September 2024: What is Safe?

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:

• It’s always sunny in space: Michigan startup hopes to beam solar power to Earth, Lucas Smoicic Larson, MLive. 
  
  
• Spatiotemporal Analysis of Nighttime Crimes in Vienna, Austria, ISPRS Int J. Geo-Inf. 
  
  
• Artificial Light at Night Increases Growth and Impairs Reproductive Success in Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) in a Duration Dose-Dependent Manner, Birds. 
  
  
• The Dark Side Of Reflecting Sunlight To Solar Farms At Night, Jennifer Sensiba, Clean Technica. 
  
  
• How legendary dark-sky advocate David Crawford sparked the fight against light pollution, Mark Zastrow, Astronomy Magazine. 

Chapters

• 8:12 Environmental Impacts of Space-Based Energy
• 22:42 Debating Safety and Lighting Standards
• 32:50 Impact of Artificial Light on Wildlife

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:07

light pollution news, september 2024. What is safe? This episode we talk about harnessing energy from space, a crime study that appears to highlight problems using satellite images to assess the lighting's impact on crime. And how about a ban on digital billboards after 1 am this month? I'm joined by superstar panel from the north coast Redwoods District of California State Parks, shalana Da Silva, researcher and lawyer, yana Yakoshina, and from Dark Sky Consulting, john Barentine, our new light pollution news. We have a great second half of the episode for you.

Bill McGeeney: 0:56

I'd like to welcome my guests working to connect folks of all stripes to the majesty of northern california's amazing redwoods and much, much more tide Tide pools probably as well out there, such a cool area. Let me welcome Shalana Da Silva back to the show, and also here today is our friend, lawyer and researcher, yana Yukashina, and a man who literally never needs an introduction, mr Sean Barentine. As we begin the second half of today's show, I want to remind you at home. You can learn all about today's show by heading over to our website, lightpollutionnewscom, where we have all the links to the show listed and some additional details. Also, be sure that you're subscribed to Light Pollution News. If not, hit that subscribe button in whatever podcast player you're listening to. You can find Light Pollution News on LinkedIn, instagram, facebook or, if you wish to reach out to me directly, I'm at bill at lightpollutionnewscom. No-transcript of you guys taken a red eye lately, curious about your experience.

John Balentine: 2:20

Yeah, bill I. Last weekend I was on a 16-hour flight from South Africa to the United States and once again I'm baffled at how airlines are using the technology with the lighting on board their aircraft. Because it didn't seem to make a lot of sense when, between sort of service and they wanted people to sleep, they were illuminating the cabin with this dim blue light and then, to wake them up, they turned it to kind of a bright orange red, that then became yellow, that then became white, which I think was supposed to simulate sunrise or something like that. But I'm sitting back there with a little bit of knowledge about circadian rhythms and thinking, wow, if you want people to sleep, bathing them in blue light is not the way to do it.

Bill McGeeney: 3:12

Anyone else. You guys had any experiences?

Shelana deSilva: 3:15

I have just shared John's experience. I haven't taken a red eye since last year, but that was. I had the same reflection, john. Why is this strip of purplish blue lighting on? I'm trying to close my eyes.

Bill McGeeney: 3:28

Have you guys seen this? I know I want to say Delta, maybe they have led strips that are white and if we were lucky enough to take an impromptu red eye back from Florida, I think, and it was idiotic, it's not. It's not a long flight between Philadelphia to anywhere in Florida, I think, and it was idiotic. It's not a long flight between Philadelphia to anywhere in Florida. But this became a six-hour flight and the light would come on. It was like two in the morning and you're just tired, you want to go to sleep, and it will become a white light blinding you every time.

Bill McGeeney: 3:58

The staff needs to get up and down the aisles oh good times. You know the staff needed to get up and down the aisles oh good times. Well, this is a much better story In the world of aviation. Qantas is looking to ease you into your next long haul by providing cabin lighting that aligns with circadian cycles or so they say, john Obvious hopes of reducing that miserable sapping sensation known as jet lag. So the cabin initially experiences a sunset that transitions into a night sky with moonlight Maybe this is where they're getting the blue, john and then, by daybreak, warm tones reappear to match a synthesized sunrise. So how about that for your next long haul? Will you guys enjoy it a little more? Feel a little more refreshed, feel ready to go when you get off the plane.

Yana Yakushina: 4:44

Depends on the length of the flight, I think, and also I wonder how they're gonna adjust to what time, the time when, like the time when you're sitting on the plane, like, for example, I'm flying from new york, I'm flying to singapore, like, are we gonna change this light supporting to singapore time already so I don't have jet lag in the future? Or we're adjusting it to new york or somewhere in the middle? So I have a lot of questions and no answers to that fantastic question, yada right.

Shelana deSilva: 5:12

What time zone is the sunset and sunrise?

Bill McGeeney: 5:15

well, if you fly over to pole in the summertime, you don't have to worry about just be on break the whole time just keep it on there you go.

Bill McGeeney: 5:23

Did you know that the concept of utilizing space-based solar panels to collect energy and beam it back to Earth can be traced all the way back to the 1920s, when the great Russian visionary Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who envisioned beaming light rays back to Earth's surface? 20 years later, isaac Asimov would envision beams of microwave energy powering up the solar system. With that stage set, the next piece is a tale of two solar power dreams. One tale, a Detroit-based company named Virtus Solis wants to put millions of satellites in the high Earth orbit to form a robotic-driven solar array for the explicit use of providing clean energy back here on Earth. Solar array for the explicit use of providing clean energy back here on earth In order to overcome the obvious problem of cloud cover. The array will push microwave radiation back to receiver on earth. And then there's a company that we touched on a couple months back called Reflect Orbit. If you'll recall, reflect Orbit plans to beam physical light back to earth to power solar power plants well into the night.

Bill McGeeney: 6:23

This isn't the first time the idea of harnessing space to provide terrestrial power has entered the zeitgeist. In 1970s, the U? S government began to seriously study the feasibility of an operation that in 1988, the USSR deployed the experimental Zyamna I hope I'm saying that right Zyamna to a 65foot mirror that shot light beams across Europe with the intent of brightening up nights. And then we have a little closer to now. In 2017, a Norwegian accountant decided it would be a great idea to erect huge mirrors above the town, of which I will not be able to say this, but I'm just going to say Ruken, hopefully that's close. I will not be able to say this, but I'm just going to say who can hopefully that's close to reduce instances of seasonal depression in dark northern winters. So, while these ideas previously were the purview of science fiction, it appears that the actual funding is starting to flow to test all these concepts as we slowly head towards this coming boom in the space economy.

Bill McGeeney: 7:22

I stumbled across an article by Jennifer Sensaba at Clean Technica and I wanted to run her thoughts and fears by you guys to see if we can get the over-under on the probability of these taking place. Sensaba rips into the Reflect Orbit satellite plan that will deploy 57 mirrors to bounce light beams back to Earth. The light beams that, I may add, create a construction like halo. Per last time, I I still I'm not sure what a construction like halo looks like. Anyway, sensible asks what about an extension service for alaskan towns in the winter, to enable them to essentially have daylight for a few hours? Or how about utilization by militaries engaged in combat operations who want to keep the zone bright for 24 7 to to maintain, you know, situational awareness? What are your thoughts on this? Is this the future we're going to?

Yana Yakushina: 8:12

I mean, weirdly enough, I'm currently working on an article about space-based solar panels together with Juliana and Camila you know brilliant space lawyers, brilliant space lawyers and we basically analyzed their preliminary research and like, like the reports which isa has, for example, to because most of these reports they indicate that this solar, solar, space-based solar panels are the future.

Yana Yakushina: 8:40

They aligned with carbon neutrality for every country and we all have to lead there. But the idea was around our article we're working on what about other environmental impacts? Because if you look into the report they're only saying how good is it, how carbon neutral it is, what benefits it will bring, and they don't consider any other problems with it. So we decided to work on that and one of the main aspects of the article is actually what are the questions of reflectivity of the solar panels? Because if you looked in the documents which were prepared by this project some of them you mentioned, and also the project likearis project by isa and all this report they don't say anything about the reflectivity. They don't consider any mitigation matters or anything. But we're talking here about putting giant mirrors in the earth's atmosphere. Another aspect of it here to build up this I don't know even how it's a lot of satellites which got again circulate around earth orbits and some of them form a giant mirror. It will require a lot of launches again to build it up. And then they're planning to build it up in the low orbit and then kind of put it higher to like reduce the amount of collisions with it. But I have a lot of questions how are we going to build up in this low orbit these giant objects if we already have a lot of space debris and a lot of other space objects and we keep sending more objects there? So there is again a lot of questions.

Yana Yakushina: 10:13

And another aspect of it the transmitters. So we're here talking about the ground-based or terrestrial. Basically it's solar panels on the ground. But we need minimum 35-kilometer radios to set these transmitters up and I'm like how it should be close to the cities where we need the energy. So how do we decide what we are doing with the land use? What are the other environmental impacts?

Yana Yakushina: 10:41

Because if you even look at already existing ground-based solar panels, we're coming back to the discussion on the previous episode when we were talking about the introduction of the new technology. When we actually have to think, what are we bringing extra? I mean, except the benefits, which the obvious benefits right With good energy, clean energy we also can think about the other potential impacts. Another question which is also important, and it leads us to the discussion of the freedom of exploration of outer space, freedom of use of outer space. The interesting aspect how do we use this energy? Who? Who will be responsible? What? The question of distribution of this energy, also very important, because space is for everybody. But if, for example, european union puts this uh mirror, there we how? How do we distribute this energy across europe? Like you know, there's a lot of questions which we have. We hopefully will reflect it in the article we have right now. So this would be my thought.

Shelana deSilva: 11:44

Yana, I can't wait to read your article, so I do hope you'll share it with all of us when it's ready. And, you know, when you think about the need for sustainable energy sources and all of the innovations that are happening right now, the technologies that are being brought to bear. It is an exciting time and, as Yana said, we have to look at the cumulative impact of not just the deployment of these technologies, but also the development of them what we're using, the materials we're using, where we're getting those materials, how these projects are designed, where they're located. Arrays that are being proposed to be built in desert habitats are impacting threatened and endangered species, right, migration, as well as their home habitats. So I just think so.

Shelana deSilva: 12:32

I think there's so much there that we need to look at. I mean, when you're looking at batteries, for example, and and minerals that are being taken, extracted from indigenous lands, right, and the violation of sovereignty and indigenous treaties in that practice. There's so many layers to it, and so I think I don't want to sound like I'm stymieing innovation or not interested in looking at some of these technologies, but to your point points, yana, and the questions that you're bringing up, there's a lot that we have to resolve before we can point to these as our savior.

Bill McGeeney: 13:05

Shalani, you bring up some good things. I know in the past we had an article here discussing a reservation area out in Nevada that they're going to try and use as a battery essentially, and the reservation was like, well, we use that water, that's what we, you know, that's our. We use that for multiple things, multiple uses. So it does bring a good point. I've always thought, you know, for solar panels we have parking lots and no one, at least on the East Coast, no one likes the rain and snow. So why not just put the solar panels on top of the parking lots, because they're everywhere? There's more parking lots and trees around here. So it's. It's interesting.

Bill McGeeney: 13:48

I had this little piece here at. The United States development program was looking at space economy become a $546 billion marketplace, right, and in that we have all of these issues like you have space debris, light pollutions, the equity, all these different issues, and we have stuff happening that just feels I guess the best way to say is tech bro-y, you know like it feels like that. It feels like we're coming up with ways to get investment money to have these crackpot ideas and no one's looking at any of the externalities around those ideas.

Yana Yakushina: 14:19

The main problem here is lack of regulation, those ideas, the here. The main problem here is lack of regulation, like I think, because we have just five international, like space agreements I will may even say four, because moon treaty is not really ratified by the biggest, biggest countries involved in the space race and we we're currently in need of kind of binding agreements on space sustainability which will involve the mitigation techniques, the prevention of space debris specifically, and the question about the decommissioning of all of this, because I don't like the discussions when let's put the International Space Station just down to the ocean, like oceans are the only thing which are left more or less untouched on Earth.

Bill McGeeney: 15:05

But yeah, yeah, and it's a giant pit. Come on, it's a natural landfill.

Bill McGeeney: 15:09

Just launch everything in there, yeah, okay, well, we'll move away from space for a little bit and, jan, thank you so much for the great insight into that. We have this intriguing study on crime and it appears to be kind of an emblematic study in my mind on all of the studies of crime. The crimes assessed were assault, burglary, theft, robbery by utilizing city data, but also using the viewer's images of streetlight density in Vienna, austria. The researchers looked at crime data in Vienna from 2004, and the type of data. This data is actually readily available here in the US, for most major cities, you can go to the police or the public safety website, so if you aren't already aware, you can go and actually look up a lot of this data on your own.

Bill McGeeney: 15:58

Vienna switched over to LED streetlights in 2017. And at the same time, vienna began experiencing an overall reduction in crime. The study utilized two different methodological frameworks to assess the lighting's impact on crime. First, descriptive analysis appears to indicate that LED conversions reduced crime and emphasized the success of tactical lighting systems to enhance safe environments, as is apparent by the steady decrease in crime over that time span. Then, the inferential analysis indicates a strong relationship between streetlight density and nighttime crimes, most notably burglaries, but other crimes, including assaults, theft and robbery, all shared positive association to a lesser degree. What does it all mean? This feels very much like our crime studies, like the whole field of it, but, john, maybe I'm wrong on this. What was your take on this study?

John Balentine: 16:50

No, you're not. You're not wrong about that, bill. I saw this when it came out and I'm just not buying it. And I'm not buying it for a couple of reasons. They have, at best they have correlation. That's built on shaky foundations, but they don't have causation.

John Balentine: 17:06

As with almost every crime study that I've seen, it looks at the influence of outdoor lighting, the least of which because they are reliant upon satellite remotely sensed nighttime lights data. I was in Vienna a few weeks ago, firsthand view of the situation on the ground, and I can see all kinds of problems with using that data source to try to figure out whether outdoor light at night is having any particular impact on crime. So I think this needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt. You know you read the study and the authors kind of. In the end they can't quite fully explain what they have either, and if you put it in into and alongside the canon of other research that we have on this subject, I think the matter is hopelessly confused.

John Balentine: 17:59

One thing that I can say for sure is that there's nothing like what the health researchers would refer to as a dose response relationship, so in other words, they cannot tell you if I add X amount of light to this space, it becomes safer by Y amount. There's nothing like that at all. It's very highly context-dependent. But you will get people who latch onto this stuff. They see it well. This is published scientific evidence. It's obviously more light means that our streets will be safer, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Bill McGeeney: 18:30

Yeah, when I read that it's to my first of all my mind was well, was there a general trend beforehand of reduced crime Like we have? At least here in the U? S? We've had a general trend for the past 25 years of reduced crime, minus COVID. And then, because when you look at seeing that there's a correlation with, you know, burglaries and whatnot, with light to me maybe are you putting the light in areas that already have high crime and they just haven't solved the impetus of those crimes Like these are thoughts that I have when I was reading it. You know, and read these crime studies and to john, exactly like there doesn't seem to be a boots on the ground kind of analysis of the variables in place and you're trying to use I don't know why you use light. I guess that's the other thing I don't understand. Why is light the magical secret weapon? Are the other avenues for research all taken, like you know, policing and community assistance and community connections and stuff like that?

Shelana deSilva: 19:26

I will just admit my cynical take on that the issues of crime are the sort of foundations of why we see crime in our cities, in our towns, across the US, across anywhere, are so complicated, and we know this right. There are socioeconomic factors, there are mental health factors, there are inequities, there are I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And I understand the human need to seek out a simple fix. And it's not that lighting design is simple. That's not what I'm saying. But I think I can understand why decision makers at a municipal level might say you know what? I have the right lights here. These problems are going to go away. And we just know that it's not that simple, it's not going to be that easy. Switching on a new switch isn't going to fix these problems. We have to go so much deeper and we need intersectional approaches when we think about issues like crime.

Bill McGeeney: 20:26

I wonder if I mean a lot of these crime studies. I feel like I could recreate many of these studies, but not use light use like GDP per capita or some kind of economic indicator and say, oh look, the city's gotten richer, so crime's decreased. And then you just say, oh well, all we need to do is make everyone rich and you don't have crime. I don't think that's an answer.

Yana Yakushina: 20:50

I mean the main problem here and the main question here who is the funding agency of this research? Is it the lighting company? Where did the money come from? Because I think the conclusions are both colorate with what they want to see and also on that, there also was recently published a pretty recent research, also on the relation of crime and artificial light at night. They also used the remote sensing data, but they basically were assessing what are the brightest areas like, what are the brightest countries, let's put it way, and what is the feeling of safety. And, weirdly enough, belgium is one of the most lead polluted countries, but the feeling of unsafety is the highest. So here you go. At the same time, there is research which basically completed the opposite of what you just mentioned.

Bill McGeeney: 21:44

And I feel like there's a lot of factors that are going into the unsafe and I don't feel like the lighting is probably the prime factor. But maybe I didn't read the study so I don't know, but it's just a guess. Well, since we're here on the nuisance side, this study comes at the same time that we have this fascinating and weird story playing out in Traverse City, michigan. Amelia Hasenor sued Immaculate Conception Elementary School essentially for light trespass, by arguing that the school was in violation of city's lighting ordinance. The courts then ordered the school to apply shielding to the lighting, and the courts also demanded that the school turn off the offending lights until mitigation efforts were applied. At the time of the story, immaculate Conception Elementary School has yet to install shieldings on their lighting. Instead of complying with the court order, the school has been fined $100 per day for leaving the lights both on and without the appropriate shielding. The court also awarded Hassanor $1,000 in attorney fees.

Bill McGeeney: 22:42

Kathy Nelson, on the other hand, who's affiliated with the school, unsurprisingly has a different take. Nelson justifies the school leaving the lights on for fear of safety and security. Per the article in the Record Eagle, the school's security system needs lights to function properly, with teachers potentially arriving after dark to prepare their classrooms. With teachers potentially arriving after dark to prepare their classrooms. To her credit, the school has installed a $30,000 dimming system and ordered $20,000 in new lighting to meet the ordinance requirements. There should be noted that the dimming system's effectiveness has been disputed by the neighbor contesting the lighting, which means it's not really dimming much. It should also be noted that Traverse City decided to update their ordinance to allow for roughly 1,000 lumen emissions from outdoor lighting, a sharp change from what was in place before. As far as I can tell, there's no real authoritative reasoning on that, except for that 1,100 was a lower, tiered midway point between 450 lumens and 2,500 lumens, which the city had previously had a variable code requirement for depending on the actual object. Then of course, there is a great quote here, very bizarre quote of city plan director for traverse city, sean winter.

Bill McGeeney: 23:54

100 cut off shielding on all their lights is almost impossible to enforce. So there's multiple things at play here. School installed bright lights with no shielding, violated code. Blood in neighbor's yard. Neighbor sued. All counsels won. Despite the fact nothing at all has changed. The city in turn, watching the court go through its ordinances, decide to firm up its own code. Why is the middle ground so hard to attain in these situations? Surely Asselor doesn't want the teachers operating in an environment that's unsafe, or doesn't want the teachers operating in an environment that's unsafe, but at the same time the consideration is denied to her by the school. It appears it doesn't want to take up any culpability for any actions that have impeded on her.

John Balentine: 24:32

What is safe. When we talk about safety, I'm really glad that in the previous question that Jana brought up the notion of feelings of safety and I wanted to point out the work of my colleague, boris Portnov at the University of Haifa in Israel, who's done some very good research on this in recent years. It looked into what his group calls feelings of safety, where they look at lighting treatments in different cities and then they ask survey respondents to rate their comfort level with being in those spaces at night. And one of the really important takeaways from Boris's work is that it does not take much light in the environment to increase those feelings of safety very quickly. If you go from no light at all to a relatively low amount of light, you get a big jump in the respondent's perception of the safety of those spaces. But what his work also points out is that as you go to higher and higher and higher light levels, that flattens out very quickly. So it's an issue of diminishing returns. If you want to double the feelings of safety at a given light level as the light gets brighter, you have to add a lot more before you get that doubling response, or whatever your metric is we don't have a lot of information about what is really safe in the sense of personal security, again, because the research is all mixed up on this but even the basics of what you know visibility at night and seeing obstacles or seeing tripping hazards or whatever your concern is about safety it's a lot more intuitive and a lot less based on evidence.

John Balentine: 26:13

So, for one thing that we could very definitely improve is backing these recommendations with real evidence. But at the end of the day, bill, for some people they're not going to feel safe, no matter how much light you give them. I mean, humans are afraid of the dark Organizations, whether it's municipal governments or school districts or wherever. They're all afraid of getting sued, at least here in the United States, because we're a very litigious society, and they feel like the only way to protect themselves is to make the outdoor nighttime space more like daytime, in a belief that that will assuage these fears and that people will be able to do what they need to do. So, bottom line yes, we need to provide light for real safety that actually improves the situation on the ground, but going overboard in the other direction is not the way to do it, and we have the evidence that backs that as well.

Shelana deSilva: 27:05

Well, I just want to build on what John is sharing, because I think so much of the story you brought up, bill, is really about how do we be good neighbors to each other? Right, there's a school that's trying to operate. There are neighbors who want it to be dark at night. Both of these needs are relevant and important and when I think we can, as dark sky advocates, dark and quiet sky advocates, it's our jobs to educate people on how they can be good neighbors, while holding onto these outcomes that we see are so important.

Shelana deSilva: 27:37

And I do think it is, in this case, about that education, so that we can kind of demystify where and how do you feel safe and why? It's not because of this bright light. Right, there's so many other factors happening in your town, in your society, that are contributing to these feelings of safety, your perceptions of am I safe or not, and it's not about the light that's shining above you and, I think, educating people on what you gain from a dark sky, how you can keep yourself safe, your community safe, the sort of social responsibility we have in there. I know I'm speaking to a lot of kind of complex themes here, but I do think it is about that education piece. So that's how we kind of navigate these seemingly different needs of a school versus a neighbor they're in fact not and helping them find what they have in common around these issues. I think is important for us as dark sky advocates.

Bill McGeeney: 28:31

And the school probably wouldn't have had the lawsuit if they weren't. If you saw the fixtures fixtures are these tubular fixtures with a cap at the top, so the light is actually in the middle. It's going out in all directions. If they used top down lighting they probably wouldn't have had this issue and it could provide safety. You know part of it's the way it's engineered, right.

Bill McGeeney: 28:52

If the basic engineering of the parking area was set up in a way that it had considered its effects on its neighbors, this wouldn't have happened and it could still provide that feeling of safety, right? Well, here's a different type of story for a similar batch, but a different take on how you can make things a little better. So a positive story out of Westchester Pennsylvania. Things a little better, so a positive story out of Westchester Pennsylvania. Some folks wanted to protect fireflies at Everhart Park from a new, very bright, white, clean street light designed to cascade in all directions.

Bill McGeeney: 29:26

Per the Westchester Borough Councilman, bernie Flynn, the initial lighting plan from Westchester of course paid zero amount of attention to health or ecological impact. However, the spurred state senator Carolyn Kamita I will add that Carolyn Kamita has been at the forefront of much of the dark sky work in Pennsylvania's legislature. So she has decided to move in and work with the borough to try and carve out small ecological space in the borough. And at first they dimmed the lighting down to 85%. They didn't see much of a change in the apparent brightness.

Bill McGeeney: 29:58

However, two officials Flynn and Kamita then worked together on installing shielding on the lights around the park and going forward. The residents should also expect to see one light in the park turned off. The end goal was to see if proper angling and the elimination of light trespass in the park can help repopulate firefly activity. There is a positive story of how you can work with the community and work with essentially the community's goals and still provide safety in a space right, okay, Moving to some good news. How are you guys on digital billboards, you guys like those I know I've got?

John Balentine: 30:35

strong feelings Bill.

Yana Yakushina: 30:37

I know.

Bill McGeeney: 30:41

Well, they're everywhere except for, evidently, down in Australia. Melbourne is contemplating requiring digital billboards to be turned off after midnight to summarize, on most days of the week, with a 1 am curfew on Friday, saturday and Sunday days of the week, with a 1 am curfew on friday, saturday and sunday. One exemption to be noted if a business is open, it may continue lighting its digital billboard through the time period that it's open. Cited in the city council proposal are ecological. Environmental and health effects from light pollution is a part of a general revision to melbourne's lighting code, which aims to direct the city towards its own identity versus other major cities in a general Asia-Pacific region. I highly recommend you have them. Should you feel so inclined, just take a look at a policy proposal. It's pretty interesting, it's well done and could aid communities in helping implement much of the same. I will note that there's been no updates on the story since the lead up to the recording of today's show, so I don't know how that fared or what's going on with that there. And then we'll move over to ecology and Shana, this is your wheelhouse here. We kick off the ecology segment with an article by Olivia Ferrari over at National Geographic.

Bill McGeeney: 31:50

Researchers in China took to learning about artificial light at night, the impact that artificial light night has on tree populations. In Beijing Found under artificial light two trees. The two trees they looked at Japanese pagoda and a green ash tree universally had tougher leaves, showing reduced evidence of insect activity on them. There appeared to be a correlation between light intensity and a reduced sign of insect predation. The researchers involved weren't able to identify the cause of toughness of leaves. They hypothesized that perhaps the artificial light is extending the tree's photosynthesis. Their concern in this case lies with the fact that our ever-disappearing insect populations, specifically artificial light at night, is providing an environment inhospitable toaring insect populations, specifically, artificial light at night, is providing an environment inhospitable to nighttime insect activity and hence, it goes without saying, up the food chain poses risk to other insects that prey on those insects and then birds that prey on insects and higher order predators.

Bill McGeeney: 32:50

From the Journal of Birds, it appears that artificial light at night affects the circadian rhythms of captive budgerigars. The birds commonly known as budgies were exposed to shortwave blue light between 200 nanometers to 460 nanometers for a duration of anywhere from zero to 90 minutes during the night. Researchers measured the body mass, number of eggs laid, the success of hatchlings and the circadian rhythm marker of melatonin sulfate. From this the researchers found a correlation between the duration of blue light exposure at night to increased body mass, a decreased number of eggs laid and a decreased hatchling success, and also a suppression of the melatonin sulfite levels.

Bill McGeeney: 33:38

Turtles made the news this month, pretty much for everything you'd expect. A Turkish team set out to measure artificial light at night at 13 Mediterranean beaches in Turkey. Their study in the Turkish journal Zoology found that many of the most important beaches for hatchlings also experience a high degree of artificial light at night. Obviously, they're recommending such communities become aware of their impact and institute improvements to help protect sea turtles. And then, finally, on the ecology side, the Journal of Mammalogy, researchers looked at the native rodent, the Pacific kangaroo rat and California sage scrub and the Pacific kangaroo rat and California sage scrub. Specifically, they wanted to understand how the increasing coastal nighttime brightness impacted rat behavior. Researchers found a correlation between artificial light intensity and reduced foraging behavior. This aligns with past studies on rodent activity and artificial light at night. So there we have. There's our ecology wrap up for the month. So now I see you nodding your head over there.

Shelana deSilva: 34:40

Yeah, I'm nodding my head with happiness, bill, and thank you for kind of sharing all of these studies and some of the results at a high level.

Shelana deSilva: 34:48

I mean even the story you told about the fireflies in Pennsylvania and some of the decision-making around protecting some of their habitat, and then all of these studies you just talked about in the sort of ecological realm.

Shelana deSilva: 35:03

All of this is contributing to something really important, which is our further understanding of light as a pollutant.

Shelana deSilva: 35:09

In conservation and in stewardship, we use species as our surrogates for making good decisions on the ground right. So whether it's decisions about which land should be protected and restored because it contains the last of the world's remaining coast redwoods, or we're looking at the northern spotted owl here and how that implicates resource extraction, timber operations, development, all of that, how we balance all of that out, the way we do that is by understanding impacts to these species. So these animals, these plants, are essentially our guideposts to say, okay, humans, if you're going to do these actions this is what happens to me over here, and until we understand that correlation and what that means for these species and their longevity and thereby the impacts to our own drinking water, clean air, food systems, et cetera. We need to be able to study these things, study these impacts, and all of the studies you described are helping us sharpen our pencil about the impacts of light pollution on these natural systems. So I'm here for it. I love it.

Bill McGeeney: 36:19

Thank you, shalana. Well, since you're here, hey, do you want to plug yourself? We have one more story to cover, but I want to give my guests a chance to you know, talk a little bit about themselves, how you can find the work you're doing, shalana. And yeah, why don't you tell the listener at home how they can find more about you?

Shelana deSilva: 36:37

Oh, I would love to share a little bit about my home landscape, Bill, Thank you. So I work for the North Coast Redwoods District of California State Parks. We have a unique partnership with the National Park Service on the north end of my district, Redwood National and State Parks. We welcome across our district, which goes from the Oregon border all the way down to northern Mendocino. We welcome upwards of 3 million visitors annually. This is the place to be if you want to see towering coast, redwoods enshrouded in fog. You want to see beautiful, rugged coastline, black sand beaches, tide pools. We've got it all. We've got elk, we've got bear. We've got everything that you could possibly want to see in terms of North Coast wilderness and beauty and a number of amazing communities here, indigenous and settler communities who are contributing to this place with so much cultural diversity, art, music, you name it and good food. So please come and visit us here in the Redwoods.

Bill McGeeney: 37:39

I will definitely second that that was one of the most spectacular places in the US, without a doubt. Yeah, okay, let's move over to you, yana. I know it's late for you and we're going to get you to bed in a second.

Yana Yakushina: 37:53

How can people learn more?

Bill McGeeney: 37:54

about everything that you're doing.

Yana Yakushina: 37:56

Thank you, shalanda, just sold me the trip.

Shelana deSilva: 38:01

Waiting for you to come and visit me. I've got so many things to show you Come on.

Bill McGeeney: 38:05

You got to do it. Go out there and visit her.

Yana Yakushina: 38:08

Okay, amazing Speaking about my work currently, like I mean, we're now soon, hopefully, we'll launch a campaign with supporting Light Sution Manifest in Europe. It's going to be a website where people can read it and sign it. I hope I will share it soon, but the best way to connect with me and read about my work and get in touch with all the amazing discussions which I'm trying to raise there is via LinkedIn, so I welcome everybody there.

Bill McGeeney: 38:37

And Yana. You're very active on LinkedIn so you definitely can reach out there and Yana will definitely have a few words of you know she'd be able to have a good conversation, so highly recommend it. Find Yana on LinkedIn, John. Where can people learn more about everything you do, your consultancy and how to get to the access cash part of your business?

John Balentine: 38:57

Yeah right, fortunately, I have an unusual surname, so if you Google me, you'll find all the various things that I'm involved in. I encourage people to take a look at my website, which is darkskyconsultingcom, which, in addition to talking about the stuff that I do professionally, there's a lot of resources linked there for people who are interested in getting involved in dark skies. I write articles on a monthly basis on all aspects of the topic, and it's a it's a great place to start.

Bill McGeeney: 39:26

Excellent. Well, this last one again this month. We're going to close up the show on a sad note, but you know I'd be remiss, not to mention the passing of David Crawford. John, did you know, david?

John Balentine: 39:38

I did.

Bill McGeeney: 39:39

Do you have anything you'd like to say before I get through?

John Balentine: 39:42

I'll tell you the one little anecdote about Dave that was fantastic. When I first met him and I had just started work at IDA and started managing the International Dark Sky Places program, which at the time had a couple of dozen designations this was a little more than 10 years ago and Dave, in his usual way, kind of sized me up and he said I thought by now there'd be thousands of those places, and I think my jaw must have just hit the floor at that point, knowing what goes into that. But he was so-looking in that respect that it was very easy for Dave to look at the landscape and say you know, basically, why isn't every park in the world part of this? And it was definitely exemplary of his vision for where he wanted the organization to go.

Bill McGeeney: 40:30

Well, many of you know David Crawford as being a founding member of the International Dark Sky Association. Crawford was also a tenured astronomer at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson. Crawford obtained his PhD from University of Chicago while working at the Yorkies Observatory. In 1960, he moved to Kitt Peak where he founded the Dark Sky Office with Bill Robinson. The duo worked with municipalities and other observatories to help promote filterable low-pressure sodium lights. However, similar to our LED conversions, low-pressure sodium conversion didn't go off without hiccups. An amateur astronomer named Tim Hunter found his orange and, as a nearby facility, utilized unshielded lighting. That oversight on shielding eventually formed a friendship and alliance between Hunter and Crawford that culminated in the founding of International Dark Sky Association in 1988. Crawford became a member of the Illuminating Engineering Society and collaborated with individuals across multiple disciplines, including lawyers, lighting professionals, manufacturers and government disciplines, including lawyers, lighting professionals, manufacturers and government, and, due to Crawford's dogged efforts, he helped make lighting shielding a standard. David Crawford passed on July 22nd at the age of 93. His impact on promoting awareness of the need for nighttime protection has garnered Tim Hunter to consider him to be one of the greatest environmentalists of the 20th century and the early 21st centuries. Rest in peace, david.

Bill McGeeney: 42:00

Unfortunately, the crucible that Mr Crawford went through remains a battle today and we've actually, I feel like, shifted a little backwards in time in our haste to install LEDs. So I want to thank you guys here, my guests. I want to thank you for joining me today. I want to thank you at home for listening all the way through, and thank you so much for Yana, john and Shalana. You guys are amazing. This is an excellent, excellent afternoon I got to spend with you guys and I hope the listeners at home are equally as entertained and now knowledgeable about some of these very, very, I guess, complicated topics that we discussed today.

Bill McGeeney: 42:37

So, as a reminder, light Pollution News is recorded towards the end of each month. This month we record a show on August 25th and you can find all the details included in today's show over at lightpollutionnewscom. If you have any questions or thoughts, you want to say hi, you can simply text us via the link in the show notes. Email us at bill at lightpollutionnewscom. Signing off. I'm your host, bill McGeaney. Thank you for listening. Remember only to shine the light where it's needed.