January 2025: Fly to the Right.

This month, host Bill McGeeney is joined by Dr. Mario Motta, lighting designer Glenn Heinmiller, and, advocate, David Lefevre!

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

Bill's Picks:

• Reducing light pollution, this city 'went dark' to save birds — and it worked, Good Good Good. 
• Cool' white car headlights more likely to dazzle moths, Science Daily. 
• Town Pilots New Streetlights On Main Street To Combat Light Pollution, Nantucket Current. 
• DarkSky International launches new lighting policy templates for municipalities and territories, Drew Reagan, Dark Sky International. 
• Exposure to constant artificial light alters honey bee sleep rhythms and disrupts sleep, Scientific Reports. 

Chapters

• 13:28 Ecological Impact of Artificial Light
• 25:22 Challenges With Model Lighting Ordinances
• 38:09 Regulations on Lighting Standards and Stargazing
• 51:08 Volunteer Support for Lighting Ordinances

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:06

light pollution news january 2025. Fly to the right. Can artificial light at night affect pollinators? And we have some thoughtful debate on the new dark sky policy packages. Finally, what's your favorite starry sky designation of 2025 this show. We welcome back dr mary amada, lighting professional glenn heimiller and advocate Dave LaFerro. Let's do it. Another Light Pollution News Today.

Bill McGeeney: 0:54

We are finishing out our January with an excellent slate of guests. This has been a lot of fun. I want to reintroduce you to a stellar lineup we have this month. Couldn't be more thrilled by the conversations we've been having. To a stellar lineup we have this month. Couldn't be more thrilled by the conversations we've been having David LaFerra, the advocate from over there in France, and lighting professional Glenn Heinmiller and Dr Mario Mata. As a reminder, you can see all of the articles from today's show over at the show page of lightpollutionnewscom.

Bill McGeeney: 1:20

If you haven't already subscribed, what are you waiting for? Hit that button and join us every other week for fresh updates and perspectives on the news involving the broad topic of light pollution. And if you like what we're doing, why not consider being a supporter? $23 a month, which is pretty much the cost of a cup of coffee. We stay 100% listener supported. So your $3 goes a long way to help us push forward each month to expand out and if you're already a supporter, thank you. We deeply appreciate your support. For a list of all the things that being a supporter gets you, please swing over to lightpollutionnewscom and click on the Help Us Grow tab.

Bill McGeeney: 1:53

Now, last show, we dove into everything health-related. This show is going to be a little more ecological-focused and I want to just kind of jump right into it. I think we got such a good groove going that why not, let's jump into the ecology side. So back in December, I had Travis Longcore on and he went through a lot of ecology articles with us. But again it's another big ecology news this month. It lists all of the articles that we come across every month over at lightpollutionnewscom by clicking on the research and links and then going to the ecology menu item in there.

Bill McGeeney: 2:30

According to the Texas Conservation Alliance, bird fatalities in Dallas-Fort Worth area as of October 31st, which admittedly was halfway through fall migration bird counters those are the individuals who actually walk around in the morning to count bird fatalities counted 42 bird fatalities, that's 26 less than similar time span in 2023. Great, these are low numbers across the board. But to put these numbers in context, dallas-fort Worth is one of a number of cities that participates in Lights Out, which is a program that enlists responsible businesses and building owners to do their part to help reduce bird fatalities during fall and spring migrations. We had a story from WHY Philadelphia last year that estimated 70% reduction in bird fatalities after many of the towers began a Lights Out program. David, I know last episode I had to cut it, but you have mentioned that light it affects everything else that lives in it and it looks like Lights Out is actually working.

Bill McGeeney: 3:32

Do you guys have a Lights Out, a similar program? Is that just a US thing? Do we only have that here in the US?

David Lefevre: 3:38

We do have in France how do we call it in English? Something like a black trails. In fact, we are trying to re-establish dark corridors for the birds, for some species, not only birds mammals as well to ensure that they can do migration, moving across the country without light. A lot of mammals, a lot of birds are moving at night and we are trying to reestablish this in France as well.

Bill McGeeney: 4:12

That's great to hear. I know we often see a pretty big buy-in on Lights Out and wherever it seems to hit in many of the cities you start seeing a pretty good uptick at least I believe. I haven't seen too many stories to the contrary. But I do notice one thing with the Lights Out program and I'm wondering if, glenn or Mary, you might be able to help me understand this a little bit.

Bill McGeeney: 4:35

The Lights Out program seems to always have a caveat and individuals who are running Lights Out program are typically advocates for bird safety and avian life. They want to see birds stop decreasing. So you know they go out there and they see lights out. They know that birds are very attracted to lit areas but they always have to temper the lights out. With this caveat that I always hear, and it's you know we're going to have the lights out on the towers and whatnot, but we still we need lights for safety and security. So you know you have to understand like we're just telling the towers to turn their lights off because we need lights for safety and security. Is that them being insecure with what they're asking people to do or is it a reflection of our society?

Mario Motta: 5:23

Say you know, know, people aren't accepting of that yet if you go by my ama articles, nowhere does it say we want to shut off all the lights. Okay, that's impractical in a modern society. We'll only have a role for people like glenn to provide proper lighting. So what we're saying is shield them so they don't shine up to the birds, don't attract the insects, and use the right color, correlated temperature, so you don't blind people, don't create human health effects and don't adversely affect the environment. This is probably the most easily solvable problem that we have. If it just takes a matter of will and education, we can protect the birds and still have lighting. That's really not an issue.

Mario Motta: 6:09

One thing people should know is with lights and tall buildings, birds run into them and then drop dead. In Las Vegas, everyone knows about the pyramid there, that casino. What people don't know is they have this light that shines straight up into space, can be seen from the space station. Okay, it's so bright that birds from miles around come there and circle around. What people don't know is every morning they have a team that goes up just before sunrise to sweep up all the dead birds that are attracted by that casino, and there lives frequently hundreds of dead birds on the. They fall down the side which is sloping. Okay, the casino goers don't realize that, but that play that one casino kills several hundred to a thousand birds a day. There's no need for that. Yeah, that's horrible.

Glenn Heinmiller: 7:01

Well, I mean, you say about this whole thing, about the, we can't turn off the lights because of safety. Well, the lights that would matter for safety and security are in the lower levels, you know, at street level. Everything above that on a tall building is either interior lighting or it's decorative facade lighting. So turning off the decorative facade lighting during bird migration season is a no-brainer, like that should be done. Season is a no-brainer, like that that should be done. Interior lighting is fortunately because of energy codes now, at least in this country is. You know, if the space is not occupied, the lights are off. But some spaces are occupied 24, 7 and. But most of these towers have shades right. Even if they're residential they have shades right.

Glenn Heinmiller: 7:44

So close the shades, you know yeah, and you forgot one piece the lighting also is advertising that would be the decorative facade lighting, but the lighting it could bleeding out of the windows on the office tower is is not advertising, it's just pollution, and so you could mandate that shades be closed on buildings at night. That could be part of an ordinance. Good luck enforcing it, but it's not a hard problem to solve. I think the Lights Out programs are good because, even if they don't really do anything I don't know but because they develop awareness right. Well, hopefully that's the hope. Anything I don't know, but because they they develop awareness right.

Bill McGeeney: 8:24

Well, hopefully, that's, that's the hope but this.

David Lefevre: 8:26

this is interesting because in the in the previous podcast, we were saying that all the lights problem we are thinking about are self-human centered and when we talk, for example, about birds, this is something counterintuitive, because we use light to see where we are going.

David Lefevre: 8:48

Birds are using light like a lighthouse away in the dark and to keep their way, their heading, to go somewhere. So if there are multiple lights, or the pyramid in Vegas, or the towers the light of the 9-11 towers, it's a big lighthouse and the problem is that this lighthouse is not far from the path they are going. So when they are moving along this path, the lighthouse in fact moves, so they are changing their heading house in fact moves, so they are changing their heading. That and doing like this, they are going into circles, they feel tired and they die on the place. They never reach their destination just because their heading is their compass is false due to the light and they are, so they are not using the light, are? We are using the light, so maybe this is something we should think about. There are other ways to use the light, and birds is a good example.

Mario Motta: 9:53

At the end of the last episode you mentioned Travis Longcore. I consider him one of the premier environmental researchers on light pollution and he's written a number of good papers. But the birds? It varies from species to species according to articles he's written. Some rely on magnetic fields, but most rely on lighting, and many actually followed the Milky Way or the stars to have a direct heading in one direction. When you have big city lights, they can't see those and they tend to just circle around the city over and over again until they drop dead. So it's a huge environmental problem and we have to make a decision as a human species. Do we care only about ourselves or do we want a healthy planet?

Bill McGeeney: 10:40

Well, continuing on that news right, there's a lot of people who want to do good for pollinators. I know we're one of them. We put in a pollinator garden where we live, so I've got a couple articles here just talking about light and pollinators. So first up, the University of Exeter looked at how the new bright white LED headlights affect moths. It turns out that those blazing light bulbs that blind our flying brethren every bit as much as they do to us people and get this moths were 80% more likely to exhibit abnormal flight patterns in the presence of this light. Moths exposed to this type of light were 25 times more likely to fly directly towards the headlight. The study found that simply switching the color of the LED to a warmer temperature quote-unquote dramatically reduced their impact on moths.

Bill McGeeney: 11:30

And then there was a study from Scientific Reports where researchers looked at how honeybees acted when exposed to two conditions constant dark and constant light. This behavior was based off of separate control segments with standard day-night lighting. So the experiment ran for five days and individual subject behavior was recorded using infrared cameras. The researchers found that the bees appeared to have an aversion to constant nighttime light and, interestingly, the constant darkness didn't seem to have much of an effect, but the main impact from always-on light, which authors asserted could either enter the hive or affect the bees sleeping outside the hive on hot nights. So these bees that were affected by the artificial light night appeared to be more disturbed by their peers than standard day-night bees, so they're more irritable bees essentially day-night bees. So they're more irritable bees essentially.

Bill McGeeney: 12:27

The light levels used in a study ranged from and I'll use this comparable terminology that I think you'll be quite familiar with ranging from a constant 100-watt incandescent bulb to a 60-watt incandescent bulb towards the corners of the caging. So, david, before I think last episode you had mentioned about some of the circle of life idea here Pollinators. We're trying to do a lot to improve pollinators' path in this world. We destroy their landscape, put in generic landscape, take away a lot of their food sources and then we have a reduction of pollinators. But another piece that we don't think about is how the light actually carves out the path for the pollinators.

David Lefevre: 13:07

Exactly. A little detail usually people do not know is that we've got about 300 different species of pollinators during the day. Any idea of how many we have during the night? It's not 300, it's 5,000.

David Lefevre: 13:28

So the night is really important and I read a study which was made in January last year so it was one year ago explaining why insects will go flying around the lights at night and in fact it's quite clever. From what I've understood is that in fact these insects do not feel the same gravity as we feel because they are in the air and they are flying. So to fly on the right path they use another indicator the light. Where is the light? Usually it comes from the sun, so they can fly straight right to where they want to go. But at night, if you've got a light, a public light or a garden light or something like this, each time they move it's the same thing as a bird with the towers. Each time they move, the light apparently is moving backwards, so they will change their heading the same way and they will turn around the light and burn on the light or just drop dead because they are tired or eaten by some birds or some predators in the night.

Bill McGeeney: 14:43

It's pretty amazing the impact that could be occurring that we don't even see.

David Lefevre: 14:49

And in fact it will affect us because the fruits, the trees will not be pollinated, and then we don't have any. We are in the middle of an ecosystem and we cannot forget the rest. Okay, we have our problem about the light pollution, but this is a more generic problem. In fact, if we kill all the insects, it will be difficult to have fruits, pollinization and things like this. So we will suffer about this in a short or middle term. So let's be a little bit less centered.

David Lefevre: 15:27

Maybe I'm not taking, I'm not saying for us here, I'm sure everyone is aware of it, but yeah, let's not forget that.

Mario Motta: 15:36

I'm glad you brought this up, because about five or six years ago I was at a conference where my talk was right after an entomologist from Tufts University. I don't recall his name, but the title of his talk is why Is your Windshield Clean? Yes, why is your windshield clean? Yes, and basically his point is we're killing off all the insects and that's why we don't have dirty windshields anymore, and, in fact, entomologists around the world are calling it their term is an insect apocalypse, and the latest studies show we've managed to kill off 40% of all the insects in the world, which is amazing if you think about that, and many of them are our food pollinators, exactly as you point out.

Bill McGeeney: 16:14

Yeah, that's a good point. I have three additional ecology articles here and I'll just read through real fast. From Behavioral Ecology, it's found that light and noise pollution create impediments to how tigara frogs interact to find mates. From Photochemical and Photobiological sciences, adult zebra finches exposed to a dim light at night for six weeks experienced a reduction in their metabolism similar to how displaced circadian rhythms affect us humans.

Bill McGeeney: 16:42

And an article out of Marine Pollution Bulletin found that the invertebrate, the sandy beach isopod, had its feeding behaviors and activity negatively impacted by artificial light at night. But despitebrate, the sandy beach isopod had its feeding behaviors and activity negatively impacted by artificial light at night. But despite that change, the insect continued to actually show some physical growth. The most offensive lighting was white light LEDs, of course. However, all lighting impaired the motion and feeding behaviors of the isopod. And lastly, it's estimated that 70% of mammals are nocturnal and apparently the list is growing. From biological conservation, researchers found that the corpuscular mountain lions that is operating from dawn to dusk are joining the nocturnal bandwagon when coexisting in human-centric environments, environments that incur greater human activity, say hiking, biking or other, during the daytime. A little bit on ecology there.

Mario Motta: 17:37

The environmental damage is immense and the blue light especially is what causes much of the problem, because the blue light scatters more and it travels and it travels. It's estimated a single 100-watt LED bulb light emitter will travel 50 miles laterally, whereas just from the scatter. That's why the National Park Service now is not just prohibiting those kind of lights within the national parks but insisting any lights that are needed are fully shielded. But they're going around to the surrounding communities and asking that those towns limit their lights and shield their lights, because even 50 miles away it adversely affects the ecosystem within the park. So this is a huge problem. I'm glad that the National Park Service is on board, but it's something we need to consider.

Mario Motta: 18:32

There's a great quote since we talked about Travis Longcore earlier an article he published in 1999 where he ended with a sentence that I use this quote a lot If a particular species is not listed this is in the article he wrote that is because it probably has not yet been studied. In each and every case where a species has been studied, there's been an adverse effect on their environmental health. That is a direct quote and what he's trying to say. There is, there are many species if you try to look up and see well, does this affect this species? If it's not listed it's probably because it hasn't been studied yet. Every case he studies is an adverse effect.

Mario Motta: 19:16

Salmon going up a river. There's a place in Northern California that put 4,000 K lights under the bridge. Had nothing to do with safety, just someone bright bulb in the town thought it would be great if the bridges lit up so they can see it from the town. Yeah, it's something we love, right? Yeah, the salmon stopped running up the river and within five years the salmon count went from thousands down to just a few hundred. Someone finally figured it out. Shut off the lights there and the salmon runs. And the salmon are back.

Mario Motta: 19:46

Off the coast of Florida you get these blooms of algae. Now, much of that's from the excess fertilizers that the sugar plantations use. But when they form normally you have protozoa deep down, usually below 100 feet. A couple of hundred feet come up every night. In fact, it's the largest migration on the face of the earth. Protozoa come up and eat the algae and then they go down into depth as soon as the sun rises. Well, anywhere along the beach where there's light pollution, protozoa don't come up. They're light averse. Consequently, the algae doesn't get eaten and that's felt to be contributing to algae blooms and red tide because nothing's eating it, to algae blooms and red tide because nothing's eating it. Normally, if there's no light pollution, it would get eaten by the protozoa and you'd have a protozoan bloom instead. I mean, you wouldn't consider these issues if you didn't think about it, but basically every species on Earth is affected by light pollution, not just human health, and you would argue that more so it's an environmental issue.

Bill McGeeney: 20:53

Now down in Florida, you guys have a lot of amber lighting ordinances along the coasts, right.

Mario Motta: 21:00

It's sporadic when the turtle population was declining and there's another good example, by the way, because everyone just assumed it must have been toxins that people are putting on the beach, suntan lotion, killing off turtles.

Mario Motta: 21:14

Whatever, they assumed that for 15, 20 years and turtle population nearly became extinct. Until someone from Florida University studied the issue and found out no, nothing to do with any of that, it's just the lights. People in Florida who buy homes and are generally fairly well off decided they'd like to have the lights on the beach all night long, so if they wake up to urinate they can see the beach for that 10 seconds and because it looks pretty. What that did is turtles, when they hatch, usually around full moon, are pre-programmed to go to where the light is. Light shines off the water, they head to the water and they're safe, light shining on the road behind the house. They don't go to the water, they go to the road, never make it to the water and all die off. So in certain localities where there are lots of turtle populations, they finally pass ordinance saying you're prohibited from shining lights all night long on the beach. Sure enough, turtle populations have come right back, but it's very sporadic and most of Florida doesn't have any regulation.

Bill McGeeney: 22:20

Since we're talking about what would essentially be streetlights or parking lot lights, let's move over to streetlights. I know, glenn, you had some thoughts on some of these articles and you wanted to talk about some of them. So, on the streetlight front, there's an interesting pilot program that was ran this past November in the town of Nantucket, massachusetts. The community will be testing out some responsible lighting on part of its main street. The lights aim straight down, minimizing driver and pedestrian glare, and the goal is to look at replacements for current decorative streetlights in the main commercial corridor. The testing ran for nearly two weeks and then solicited input from community members. The community also received a $75,000 grant from a community venture capital group.

Bill McGeeney: 23:00

Remain Nantucket passed a lighting bylaw last year. You may recall that we discussed that story around September of 2023. And, glenn, if I'm thinking right, I think I know what these lights are. They are kind of these decorative lampposts that have the light at the top. It's like a flat piece that's a plane that's perpendicular to some framing, right, yeah, it was originally probably gas, but way back.

Glenn Heinmiller: 23:25

but not that, not these fixtures, but it's replica of a period fixture and it's it's iconic for downtown in nantucket, in the town. But so that's specifically what they've been testing out. But nantucket there's a lot of convergence of a lot of things in in my life regarding what's going on in nantucket and it's it's super exciting. The backstory is that during the pandemic sometime, I remember I got a call from gail walker, who's an activist on nantucket, and she said well, I want to hire, I get your name, I want to hire you to do consulting for me to try to help develop this bylaw. And I basically said it's like the amount of work it's going to take, you don't have the budget, you know it's like don't do that, don't ask me, don't say you're going to hire me, ask me to volunteer. So I became the technical advisor for Gail, who runs this group called Nantucket Lights.

Bill McGeeney: 24:15

Yeah, nantucket Lights, that's right.

Glenn Heinmiller: 24:16

She's quite an activist and other people I was in her sole advisor. The beauty of Gail is, besides being like, incredibly like, I mean just a force of nature she's a retired litigator for some federal agency litigator for some federal agency. So she knew how to kind of write legal language, which is a lot of times we see people trying to write ordinances and don't even understand how to structure it Anyhow. So the bylaw passed by a two to one vote in town meeting last spring or summer, I can't remember. And now she's been doing all the work to try to educate the whole island about what they have to do and that's a huge effort but it's really exciting it's going on.

Glenn Heinmiller: 24:55

So at the same time people in the town and the government got interested and got this and they got the students there to do this study. They're documenting all the municipal owned or public lighting. And then they got a grant and it turns out to do a, basically a a lighting planning, a lighting master plan or planning study for the whole island, for all the public lighting, and our firm is going to be, I guess, was awarded that that work. So we're going to be doing consulting work on there. My my partner, keith yancey vacations on the island in nantucket every september, so he has this whole personal connection with nantucket. He was just down there looking at the streetlight. You know, prototyping there they were doing so. Anyhow, it's really exciting what's going on, I think. I think Gail should, she's a model of how to get an ordinance passed. You know, I mean, it's a massive amount of work.

Bill McGeeney: 25:44

Did you have you seen any or heard of any feedback on what the community's thoughts were on this test run of the lights?

Glenn Heinmiller: 25:51

No, no, but I mean it really had to. I think it's come down to whether or not that there's an enclosing glass globe clear glass jar basically or not. This is where you get into the technical stuff. Because of this clear glass, you get internal reflections and you get a little bit of light above horizontal reflected off this glass. But if you take away the glass, it doesn't look quite as authentic, but you don't get any light above horizontal, and so it's like they are trying to figure out whether they are going to have to give themselves a waiver from their own bylaw to have a little bit of uplight, which is what I think they should do, or you know. So this is where you get, where this gets into the whole regulation issue, get into these absolutes of you know binary decisions, and then you say, oh, wait a minute, we just banned our own historic streetlights, so that's what they're going through now.

Bill McGeeney: 26:49

Oh, a lot of little details in there. Glad to hear about gail. Gail does support light pollution news and always glad to see I know they've been working very hard and it's like a light. So it's been working very hard to instill some responsible practices out there. And we have this other article here. Glenn, I know you want to look at it some big news out of dark sky international, with whom we've had a number of folks directly affiliated on the show before. Dark Sky International put together a very helpful policy package for advocates, lighting designers, conservationists, you name it to help in use of crafting responsible ordinances in your community. The new lighting practice templates take into consideration technological advances in LEDs to promote positive effects in both lighting and the prevention of light trespass, sky glow, ecological degradation, etc. Glenn, this is one you want to talk about. What are some takeaways, I guess, for the listener at home?

Glenn Heinmiller: 27:46

Well, first of all, this is a big deal, ok, something that we've been waiting for for. I don't know, it depends on how you count, 10 or 20 years, but if I may give a little backstory, is in, in, in, in Mario's lived this. I mean, when I got involved, like I said in the last episode, when I got involved, sort of interested in light pollution, 20 ish years ago, what was totally apparent, what was talked about a lot is still talked about that in this country there was no standard type of lighting ordinance, so every town had their own little language, not every town, some towns, the towns that had ones, and the majority of them were terrible. They were so poorly written that you couldn't even figure out how to comply with them or how to enforce them. And so there was this need for a standard, for a model lighting ordinance, and I think it was 2011, mario, that the model lighting ordinance came out. It was a joint effort of the Illuminated Engineering Society and Dark Sky and it was much awaited, and it did not really get adopted very much because it was probably too complicated, it wasn't really actively supported by dark squad or the IAS, and but it did have influence because it had the bug rating system in it, which got into the commercial lighting world and became a regulation that we use on the commercial side. But anyhow, since the MLO came out, there was always like, okay, we need a light, an easier one, or we need an MLO too, and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and finally Dark Sky started to work on it.

Glenn Heinmiller: 29:26

The other piece of backstory there are two things they put out. They put a municipal coordinate model ordinance and they put a state legislation model ordinance, which is something else. I mean. This is where I first met Mario right, because in Massachusetts was a leader in that, trying to get state level legislation passed. For 20 years maybe you've been trying, and about 13 years ago I think, kelly Beatty came to me and Mario came to me and said every time we put this up there, the lobbyists from the lighting manufacturers come in and kill it. How can we write an ordinance that they won't kill? And I said how about we write an ordinance or a legislation that not only they won't kill, they'll support? And we came up with legislation. It was submitted in like 2012, I think, filed, and it had written support from Dark Sky. Obviously. Iald, my organization, the IES and NEMA National Electrical Manufacturers Association. So that was a huge deal. I was very proud of that because I felt like I got all those people together. So, 10 years later, dark Sky is coming out with their own model for state legislation and working on these in parallel. So I got involved and hoping to bring those four organizations together to you know, or at least support all this, but it didn't quite turn out that way.

Glenn Heinmiller: 30:44

I worked a lot on the, on the sort of a I don't know, a reviewer. I guess I just counted, before I got on the call Seven drafts of the of the municipal ordinance I reviewed, commented, had a really good relationship with the people writing it. I mean, I think my input really improved things a lot, if I may say. But we came down to a bunch of sticking points and so it's a big deal that they put these things out. They put these things out, unfortunately, and I reluctantly say that I would not recommend their use at this point without certain modifications, because they've done some things that you know I work a lot in code writing, regulation writing. We're in energy code writing and the goal is always to be as simple as possible and understandable as possible, because if a code or regulation isn't understandable by the person who's going to be using it, then it won't be compliant and the person who has to enforce it if they don't understand it, they can't enforce it. So it's usability, enforceability, and they've done a couple of things that I said it was an issue, but they have.

Glenn Heinmiller: 31:56

I don't want to rant about it too much. There are a bunch of things, but the one thing that really gets me, and I think is a good example, is the requirement they have for how to control distribution of light right, and the fully shielded definition is well known. That means basically no light above horizontal. Shielded definition is well known. That means basically no light above horizontal. But what they say and it's not, it's not a bad thing. Let me see if I find the language and glenn, this is on the current mlo yeah, yeah, yeah, this is I'm reading.

Glenn Heinmiller: 32:24

Luminaires emitting more than 1000 lumens shall be fully shielded, defined term and shall emit no more than five percent of their total lumen output above 80 degrees from nadir. Okay, so if there's no light above 90, right then that means no more than five percent of their lumens between 80 and 90. So that's not a bad thing. And actually we need to start regulating what's that's the glare zone from 80 to 90 degrees, and we need to start regulating that and regulate as a percentage of total lumens as opposed to absolute lumens like the bugger. That's the glare zone from 80 to 90 degrees, and we need to start regulating that and regulate as a percentage of total lumens as opposed to absolute lumens, like the bugger system does, is not a bad idea either.

Glenn Heinmiller: 32:59

The problem is that this metric doesn't exist in the real world. So electrical contractor cannot go to his lighting supplier and say give me a fixture that doesn't put out more than 5% of the lumens between 80 and 90, because that information isn't published, it's not available. And the residential homeowner now if remember, if it's under a thousand lumens, then there was no restriction at all. But if the residential homeowner wants to use a 1500 lumen fixture, they can't go to Home Depot and find out whether that fixture emits more than 5% of the total lumens between 80 and 90. So this is the kind of thing that's like. It's basically unenforceable because you don't even know how to comply with it. And it pains me, but I don't know why they did this. Frankly.

Mario Motta: 33:50

I agree with you, glenn, and the reason why the MLO, I think, failed because I was on the IDA board for a while, just before the tech got published, and I thought it was too complex and it was.

Mario Motta: 34:13

The average town manager has no concept of what a watt is or a lumen is or how to apply any of that. All they want to know is this light is good, that light is bad. Anything beyond that their eyes glaze over, and your example of 5% between 80 and 90 is a good example. Trying to measure that is real difficult. But if you simply say you can't see the light emitter between 80 and 90, then whether it's 3% or 8% doesn't much matter, because it's just a bounce off light and you're not getting a direct emitter going into your eye as you're driving. So that's why I like to keep language simple and then it's more easily enforceable. So if you can see the light emitter light bulb from a distance, that's a bad light. If you can't see it and you just see a rim of light bouncing off the inner fixture, that's okay and that probably meets the 5% and is easily understandable by everyone.

Glenn Heinmiller: 35:07

Right, but the problem is you can't say no light above 80 degrees, because if you did, you'd basically ban 90% of the outdoor light fixtures available.

Mario Motta: 35:16

No, you say no light above 90 and no light emitter between 80 and 90 direct to the human eye. That's understandable and, I think, easily enforceable.

Glenn Heinmiller: 35:26

There are very few light fixtures that do that, unfortunately, see, that's the thing where this is why.

Mario Motta: 35:31

And we insist that they're manufactured that way. My view is you're an exception, but my view is we shouldn't accept what the lighting engineers thrust upon us. We should demand that they make fixtures that we want and are safe for the environment, are safe for driving and don't adversely affect human health. That's my stance.

Glenn Heinmiller: 35:54

My concern is that DARS guys put out these models long-awaited and that an activist is going to take this model and go to their planning board or their town council or whatever and present this thing. Then someone's going to say, well, what does this mean? 5% lumens I don't even know what a lumen is, and they're going to go. I have no idea. And then you say, well, dark Sky International says this is the perfect thing, so it must be good, but I don't know how they're going to get this thing enacted. It's just going to get this thing enacted, it's just going to be. I watched Gail go through this. There were so many questions like what do I have to do to comply? What does this mean? What kind of fixture? Where will I buy that fixture? That was the question she got more and more when am I going to buy that? And she came up with a whole guideline of fixtures and found suppliers for these fixtures that would meet the requirements of the bylaw and didn't have this crazy requirement. It's just very simple, very simple.

Bill McGeeney: 36:53

But this is your concern with the new policy packages coming out, is that you're going to have people who are positioned in a kind of indefensible spot.

Glenn Heinmiller: 37:03

Yeah, they're going to be not indefensible. They're not. It's not easy to explain the Nantucket bylaw and I know plenty of other ones and of course we worked in I'm very involved with Mario and the Massachusetts chapter. Because of this demand Some people started working on their own. We have a Massachusetts model bylaw that finished about a year ago and it keeps things very simple. In other words, you could go to Home Depot and you can find out, see what the color temperature is, and you can see what the lumen output is and you can know intuitively whether it's fully shielded or not, because you can tell just by looking at the fixture. And those are the three metrics basically that are in the bylaw. I mean, and it's not that simple, but you know things that every that's an easy even a percent that to your planning board or town council.

Glenn Heinmiller: 37:53

You know people are going to be, you're gonna be able to explain that right, what a lumen is and what a, what, a what the color temperature is. But you get beyond that and it's like I mean it's okay If it only applies to commercial, big commercial projects. I mean it's okay if it only applies to big commercial projects maybe, because well, even then it's a problem. I can't look and find a spec sheet for a fixture that tells me how many lumens there are between 80 and 90. I could get the data file. I could open it up in a viewer. I could look at it in the viewer. I know how to do that. I would tell you, most lighting professionals probably don't even know how to do that and most light professionals probably don't even know how to do that.

Mario Motta: 38:26

That's why I say keep the language simple and just simply state you can't see the diode, you know above 80 degrees and you have no light above 90 degrees. That is easily enforceable and easily understandable.

Bill McGeeney: 38:40

I appreciate you guys having this conversation and, glenn, you really kind of working through it here, because I think these are conversations that need to be had. There's no one size fits all, andall, and there's also no point we can't put anything on a pedestal, right. You have to make sure that it's vetted to your point. Dr Mata, you talk about your health studies and you have to make sure this stuff is vetted and it's usable and it's going to actually provide the positive results you're looking for. So I appreciate, glenn, you bringing that up and having this conversation.

Glenn Heinmiller: 39:15

I just want people to know listen, it's not that I'm against regulation, I'm actually for regulation. I think the way it's going to be most effective in this country is at the municipal level, because we're never going to have any federal life pollution regulation like you might have in France, because we're never going to have any federal life pollution regulation like you might have in france. And state level legislation is only ever going to apply to publicly funded work, if at all. And I think getting state state legislation I mean in massachusetts, 20 years and we still can't get it passed yeah, but we got the other five states- in new england.

Glenn Heinmiller: 39:42

Yeah, so you know I mean, but you know I so, so the minister. So that's why this model ordinance is so important, you know, and I just want to get it right and help people get it implemented.

David Lefevre: 39:56

I do agree with you, glenn, and I think there is another part of the issue. Having a regulation, it's a really good step to go forward and to make things better, but the one we have, for example, in France, has been done in 2018, so six years ago and the thing I can see here, when discussing with people, is that nobody is aware of it. No, no, no, that's true, nobody is aware of it. No, no, no, that's true, nobody's aware of it. So the people I'm meeting in the street, I ask them okay, they do not know about it. Okay, we can understand that, but when you are discussing with manufacturers or producers of light, they do not know this regulation exists, and this is a problem, in fact. So it's good to have one, that's perfect, it's a good point indeed, but to have it applied and to have something, to have a result from this, it's still a long way to go, because just people are not aware it exists.

Bill McGeeney: 41:04

Well, that's an excellent point too. Who's the main benefactor of lighting?

Glenn Heinmiller: 41:09

The public.

Bill McGeeney: 41:10

Well, I mean, yeah, obviously the public, but I mean when we talk about having a certain dark sky friendly attributes or even metrics involved. If you're a manufacturer of lighting, why would you care?

David Lefevre: 41:23

They do not care, because here we are talking about dark skies. But when some city councils and I have the example in my city right now when some city councils need to replace the light bulbs because they do not have the prerequisites for the law, in fact they do not have people aware of the problem. So they are asking to the vendor hey, what light should I put in my streets? And the vendor, which is not aware of the problem of light pollution, says, oh, look, you've got this one which unlights the streets very well. The problem is that no one's aware of the problem.

Glenn Heinmiller: 42:06

It sounds like no one is enforcing the regulation, and you know that's another question.

David Lefevre: 42:14

Yeah, it's almost the case. I cannot say no one because I'm talking to the authorities to say, hey, this shop does not shut down the light at night, so go talk to the shop owner and discuss with him and make things right. So it's difficult and it takes a huge amount of time, energy to make things happen. In fact I've been approaching deputies in France to talk about the problem and they'd like to go further and to make the law more applied in the country. But each time it's a long way to go and previously in the previous postcard we were discussing with the European about the European lawyer Mario you've seen in New Zealand. I'm in contact also with her to try to make things change at the European level. But it's always a long way to go and we've seen it in France Six years. The law is out, applicable but not applied.

Mario Motta: 43:21

You know one of the things that I hear a lot at conferences some engineers just harp on efficiency. That is the only criteria. You know this bulb has 97,. They're up to like 97, 98% efficiency on LEDs and that's the only thing to consider. Okay, completely ignore human health effects, environmental damage.

Mario Motta: 43:45

It's the most efficient light is the only one you should use, and that's a problem. The difference between, say, a 4,000K light and a 2,400K light now is just a few percent. So for 2% to 3% less efficiency, are we going to sacrifice the environment, human health vision? Okay, that's a ludicrous compromise and that's my main argument with some lighting manufacturers and engineers. The only thing they want to publish is lumens per watt, lighting efficiency. Nothing else matters to them because that's what they think they can sell and what they can say. Our light is one half percent more efficient than the competitor. Therefore our light is better, ignoring the fact that they produce probably 30 or 40 percent more blue than their competitor, which the average town council won't understand. Ok, you've got to consider all the factors Right, which?

Glenn Heinmiller: 44:42

is so. That's why the DLC Luna program came about. That's why the DLC Luna program came about, because the Design Lights Consortium was this organization that was basically setting efficiency standards for LED luminaires. Then you'd have to meet those efficiency standards to be your product to be eligible for rebates, and yada yada. But they realized that there were other things that needed to be controlled, you know, regulated, so to speak, besides efficiency.

Mario Motta: 45:08

And so then they said this yeah, by killing people.

Glenn Heinmiller: 45:12

And it's great. So now there's a thing you can say like, okay, it's got to be a DLC Luna-approved fixture and we'll see what happens. I don't know.

Bill McGeeney: 45:23

Appreciate the great, hearty debate. That was very nice. I've got one last article here. We'll get in little designations and then give you guys the last chance to plug yourselves. But before we go, I know it's a time of year when many of you guys are planning your trips in 2025. And so why not take some inspiration from the Independent, who lists the five best holiday stargazing destinations for this year? Holiday stargazing destinations for this year.

Bill McGeeney: 45:47

First up, I had the privilege of stargazing using a 15-inch Dobsonian telescope off of Rainbow Point at Bryce Canyon a number of years ago. It probably tops the list. I can certainly vouch for it. They had Bryce Canyon at the top and, just so you're aware, bryce Canyon actually is going to be the site of the Astronomical League's ALCON, the AstroCon event they have out there with presentations, talks and stargazing in that amazing sky. Highly recommend you take a look there. It's going to be a good time. Next article suggested Jokersalon Glacier over Glacier Lagoon over in Iceland, followed by the Kodagi Transfrontier Park in South Africa and then this area, and maybe you can tell me if it's any good or not. David is tells me about Cévennes National Park in France. Where's the best spot to see the stars out in France?

David Lefevre: 46:39

In France it's in this park which is named Cévennes. It's near the Alps, so there is a light, a large part, part of land which is not covered by light. So when I say large, it's compared to the size of the country. But in Europe, unfortunately, almost 98% of the land is covered by light and people do not see the Milky Wayky way or the stars. So we have this little place, which is named seven, where you can watch the stars and dream about it at night and can you see the full milky way?

David Lefevre: 47:20

depends of the time of the year, obviously, yes, it's doable, that's great.

Mario Motta: 47:27

Great to hear the two best places I've ever seen is I just came back from Lake Takapo for the Starlight Conference and that was a true mortal one sky. I was completely blown away. I couldn't recognize any of the constellations, literally, because there were so many magnitude six and seven stars that were visible. That's a long way to go, but new zealand wants to become the first dark sky nation. France might beat them, but they've. They've got a long way to go. Sheep don't require lights and there's 30 million sheep there, only 800 000 people on the south island. So that that was great. And the second best place the second place that I've seen that's fantastic is anywhere along the Altiplano in Bolivia, incredibly dark. You're high up too, yeah, and New England you probably have to go to north of Concord, new Hampshire and up to middle part of Maine and you can get at least mortal to two and a half in those places.

Bill McGeeney: 48:30

I was. I'm doing a, the one of the constellation lists, the obscure constellation lists, through the astronomical league, and if you're not aware of the astronomical league at home, it's essentially for amateur astronomers. It's kind of like a boy scout merit system where they have a whole bunch of different lists you can do and you can find all these different items and then you submit it and then you get like a certificate saying that you did it. But one of the things I was struck by, mario, is that many of the obscure constellations and many of these older constellations that we don't recognize anymore were using six magnitude stars, and it just goes to show you how amazing for most of humanity the night sky actually was.

Mario Motta: 49:11

Ask anyone if they've recognized Camelotopus Right. It's all five and six magnitude stars.

Bill McGeeney: 49:18

Yeah, good point, all right. How about I want to give you guys a chance to plug yourselves, anything you might be doing, how people can contact you? So, david, let's get to you first. Why don't you tell us about your site one more time and go from there?

David Lefevre: 49:39

Sure, this website I've created last year. My goal was to bring awareness to people about the light pollution problem, all the impacts from the health to the environmental problem, the energy, the savings, economics and I've done it to address the problem in a way that everyone, including children, can understand. So sometimes I use technical terms for the people who want to go deeper lumens, enlightenment and things like this but it's understandable by everyone and I hope it will help to see the stars again thank you, david.

Bill McGeeney: 50:14

All right, let's move on to glenn. How can people learn about you and the work you do and and lamb partners and and what's coming up with you guys?

Glenn Heinmiller: 50:21

well, lampartnerscom. Uh, I I'm not. Don't imagine too many listeners are looking for a world-class lighting design firm, but if you happen to be an architect or a builder of art, let me know. Actually it's funny. I happen to be working on some really cool outdoor projects right now on this 45-acre park in Chattanooga where we're trying to really apply progressive practices go with 2200K on most of the lighting and wireless stemming control system for most of the lighting. I mean, this is what we're proposing. We'll see if they can do it.

Glenn Heinmiller: 50:58

The work we're going to be doing on Nantucket and hopefully at a large university here we have a proposal into them to do a lighting master plan. So that's interesting. But I would say on the on the non-professional side or whatever, if, if people listen obviously I'm passionate about quality outdoor lighting ordinances and if anyone would like some volunteer technical support from somebody who doesn't know anything about the milk, you know, doesn't know anything about portals, but knows a lot about life fixtures, I'd be happy to help and and glenn, just like you're also, I've wondered this how?

Bill McGeeney: 51:31

what's the price different, like how much more pricey it is to install some of these systems that you say the one in chattanooga versus if chattanooga went with a more conventional system.

Glenn Heinmiller: 51:42

I'm just curious the only thing the control systems cost more money. But I mean, know, that's the thing. I'm sure Mario says this every time he does a presentation. It doesn't. The light fixtures don't cost more. Color temperature doesn't cost anything. Whether it's shielded or not doesn't cost anything. I mean yeah, but yeah, so anyhow.

Mario Motta: 52:01

Gotcha, I make that point all the time. It doesn't cost any more to put up good lights than it does.

Glenn Heinmiller: 52:06

yeah I mean controls are a cost and yeah, we'll see, we'll see there's. They're used a lot for street lighting. Now they're starting to start to adapt.

Bill McGeeney: 52:15

I think in europe a lot for street light, and that's what I was thinking too, because the controls are kind of where everything's going right.

Glenn Heinmiller: 52:21

Having a smart city oh, absolutely, absolutely on, yeah, yeah so we're going to get to that point either way.

Bill McGeeney: 52:28

So have the controls you're going to have, plug in your EV to the pole You're going to have. You know the pole is going to be a true utility pole.

Glenn Heinmiller: 52:39

Right. Anyhow, people reach me at glenn at landpartnerscom. Two N's.

Bill McGeeney: 52:44

Excellent. And then Dr Motto, why don't you tell us anything that's going on in your life and how people can reach you?

Mario Motta: 52:50

Well, I'm retired from full-time cardiology, which is a good thing. Once you turn 70, you don't want to go into the hospital at 3 am anymore, but I'm still active. I have a lot of activities with the Mass Medical Society I'm a past president and with the AMA as a past trustee. I have a website. I don't know how long it'll stay there because I'm no longer an officer of the AMA, but I think they're going to keep it for quite a while. It's mariamondamdcom.

Mario Motta: 53:20

First page is all going to be links to health subjects in the US, which that's a whole, not other topic which would require several episodes of what's wrong with our health care system. But that's another matter. But if you go along the top, the tabs to the extreme right is a thing that says astronomy. Click on that and a drop-down menu will come with a number of things. One tab will be how I built my 32-inch telescope. It's all homemade. It's a 32-inch F6. It took about five and a half years to grind all the optics and make all the parts. And then I have sections on NGC, messier, sh-2 objects and about 600-plus images sort of like this that are uploaded there. People can download their JPEGs, people can copy them freely. I don't care about that, as long as it's not used commercially without permission, and if it's for a publication, I'll be happy to send them a TIFF, which is much better.

Bill McGeeney: 54:21

And a 32-inch scope is a massive scope. Just want to throw that out there. Folks, how long did it take you to grind down that mirror?

Mario Motta: 54:30

Well, it's 11 surfaces, because it's a spherical primary and mangan secondary, and then four correctors, but it took about two and a half years to do the optics and two years to do all the mechanical parts. Congratulations to you. I was going to do astrophysics. I ended up in medicine. That's a. That's a long story, but anyways, look there and on the main page there's a link to light pollution issues and you can download a number of articles, including all the AMA articles advisories on light pollution for health effects.

Mario Motta: 55:02

The lighting industry in 2016 was furious that we published those Maybe not Glenn, but others were because we would basically, your doctors, stay in your lane. Don't tell us what to do. We're the specialists. But eventually they've acquiesced and now the IES is actually supportive. It took them 10 years, but it's okay. They're on board now. I'm thankful for that. But anyways, a lot of the articles are there, including my latest, which was just October. It summarizes world literature on human health effects of light pollution up to this point and including the UN report that I wrote much of the human health part of it called Dark and Quiet Skies and that had mostly Europeans on board and a number of Americans and people worldwide, and that is 297 pages with, I think, 300 peer-reviewed references at the end. That's sitting on the desk of the UN right now, so download those and enjoy the reading. Give you some information.

Bill McGeeney: 56:05

That'll be a great summertime read or maybe a great full 2025 read 300 some pages of good, good end of day, good, you know, nighttime reading right there.

Mario Motta: 56:16

It'll help you to sleep, if nothing else.

Bill McGeeney: 56:20

Let's close out this month with some show recognitions. Congratulations to all the hard work Truman State University students did to bring the Urban Night Place designation to Thousand Hills State Park in Missouri. Cheers to Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve for becoming an international dark sky place. We drove through this area and didn't even realize a few years back. It was thoroughly burnt to a crisp. It was a little eerie, but hopefully it's recovering pretty well. And congratulations to Brisbane, arizona, for becoming an international dark sky community.

Bill McGeeney: 56:51

I want to thank my guests, david LaFerra, glenn Heimiller and Dr Mario Mata for joining me today. Thank you guys. Thanks so much. It was really a great, great discussion. I really enjoyed it. Like pollution, news is recorded towards the end of every month. We get a little off schedule here during the holidays, trying to juggle everyone's time around and be cognizant of Caden, our production engineers, a holiday time. But to that end, the show's recorded on December 15th. You can learn more by finding us on whatever social media tool you use, barring extra blue sky. If you have thoughts or questions, text us via the link in the show notes or simply email me at bill at lightpollutionnewscom. Signing off. I'm your host, bill McGeaney. Thank you for listening. Remember to only shine a light where it's needed. Thank you you.