Zoom and that's how I met Amy Jackson and I mentioned this thing, that I didn't want to volunteer for too much because I wanted to make this film. So I had on board my young producer. But she reached out to me and said Betty, my husband is the cinematographer, you know, a cinematographer and a producer for Austin City Limits. We would both like to help you with your film. And I said well, you know, I don't have any money, right?

Bill McGeeney: 4:54

That's a great pitch.

Betty Buckley: 4:56

And she was like yeah, we don't care. And I was like, well, of course I would like your help, you know. So we just started and Jonathan Jackson filmed the first interview with Amy Jackson and I interviewed her over Zoom because we were all in lockdown. You know, we just did what we're doing here. Then my producer found a cinematographer that had a reason to go to upstate New York where Tyler Norgren was, and at that point it was safe to film outside in Ithaca. So we filmed him outside in the forest, 12 feet away. You know, the whole thing over zoom. And then it just continued. There we found a wonderful person who should have her own film.

Betty Buckley: 5:39

Carolyn Boyd works at Texas state university as a researcher in archaeology and studying this ancient rock art mural that she says tells the story of the birth of the sun in the beginning of time. And it's rock art down on the lower Pecos River in Texas and that's a star story. So it just mushroomed from there. I just kept finding more and more and more interesting people to interview and we did it in this way over time when we had time. But I wanted to not just make it about experts, just like expert B-roll, expert B-roll, I felt like to effect change, to make a difference. I really wanted to reach the people that I was teaching in my classroom. To make a difference. I really wanted to reach the people that I was teaching in my classroom. So I identified the 20 somethings and I identified four interesting students. I thought they were just interesting, you know, and filmmakers, and curious. And I thought would you like to go with this to the heart of Big Bend and you make your own film, that I'll use a piece of your film in mind and you're going to answer the question. You know what would it be like to see the sky, as the ancients did? Because the you can't see it. In San Marcos you can see a couple of stars.

Betty Buckley: 6:55

And we wrote for this grant. We were all excited. It was fully funded, everyone was going to get paid. Yay. And we didn't get the grant. So I went to Amy and Jonathan and Ryan Salt, my producer, and said I don't know what to do other than we can try to raise the money for the expenses. And I went to the students and everybody was in a hundred percent. And I went to Tom Copeland, who's a friend who created our film program and he's very well connected. He was our film commissioner for 22 years and I said I don't know how to raise money, but this is my idea. Do you know anybody that might be interested? We're going to create the executive producer experience. If you invest, you can come with us and be part of the film crew and, you know, be in the Chisos Basin and we're going to film astrophotography.

Bill McGeeney: 7:47

And you mentioned well, you mentioned, you did a lot of it at Big Bend right, yes, and that was the trip for the four young filmmakers.

Betty Buckley: 7:54

We were going to go to the Chisos Basin and the heart of the Big Bend and visit all around there and in Lajitas and shoot astrophotography and then they were going to make their own film and then somehow I thought somewhere in there's a film story. So when I asked Tom if he knew someone, he said well, I know me. And so he put the money in. That really jumpstarted this whole process and we had a ball. We had just enough money for the housing and the gas and the per diem and we had a great time and we just sort of this merry band of adventurers out there doing this.

Betty Buckley: 8:34

And out of the four films, they all were interesting in their own right, but one of them had a really strong through line to help pull together what all of them experienced and interweave that with the different experts we also connected in this to me was like meeting, you know, mick Jagger or something. Bobak Tafrisi oh wow, because he had this idea of the world at night and I've been a huge fan of his for years and, you know, through this experience I joined a dark sky international all the dark sky groups it's transformative experience here, Betty.

Betty Buckley: 9:10

It was amazing, and when Bobby Tafrischi said, yes, that he would not only let us interview him but let us use his astrophotography, I was just well, literally over the moon. So the whole thing took three years from the idea to editing. We had our world premiere at the Austin Film Festival last October and now we actually are in 400 colleges. We have an educational distributor, so colleges and universities can use our film or part of the film as part of a curriculum. Students can just stream it through their library and then, just organically, because we've had this premiere, we've been at a couple other festivals. We just started screening. People would just say, would you like to screen at our brew pub that serves a dark sky brew? Well, yes, they come up with a little licensing fee and it really helps because, although we got probably $22,000 in donations, the other 20 something thousand my husband and I put in. So that's helping us pay back the cost.

Betty Buckley: 10:11

But it's the kind of filmmaking that I always wanted to make. It's the first thing that I ever wrote and directed myself to some sort of film that would try to inspire social change, that would try to help people arrive at the idea that we don't need light pollution. You can fix it and not cost anything, and what you get is literally the universe, and what that means is phenomenal for the people that get to experience it. And also we try to share the realization that it's not actually easy. You have to probably get in the car and go to a site and work a little hard just to see something this spectacular, and so that whole process took about three years and we're going on our fourth year now. We're seeking a traditional distributor or we'll be distributing it through, you know ourselves, an aggregator, something like that.

Bill McGeeney: 11:08

Well, let's take a little listen to a little piece of the trailer here.

Betty Buckley: 11:13

Night Sky and our stories about the stars.

Bill McGeeney: 11:17

And what I find interesting is, like every culture, because I've worked with a lot of different storytellers, every culture, and so it really doesn't matter where you're at All these stories vibrate to the human experience.

Betty Buckley: 11:29

Join us as we explore the relationships between astronomy, mythology and original storytelling.

Bill McGeeney: 11:36

So, Betty, what's the response been? How has the response been for the actual show? Because who have you heard from?

Betty Buckley: 11:42

It's been really great, you know. I will say one of the most enjoyable things is the response worldwide. Definitely in our community. We're screening at the Big Bend through visitbigbendcom in late fall we don't have the exact dates, but they've invited us to screen at Lajitas and in Marathon and we put all of those on our website. But we also did something and I have to tell you that was not as hard as you might think.

Betty Buckley: 12:09

I really wanted to do a sidewalk astronomy sequence and if you're not familiar with sidewalk astronomy, it's this wonderful thing that's been done for many, many years, where, as Leo's I'm sure, familiar with, where someone and you can do it during the day and you can do it in a crowded city. And it's where someone brings out a big telescope and people walking by you say would you like to see the moon, would you like to see Saturn? And people stop and they look and they look through, and not every one of them, but most of them are just like, oh my gosh. Well, we did that in Austin with the Amy's Big Telescope and had this wonderful reactions from people, and then I had this idea that I really wanted to open it up.

Betty Buckley: 12:53

So, through Dark Sky International, through Betty Mya Foote and other partners that we found just literally through the internet the Traveling Telescope folks in Kenya just I had a former intern just track down people in Rotterdam, just anybody want to be involved in this film and do a sidewalk astronomy sequence for us. And there's this wonderful group in Pakistan called the Cosmic Tribe and they would go out and do the sequence, a sidewalk astronomy sequence for us. So through that we've had a screening at the Lahore Science Festival in Pakistan because of Rayan Khan, who started the Cosmic Tribe. Serendipitously I took some film students to France this summer for a new program I'm doing and serendipitously Rayan moved to France and facilitated a screening in Lyon. So here I meet this person that I've met through the internet, through our collective love of the stars, for the first time in France at a screening.

Betty Buckley: 13:57

He recognizes our friends of the traveling telescope, help launch their chapter of dark sky international by screening. In Kenya we have met a wonderful person, I think his name is Cosmic Trung and he's in Hanoi, and so those connections have been really, really fun. And then just to sort of word of mouth. We're talking to a library that has a planetarium that's in Illinois. We're talking to a library that has a planetarium in New Jersey. We're talking to some people at National Parks. I love Kevin Poe, the Dark Ranger, and the people that he's introduced me to because he was very instrumental in helping Tyler Nordgren disseminate a lot of what he's. The WPA posters that are featured in my film called Half the Park is After Dark. America's National Parks.

Betty Buckley: 14:44

I have an old I have an old poster of his he's signed that are featured in my film called half the park is after dark.

Bill McGeeney: 14:46

america's national parks I have an old, I have an old poster of his. He signed years, like 14 years ago or so. Uh, out of bryce canyon.

Betty Buckley: 14:53

Yes, bryce canyon hopefully someday we get to screen in bryce canyon, because my favorite screenings of all the screenings we've done is just a local brew pub that has a dark skies brew, but they screened it outside. So as the sun went down, the stars came out and we started the film. People are watching the film but they're also looking up and then at the end, you know, amy had her telescope and it was just this. The engagement was tremendous, you know, and to see the realization, sometimes we actually hang on to little kids that are with their families. You know, in France there was a little boy in this community screening and he was just, but you could tell you know his thing is astronomy, but you know it's just been really fun.

Bill McGeeney: 15:37

Yeah, it sounds like quite the journey. Well, glad to have you here today, betty, and very much looking forward to seeing that show when I've seen the full extension of the movie, when I can.

Betty Buckley: 15:47

Yes, I'll be sending you a screener and we are, like I said, we're looking for a distributor and we are open to individual screenings all over.

Bill McGeeney: 15:56

Sounds great. Well, let's get started with the second half of today's show. Starts the second half. Remember, you can find all the articles for today's show over at lightpollutionnewscom. Make sure you hit the subscribe button to light pollution news and automatically show updates in your feed, or you can find us over at linkedin, instagram, facebook and many more. You can touch with me directly at bill at lightpollutionnewscom. So let's get at it.

Bill McGeeney: 16:20

The theme of the second half of the show might as well be this do people have a right tonight? Tricia hussey out of santa fe, new mexico, might believe so. She wrote a letter to editor in santa fe, new mexican, detailing light trespass, which a form of light pollution that became apparent when a neighboring property housed a new business of some type and, unlike many responsible businesses, this company apparently installed technically compliant exterior lighting that is now right of salt in her property. She attempted to communicate with the business multiple times, but unfortunately the business is pretty fine with just being an intrusive and irresponsible neighbor. This one, this idea, this idea of a right to night Betty, you went down this path. This film took years to make. You got to meet all these great people. Do we have a right to night, betty, you went down this path. This film took years to make. You got to meet all these great people. Do we have a right to night?

Betty Buckley: 17:10

Absolutely, we have a right to night. It's our birthright. There's a clip we use in the film called that you guys will probably recognize but my young viewers don't and it's Carl Sagan saying you know the cosmos is a part of us, that you know we are made of star stuff and I believe that connection is true and powerful and you know we see it resonated in our storytelling, in our pop culture. You see Sirius, radio, eclipse vehicles, the iDrive, a Subaru, which is the Pleiades. Absolutely, people have a right tonight.

Bill McGeeney: 17:52

Leo, what are your thoughts on that?

Leo Smith: 17:54

I keep coming back to the right that you have to be free from noise pollution. You have the right to be free from light pollution too. Those waves that are coming at you, whether they're sound waves or light waves, are intruding on your space. And why should that be just assumed that it's okay? Because it's not. As I said before, I think sometimes, if the person that is the offender is non-cooperative, that taking the time to file a legal action to have brought before court as a nuisance case is often worth doing simply for the fact that it's going to cost the person that's committing this problem a lot of money to defend, whereas it would cost very little to do it right.

Bill McGeeney: 18:48

What would you recommend to someone who is in this situation? Do you guys have any thoughts on what you recommend, how they would communicate this idea of being able to not have these photons flung directly in their windows?

Leo Smith: 19:03

It's probably a progression where you start out I would put it in writing, okay, and I would send that letter, very nicely worded, explaining the problem and offering what I saw as the solution. If I didn't get anywhere, I would then probably have my lawyer write the letter on the lawyer's stationery and then if the lawyer didn't get anywhere from writing the letter, then I would go and file a lawsuit, Quick action right there.

Bill McGeeney: 19:32

I like it, Leo. About a year ago, or actually maybe half a year ago, James Dolan of Madison Square Garden was looking to put the sphere over in London and as a courtesy he offered some blackout curtains to all of the neighbors. Always find that to be a little nice anecdote here.

Betty Buckley: 19:50

Question also makes me think. Well, do we have the right to a sunny sky? Do we have a right to the clean water.

Bill McGeeney: 20:10

All of these things are things that we inherited as human beings. You know that were gifted to us, so who has the right to take that away? Continue on to this next piece in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, which had an article this month that looked at perceptions and feelings of safety of park attendees at night, specifically how lighting influenced the person's enjoyment of their experience and likelihood to repeat it. The study set up an experimental testing grounds adjacent to Penn State University's Arboretum Penn State University's Arboretum. They held eight stations each with lux settings ranging from 0.5 to 10, one group using amber light and the other using white light.

Bill McGeeney: 20:47

The study involved 156 individuals, mostly undergrads, whereby the majority spent their lives growing up in a suburban environment. Splitting the difference in the remaining undergrads were rural and city folks. Most had recreated at night previously. The end result, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that people feel safer with brighter, whiter light. The study used 3,000 Kelvin as a white light temperature and Leo correct me where I'm wrong it is 560 nanometer as a warm colored light, a monochromatic amber. Do you know what that is? Is that really an amber light, a monochromatic amber? Do you know?

Leo Smith: 21:22

what that is. Is that really an amber? It's towards that end. The shorter the wavelength, the more blue that you have. The longer the wavelength, the more red side it is. And when you think about color, a good example is the high pressure sodium streetlights that we were all used to in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. They were sort of that yellowish-orange color because they had the long wavelength. They were 2200 Kelvin, and so when LEDs came along in the very beginning, LEDs were just put out there. Beginning LEDs were just put out there and those light emitting diodes were putting out 7,000 Kelvin, lots of blue light. To compensate for that, the industry had to start putting a phosphor coating on top of the LED. That caused the light emitting diode. The blue wavelength lights would be blocked, and the thicker the phosphor coating, the more blue light would be blocked. So they can and they do adjust for that, but it was only after they got all kinds of negative feedback about how cold that blue light looked, not warm and inviting blue light look not warm and inviting.

Bill McGeeney: 22:45

Well, on that, note right this in this study they they had for the white light was 3000 kelvin, which I know, leo, you mentioned is is a pretty good light when when it comes to color temperature it should be the top of the line.

Leo Smith: 22:54

In other words, you shouldn't go over 3000. 2700 is preferable, but not all lights in the lighting industry are available in 2,700. And, like I said, 2,200 was what your high-pressure sodium lights were back in the 80s and 90s. We did fine by that. No one said, oh geez, I can't see. And it's another interesting thing the color temperature is important in some cases. If you are a jeweler and you want to display your jewelry, putting in very blue wavelength light will give you great color renditions for your jewelry. But you only need that in that table display. You don't need it outside in a parking lot.

Bill McGeeney: 23:40

That's a good point. Yeah, you don't need it outside in a parking lot. That's a good point. Yeah, well, I asked about that 3,000 Kelvin because the study is the second story now in the past two months where people preferred temperatures that were closer to white at night, which, in my mind, asked are they studying the right thing? Don't people just feel more comfortable if everything's daylight, and is that what we should be striving for at night?

Leo Smith: 24:10

People didn't feel uncomfortable in the 1980s when we had the high-pressure sodium lights. I mean, they were walking around, fine, no problem. People weren't, you know, scared to go out in high-pressure sodium lighting. It's just a psychological thing that, I think, goes all the way back to our childhood, when, as kids, we knew somebody, and maybe even we knew somebody that was afraid of the dark, and so they want light because they feel safer. It doesn't mean they are safer, it just means they feel that way.

Betty Buckley: 24:43

To me there's another way of thinking about lighting, also as a filmmaker, is that there's different types of daylight. Some of the most beautiful films, specifically Days of Heaven, were made only in golden hour. People feel safe in the morning, it's a prettier time of day, they lovesets and again another golden hour, prettier time of day. The harshest time of day is noon, when the sun is straight up. So there's different types of light, and so I. What leo's saying makes so much sense, because it doesn't. You don't need to be blasting yourself with the kind of light that you know, straight up noon, that you see in the desert, the kind of sunlight that's going to kill you. You know, it's just different degrees of daylight.

Bill McGeeney: 25:31

Betty, you make an excellent point with the bright midsummer or midday light in the desert. I want to stay on the topic here. In astronomy magazine, light pollution took center stage and there was something interesting that I took from the article and I know, leo, we kind of touched on it already. Christopher Kokanis, who penned the piece, discussed the case of Tucson and over a two-year span from 2016, 2017, the city began down a path of streetlight conversions to LEDs and through using shielded lighting, which I wasn't fully aware Like. I understand the curve fixtures we have.

Bill McGeeney: 26:06

Now I'm not really sure what defines it as a fully shielded light, but it seems like the definition here was that the fixtures were inset a little bit into the actual fixture itself. Here, the lights themselves begin to dim around 90% brightness and gradually decrease over 60% through the early morning hours. According to Dark Sky International, this resulted in a 7% reduction in sky glow caused by light pollution, as you had less light, kind of bouncing back up off the pavement. What struck me about the piece was a quote from past guest, john Barentine, citing that there has been no increase in crime or traffic accidents that we can detect in the available data. Leo, have you come across other communities that use a discredited approach to brightness.

Leo Smith: 26:50

I'm not familiar with any other communities that are doing that, but, as I mentioned earlier, I think the big thing with street lighting is the fact that within 20 years, street lighting will become obsolete. With the exception of street lights that are traveled all by car, those that are there for crash avoidance purposes will all become technologically obsolete within 20 years.

Bill McGeeney: 27:29

But, Leo, isn't the problem with lighting at night as the way we have this ecological, this environmental issue? It's driven from psychology more than it is from practical utility.

Leo Smith: 27:39

That may be in the beginning, but right now you have very demonstrated problems that come from climate change and our carbon footprint and when we take a look at what we need to do to reduce that carbon footprint, I think it's going to be very quickly acted upon in terms of saying, okay, if we don't need this light and this light is contributing to carbon footprint we don't want it, we don't need it, take it out.

Bill McGeeney: 28:10

Yeah, I'm going to push you again on this one. If we switch over to all renewables, who cares? Why not just light up everything?

Leo Smith: 28:17

You could argue that if you had a net zero emissions from the lighting, but the bottom line is why go through all the time and expense of installing and maintaining lights that serve no purpose?

Bill McGeeney: 28:30

That's a really good question, and we have an article here that looks at smart cities. Right, there's a Grand Junction, Colorado is looking to bring in what they call a cash cow for public utilities. Grand Junction, Colorado is looking to bring in what they call a cash cow for public utilities, and it will end up costing them $10.5 to $18 million to bring in all the streetlights over into their own smart city integration. So there's multiple hands at play here, though, right, Leo, it's not just. I mean a practical standpoint. I love the idea that we wouldn't need to have lights except for where there's pedestrians. Do you think stakeholders all the stakeholders involved currently will be fine with not being able to have a current revenue stream? It's going to happen.

Leo Smith: 29:11

It's just like, for example, all the Eastman Kodak used to make a lot of money with regular film and cameras that they sold their little brownies Okay, but technology changes things and there's nothing you can do about it. The day will come when streetlights will be looked at as a total waste and when that day comes it's going to be okay. You still need money to maintain those lights, to send the trucks out to fix them, to put up new ones. When you put up a new road or widen it, all of those things are going to cost money and people aren't going to be willing to spend the money on something that doesn't provide them with a benefit.

Bill McGeeney: 29:51

Okay, Leo, I hope the future. I'm going to hold you to it. All right, I want to see the future like that. Hopefully it's in my lifetime, Hopefully it's in your lifetime. That'll be great to see if it comes up. So a very optimistic picture of the future here.

Betty Buckley: 30:05

My whole career, the bulk of my career, was with tungsten lighting, but with the emergence of LEDs, those are dinosaurs. We literally just did a shoot where they were used as set dressing in the background. You know your traditional movie lights, because what was really lighting the scene was were these LED lights. You could literally dial them to the color that you need.

Bill McGeeney: 30:30

I have this one additional story because it pertains to the topic of insecurity, and the reason I picked this one is because it deals with smart cities. The smart cities deals with the street lighting grid and also we have this idea of light as providing security. I know there's different definitions out there. Ies will not have terminology regarding security and safety and stuff like that, but how we think of light as providing security. So Northampton England is quite serious about stopping out crimes against women and crimes that, I may add, is that's what drove Jennifer Horgan, when we had her back on the first why it's so Bright Out Night show to petition for park lighting.

Bill McGeeney: 31:11

Bouncer asked the town CCTV to track an inebriated woman who left the nightclub to make sure that she was able to follow her path safely. Cameras identified a stranger approach, triggered an intervention from a community group known as the Northampton Guardians. The Guardians went over, intercepted what was going on. They questioned a man who actually approached the woman, and now the person is now barred from entering the district at night ever again. I guess my thought isn't really concerned with the facts of what's going on there, because a lot of this is driven by fear, right, like if society creates an environment where everyone feels comfortable. They feel comfortable that if they go out there's going to be a very low percent chance of them having harm done to them. Would that reduce the push, say, for what Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said is to light up the night.

Leo Smith: 32:06

My own personal feeling is no, it will not reduce it, and the reason is that we're dealing with emotions here. We're dealing with an emotion in the form of fear and the fear of darkness, something that is instilled in some people right from the very youngest age, and when they grow up, that fear of darkness does not leave them, and if that's the case, then there's really not going to be a whole lot you can do about that politically. They're still going to want light, but the question is whether or not the countervailing force of having all of that carbon footprint represented by that over lighting is going to be powerful enough to say well, we wish we could give it to you, but it costs us too much in the way of climate change and therefore, from an energy conservation standpoint, we're not going to do it.

Bill McGeeney: 33:07

Well put this segment of street lighting to rest on a good note here, guys. It took 10 years and a swapping of over 5,000 fixtures, but the Grand Canyon has now converted 90% of its lighting to become dark sky compliant. Great, great work. Glad to hear. Happy to hear, the news On to health.

Bill McGeeney: 33:29

We have an interesting study that came out of the Lancet. In a study that tracked 85,000 people between the ages of 40 to 69 for nine years, it was found that light exposure between the hours of 1230 am to 6 am significantly increased their chances of developing type 2 diabetes. Participants wore a light detecting device that logged their exposure to light. Individuals with pre-existing type 2 diabetes were excluded from the study. The study had several limitations, as you would expect. However, what appears to be clear is that there was some sort of correlative relationship between light at night and metabolic disorders that may cause type 2 diabetes. The exact cause or driver of that isn't determined by the study. The study had enough confidence in her findings to state the following in spite of its limitations, Brighter night light remained a robust predictor of type 2 diabetes, even after comprehensive model adjustments, and real quickly.

Bill McGeeney: 34:29

I should note that some prior studies on this very topic of artificial light at night and diabetes. While this study assessed individuals with a mean age of 62, two other studies looked at individuals in their 70s and found a greater propensity for type 2 diabetes to develop when exposed to nighttime light of certain thresholds. One additional study looked at individuals aged in their 20s and found that an environment with a moderate brightness of 100 lux increased insulin resistance the following morning. This comes to us from a review in the journal Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine, whereby researchers tallied studies that looked at both noise and light pollution, and to say that light is understudied is a misnomer. If you look at this review, light pollution is barely mentioned on health studies ranging from coronary artery disease, heart failure, stroke and atrial fibrillation, which all have noise pollution related studies. You guys have any thoughts on any of those health related stories?

Leo Smith: 35:31

The American Medical Association has done two reports on light at night and in 2009, they issued a report that recommended using fully shielded street lighting to avoid light going into urban windows. And in 2016, they did a study that recommended using under 3,000 Kelvin light, that the blue wavelength light was more harmful in terms of disrupting metabolism, in terms of the sleep, hormone disruption and melatoninin went on and on and when the American Medical Association reports came out, the lighting industry was not very happy and they challenged the American Medical Association and wanted them to withdraw these reports. And the American Medical Association went back and did a thorough study of these reports and came back and affirmed the conclusions that the reports made.

Bill McGeeney: 36:38

Wow. Well, I have one more little piece here, leo. In a circadian rhythm space. This one comes to us from Journal of Cell Reports. Researchers looked at how our circadian rhythm played a crucial role in building immune cells, noting that the body strategically leverages sleep to maximize the efficiency of immune cell production. A little more credence to this whole concept of a healthy circadian environment. So that does it for our health-related articles, but I have one here that is my favorite story of the month. This is a really good one. It's August and I know many of you at home may have been lucky enough to see a really good firefly display this year. It's August and I know many of you at home may have been lucky enough to see a really good firefly display this year.

Bill McGeeney: 37:16

Here's something I bet you didn't know the US has somewhere in the order of 170 different species of fireflies. These species are split between three general types daytime glowworms and the traditional flashing ones that some of us see at night. The story comes to us from Eliza Chason over at CBS News. Fireflies seek out moist spots to lay their pin-sized eggs, typically areas in the soil or moss or under the leaves of rice plants. It takes upwards of two years for the larvae to emerge from the ground as adults. During that time, fireflies look more like pill bugs than they do the beetle presentation later in life. The larvae feast on a number of soil-based invertebrates by injecting animals such as worms, slugs or snails with neurotoxins that paralyze the creatures. Hence some may see them as a natural form of pest control. So it's not a shock that, in addition to light pollution from artificial light at night, that climate change may not a shock that, in addition to light pollution from artificial light at night, that climate change may play a major role in damaging firefly habitat. Particularly long extensions of drought and also, something you probably did know lawn pesticides are particularly devastating. This leads us to Bali in Indonesia, where grass fruit initiatives in trying to bring back the light of fireflies.

Bill McGeeney: 38:37

Per Wayan Wardika, the founder of Bring Back the Light Firefly Conservation Lab. Fireflies are a symbol of wisdom and from that, fireflies are considered arbiters of clean air, water and soil. Now, wardika is really something of a self-starter, driven by his childhood experiences where he had no electric. Rather, he embraced the passion of the nighttime stars and the blinking fireflies. The lab, which unfortunately couldn't find a founding date, probably came into existence in the last six to ten years. In a video they mentioned that they have no data for understanding fireflies in Indonesia, but have progressed to be able to mate fireflies and help grow the population in the wild. Here's one thing I did not know about fireflies that they actually help pollinate Indonesian rice fields. These bugs, they always surprise me. Betty, I really think this is your next film here. You know, how did fireflies inspire humanity?

Betty Buckley: 39:36

Very. You never know my nonprofit's called Environmental Arts Alliance, so all those types of stories really fascinate me. And you know, fireflies are summer's rite of passage from children in the summer and they're, you know, because because of climate change, they're so hard to you know, like finding a being able to see the milky way. It's hard to find a place where you can go and find them and experience them. I think the smoky mountains actually makes promotes a tour or something like that, a hike where you can, you can find and experience fireflies.

Bill McGeeney: 40:11

But yeah, yeah, the smokies have the synchronized of synchronized fireflies and I know here in pennsylvania we have a firefly show out in western pa. Uh, that is like touristy in that regard. But yeah, you know it's. It's pretty interesting. These bugs are so dynamic and I didn't realize that they're so good at eating common pests in your soil. So another reason to keep the lights down and maintain your soil in a very positive way. Absolutely Staying in ecology, artificial light at night appears to impact new and young fish that haven't reached adulthood.

Bill McGeeney: 40:46

In a study that was presented to the Society for Environmental Biology in July, researchers found that larval fish were highly attracted to lit environments, including ones with artificial light. Per one of the researchers, jules Schliger, a PhD student at the Kroybe Lab Allen, has produced an ecological trap where these fish, misled by human activity, now prefer habitats where their fitness will be lower. To say it in a different way, artificial light and light may attract organisms who are less adapted to particular environments due to their attraction to light, thereby impacting fish stock replenishment and conservation. Sligler also pointed out a decade ago that a quarter of the non-Antarctic shoreline had been impacted by light pollution, something that he assumes has increased since that time. And then we have a study from the Journal of Hazardous Materials. They tried to identify the impact of two urban pollutants on aquatic biofilm growth. They looked at how artificial light at night and a chemical compound, ddbac, commonly used in household cleaners, affected chlorophyll production. While a joint impact assessment wasn't able to be ascertained through this experiment, the research indicated that continuous lighting driven by artificial light at night in the second half of the day reduced the ability of algal communities to photosynthesize, be it in changes in the light absorption complexes of the film, damages to the light absorption machinery from intense LEDs or saturation in the electron transport chain. Artificial light and light change, decomposition of organisms in the biofilm, reducing green algae and replacing them with more diatoms, a microalgae.

Bill McGeeney: 42:30

And a final note for ecology. Tonight a study in the journal eLife proves yet again just how important natural light is to organisms. Big, and in this case surprisingly big. The Australian bull ant utilizes polarized moonlight to aid in navigation when a moon is not visible. Researchers were able to change headings of bull ants by moving polarized patterns that lead the ant. Very cool stuff. I'm always fascinated with ants. They're pretty amazing creatures. I remember a couple years back in California and we had the misfortune of putting our tent right on the ant highway, and they were going back and forth in the morning and evening hours, like they're doing the 9 to 5. So we have a handful of items left to discuss, but before that I want to give my guests a chance to plug what cool things that they are actually doing. Betty, how do people learn more about the stars at night?

Betty Buckley: 43:27

You can learn more about the stars of night by visiting our website, the stars at nightorg. We also have Instagram and Facebook by the same name. As I mentioned, we're available in 400 university libraries through ProQuest and Clarivate, a division of ProQuest distributors, and then just by request. So if groups or organizations are interested in screening, we welcome all inquiries because they're helping us be able to pay back some of our filmmakers that work deferred and to get the word out.

Betty Buckley: 44:04

One of the things we are also aspiring to do is find major donors, and we're looking at one specific grant and we're looking at one specific grant I just discovered another one today so that we can fund an impact campaign writing the film for free. But it's wonderful if the film is shown in an area where it's introduced by a Native American storyteller to that area that might tell a story that's related, because there's so many around the globe, depending on where you are from you know, Australia to Philadelphia and then we also have just sort of ways to engage children with a coloring page of a constellation story and things that we want to expand there. So really, our website is the best place, but also our Instagram and our Facebook.

Bill McGeeney: 45:02

Leo, you have the Coalition to Reduce Light Pollution up there in beautiful Connecticut. How do people learn more about that? Connecticut listeners? How would they be able to reach you?

Leo Smith: 45:11

Go to ReduceLP, LP for light pollution, ReduceLPorg, and you'll have a chance there to see all about light pollution, about membership opportunities. The primary focus is generating interest among governmental organizations, municipalities, government agencies to stand behind light pollution and the need that we have to find some remedies for reducing unnecessary light pollution.

Bill McGeeney: 45:42

And you said you had about 30 organizations already that are signed up.

Leo Smith: 45:46

There's 13 now. The goal is 30 to 60.

Bill McGeeney: 45:50

Excellent, Well let's get Leo well on the way to making that dream come true. And along with the lack at the end of streetlights for cars, that would be great too. I'm going to hold you to that one. Yeah, betty.

Betty Buckley: 46:02

I had one other thing to say is that if folks are interested in getting involved there are night sky organizations everywhere. If you just Google the name of your town or your city or your county there are people that are interested and there are ways of joining their grassroots movements. In my community we go to state fairs and events. We're asked to speak specifically At the end of screening of my film. They've created a little board that literally shows people these are the lights to buy, these are the good ones, these are the bad ones, because that's really what they want to know, and so they can. People that hear this broadcast can go find that on their local level.

Bill McGeeney: 46:45

And Betty. You hit on a great point Leo, since we're here, maybe you have some thoughts on this when I had Dee Durham on for a little podcast that air just last week for why it's so bright, and I I have mentioned we should have a branding that's like community friendly lighting, which is direct to the point that the consumer can easily interpret it and understand it. Do we have any easy way for a consumer that's not at all affiliated with dark skies to understand the concepts when they're shopping in a store?

Leo Smith: 47:18

they can ask the store for dark sky certified lighting and what happens? There is the manufacturers. That started in about 2007 or 2008 the process, but what dark sky does is they work with manufacturers. The manufacturer will submit the light fixture that they want certified. Dark Sky will then research that fixture and if the fixture meets its qualifications for being Dark Sky, it will certify the light as being Dark Sky compliant. So you basically can go to the store and ask them for dark sky compliant fixtures, and companies pay money to become certified. They have to pay a $250 processing fee for each fixture, so it's worth it. Just ask the store to provide you with dark sky certified lighting choices.

Bill McGeeney: 48:14

Which makes sense for you, me and Betty here, but what about my neighbor across the street? They have no idea about dark sky, anything regarding what I would call irresponsible lighting fixtures, fixtures that are kind of inadequate for what they're looking for. That phrase dark, I feel like, is a turnoff to so many people who don't understand what you're trying to suggest.

Leo Smith: 48:38

Leo, you got a point and the alternative is to talk about it in terms of good neighbor lighting where you want to put in lights that will light your area but won't go into the neighbor's yard. They may not know the term full cutoff, but they certainly are aware of being a good neighbor and what that means in terms of lighting your yard but not lighting the neighbors.

Betty Buckley: 49:02

And that's where the local organizations are so important because they're literally trying to get and our group, our Como County group, is trying to get the message out to builder groups, to the builder that's, you know, going in in a development, to families I've spoken to elementary schools, to our ACE hardware has dark sky, friendly lighting. We're talking, and so does our Lowe's and Home Depot. We're talking, about going to trying to connect with National Night Out to talk about how it is safe and those sorts of things. And I think that's the way to really get your neighbor to know what's going on is to try to support those organizations that are trying to literally recruit the volunteers to do that.

Bill McGeeney: 49:54

Or just to recognize that what their actions have and we spoke about this before has an impact on others. Yeah, I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole too much, so we can keep moving here and just finish off the show. A couple little tidbits here. First off, Betty, your friend Babik Trevesky is on a new photo journalist project. You see this, the Life at Night Atlas, which can be found over at night atlasorg. But the light at night atlas is an attempt to document how nocturnal animals interact with the night, so keep an eye open for that one not surprising babak scott he's got a wonderful.

Betty Buckley: 50:30

He's got started the organization. The world at night amazing astrophotographers from around the world talking about how these, these looking at the night and enjoying it, breaks geopolitical boundaries. His book is his coffee table book is unbelievable and I'm so glad he's doing that. He's my hero.

Bill McGeeney: 50:52

We all need heroes. I'm glad to hear it that he's my hero. We all need heroes, I'm glad to hear it. So to finish out today with some sadder news, first up a sad story out of Bryce Canyon, where a beloved park ranger, a 78-year-old Tom Lurig, tripped when assisting individuals in an astronomy festival. Lurig tripped and struck his head on a rock when directing a visitor to a shuttle bus scheduled to depart at a quarter past midnight. And then here's a name that many may recognize.

Bill McGeeney: 51:21

In the land before Stellarium and ZWO, many amateur astronomers use physical atlases to find stars in the sky. A graphic designer and illustrator, will Tryon, started drawing star maps at an early age of 12, in 1955. However, his first big professional success arrived in 1981 when sky publishing corporation premiered his sky atlas 2000.0, all drawn by hand, mind. Later, trarion went on to publish the first two Uranometria Atlas sets, named as an homage to the 1603 Atlas of the same name, johann Bayer, beginning in 1990s. By way of the copious hours in front of Adobe Illustrator and software program named Project Pluto's Guide Program, trarion ditched the pencils for computer-aided drafting.

Bill McGeeney: 52:19

You've seen his work in Atlas of the Night Sky and the Annual Guide to Night Sky, and I've personally been able to use a couple of these atlases, although I'll say this Leo, if you do stargazing, you've probably used plenty of these atlases. I have only seen them in the early days of when I became an amateur astronomer. Trion died at the age of 81 on July 5th, leaving behind his wife, kaki and children Martin and Nora. I know I probably butchered all of the names in that, but I want to thank you, guys, thank you at home for staying with us today, thank you, supporters, and thank you to my great guests Betty Buckley and Leo Smith. Thank you so much, guys, for joining on today.

Bill McGeeney: 53:02

Thank you, bill, thank you Anyone who's a supporter of the show, but you can join us in the future for live recordings. If you're not sure where to support the show, you can just check a support show link in today's show description. As where to support the show, you can just check the support show link in today's show description. As a reminder, light Pollution News is recorded towards the end of the month and this month it was on July 28th. You can find all the details in this show at lightpollutionnewscom. If you have any thoughts, questions, want to say hi, feel free to text us via the link in the show notes and drop a line over at bill at lightpollutionnewscom. Once more, I'm your host, bill McGinney, thanking you for listening. Remember to only shine the light where it's needed.