September 2024: Totality of Impact!

A lot to discuss this month! Host Bill McGeeney is joined by an expert panel featuring the equitable conservationist, Shelana deSilva, lawyer and satellite researcher, Yana Yakushina, and, consultant, John Barentine.

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

Bill's Picks:

• Environmental impact (light pollution and energy wastage) of artificial grow lighting to replenish grass pitches in sports stadiums, World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews.
  
  
• Court Upholds FCC Approval of Starlink’s LEO Launch License, Ted Hearn, Broadband Breakfast.
  
  
• Elaborate light show projected from Eiffel Tower, NBC News.
  
  
• Hickenlooper, Crapo Introduce Bill to Preserve Night Sky from Interference, Aid Research, US Senator Hickenlooper for Colorado.
  
  
• Coloring Pages for Summer Travel, Natasha Chortos, Dark Sky International. 

Chapters

• 13:55 Nighttime Fishing and Stadium Lighting
• 23:55 SpaceX Starlink Satellite Legal Challenges
• 35:28 Impacts of Satellites on Environment
• 41:29 Legislation for Dark Skies Preservation
• 48:47 Collaboration to Reduce Light Pollution
• 1:00:52 Equitable Conservation and Light Pollution

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:06

light pollution news, september 2024. Totality of impact this episode how to light sports fields that don't impact neighbors? Dark sky international collaborates with lucy and spacex's new gen 2 satellites. They're coming what to expect and why it matters? This month, I'm joined by a superstar panel from the North Coast Redwoods District of California State Parks, shalana DeSilva, researcher and lawyer, yana Yakushina, and from Dark Sky Consulting, john Barentine. All this and much more coming up on the next Light that you can be here in the lower 48, someone who has worked in the equity and climate change awareness space for quite some time, right, currently serving as Deputy District Superintendent for the North Coast Redwoods District of California State Parks. That is a mouthful. I looked this up on a map, shalana, and your zone covers some truly spectacular and impressive places along the California coast and, I guess, a little bit inland right. I'd like to welcome for the first time to the show Shalana DaSilva. Shalana, welcome to Light Pollution News.

Shelana deSilva: 1:28

Thank you so much for having me here, bill. It's great to be here with you and our amazing guests. Yes, so I'm Shalana DaSilva. I'm the Deputy District Superintendent for the North Coast Redwoods District. We are lucky to be protecting more than 50% of the remaining coast redwoods in the world here in this park district, along with our National Park Service partners. I had a sort of circuitous background to get to my current role. I have a background as a community organizer, I'm a writer and I've been doing, as you said, equity and climate-focused work in the land conservation space for the last 15 years and finally, with my family, made my way here to the Redwoods and we are loving it. Thanks for being here.

Bill McGeeney: 2:10

Yeah, no, thank you, and I'm curious about how have you seen things change in your lifetime in that equity, space and conservation?

Shelana deSilva: 2:17

That's such a great question, bill. I think there are a number of factors that have come into play in recent years that have forced the conservation movement to really look at its beginnings how we protected land, who got to choose which land was protected, which land is restored? Who is left out of those conversations historically? Who continues to be left out of those conversations? There's been quite a reckoning in my field of practice, I think, with racial justice and equity in terms of access, but also in terms of designing and implementing restoration and conservation projects. So I feel it's a really exciting time in conservation to be looking at our practices for engaging communities, for bringing Indigenous peoples' lived experience and voices into conservation. So we are in the middle of making some exciting change and just want to put my shoulder to that wheel.

Bill McGeeney: 3:11

That's excellent. That's excellent to hear, and I know the space has changed a lot, even in 10 years, which is great news.

Shelana deSilva: 3:18

Indeed, yeah, seeing more women in leadership, more leadership of color, more expression of all of our multiple shared identities in the decision-making which is so important. And also, you know communities pointing out how and where we need to focus our conservation efforts in the context of climate change and all of those threats. Oftentimes, you all know the people who know best about what a particular land or landscape needs to be resilient in the face of climate impacts or to be more welcoming. That knowledge, that expertise is on the ground, with the communities who have lived and have connection to those lands and waters.

Bill McGeeney: 3:58

So I'm curious about this one. You don't have to answer it if you don't feel comfortable or you don't like it. I know last year California's tried to put through two, I guess, responsible lighting laws into effect and the first time it was vetoed by Governor Newsom and a second time it was tabled in legislature. How would you rate your facilities within your district?

Shelana deSilva: 4:18

I appreciate this question and there's no trouble in asking this. I think you know, as a land manager, we are constantly balancing multiple priorities right For California State Parks. Our mission is to protect natural resources and welcome people into these beautiful, special places so they can learn, recreate, and with that comes a number of priorities that need to be balanced and safety, of course, being balanced with, you know, protecting natural resources, making sure that animals and plants have that dark period to rest, that people can experience the beauty of our parks in as natural and sort of unaffected way as possible are are priorities that sometimes compete. When I think about the legislature or the governor and the decisions that are being made at that level about lighting at night, I have to imagine they are also balancing these priorities to some extent. Right, and all I can think is that we, as advocates for dark skies, needs to continue to expand that aperture on what safety means Right, and all I can think is that we, as advocates for dark skies, need to continue to expand that aperture on what safety means Right. Is it safe if we are over lighting a space and people are being exhausted by that? Animals are being impacted by that? Is that, is that actually safe? Right, there are multiple ways to think about how we can all improve outcomes with regard to safety, ways to think about how we can all improve outcomes with regard to safety. So that's what that decision makes me think about. Okay, we've got more to do to communicate about the totality of need around these issues.

Shelana deSilva: 5:54

Bill, you asked about our park operations, and our philosophy is to have our human infrastructure make as little an impact as possible on the land, and so we want to have those creature comforts right. You go on a long, 10 mile hike. You get back to the visitor center. You need a place to use the restroom to warm up, maybe get some hot cocoa, find a map for your adventure tomorrow. We've got all that here for you. But we want to make sure that those spaces are welcoming and appropriately situated in our parks. So we're never going to have, you know, a giant parking lot with tons of lighting, that's, you know, shooting ambient lighting up into the sky. That's not going to be our goal, because that doesn't fit with sort of a natural look and feel in the park. But, of course, when you talk to our chief ranger, our law enforcement officers, there's again that balance for human safety and making sure that we're partnering with local municipalities that have roads going through our parks and trying to balance all of that out Excellent answer.

Bill McGeeney: 6:55

I don't know if that answers. Yeah, that's excellent, that's a good job. All right, Next up. All right, next up. I had to do some little guest juggling this month, but it worked out for the very best, because I really couldn't have asked for two of or even in this case. Yana, you were on. You mentioned you're involved in light pollution as a critical environmental concern, but beyond that, I think we're going to touch on some of the topics that you've, evidently because you're telling me you haven't slept in about like two months now. So welcome back to the show. I'm excited to have you back here and can't wait to get some topics today.

Yana Yakushina: 7:44

Okay, hello everyone, and thank you for inviting me again and I'm happy to be together with such great guests. I'm indeed excited today about talking about the protection of dark and white skies from the different, different perspectives. So and my work is doing really well we're currently working on pushing light pollution regulations, indeed as an environmental concern, mainly at the level of the European Union, so building kind of the European framework for light pollution reduction which can be affected to the national member states, and we're currently thinking of campaigning the same thing at the international level at the United Nations Environmental Program.

Bill McGeeney: 8:24

So, thank you, and we're looking forward for our conversation today and listeners at home, you don't know that the guests here. They'll have a survey when they get the final release information. And Jana was like Bill, you got to chop up the show here. So if you're wondering why the show is in two halves here, it's because of Jana being like you got to do this. Bill and Yana, thank you for that and I think it's made a good difference. So I appreciate that, and today, of course, we will be chopping up show. There's one more great guest here and I said before, you really can't predict the news and I think it really worked out great for this lineup here Joining me from Dark Sky Consulting, someone, someone that you know because he's literally everywhere. John, I had a great time reading the State of the Science report earlier this year. Your team does a phenomenal job condensing everything into a handful of pages. It blows my mind how it can be that concise, but I want to welcome back Mr John Barentine.

John Barentine: 9:19

Thanks for having me back on the program Bill.

Bill McGeeney: 9:21

Thank you for coming on. And why is it? When I look up Dark Sky Consulting?

John Barentine: 9:26

consulting the google maps takes me to a cash advanced store hey, you gotta diversify your business offerings in this current economic climate like right I like it.

Bill McGeeney: 9:38

I like it, john. Were you down at cape town as well? Because, john, you were down there right? I was yeah, how was that? How'd everything go?

John Barentine: 9:41

it was very interesting and and yana was with us remotely for that which is.

Bill McGeeney: 9:43

Cape Town as well, because, john, you were down there, right, I was, yeah, how was that? How did everything go?

John Barentine: 9:45

It was very interesting and Yana was with us remotely for that, which is it's kind of a big deal.

John Barentine: 9:50

This is the event was called the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly, which happens every three years and very timely.

John Barentine: 9:59

It sometimes is referred to as the Olympics of Astronomy, not the least of which because it's only every so many years, but it's a really international gathering of astronomers from all over the world.

John Barentine: 10:10

It was the first time that it was held in Africa, which is a very big deal for an organization that's been around for more than a century. There were multiple sessions at the meeting on different aspects of dark skies, and one of the main outcomes of that was a resolution put before the membership of the organization that really passed overwhelmingly in support of what's we'll talk more about this what's become known as dark and quiet skies. It mainly refers to the extent to which large satellite constellations are interfering with astronomy. So the sense of the membership was very much strongly in favor of the approach that we're taking right now in working with both regulators and the commercial space industry to try to reduce that impact. So, all around, I would say it was a fantastic meeting and I felt like we really made some progress with the discussions that we had and the speakers that we heard from, so it was a really great experience.

Bill McGeeney: 11:03

Love the fact you guys are moving things forward. Thank you for all the hard work, okay, well, let's start things off today with a little warmup. Did you guys happen to catch the Olympics, john and Yana? Well, john, you were down in Cape Town working the whole time. Yana works all the time, doesn't sleep, so I guess, shalana, did you catch the Olympics?

Shelana deSilva: 11:20

You know, I have years when the Olympics are on and I'm just obsessively watching and staying up late or waking up early. And this was not my year for that bill, but my family and I did take in a lot of highlight reels. I felt like we were watching history being made with some of these athletes. It was incredible.

Bill McGeeney: 11:37

Yeah, it was. Well, they had an incredible opening ceremony, right, and obviously we're not going to talk about the one that I guess became controversial, but this was. We're going to keep on light pollution focus here. For those of you who missed it, the lighting designers put on a quite an amazing show. At an approximately 10 57 pm, the eiffel tower extended endless beams of light forward into the darkness above an illuminated olympic logo, and within seconds, countless beacon lights emerged from the sides, extending out very bright, sending out probably significant miles in range, no doubt a visual sight that was very impressive to both at home and in the audience. So I know, maybe, john, you probably run away from such instances of you know, experimental, I want to call it. Obviously the event was stunning as it was memorable. So I'm curious have you guys seen any really, or can you guys recount any really impressive light shows in your experience?

Shelana deSilva: 12:30

I'll jump in with one. I don't want to date myself and tell you when this was, but it was before the advent of drone lighting technology and sort of drone based lighting shows. This was at the blue mosque in istanbul, which they every summer, I believe, do a lighting show around that you know, gorgeous historical building and it was it was incredible, but I think nothing near approaching the number of lumens that the olympics lighting show got to.

Yana Yakushina: 13:00

I mean the city of ghent, where I'm based in belgium. They want to become the city of light and they organize light festivals every year. I cannot say that it's very impressive visiting them for my personal reasons. Yeah, I think we really have to take into account the impact it can have, despite it's obviously beautiful and can be very marvelous and fascinating, rememberable, but we really have to take into account, for example, migration season or something like that.

Bill McGeeney: 13:34

Yeah, I was lucky enough to. I guess it's not hard and you can see it any night if you're in Hong Kong but you get to see a laser show, usually around 8 pm in Hong Kong, where everything just lasers. If you're in Hong Kong but you get to see a laser show, usually around 8 pm in Hong Kong, where everything just lasers everywhere in the sky, that was pretty interesting. It's pretty neat. So since we're talking sports here, I actually have some sports articles came through tonight. First up, a student decided to look at the impacts of artificial grow lighting, a topic we discussed several episodes back. Such lighting typically isn't seen much here in the US and Canada, unless we're talking about, say, a marijuana greenhouse. However, in the UK it appears to be a different story, namely involving multi-sport stadium pitches. A notable example from that story previously was the Brighton Stadium, which, evidently, the way the lights are set up, it creates uneven or uneven growth speeds or patterns in the grass on the pitch. While much of the field has a chance to get good daylighting, parts of the field apparently remain stuck in shadows, thereby suppressing growth. And then, of course, you have some stadiums that simply exist in a low light climate, which will deter some of that growth. As with most things involving light pollution, cost appears to be at least half of the obstacle in kind of reducing such light pollution. Such solutions mentioned by the author included enclosed lighting setups, re-turfing, movable pitches and transparent stadium roofs to promote uniformity in solar grass-fed growth.

Bill McGeeney: 15:03

On this topic, I found this interesting. So here in the States I know that the condition of the NFL grass surfaces is always a point of contention, especially, I know, some years ago in Pittsburgh they had three games, three football games back to back to back, friday, saturday, sunday. By the time it got to the NFL time the field was destroyed. So I looked in how we manage natural grass fields here for regrowth and in terms of how we do it. There's teams that traditionally use grass sourced from turf farms and, for instance, there's one in New Jersey that supplies at least nine major sports teams with natural grass.

Bill McGeeney: 15:42

However, I learned that even my hometown team, the Eagles, recently switched over to a more durable hybrid turf that you guessed. It apparently has the benefits of grass but the durability of turf. So modern field technology is starting to bring about solutions that could steer us away from the need to have that light in the stadiums. I'm not sure if anyone here can field this one, so I'm curious, if you can, what your thoughts are. Why is it, in this day and age of best practices for growing anything from grass to marijuana, do we have situations like Purple Glow? Is it just a matter of technology being so cheap? It outweighs mitigation.

John Barentine: 16:19

I could say something about that, bill. Fundamentally, what you just said is right. It's a perception that the technology and, in particular, the type of lighting, being very energy efficient, is inexpensive. Potentially, your yield is a lot higher.

John Barentine: 16:37

One thing that I'm surprised by is, in many of these cases, how there's a disconnect between the people who are installing and designing the lighting and the horticulturalists, who will be the first to tell you that, like all other light life on earth, there's a need for darkness as well as for the light, and plants have something called a photo period. That's a lot like the human circadian rhythm, and they need some amount of darkness in a 24-hour cycle to be productive. So I'm always a little concerned when I see greenhouse lighting that's on 24 hours a day. It's sort of doing the plant a little bit of a disservice.

John Barentine: 17:15

I think, especially with the greenhouses, and I really feel for people who live in places like Brighton and I know some of the folks that were fighting against that situation for a long time is that they tend to find out that there is no regulation of this locally until the problem develops. And now there's a conflict and they go to their local authority only to learn that there really aren't any legal means for dealing with this. So what we're trying to get people to do is let's pull the horticultural community together with the lighting. People come up with better practices that make the absolute best use of the technology that we have available, and the technology is fabulous, but do it right to find out that we need less light to do it. It's better for the plants, and then you can write sensible rules around that that try to cater to all of the interests that are involved, so that the owners of the stadium can have the turf they need for their games, but they can do so in a way that doesn't annoy the neighbors.

Bill McGeeney: 18:17

essentially, that's a good point, john, when we talk about having any kind of these guidelines, when, when you're starting up, I see for the stadium, right, they're probably using either an in-house service or a commercial service to take care of the grass, and when they're doing that, I would assume that there's a best practices guide out there, right, some kind of guide that they're basing it off of. Are you saying the horticulturalists have something in place where they say, hey, you know what this grass needs six hours of darkness or five hours of darkness, something like that? It's not being translated over to practice.

John Barentine: 18:54

I think so, bill. There is certainly guidelines for what is now called horticultural lighting, and it's really being driven more by the legal cannabis industry, for example. Finding that you know they. For example, you can tune the color of light very carefully if you use a technology like LED and you can give the plants exactly the colors that they need and not the colors that they don't. So you know, most plants are green because chlorophyll reflects a lot of light, so the plants aren't making use of the green light anyway. Give them more of the other colors. I just don't think that it's filtering down to the level of the people that are designing the lighting for these spaces, and that's a whole separate group of people than those who are actually doing the field maintenance. So they, I think they don't have as much influence on process. To be honest, gotcha.

Bill McGeeney: 19:46

That makes sense.

Shelana deSilva: 19:47

I appreciate you breaking this down, john, because I think the story that I'm hearing inside of what you just told is that we we sometimes don't think about the totality of impact. It's when we're designing a product right it's like for maximum growth, maximum extraction, if you will, of whatever the resources that you're tending to, whether it's turf or, hopefully, legal cannabis cultivation and all of the downstream impacts from the design. When you're just valuing a cheap product that can put out the most light possible for the longest time period possible, we miss out on so much.

Bill McGeeney: 20:26

Excellent points. Well, we're going to stick here in the sports range field. I guess Shalana do you fish. I know you do a lot of outdoor stuff.

Shelana deSilva: 20:35

I don't. My family does fish and I come from a long line of fisher people, but I am not a fisher person myself. We've got a lot of interested fishing communities in our parks, of course.

Bill McGeeney: 20:46

Yeah, yeah, definitely John, Jana. Anyone fish here?

John Barentine: 20:51

No, we're not known for our lakes. Out here in the desert Might have to travel some.

Bill McGeeney: 20:58

Yeah Well, I came across this great article in the how to's of nighttime trout fishing by joe over at outdoor life.

Bill McGeeney: 21:07

It's very interesting in that it touches on so many aspects of our regular churn of ecological news and applies in the sport. So fish, including many other sport fish like largemouth bass, muskies, trout have a change of attitude at night, leaving their safe terrestrial waters to prowl expansively for insect hatchlings. In order to properly increase your chances of snagging a trout at night, fishermen or fisher people must appear incognito, blending in with the surface. So that includes avoiding any direct light shine down onto the water below, which may scare away such trout. In addition, cermaril recommends that the anglers seek out areas with little to no bug activity right around sunset to ensure that they have the best shot at making a big snag. It's like application. Right there we have an application of not just basic resource but Shalana, you touched on it before that some of the people who understand how the world works or how certain ecologies work. They're out there doing it and obviously people are fishing typically, you know, they're trying to find the best edge to increase their yield per se.

Shelana deSilva: 22:16

Absolutely, bill. I mean, people know you mentioned the late early evening, the crepuscular hour, right? That's when a lot of animals come out to get that last bit of nutrient in that they can get before they go to sleep for the night, or unless they're nocturnal, of course, and people know that right. So all of these cycles, whether it's a season within the year or a cycle of you know, daylight, nighttime and animal behavior in those two time periods, people, people understand that they see these patterns over generations and take advantage of it so they can catch dinner.

Bill McGeeney: 22:52

And before we close out this topic of sports, one tidbit to mention. I bet you didn't know that there was an ultimate Frisbee league organized here in North America. They have power rankings, they have John I see you nodding your head. I actually caught this on ESPN, one of ESPN Ocho, whatever the network was, and it was pretty entertaining. And one of my friends, I think, actually did the. She's a teacher over here at one of the Philadelphia schools and the school the students actually built a fight song for the local team here. But did you know? The name for Utah's ultimate frisbee team is the dark sky. So look at that dark sky out there representing and I think the men fell off, but the women is at 11th as of this recording so good on them. And you know, say sky's making it the sport. Look at that. All right, now we have something that I I think you guys, yana and john, you guys will have a lot to say on this one. So this comes to me from spacecom.

Bill McGeeney: 23:55

Termola kuthanar put together an excellent piece discussing the new array of Starlink satellites. In March, spacex requested an amendment as they deploy 7,500 Gen 2 Starlink satellites in a low Earth orbit. So they request an amendment with the FCC on that, and then on July 13th, the US Court of Appeals for DC sided with Starlink after a joint objection was raised by Edition Network and Dark Sky International. I'm going to try and do my best layman's interpretation here. Please feel free to jump in and tell me where I'm wrong. No doubt in the presence of proper administrative law professionals, this would be a more detailed explanation. This network failed to provide sufficient evidence to back its claim of injury by the presumed Gen 2 Starlink satellites. In addition, the court affirmed the FCC's conclusion that there was no environmental assessment necessary, stating that the FCC's actions have no significant effect on the quality of human environment and are categorically excluded from the environmental processing. The judge writing the opinion in this case was Naomi Rao, and this decision clears the way for SpaceX to begin populating the sky with its next round of products.

Bill McGeeney: 25:06

The 7500 satellites are part of Starlink's direct-to-sell satellite plan, currently residing with T-Mobile. These satellites remain approximately the same size as the current internet-only satellites. However, they sit at a lower orbit 217 miles versus 340 miles and satellites will have a higher apparent brightness due to that. To their credit, starlink confirms brightness impact, but they're working with astronomers to potentially impact mitigation. And then now recently, right before we record the show, there's an additional case brought by AT&T and Verizon, and they actually joined a case with Echo Star and OmniSpace. They are trying to request the FCC to reject SpaceX's plan, namely on the premise that new satellites will emit stronger signals in excess of their frequency band of upward of ninefold, thereby interfering with ground-based broadband. It should be noted that AT&T is looking to have its own satellite constellation do exactly what SpaceX is doing through AST Space Mobile, and that should go live in 2025, but the initial satellites are planned to take off this September. Jana, I'm going to shoot this one directly over to you, because I know you have a lot to say on this.

Yana Yakushina: 26:17

Yes, thank you. First I want to add about the case. I think it was also united. Originally there was a case which started by International Dark Sky Association against Visual Communication Commission, right, and then they united it together with Dish Network because they had different claims in one case. And what basically Dark Sky International did? They claimed that that specific activity of SpaceX supposed to go under the environmental assessment, under NEPA, which is, I wrote it down National Environmental Policy Act, which is US Act. But this is a very interesting article there which basically indicates that it's only for activities which may have a significant impact on the human environment. So FCC just decided that there is no significant impact.

Yana Yakushina: 27:11

And here the most interesting part of this is a kind of philosophical question of the expansion of how do we define the environment and whether the outer space is actually the environment.

Yana Yakushina: 27:25

And unfortunately, currently, as we see the results of this case and I think there are way more cases to well, maybe not, I don't know, but I think we have to work towards the basically international recognition that everything what is not human-made is actually the environment, because we consider everything what is not human made is actually the environment, because we consider everything what is around us on earth already the natural environment.

Yana Yakushina: 27:48

Why space which is not created by humans is a kind of a natural environment? Because for me it's pretty clear according to the even current international space law, when we look also, it's collorated with the current international environmental law, so we can think about the implementation of the principles. But yeah, so it was very sad to me to see, because I remember when the case was, when there were hearings in Washington DC I don't remember when I think it was just after the new year or something somewhere there and judges went before making the decisions with the question do you want us basically to the question whether space, outer space, is a natural environment? And this they basically answered no, which is the unfortunate part of it. But yeah, I think I will have it to john here, because there is also another part about the astronomy and the interference with all the space activities before we get to john yanni.

Bill McGeeney: 28:42

So they they truncated the case into one. So we're saying there's two separate complaints and they truncate into one. You may not notice. Is that standard, do they usually?

Yana Yakushina: 28:51

it's not standard, but they can do that if the claims are kind of related. So they found out that they're related in the case. They basically both claims by dish I think dish network right and idea they were. They wanted to uphold the licensing of the satellites of SpaceX and both of the companies organizations claimed that there was a wrongful act of FCC. So this is why they united it and the claims were crazy related. They basically yeah, it was all about unlawful act and they tried to put it in a different perspective, but none of them made it happen as much as I think.

Bill McGeeney: 29:29

Okay, john, jump over to you.

John Barentine: 29:34

It's interesting, bill, how this case turned out. If you look at the satellite industry's communications, they said you know, this is a big win for SpaceX, this is a big win for satellite broadband development. Eventually, I think, congress is going to have to weigh in on this issue of what the human environment is. I read one of the Amici submissions that went along with the case and they said well, you know, it's very clear, if you read the plain language of NEPA and given that the time period in which it was drafted, which was the late 1960s, that they didn't say anything about space, it's very clear. They didn't mean it to include space, or they would have said that we had not yet landed on the moon, for example, when NEPA was being drafted. So it was a really different era. As far as the human presence in space, I think it's arguable that it's much more considerable now. If the SpaceX Polar mission goes off this week as scheduled, there will be I think at some point during that week there will be something like 22 human beings in space simultaneously, which has never happened before. You have so many people in space at once. And of course, there's the myriad of satellites that are up there and, at least in my opinion. That argues very strongly for a human environment in space, the least of which is due to the presence of our machines, and it is changing space in a material way that would not be happening were it not for humans. So I think eventually, this is not the end of this story by any means, and the important win for Dark Skies was that the plaintiffs achieved standing in this case. The court didn't dispute Dark Sky International's right to bring this case representing a group of potentially affected people. So I think that's still a win and there will be something more following this up in the future.

John Barentine: 31:30

I mentioned earlier in talking about the IAU and the Cape Town meeting about how astronomers have been working, trying to work proactively with the commercial space industry to come up with mitigations. At the end of the day, the international legal framework that governs the way space is used says that we are all kind of equal actors in this, that we all have a right to access outer space. It's not just for the scientists and it's not just for the commercial interests, and astronomers, I think rightly, have decided that the best hope here is to do that work proactively to try to find a way that we can all live with each other, and so you know, can we make the satellites less bright? So they're, they interfere less with the optical and the infrared astronomy observations in the ground? Can we reduce the impact of the satellites radio transmissions that affect radio astronomy? And increasingly I'm optimistic that we're heading in in a direction that we can't.

John Barentine: 32:23

The one thing that worries me the most, the thing that metaphorically keeps me up at night, is the potential for that very crowded space around the planet to become filled with debris from collisions, and if it does, the potential is that it it could all be game over very quickly, and then we will be talking about a completely separate set of concerns at that point. So I think in the background of all of this is a need to really control the rate of debris production so that we can continue to even access that space in the future.

Bill McGeeney: 32:55

John, when I was researching this case here, it seemed like the FCC was very eager to put light pollution in the past and not really speak to it and this was a Republican representative who was on the FCC panel, I believe. And in that case, how much of this is the FCC trying to speed up the space economy, trying to really make sure it gets moving and not put too many impediments early on, similar to ways people do for, say, Internet. As the Internet economy was coming up, we didn't really have too many restrictions on it. Those restrictions started coming in place a little later.

John Barentine: 33:34

I think that has everything to do with it, bill. And not to say that there shouldn't be development of a future space economy, but a lot of these arguments that are anti-regulatory because we just happen to live in an anti-regulatory period in history are very reminiscent of the arguments that were made by chemical companies in the 1950s it was going to be better living through chemistry, and meanwhile they're dumping waste into rivers and killing river ecosystems and things like that. We've seen this story play out before in environmental history. Right, it's really, it's not new.

John Barentine: 34:10

There's some of us over here that have been waving a flag about you know.

John Barentine: 34:13

Hey, look, there's all these points of reference in history for how things went badly when we really didn't understand the technology, when we didn't understand the consequences of these new things that we were doing that technology enabled. So, you know, none of us on the astronomy side are saying, oh, you know, halt, absolutely stop. You know you have no right to do this, but I think it is right of us to raise these concerns, especially looking back at history, and to say folks, there's a lot here we don't understand and there is the potential for a catastrophe to unfold. That is not something that can be easily rolled back. Rarely do we have these instances where we have the benefit of hindsight and we know how that went ultimately right. It took federal legislation Clean Air Act, clean Water Act, endangered Species Act to undo those harms and inevitably I think we are heading in a direction like that for US federal space policy. My hope is that we get our act together before something catastrophic unfolds in Earth orbit.

Bill McGeeney: 35:21

Those are good points. Unfolds in Earth orbit. Those are good points. When it comes to the environmental pollutant of satellites, is there really merit to the environmental pollutants, say, here on Earth, to having, say, a water pollutant or an air pollutant, or is this something where you're looking at astronomers who have plenty of public dollars invested to do research to you know, to essentially create a living out of this? Is this something that really affects astronomy more, or is this something that would actually be more of a tangible pollutant per se?

John Barentine: 35:58

I think what we're going to find, bill, is that astronomy is just the tip of the iceberg. It's the canary in this particular coal mine and it's kind of like. What we're going to find, bill, is that astronomy is just the tip of the iceberg. It's the canary in this particular coal mine and it's kind of like what we've been dealing with on the ground-based light pollution front for years, which was a movement that was started by astronomers. But as we have learned more about the subject over time, we realize that it's wow. It has all these other myriad environmental effects, and sure we can still talk about the night sky, but that probably isn't going to move the population to act. Right, they're not as concerned about it as astronomers are, but they're concerned about the ecological effects.

John Barentine: 36:32

For example, I think we're seeing the same thing slowly unfold in the space realm, in that, even as companies try to do responsible things about reducing the potential for space debris, like deliberately de-orbiting their spacecraft at the end of life so they're not left up there orbiting the Earth and become potential targets for collisions.

John Barentine: 36:53

But there's some worrisome evidence that's emerging about when all those spacecraft come back and we like to think that they burn up in the atmosphere. I'm using air quotes for that, but that material goes somewhere, and if we put all the metals from these spacecraft into the Earth's upper atmosphere, it could potentially have a harmful effect on the energy balance in the atmosphere, and that might interact with climate change in ways that we don't understand right now. Or, whatever's left over after they pass through the atmosphere tends to get dumped into the South Pacific Ocean out of concern that we don't endanger people by dropping spacecraft on their houses. But now we're dumping potentially toxic materials into the deep oceans. So my point is there's no free lunch here. Right, as with all other kinds of technology that have polluting side effects, we can try to find ways to reduce that impact, but at the end of the day, you're left with something that has to be disposed and there's no perfect way to do that, and there will be environmental consequences of doing so.

Bill McGeeney: 38:00

Got to shoot it all at the sun. Come on, John.

John Barentine: 38:03

Okay, you figure out how to make that work energetically and we'll talk.

Bill McGeeney: 38:06

Shalana, you're going to speak.

Shelana deSilva: 38:09

I'm just really appreciating John and Jana breaking this court decision down NEPA and in California, ceqa, the California Environmental Quality Act, which is based off of NEPA. Concurrence with these regulatory regimes is something I'm familiar with, but as a layperson when it comes to policy in this realm I'm really just appreciating how this has been broken down, for a number of reasons. One is when I hear the court's decision that cumulative impacts to the environment or to human beings isn't really contemplated through this licensing decision, I'm sort of asking well, are we actually looking at the right moment in the sequence of decision-making? If we're looking at it at the, you know, at the licensing juncture, then yeah, I can see how we wouldn't even be triggering NEPA compliance type questions, right, or analysis.

Shelana deSilva: 39:05

But you just heard John break down all of the numerous ways that satellite deployment in fact do impact what we traditionally conceive as the human environment, the Earth-based, terrestrial, aquatic environment. Of course we understand in this podcast everybody here that the space and low Earth orbit environment impacts us and we impact it. John just broke that down really beautifully. But I'm just wondering, jana or John, if you can kind of speak to the court's focus on the licensing. That's the sort of lever, if you will, for this legal discussion, but in my interpretation of NEPA environmental regulation and policy, that's just one part in the sequence of project design and deployment and it feels like we're looking maybe not at the right part. But educate us please.

Yana Yakushina: 39:54

I think most of the time we're looking when we talk about any space objects, not only satellites. We're always looking into the environments on earth, earth like, literally, it just all goes to the conversation that we are not considering outer space environment as a natural environment, which can be a limited resource or a natural environment in the sense that, again, it's not human created and I don't think there is an understanding of it beyond our community, as you mentioned, which, yeah, this is the path where we have to kind of move. I just wanted to add to what was mentioned about the pollution points. Indeed, I think we have to talk about the limitations of space, whatever it sounds like.

Yana Yakushina: 40:36

Leo, for example, is a very limited space and if you keep sending thousands of satellites, the space would like there will be, will not be able like. There is a very limited space and if you keep sending thousands of satellites, the space would like there will be, will not be able like. There's a freedom of exploration and use of outer space which, like which supposed to be used by every country, but now we currently see again the presence of only major space space countries. Some people see it as a part of colonization as well, like other countries, which would never have a chance to send any space objects, even a tiny, small satellite, will not potentially have an opportunity to do so because these big countries like US, russia or China create this amount of space debris or the amount of space objects circulating there already. So there's a lot of philosophical aspects of it, though.

Bill McGeeney: 41:21

That's a really good point. How do we?

Yana Yakushina: 41:22

see the space environment.

Bill McGeeney: 41:23

That's an excellent point. I would include India in that as well. Right, yeah, true. Staying on the topic of satellites, we have two US Senators Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho and Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado. They introduced S-4952, the establishment of a center of excellence for dark and quiet skies act. The law would create a new center of excellence for which National Institute of Standards and Technology, nist, would oversee. The intent would be to develop uniform best practices to reduce light and noise interference from satellite technology. Should we note that NIST is not a regulatory agency. Instead is a lab environment that recommends best practices, which are often adopted by industry. Dark and quiet skies preservation has been a policy plan for some time and I know you guys went over it down at IAU. Would you, either of you, yana or John, care to speak on this particular news item here?

John Barentine: 42:22

Do you want to start first? Sure, and if you want to add to it, feel free to do so. I think this is encouraging. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see any action on this legislation for the rest of the session because it's campaign season now, but I do expect it to be reintroduced in the new Congress. But I do expect it to be reintroduced in the new Congress, and I don't see a lot of opposition to this emerging, because, for exactly the reason that you just said, bill, it's not a regulatory action on the part of the US, and there's a long history of the NIST agency helping to set standards that become part of voluntary best practices in various industries, and it's something that we really need in this case.

John Barentine: 43:03

Individual companies have been making efforts to try to reduce the impact of their satellites on astronomy, and they've been pouring a lot of their own R&D money into that.

John Barentine: 43:15

It's harder for smaller companies to do that to the extent that we can get the big players in the market to license their mitigation technologies, and there's very encouraging movement on this front.

John Barentine: 43:26

For example, spacex has been working on a material treatment for its satellite surfaces that helps throw the sunlight away from the Earth rather than toward it at night so as to make their satellites less bright, and my understanding is that they're essentially willing to give that away at cost to their competitors in hopes that they'll adopt a similar kind of a practice.

John Barentine: 43:51

So I think that the chance that this bill becomes law is pretty good if we can get the attention of the new Congress on it long enough, and it will certainly help in this effort to try to get these companies to come along Again. We're just in a period of time in history when there's not a lot of momentum behind new regulations, but we have an industry that seems relatively open to the idea of developing a best practice, which is in their interest too. Right, the sustainable development of space and it's not just for astronomy but in general is good business for them, and I think they at some level want to do it right. And so if the new center of excellence, if it becomes a reality, if that can contribute to this, that's a win-win.

Bill McGeeney: 44:37

John, real fast, you said something that made me think. You know, if we want to affect climate change, man, we just have to launch a bazillion satellites up there with this coating and we'll just launch the sun away, right?

John Barentine: 44:48

Right? Well, I mean the same thing as I was mentioning with the reentering satellites putting metals into the atmosphere. There are geoengineering ideas that are substantially like that injecting metals to the atmosphere to cool it and help offset some climate effects. But when you're talking about messing with a complex system like the atmosphere, there's just this really wild possibility of things going wrong, and so sometimes we talk about something known as the precautionary principle. To where, when we really don't know about something very well, it calls for treading into that territory very carefully.

Shelana deSilva: 45:29

Thank you for saying that, John, because I love these innovative solutions that are being looked at, but we also know some really simple steps that we can take right, including protecting and stewarding lands and lowering our greenhouse gas emissions, like these. I'm not saying that work is simple, Of course not. I'm the last person who will say that. However, I'd love to see more on those fronts while we look at some of these more innovative ideas To add on the bill.

Yana Yakushina: 45:56

I think I would agree with John that it's an excellent idea of creating this center. I think it's also very well aligned with international action, because COPUS and UNOSCE are currently talking about the needs and the discussion of the framework for protection of dark and white skies. We will come back for our light pollution subject. So, yeah, hopefully it will be supported further. But I think we have to also work on the environmental aspects of light pollution as well. So we're missing a bill not only on satellites and space sustainability, but also more looking at the protection of dark and white skies or the natural darkness also on the ground, to kind of reduce light pollution on the ground and from the outer space as well.

Bill McGeeney: 46:39

Excellent, well, well put everyone. I really appreciate the little discussion. This is very enlightening. Staying on the policy realm, here's a positive action that can only help. Maricopa County in Phoenix, arizona, will be investing $100,000 in a new international dark sky discovery center at Fountain Hills. The Board of Supervisors believes the investment will go a long way to help educate individuals on how to appreciate Arizona open space. John is the International Dark Sky Discovery Center Dark Sky International affiliated, or is it just a name?

John Barentine: 47:12

It's just a name.

John Barentine: 47:14

They have been talking to Dark Sky International, but it's really a separate group and it was the outgrowth of several years ago when the town of Fountain Hills received international dark sky community status from Dark Sky International and they were really jazzed about it and they've taken it in a direction that nobody else has before.

John Barentine: 47:36

County Board of Supervisors is in addition to an appropriation of several million dollars from the state of Arizona a couple of years ago that really energized their effort and kick-started their fundraising, and they've privately raised the rest of the money needed to build this multi-million dollar facility and they did their groundbreaking earlier this year. It looks like it's really going to happen and if it comes to pass in a way that's substantially like their plans, they're going to have a really world-class facility that is going to draw people from well beyond either the Phoenix area or Arizona and they really do look at it as being an international facility, and so I think the potential for their reach could be very high as well and to really help educate beyond just the immediate community where they're at, but to really be seen as this truly world-class kind of facility.

Bill McGeeney: 48:32

It's amazing. As we see this, I'll put this in like a museum space, but also kind of a lead-in to astrotourism.

Bill McGeeney: 48:39

Right, You're starting to see that industry just blossom over the past couple of years, so it's great to see Well from LED Magazine. Dark Sky International will be collaborating with the Lighting Urban Community International Group, also known as LUCI, to help bring attention to reduce light pollution. The group operates in upwards of 117 cities and also works with vendors, universities, artists and exhibitions. Light pollution will be one of five working groups, with others included being light festival, placemaking with people, and light and health and wellbeing. Lucy issued a declaration for the future, in 2023, to forge harmony between light and darkness in a city. So, John, I feel like you're the closest to this because I think did you speak about Lucy B on a previous episode? I think you're on.

Bill McGeeney: 49:29

Maybe it's my sense that pay attention to all the news that comes through the led street conversions. There's no unified best practice and I know IES has details kind of a best practice guide, but it seems like cities are really shooting at the hip and there's no focus on quality of life for residents. There's no environmental impact assessment. There's no concept of that. With LED street lighting conversions, there's a steady drumbeat, if not of misinformation, but confused information in this municipal lighting space, or at least it feels that way when I communicate and I see what goes on. The city is utilizing 4000K color rendering and then residents clamor about it and then they change the color.

Bill McGeeney: 50:11

You have with the exception of your city, John, over in Tucson, most LED conversions start off with a brightness set to 12 noon on Mercury and then somehow they start. You know, some places are able to get down to a little closer to, like you know, evening on Mars. It seems to be incumbent upon the resident to do things like request shielding. The city doesn't do their homework on how to properly aim the fixture. You know the city may or may not provide shielding, even if they're, you know, depending on if they've budgeted for it. So I'm curious your take on this, John, is what is Lucy is? I assume Lucy probably won't handle any of this stuff, or will it?

John Barentine: 50:50

That's a great question, bill. I don't have any any particular insight into that organization. I don't. I don't know anybody there who don't know a lot about it. I'm not really in a place to comment on that level. There don't know a lot about it, so I'm not really in a place to comment on that level of. Particulars can say that what we have learned in the last 10 or 20 years in dark sky movement is that we really need a big tent. We need a lot of like-minded organizations involved, groups of people who have some of the same concerns at least we do or they can see where our concerns overlap. So I'm cautiously optimistic about the nature of this collaboration. I hope it turns out to be productive.

John Barentine: 51:28

It seems like, just from an outsider's view, that part of what Lucy is promoting is a more sensitive take on the use of lighting in urban environments, and that's for also for things like lighting for placemaking, for example, that they talk about, which is really it's kind of a code word for the strategic use of aesthetic lighting in spaces to make them more attractive to people. So you know, you're downtown, you're main street, you want to draw people into that at night, you want to further a nighttime economy, which are, you know, those are good things and they're good for communities. But I think at the same time they realize there's a potential topic at all, whether it's the technical aspect of lighting or what their resident preferences are. I think they tend to go in the direction of over lighting because that's what they believe their constituents want and it's related to public safety and perceptions about safety. Public safety and perceptions about safety and they fear that if they don't rightly light their city streets, that they will potentially suffer some sort of repercussion as far as legal liability goes. But they're inevitably they're way over the recommendations of bodies, even like IES, and at the end of the day, I think it comes back to inadequate awareness and attention to the topic.

John Barentine: 53:00

If we can put the municipal people together with the folks in the communities who know the lighting aspect, when we do that we tend to get better outcomes. But there are a lot of municipalities, even within the United States, and having to go through this and do them one by one, by one, by one, is what turns out to be very challenging and that's what argues for regulation at a higher level, whether it's California through its Environmental Quality Act or its energy code, which I think is one of the better ones in the country. Or, you know, there's also the possibility of some federal legislation in the United States that we could talk about as a future course of action. But if we have to go one town after another, it's whack-a-mole at the end of the day, right, and it just takes a tremendous amount of effort to try to bring everybody into the fold, as it were.

Yana Yakushina: 53:55

I can add on that. I think Lucy is mainly a European organization, so it includes mostly cities in Europe and the like. Last five years most of the like european countries like france, germany, they started to change their legislation to address ground-based light pollution and a lot of them also have biting standards on how to kind of create a better lighting, so the shielding, the right color temperature, so we're talking here about the quality of light. So I think the organization like Lucy, they kind of can create the best practice across these different countries and communicate to these municipalities what are the higher regulations are and how they actually can follow them. Because when we have the regulation we always have to think about the future implementation and effectivity and usually kind of if they communicate that clause with the cities specifically, I think we can really make this legislation work. I don't know if they include any cities from the US, though I think it's mostly European kind of city network.

Bill McGeeney: 54:58

Yeah.

Yana Yakushina: 54:58

I'm not sure. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's based in italy.

Shelana deSilva: 55:02

That's what I know for sure you know, in listening to you, yana and john talk about lucy and their role in all of this, it just makes me think, as an advocate, what's so important oftentimes is that missing middle right the, the stakeholder, the expert in the in the middle.

Shelana deSilva: 55:17

So you've got this high level regulatory bodies making decisions right with experts, hopefully science-based. So you've got this high level regulatory bodies making decisions right with experts, hopefully science-based. And then you've got communities and decision makers at the municipal or local level and that middle ground of voices to say, hey, this is how you can conform with these regulations but also keep people safe and happy in the city and lighting design decisions that you could make that would prevent a more preponderance of artificial light at night while keeping everyone safe. And I think here in the States we really need to find that missing middle and, as John said, hopefully it's a big tent approach, because there are, of course, there's so much diversity with all of the stakeholders who care about these issues, so I don't know. I'm looking at Lucy as a potential model there these issues.

Bill McGeeney: 56:01

So I don't know. I'm looking at Lucy as a potential model there, that's. These are all great points. I mean, here in Philadelphia we do a lot of things that are really green and it's impressive, you know, and it's some of the ways that we're remaking the city to be more communal and more walkable and more of just a city is great. But then, when it comes to lighting, there's nothing. There's it nothing. It's totally removed from that plan that seemingly, you know, everything else has a touch that has to be green. So just hopefully, lucy sets a good example for many, many cities to be able to follow.

Yana Yakushina: 56:35

But again we're coming back to the conversation that artificial light at night is not mostly considered as pollutants, the conversation that artificial light at night is not mostly considered as pollutants in our like from our small community of people, like raising awareness and knowing about the problem, but in reality, when you go to talk, like every single day, if you go outside and talk to a person on the street, they don't know what light pollution is. So I think it's like we're coming back to like this problem of unfairness.

Bill McGeeney: 57:02

I'll retort on that one because I find that light pollution actually is a pretty known issue and people, when I don't even bring up the topic, I'll tell someone oh hey, I went out and went out to this part and we're kayaking out there, and someone will tell me, oh, it must be pretty nice to see it's probably not too much light pollution from someone who I wouldn't expect to even know about the issue. Right, it seems to be much more on people's minds than I think you know we tend to give it credit for.

Yana Yakushina: 57:32

I mean it's growing, but I think there's still a big gap to overcome. I mean I was just getting my US visa in the US embassy and the guy was asking me what I'm doing for a job and I was talking about light pollution. So I think I got my visa because he liked the topic of light pollution.

Shelana deSilva: 57:52

So I kind of educated the person in the embassy right between individual awareness of light pollution or the effect of light on you know, viewing the night sky versus seeing it as a pollutant. That then drives policy decisions right. So I want to take what you're seeing, bill, and have it kind of filter up and into the system of regulatory practice. I mean, john, when you brought up earlier the chemical industry in the 40s and 50s and how awareness around the harms and the benefits of chemical technologies spawned the environmental movement as we know it, my heart sang right Because, of course, if you've read Rachel Carson's the Silent Spring, Silent Spring.

Shelana deSilva: 58:35

Right, this is a scientist who went out and was seeing all of the impacts of chemicals on waterways and streams and creeks and anadromous species, and that's you know her work. That filtered into congressional deliberation and then the development of the Environmental Protection Agency and so much came after that right. So I think we are at this exciting point where we're seeing individual people understand what light pollution means in the context of their lives, and we just need all of the Rachel Carsons who understand this in the context of low Earth orbit and light pollution to start to tell that story and help us frame the policy approach.

Bill McGeeney: 59:17

Yeah, shalana, I think you cleared up that very well, because I think me and Jana were both saying the same thing, just in different ways. Yeah, yeah, shalana, I think you you cleared up that very well, because I think me and Yana were both saying the same thing, just in different ways.

Shelana deSilva: 59:24

Yeah, yeah.

Bill McGeeney: 59:25

Yeah, you definitely. Thank you for that. So let's let's cheer on some of the new designations this month. I want to congratulate Shield Ranch, barton Creek as becoming the first urban night sky place in the Lone Star State of Texas. I should have looked up the pronunciation on this one. I don't know how it slipped through. Does anyone want to help me out here? Fine, if not, we're going with the Eiruller. I'm just going to say there's a place in Germany that will be the eighth international dark sky place, and in Germany that is just in Germany. And then Primeville Reservoir in Oregon becomes an international dark sky park in Germany, and then Primeville Reservoir in Oregon becomes an international dark sky park.

Bill McGeeney: 1:00:03

Before we close out today, I came across this interesting article here, a very cultural one the Bright Lights of Americana, the unique museum that preserves signs. So there's a museum out in Cincinnati that preserves roadside lit up signs, including, say, the 76 gas or a neon McDonald's pole sign and all of these old vintage store signs. It probably is a great trip. It's probably an interesting walk through how we culturally assess, how we don't even think about, but how light at night becomes so placed in our brain. You know these, these little cultural icons. I just found that pretty interesting.

Bill McGeeney: 1:00:46

Okay, so we'll stop here for this half of the show. I'll pick up second half in two weeks. I'd like to thank my guests today standing on the front lines of equitable conservation up there in California Shalana Da Silva, the lawyer who works hard at trying to build a better tomorrow. Yana Yukashina, and the man who works tirelessly to help educate and remind us all that, yes, indeed, there are two halves of the day. Mr John Barentine, as a reminder, you at home can join the conversation over LinkedIn, instagram, facebook or even by texting the show right from the show notes. We record Light Pollution News in one fell swoop each month. This month, the recording date was August 25th. Supporters of the show can join us live as audience members, where we typically have a little chat with guests once the recording is done. Thank you once more for joining today. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, reminding you only shine a light where it's needed. Have a great September, folks, and I'll see you in two weeks.