December 2024: Say Light Pollution

This month, host Bill McGeeney is joined by Travis Longcore, Adjunct Professor and Co-Chair of the Environmental Science and Engineering Program at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and Paul Bogard,  author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light, a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award!

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

Bill's Picks:

• Brightness of the Qianfan Satellites, Arxiv. 

• Space Agency seeks feedback on solutions to light pollution, Adam Thorn, SpaceConnect. 

• Labour councillors back residents’ campaign to stop street lighting along The Leas, Ryan Smith, The Shields Gazette. 

• Why Scientists Are Linking More Diseases to Light at Night, Marta Zaraska, WebMD. 

• Astro Adventurers, Skyscanner.

Chapters

• 14:46 Challenges and Opportunities in Lighting
• 26:21 Community Concerns About Light Pollution
• 38:29 Astrotourism and Light Pollution Impact

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:06

light pollution news december 2024 say light pollution. In this episode, china launches their version of starlink, but how dim will it be? And you're not going to like the answer to that. Two communities push for more responsible lighting practices. And could you tell space junk, apart from a meteor? You finish up 2024 with Dr Travis Longcore and author Paul Bogart. Here we go. Light pollution news is next. Welcome to another Light Pollution News. Today we're closing out 2024.

Bill McGeeney: 0:57

Let me reintroduce you at home to our guests for December an adjunct professor and co-chair of the Environmental Science and the Engineering Program at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, mr Travis Longcore, and from Hamlin University up in the Land O'Lakes, author of many books that you may be familiar with, mr Paul Bogard. Paul, we didn't really get a chance to talk too much about the work you've done and stuff that you have coming up in the first half, so let's get into it now. I know most listeners will know exactly who you are. I'm sure they've read your prose at many points, or just one point in their life, who knows?

Bill McGeeney: 1:32

Your book End of Night was really important to me personally Over the catalyst for this podcast. It kind of woke me up in 2020, whereby, as we all experienced the slowdown of the pandemic, I found myself with time to rethink my priorities. And experienced the slowdown of the pandemic, I found myself with time to rethink my priorities, and it was then I dove back into astronomy and subsequently learned about light pollution from a completely different angle than I was first exposed to it. Between the two of you, travis and Paul, quickly realized that this wasn't just a blight of simple amateur astronomer, more of a true environmental and cultural crisis. So a little late to the game, yes, but I guess better late than never. So first, on behalf of others who you had moved to care of, thank you, paul, really appreciate it. So hey, let's get into what you're working on.

Paul Bogard: 2:16

Well, thank you very much. A pleasure to be here and that's one of the joys of having the end of night is just hearing from people for whom it's meant something. Having the end of night is just hearing from people for whom it's meant something. And I still get pictures from people who find it in like national parks and gift shops and that kind of thing, and it's always. I think I had a I think I'm allowed to say this I had like a unpublished manuscript or something like that. Somebody bootlegged you a copy, exactly, exactly, and just thinking like you were just saying, bill, just you know, I often say to people like I started with the stars, but you very quickly move beyond that and when you start to look at light pollution and all, yes, it's, you know, an astronomic, a problem for astronomy, but it's a problem for all of us and ecology is a huge part of it. And, honestly, the piece that motivates me the most is trying to raise awareness of the impact of light on our fellow creatures. So I love the work that Travis does. It's super important and I want to try to amplify those subjects where I can.

Paul Bogard: 3:33

And to get all the way back to your original question, really great news is that I signed a contract for a new book within the last couple of months. It's called how to See the Sky and the subtitle is the Newest Science, the Oldest Questions and why they Matter for Life. And so it's that, like the End of Night, like the Ground Beneath Us, like other things I've written, it's a real blend of science and the humanities and really thinking about why. You know, why does this stuff matter to us? Why should we care about wildlife being impacted by light at night? This book will include the night sky, certainly, but I'm really focused on expanding to think about the 24-7 sky and looking at dawn and dusk and daylight, and also subjects like clouds and wind and weather and satellites and bird radar things. That kind of.

Paul Bogard: 4:25

Amazingly, just in the decade since the End of Night came out, there have been these dramatic developments like a boatload of study, of course, and then the bird migration, nocturnal bird migration, the use of radar to track that we talked about that last time obviously the, the, the tsunami of of led, uh, leds everywhere.

Paul Bogard: 4:49

Just a lot has happened in the last decade, so I have stuff to write about there. But I'm really I'm focused on, you know, the 24, 7 sky and and really excited, this book is going to be found a great publisher, at harper, which is a imprint of Harper Collins, and they're they're super excited about it, which is, for any writer would feel good about that, and so I'm. I'm going back to people like Travis and saying, all right, like catch me up on what's been happening, and I've done some travel, I'll do some more travel in the coming months and then October 1 deadline, which is it sounds funny to say, but it's looming, looming for me already. So I've got a lot of work to do between now and then how fast does it take you to turn around a manuscript?

Paul Bogard: 5:35

My experience has been with my three major books that they give you a year once you sell the contract to write the book. With the end of night I benefited from. You know people say like how long did it take you to write your first book? And it's like, well, all my life, in some ways, right, you have all that time kind of building up to that, originally one. And then I think you know you've heard about the problem with sophomore, I won't say slump, but a sophomore effort kind of. I think my book, the Ground Beneath Us, which I love and I think in some ways is stronger than the End of Night, but it suffered from only having a year to really write it.

Paul Bogard: 6:15

I'm excited about this new book because in some ways I've been, I mean, with the night stuff. I've been working on that, as you guys know, for years, of course. But even the new material, the new subjects, I've been doing on that, as as you guys know, for years of course. But even the, the new material, the new subjects, I've been doing research on that for, you know, for more than a year just to write the book proposal. So I've got a real good headstart. The writing, you know it'll be a good six months of of drafting and revising and then turning it in and probably doing some more revising after that, always revising. Right, it's the name of the game. I mean, we were talking about first year students, freshmen, 19 year olds. I teach them every, every day and they don't believe it. They think you just, you know, you just sit down and you write something and you turn it in and you're done and it's like man, revision is the name. That's where it gets good.

Bill McGeeney: 7:05

Well, both of you guys are here, so I can't miss this opportunity to just ask you know, paul, you've written so much on the culture of night, so much on culture in general, and then you have Travis over here, who has written so much on the science of night what's your feeling? What's the state of light pollution, the state of this issue in 2024?

Paul Bogard: 7:28

light pollution, the state of this issue in 2024? Well, look, I think you know my feeling or understanding about it is that in some ways we've made a lot of progress. I mean, I remember again researching the end of night 10 years ago. I talked to people who were active in raising awareness and they would tell me, you know, five or 10 years ago I would say the phrase light pollution and people didn't know what I was talking about. They hadn't heard those two words together, and I think that's changed quite a bit.

Paul Bogard: 7:53

I think people much more know the phrase light pollution. They've heard about it, they have some sense of it. So that's good. There's just a general awareness of the issue. There are more dark sky areas, for example, officially designated areas. The National Park Service is on board and they've done, I think, a lot of great work. There are more groups, like here in the Twin Cities we have a group called Starry Skies North that I helped start but has really blooms beyond my actions with it.

Paul Bogard: 8:25

I guess we have more of those kinds of groups and obviously, more science. We have more. We know more about the impacts of artificial light at night, which is great, and at the same time you know, as somebody once said to me, almost nowhere is getting darker and almost everywhere is getting brighter right. So we have that dynamic as well, which is also true. So good and bad, and I would say I'm just thinking of this kind of on the bad category, we have a whole generation, or a couple of generations now, of people growing up in the in the US who have no idea what they're missing, have never or rarely seen the Milky Way, have never or rarely seen the Milky Way, have never or rarely been out in a natural night, under a natural night sky, in a natural night. And it makes it in some ways harder to, as you both probably know, like rally support or attention or interest in this when people are just like I don't. Why should I care? What are you talking?

Bill McGeeney: 9:22

about. Yeah, paul, we just got back from Tennessee and my cousin down there, who is quite a number of years older than me she's she grew- up in Southern Florida, right, and it was definitely not a dark area, you know, like the Miami, fort Lauderdale area.

Bill McGeeney: 9:39

in her house Oddly enough she she is she keeps the light on outside because she has never adapted to being in a dark area, which her part of Tennessee is relatively it's not dark but there's not many street lights and stuff like that out there. But then you look at her house and it's the darkest one of the whole list of houses here and she leaves the light on outside because she's not comfortable with night and it's not impacting much, nearly as much as her neighbors. So you make an excellent point on the learned culture, I guess, of nighttime.

Paul Bogard: 10:14

Yeah, I mean there's no doubt about it. I mean we just I talk to my students about you know, your education, as it were, isn't just in your classes, the four or five courses you're taking each semester. It's like what is the food you're eating? You know what are the who are the people that you're meeting, and part of it is what is the night that you're experiencing. I mean that's part of your education too, and they're, they're the message that they get unless they run into me or a few other people is, you know, night is scary and dangerous.

Paul Bogard: 10:43

Darkness is where bad things happen. You know light is some, light is good, some more light is better. You know just all those messages that we know about and it's really tough to fight against that. I mean I've, since I got, since I started writing about this, I've been amazed by the reality that you can talk and I don't know if Travis has had this experience too, but you can talk to an audience for 45 minutes about the beauty of the night sky and the costs of light pollution, and you know all the things that we, that we talk about, and somebody will raise their hand and be like, yeah, but no, we need all this light for safety and security. It's like they don't even hear what you're saying, because that's all they can, that's all they can think about. So that and that is certainly a reality for us now happens all the time yep, yeah, that's a sad commentary, yeah just to follow up.

Travis Longcore: 11:36

You know, on the science side and I think you know paul's right here we do have this enormous growth in research and I used to be able to kind of keep my arms around what was going on, and I can't anymore. And part of the result of that growth is that there's a lot of people just sort of thinking about the science side and then, as it goes into the professional societies and regulation, partly there's newcomers to the field now who don't necessarily know some of the mistakes that you could avoid. Like if you're going to do this work, you need a light meter or something that can measure down below a tenth of a lux, or at least you know if you want to measure biologically relevant lights. You have people out there who are like they're joining the field but don't have that necessarily knowledge. Then there's the people who are joining and kind of feel like they need to paper over and invent it themselves, and that happens, and I think it happens in disciplines all the time. Or they're in a slightly related discipline and they completely ignore this stuff in this area that we've done before, and so they're like oh, oh, I have this really, you know, completely inexplicable result. It's like, yeah, but if you knew any ecology, you'd know that that's why that species is behaving that way.

Travis Longcore: 12:54

So there's this kind of growth, but, you know, knowledge hasn't permeated across all of the areas where that growth is happening, which is an interesting thing for me because I'm, as we discussed, I'm a geographer, I'm not a chronobiologist, I'm not a physicist, I'm not an astronomer, I'm not, you know, I'm an integrator across space and and so I'm trying to keep track of these things going on and seeing both how there's reinforcing research but maybe that isn't talking to the other research that it needs to be talking to and the other thing that's going on that I'm starting to see is the industry, is the lighting industry. Lighting engineers are now going out and giving presentations about the effects of light on wildlife and what wildlife friendly lighting is and whatnot, and on the one hand, it's like great, everybody's interested. On the other hand, it's there's a sort of a co-option going on that the industry recognizes that I can, if I can sell this as this, then I'm going to be able to sell more lights, and and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're not right in in what they're presenting, and they're sometimes they're not right in what they're presenting, and sometimes they're using various mitigation approaches, as get out of jail free card, when they shouldn't be. And so it's a perilous time and sometimes I feel like I have to be kind of a truth cop in these committees that I'm dealing with IES, cie, these sort of places where these conversations are happening, where we're having the important conversations in the sense of the people are all in the room that need to be there.

Travis Longcore: 14:31

But it's the power of industry in driving lighting decisions cannot be under and or overestimated, whichever the right way to say that is. And so you have some parts of the and I've worked with a lot of people in industry saying can you please provide this kind of product lower color temperature that can do this or that or the other thing? And yes, you should be available because I'm going to be recommending it on the mitigation side. But we can't do the mitigation unless the industry is there to provide the tools. So there's a lot of good collaboration that goes on, but I sense also that there's a lot of people now out there talking about things that they really don't have the full background to be doing, and that's a challenge for all of us who are trying to keep us honest.

Bill McGeeney: 15:23

Jay Travis. Who wags the tail? Is it, is it the consumer? Is it municipalities or is it like who is the industry responding to?

Travis Longcore: 15:32

you can generate a market for better lighting products through regulation. So the fact that that florida has you can't install lights on the coast that have emissions less than 500, I think it's 60, 560 nanometers that drives availability. There are some companies that have figured out that there is a marketing opportunity to being the ones who can do star-friendly or wildlife-friendly lighting and in that sense they are innovating and they're going out and sometimes creating the market with the municipalities. And then there's the sort of the cultural leadership that comes from places like the National Park Service. So let's note that their involvement was not late. They were doing this back in. You know.

Travis Longcore: 16:18

I think even 2000s National Sky Division was there doing their work. They were innovating very early on this and sort of demonstrating impacts and showing how to do better lighting at really culturally important places in the national park system and showing that can be done. So in that sense it's developing through the government action is developing also a consumer demand for better lighting. So I think that there's a mix of things, but there's also you cannot ignore the magnitude of marketing dollars and influence that is in the outdoor lighting industry and the opportunity to sell more lights or sell controls and if you can harness that to do better lighting, great. But that isn't always what happens, because there is not complete knowledge and there is still a lot of people out there who are just they're selling lights, they're not selling good lighting, they're selling lights, and there's a difference between the two.

Bill McGeeney: 17:27

I've always thought and I've tried to throw this out there I have absolutely no influence on any of this stuff, so I'm going to throw it here. If you have something, just brand something as neighborhood friendly or neighbor friendly. I think that will be hugely beneficial at a lows for consumer level. And then hugely beneficial a lows for consumer level. And then hugely beneficial have a neighbor friendly street lights instead of the godforsaken leds that every city is putting up. And just to put that in perspective, we just had a and I don't know why every city doesn't do this because it doesn't look like it's very expensive. We just had shielding put in on a street light and it's phenomenal. It does exactly what you're supposed to have in the street light. It keeps the light out of where it's supposed to be and keeps it where it's supposed to be so.

Travis Longcore: 18:10

So part of the challenge there is. Well, there's a number of different challenges, right, sometimes you have a municipality that actually owns their lights. Other times you have jurisdictions where there's a basically a monopoly, a utility, an investor-owned utility that comes in and does the lights and they make their own business decisions. So like, for example, southern California, edison here has made the business decision that they're not going to provide streetlights that are less than 3,000 Kelvin. Now, is that the worst? No, is it the best? Far from it. But they've made that business decision and there's a lot of lighting specification that goes on. That's just sort of meeting the standard.

Travis Longcore: 18:46

Not giving a lot of thought, meeting the standard of illumination on the road like you know, rpa, ies can comply with that blah blah and not giving a lot of thought to the spill issues and the, the, you know, using the backside shield, the cul-de-sac shield, the front side shield, all these things that exist. But somebody has to actually advocate for them to be put in and used appropriately. And I know people in the industry who are working on sort of automated machine learning approaches to this so that the lighting engineer isn't just sitting there speccing out light after light after light after light, but you specify where the lights should be, what standards need to be where, and then you let a automated system tell you which. Which lamps and shields get you where you need to be, but not beyond right, because there's no penalty right now, essentially except for the absolutely tiny extra energy use. There's no penalty unless there's an endangered species and there's a whole regulatory process. There's really no penalty for light spill, off-roadway light right.

Travis Longcore: 19:53

Municipalities and jurisdictions tend to exempt themselves in their own light pollution regulations in that regard. And what's the downside? The downside comes when people complain and there's a political thing how this can go. So, for example, salt lake city did what they thought was the right thing and started replacing their old high pressure sodium with high colorcolor temperature LEDs, and they got political pushback on that and you called them God-forsaken LEDs. I wouldn't do that. I would be very specific about it. It's not the LED technology that was your problem, necessarily, although there are people who are opposed to LED technology for other reasons, having to do with flicker and migraines and whatnot. I agree with you directly on that.

Bill McGeeney: 20:33

I just want to throw in real fast, because I technology for other reasons, having to do with flicker and migraines and whatnot. Now I I agree with you directly on that. I just want to throw in real fast because I'm not against leds, not at all. I'm against the installation process. It appears to me as a mindless installation process. I'm sure it's not. I'm sure there's a lot of factors there and you you mentioned some of the constraints is the measurement constraints issues. But one of the things I will say all the stories that come through of people and communities rebelling against streetlights is because they're over 3 000 kelvin that's usually what we see and they're not properly shielded yeah, yeah, and they're not properly sure.

Travis Longcore: 21:06

Yeah, so so lake city went back and did an entire planning process community involvement, meetings, experts, disclosure. I was the ecology and sort of human health consultant and came up with a new streetlight plan that looks at environmentally sensitive areas and says we're going to do lower than 2,700 Kelvin there, it's going to be 22 or lower and that residential neighborhood is the default is going to be 27,. Giving people some choice, some ownership, some ability and also fixing some of the inequalities, where there were areas that were definitely underlit from a safety perspective and they were in poorer areas of town, and so it was very clearly oriented toward let's get the light where it needs to be, in the appropriate places, and the other critical piece is the controls that LEDs allow you to have that the appropriate places and the other critical piece is the controls that LEDs allow you to have. That the industry has been promising for a decade and a half, that we actually use to dim and do it in an experimental way.

Travis Longcore: 22:05

You know, go out with the community once your lights are in and say how is this? This is half power, is everybody happy with this? And the ability to do that right. Or and for the downtown lights up when the bars close if they have bars and so on, not too many. Or, a better example, when the basketball game gets out or whatever, lights up full and then put them back down to a quarter power for two to five in the morning when there's just not that use. So actually letting the industry and technology live up to its potential in a way that saves energy, reduces environmental impacts, reduces, you know, all these adverse things that we know can come along.

Paul Bogard: 22:47

Yeah, I was going to say that it reminds me of spending time with the folks designing the lighting in paris when I was writing the end of night and their excitement about leds, because they could well, he's. You know, they said first we did studies of the whole city to figure out where people really are at night, where they're active and what's happening, and then they were going to try to do exactly what travis says, which is, you know, sometimes you want a little more light, sometimes you want a little more light, sometimes you want a little less light. You know, and with LEDs I just always say, you know, great promise, but potentially also great peril too. It could just mean and I think it has meant in a number in too many places just more light, you know, than we've had. And one note I like, Bill, what you said about, you know, the emphasis on neighborly lighting.

Paul Bogard: 23:33

Lowe's actually did have a good neighbor quote unquote line of lights. I don't know if they still do, but 10 years ago or seven or eight years ago they did. We could talk all about. You know, are we living in a country of neighborliness right now or not? But I like to think about, like light trespass, for example, where you have light from one property trespassing into another property, and if you can, just I always feel like if you could just get people to be aware of that, like how is that? How do we allow that? That's just crazy, you know. And yet everywhere in America, with, you know, some exceptions, that is just the way it is.

Bill McGeeney: 24:13

Yeah, definitely, paul. Uh, maybe the uh, the light trespass is the source of the unneighborliness. We're not getting enough sleep. Well, I want to. I think we did a good warm-up there, so I'm actually going to pass over a warm-up article here and jump right into the news. This is some good news in astronomy. So we have construction is actually going to be ending on a Vera Rubin observatory down in Chile and the plan is to switch on next year. The telescope has a camera resolution of 3200 megapixels. To put that in perspective, most of your consumer grade DSL cameras sit somewhere between a 20 to 100 megapixel range, so it's a lot of megapixels. The operators plan to chart the night sky with upwards of 1,000 photos at night. That's good news, but they will have some competition for that piece of sky they're looking at.

Bill McGeeney: 25:05

And I know we've talked quite extensively about satellites over the past few months, but hey, they're in the news and the space race has been renewed. But this time it's really the space economy race. Last month we recounted stories of the AST Bluebirds and a month before we had a story on the new Starlink cellular communication satellites. Well over in China, they sent up the initial round of 18 of the Qifan communication satellites to build wait for it a mega constellation to rival Starlink. Similar to AST and Starlink, these satellites are projected to be bright, very bright. In a study yet to be released, researchers are estimating that the satellites will be upwards of fourth magnitude at zenith, while fading to a dim eighth magnitude on the horizons.

Bill McGeeney: 25:46

And what the hell? Since we're talking about bright things in the sky, new startup Robinhood co-founder Baju Bhatt has created a startup called called Atherflux, which looks to beam infrared light down to stations below in an effort to renew energy sources, potentially for remote areas off of the grid, and they plan to start launching their test satellites in 2025. So some of this can't be a good thing for Vera Rubin Observatory. The observatory has been nearly 10 years in the making, has included backers like Bill Gates, the US National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy. Paul, when I hit satellite stories, which are becoming kind of storyline from month to month, I can't help but wonder about the curiosity and connection that you write about in the Night Sky, and specifically so I want to throw this your way because you wrote in a time before satellites were very apparent in a night sky. If you're that kid today? What would he write about going forward as satellites become the norm in the night sky?

Paul Bogard: 26:49

Man, we could talk about this for a whole nother session. I actually wrote a piece for the New York Times a few months ago that they ended up not printing, in part because they said they had already. There was already so many stories about satellites, you know, and kind of it was sort of and their attitude was a little bit like everybody knows about it and I was like I don't really think so, but you know it's your newspaper. Yeah, I mean, part of what I said in that, in that essay, was that you know, when I was five years old, I'll never forget seeing a satellite, you know, cross the sky at our Northern Minnesota cabin. It was, you know, one of the. It is one of my first memories and it was a memory of wonder, like seeing that satellite go across and just imagining that, you know, human beings had placed that light in the sky among the stars was really beautiful, it was really moving. You know, and for most of my life I think that's been when I've seen satellites.

Paul Bogard: 27:45

I've, you know everybody says, oh, there's a satellite, you know, it's an exciting thing. But now I think of, you know, my own five-year-old, who's now six, and I just think everybody I've talked to about this, is just really concerned about it and what the future holds and how it's going to change our experience, which is sky. I just don't even you know what's it going to be like for my daughter when she's our ages. It's, it's, it's, yeah, it's super troubling and I and I don't think it's, I don't think it's a thing that people know about, I don't think people understand the numbers that we're talking about of, you know, going from wherever we are, 9,000 satellites to 90,000 or 150 or whatever. The crazy numbers are what that's going to be like and, yeah, it's very troubling. Just from a cultural experience standpoint, it's very troubling to me.

Bill McGeeney: 28:47

I think to your point. Most people really wouldn't know it. Anyway. If you're in a more light polluted area, higher Bortle number, you're going to see less satellites, right, and which the astounding part is, I can still see satellites here in Bortle, probably Bortle 9, bortle 8, bortle 9. We kind of moved up over the last year. But when you go to a lower Bortle, which most people don't live in and they don't ever look up, but they'll look up when they go to, say, national park, and they'll see much of the sky moving versus here, they might see one or two things, because you can only see 50 things on a given night.

Paul Bogard: 29:24

I think that's true and Travis may have a better understanding of this but than I do. But you know, I know you've talked to John Barentine and what John has told me, you know one of the really troubling things is the when the satellites are going to be most evident to people. Looking at the sky is like in the evening basically, when if people do look at the sky, that's when they're going to you know they're going to see them. People aren't up at most, most people aren't up at two in the morning, when they won't be as much of a problem kind of thing.

Bill McGeeney: 29:52

So yeah, well. Well, since we're here and you know I know many of you at home have listened or have seen perseids and I know I guess today you guys have probably looked at look for some meteor showers in your life. Did you ever wonder if that shooting star was actually a meteorite or piece of space junk? So here's a quick little test that you can use, from Dr Ellie Samsoon, per ABC News in Australia. It's five to six seconds long. It's probably a fireball If it's minutes long and you're able to get your phone out. More likely, space debris and I had a chance to actually see one of these live at one of the star parties I went to. It looked like a shooting star cascade across the sky for about 20 seconds, appeared to skim and brighten randomly and kind of blow up periodically along the way. So maybe that's the new world reality we're looking at in the news. Also this month we did have one upbeat story regarding the space economy. The australian space agency solicited for submissions on how to incorporate first nation cultural and scientific knowledge in their space sector, which includes potential protection for viewing the night sky. The Australian night sky is projected to be impacted quite negatively from brightening of the night sky due to low Earth orbit satellites. So a couple of these stories came in regarding growth and regional development and I'm curious to your take on these.

Bill McGeeney: 31:13

First down in Gibson, new Zealand, located in what's locally called the Valley of the Vines. Gibson is notable to folks around the world for their award-winning wines that derive from the Central Otoga wine region. Residents who are part of the Friends of the Gibson Character Zone have decidedly railed against new government plan to install a new community inside the confines. The Gibson Village project plans to bring in 900 houses, 2.4 hectares of commercial facilities and a school. This comes as the general Queenstown area experiences what looks to be unprecedented fast-track development, development that the opposition claims to have bypassed a typical community input and community feedback loop. Other proposed developments in the region share similar goals of sizable population growth. Included in there also is an expansion of mining operations, hospitals and more, and a new development would increase the population over five-fold. The opposition is gravely concerned about the loss of their new International Park dark sky designation. The developer plans to make concessions for light pollution to retain the designation.

Bill McGeeney: 32:24

At the time of this recording, the Queenstown Council has yet to review the proposal, and then we also have this story from across the pond in the UK. It all started when residents living adjacent to the Lees Nature Reserve in the South Shields section of South Tyneside, uk, noticed new 32-foot-high light poles being erected. The residents vocally opposed the new lighting, organized themselves and put together a changeorg petition that garnered over 1,000 signatures. The project, which was initiated by local leaders of the South Shields, apparently also failed to notify the National Trust, an organization that helps maintain the lease From a high level. The plan appears to be a very sensible one Modernize a cycling path adjacent to a roadway, which includes protections for bikers.

Bill McGeeney: 33:12

Thanks in part to pushback from the community, south Shields is looking to implement a more responsible practice for streetlights, including shielding and warmer temperatures, than they initially planned. The catalyst for this was because the neighbors had revolted due to an objection over being able to see the natural light and their northern lights from their property. So we have two cases where communities are pushing back against some government planning that may impart some negative consequences on their skies. But is this really a case of communities that just don't want to change, or do they actually have valid concerns? What do you guys think on this?

Travis Longcore: 33:48

Well, I mean, look, one of these is, you know, a complete housing development within a community.

Bill McGeeney: 33:54

It's a whole community.

Travis Longcore: 33:56

Yeah, yeah, and that's the lens of light pollution is probably not fair. The other one, the bike lane issue. I think that's a mismatch between the desires and the technology. Now, first of all, I'm not sure why everything has to be lit. I biked everywhere when I lived in Europe in the winter, in Sweden, at night, it was never a problem. We had lights on our bikes. That was that, and so there's a lot of I know there's advocates out there who think that everything needs to be lit, but maybe everything doesn't need to be lit.

Travis Longcore: 34:39

However, if you're going to do something like that and there's sensitivity, either aesthetic or ecological or astronomical, that there's much better solutions than 30 foot tall poles. That is almost guaranteed, depending on the development pattern, that you're going to be bugging somebody, and there's been enormous advances and demonstrations. Now in germany, paper came out not too long ago super cool, showing how you can shield lights, custom shield lights and they developed this with a lighting manufacturer to get light on a trail but not on a nearby creek, and they were able to demonstrate this really dramatic decrease in insect attraction by using basically the best technology for shielding that you could. But 30-foot poles is suggesting that you are trying to cover a bigger area that maybe is feasible to do a good balance. So there, I think it's appropriate and they did mention that they were going to go for warmer color temperatures and from the generic insect impact, that's appropriate, although it doesn't resolve issues like fireflies, bioluminescent organisms that are seeing in that those warmer color temperature areas of the spectrum yeah, and I mean I, I would.

Paul Bogard: 36:12

we should come back in six months and see what decisions were made. Laws and policies are almost always geared toward development, and obviously our economies are geared toward growth, and I just have a hard time believing that light pollution, concerns about lighting, are going to get in the way. Stop that kind of development. At the same time, I'm glad people are thinking about it. At least that may be a positive aspect to this story.

Bill McGeeney: 36:40

Yeah, and it's enough to the point that they're thinking about it as with a new community coming in trying to instill some best practices right out of the gate, which is pretty impressive, right. So I want to get back to real fast Travis on the bike thing, because I bike commute a lot. Two things on that the in the areas that are brightest, I feel less safe now because before I could stand out because I had light and now I kind of blend in because it's so bright, the area saturated, like you know, it's all a flat white essentially, so you don't feel like there's anything that catches anyone's eye. But then the other side is bike lights are astoundingly brighter than they used to be. They are essentially like car headlights and technically you don't need it.

Bill McGeeney: 37:34

We had Jennifer Huygen on last year and she was petitioning her council to install lights in a park and she's a cycling worker and she does all of her things and she understood, you know like I have bike lights and whatnot, but she just felt that it was unsafe for women to go in areas that were dark and I think that is something that needs to be really driven, driven like through and understood here, because I think that's a valid concern it's very culturally, uh, distinct.

Travis Longcore: 38:09

You know, there are other places around the world where everybody does this, everybody bikes, everybody bikes at night, everybody uses it and and no, you don't need to have a laser on the front of your bike as a, as a light, and you know just, it's a, it's a cultural decision.

Bill McGeeney: 38:26

Yeah, Good points, All right. First study we're going to go to the health side. Speed up things a little bit here. First study of the international journal of health research through using Sally imagery, there was a significant correlation between artificial light at night and low birth weight. There were also two really good summary pieces that I'm mentioning in the event someone wants to check these out One from WebMD, which does a fantastic job summarizing state of research in simple, readable English as it pertains to health and light pollution. Another one from the Asia Journal of Environment and Ecology, which does much the same, but in a much more technical and detailed manner.

Bill McGeeney: 39:03

Before we leave this health segment, this kind of ties in with the health news. It's really a tech story, but I don't know if either of you have iPhones or if you update your iPhones. Ios 18 is becoming now. Ios 18 has an automatic setting now for your screen icons that can go into dark mode, which essentially removes some of the residual white light on your screen. And there's also an additional pro tip If you aren't aware of how to turn your iPhone screen red when in a nighttime environment, you can definitely look that up. But once you do that, you're able to add a shortcut to your pull-down screen for the functionality under the color filters menu. So pretty neat stuff there. All right, I want to give you guys a chance to plug yourselves one last time. Start with Paul. Paul, you got a new book coming out. People should look for it in 2026, I'm presuming.

Paul Bogard: 39:51

Yeah, that's the plan, yeah, a new book coming out, but it's, you know, due October 1st, and then it typically takes about nine months before it comes out after that. So what would that be? Summer of 2026, something like that.

Bill McGeeney: 40:04

And and what's the name of it again?

Paul Bogard: 40:06

Well, these things can always change along the way, but right now it's how to see the sky, the newest science, the oldest questions and why they matter for life. And you know, I I'm the main goal. I guess, or the the driving theme here is, you know, how do I, how do I get people we were just talking about iPhones how do we get people from just talking about iPhones? How do we get people from, you know, spending looking down at their phone to looking up at the sky? And I the the idea obviously, behind the the how to see the sky is that you know, people think they see the sky, but they really they really don't. And so here's, here are ways, here are ways to see it, practices to see it. You know lots of, lots of new information about what you're seeing. And, yeah, just, I think it's good, it would be good for our lives to be reconnected with that part of the natural world.

Bill McGeeney: 40:54

Where can people learn more about the upcoming book, or where's the best spot for people to find all about you?

Paul Bogard: 41:00

Yeah, I have a website that's paul-bogardcom. People can go and find the latest news and pictures and that kind of thing, and if people are interested to contact me, that's a good place to do it as well.

Bill McGeeney: 41:15

Okay, great, Travis. Any big projects coming up that you want to talk about or not talk about, that's fine. Still under wraps right now.

Travis Longcore: 41:27

Yeah, I mean a little bit of a different environment. It doesn't matter if I plug or not, right, I mean the people are going to see their work, they're going to see it. I have a project with caltrans that we're starting sort of a second phase. Those you follow know I did a big report for them on leds and terrestrial wildlife and we're going to head more into the implementation side with them and trying to really get some of these workflows so that the lighting engineers and the biologists have a language to talk to each other and we can actually get the balancing of the safety with the wildlife impacts into the process.

Travis Longcore: 42:05

At the design phase it's always harder. When you get to you know something's installed and it's it's a problem. It's always better to get it earlier on and so we're trying to do that. And you know, california being california, hopefully it can be something that other states look to and spills over. And we got a few other projects going on. I don't just do light pollution, so got we've got some work happening, but just to keep an eye on it, teaching a few students and trying to keep my salary funded.

Bill McGeeney: 42:33

Where would somebody reach out if they're looking to just touch base with you?

Travis Longcore: 42:37

They can find me at travislongcorenet no hyphen, so just travislongcorenet. Or it's a unique enough name that you just need one Google search and you can find me.

Bill McGeeney: 42:50

Let's round out the show this month. Next guy is one that's interesting. If you guys haven't heard about this, I'm not sure if either of you guys are really focused on the Sphere, like I have focused on the Sphere, but hey, it's in the news again. Second location it's not going to be in London. The sphere, Abu Dhabi will bring its innovative, immersive experience, along with all the light pollution one could ever dream about, to the United Arab Emirates capital city. From initial details, it appears that Abu Dhabi will be forking part of the bill, and the sphere itself, in case you're wondering closes fiscal year back in June, which incurred a sizable loss for facilities-related depreciation costs. It should be noted that the Sphere went into operation in October 2023, therefore it didn't have a full.

Bill McGeeney: 43:44

The Hayes County Friends of the Night Sky awarded 13 area businesses with a Be a Star Award. These businesses instituted responsible lighting practices that both served to make patrons feel safe and protected the local environment. Dripping Springs became the first Texas city to become a dark sky community way back in 2014. The first Texas city to become a dark sky community way back in 2014. And in designations this month, I want to welcome Saudi Arabia's Al-Lola, which earned an international dark sky park certification, and we missed welcoming Kalkura into the fold back in September. Not sure how that happened, but hey, let's cheer on all the folks that have helped create a new dark sky sanctuary down in New Zealand.

Bill McGeeney: 44:28

Paul, I think this one falls in line with what you may have written about quite a while back. The travel site Skyscanner believes that 2025 will be the year of astro-tourism. This is driven by the huge year we had in astronomy-related tourism in 2024. Per Skyscanner, the April eclipse topped Google for travel-related search terms. Overall, Skyscanner found that 54% of participants in the poll were interested in catching the northern lights, 37% were interested in watching an eclipse regardless of solar or lunar, apparently and 37% were interested in going to an observatory. Paul, in your book the End of Night, I felt that you were very early on in illustrating some of the emotional connection of astrotourism and it felt like astrotourism was kind of like just a very new thing at that time. Here we have it we have astrotourism starting to really rise up and to very impactful economic levels.

Paul Bogard: 45:32

Yeah, definitely, I mean, and I think there's definitely positives to that. You know, communities that are recognizing that they have something that people want to come see, therefore maybe trying to protect it a little bit more, you know, because they can hopefully make money from it. So that's really great. I think the you mentioned the eclipse. I mean, I think you know, for me, just the power of the sky still remains like the, the, the, the madness that happens when eclipse was going to happen. Or you know, I I think about a text I got from a friend of mine who said you know, the Northern Lights are predicted at night and everybody's losing their shit.

Paul Bogard: 46:10

You know, just kind of that sense of like, just excitement about these experiences that we have with the sky is something that I think is a hopeful thing and a good thing. You know, at the same time, the fact that there is something called astro tourism kind of speaks to our situation, which is that most people live in places where they can't see the stars, more or less. You know, and what's the great costs of that? That you have to, that if you want to see the Milky way or you want to see a real night sky, that you have to. You spend money and go, and you know, then we get into issues of like who can afford to go to see the sky and that kind of thing. Um, so it's a it is a good thing. I think it reflects, uh, our ongoing curiosity about and wonder with with the night sky, which is a great thing, but it also kind of reflects the state of the state of, uh, our lives these days. It's something.

Bill McGeeney: 47:06

Yeah, I always wonder about that class divide, how that's going to play out, but it also kind of reflects the state of our lives these days. It's something. Yeah, I always wonder about that class divide, how that's going to play out. Hopefully we can find a way to get more people to be able to experience a natural night. I also want to add that the publication believes that young folks are seeking out the stars. We're very interested in astrology. Now, I don't know if that's simply the author confusing astronomy with astrology, which, astoundingly, is not unheard of in articles I read but to add credence to the homage to the ancient form of mysticism, the article determined that 74% of those who supposedly fit a Gen Z age group believe that astrology will determine their next trip. Well, I can surely tell you that the stars haven't guided my life around here in Philly, because I can only see, on a good night, maybe about 50 of them. However, I do want to thank you, travis, and you, paul. It's been really a great panel. This is great to have you guys here. I feel honored that you guys took a couple hours out of your life just to come on and talk today and learn so much, and I know that listener at home was able to take away so much. So thank you guys, thank you for your time and thank you for coming on. Thank you for the show. It's a it's a great, it's a great show. And before we go I just want to have is the.

Bill McGeeney: 48:20

Since this is the last official episode of 2024, I want to thank all of my guests from 2024 who weren't on today's show but had come through, including Diane Ternschenk, karim Asherogla, astro Backyards, ashley Northcote, lauren Colley, tim Brothers, tara Roberts-Zabriskie, mary Stewart Adams, john Barentine, danny Robertson, isa Muhammad Frank Torino, betty Meyerfoot, jeff Buehler, mattia Schmidt, the Actual Astronomy Podcast, shane Luca, jack Ellerbe, yano Yukishina, david Smith, leah Osborne, josh Dury, kevin Walchek, the Stars and Nights, betty Buckley, leo Smith, shalana Da Silva, tyler Norgren, nancy Clanton, nebula Photos, nico Carver, cape May Astros, kevin Baer and Michael Reimer. Thank you again to my guests today and throughout all of 2024. Thank you at home for once more staying with us and continuing to help spread the word about the show and helping to. Hopefully the show is making a difference in your life.

Bill McGeeney: 49:18

So, as a reminder, light Pollution News is recorded towards the end of each month. This month, we recorded the show on November 16th. You can find all the details related to today's show over at lightpollutionnewscom. If you have any thoughts or questions, just want to say hi, feel free to simply text us via the link in the show notes or email us. Bill at lightpollutionnewscom. Signing off for Last Time, 2024,. I'm your host, bill McKinney. Thank you for listening and remember it's a shine of light only where it's needed.