February 2025: Share Cookies and Be Friendly!

This month, host Bill McGeeney is joined by Mark Baker, founder of the Soft Lights Foundation, Nick Mesler, civil engineer, and, Isa Mohammed, President of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy!

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

Bill's Picks:

• Why Soccer Players Are Training in the Dark, RM Clark, Wired. 
• Light Pollution Control: Comparative Analysis of Regulations Across Civil and Common Law Jurisdictions, Laws. 
• ‘Neurologic hazard’: Group sues over Bay Bridge lights, Phil Mayer, KRON4. 
• Outdoor light at night, air pollution and risk of incident type 2 diabetes, Environmental Research. 
• Cartographic Visualisation of Light Pollution Measurements, Urban Science.  

Chapters

• 11:24 Balancing Development With Light Pollution
• 24:49 Community Perspectives on Responsible Lighting
• 35:10 Enhancing Perception Through Training in Darkness
• 49:04 Effects of Bright Vehicle Lights
• 54:14 Legal Battle Over LED Bridge Lights
• 1:03:35 Defining Light Pollution and Regulations

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:06

light pollution news, february 2025. Share cookies and be friendly. This episode what on earth is going on with breckenridge? Colorado's dark sky ordinance rollout? We learn about the san francisco bay bridge relighting. And would you take on a volunteer assignment to maintain a 113-year-old lighthouse in Lake Michigan? This month, I welcome Soft Lights Foundation founder Mark Baker, civil engineer Nick Messler and the president of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, issa Muhammad. A new episode begins right now. It's another Light Pollution News. I'm your host, bill McKinney. Always glad to have you joining me today. If you're new to the show, welcome.

Bill McGeeney: 0:59

Light Pollution News is a twice-monthly show where I bring on three guests to help us walk through the month's news together as it falls on the topic of light pollution. You know I've heard some folks out there asking how can you possibly have a dedicated podcast of something that unfortunately seems so nuanced or is so unknown in our society, a state that can only garner so much interest from a narrow cohort? However, light pollution isn't just about SkyGlow or the endless daytime. So many other facets fall under this category, including light trespass in your house from outside sources, internal light pollution from devices and the IoT. Of course, it's a major environmental issue, though relatively underappreciated at this time. But, more than anything, I truly believe that how we light our night is a reflection of how we treat each other. So many of the issues we talked about on this show derive from our sense of self-importance and outright carelessness about how we affect others. So that's why I started Light Pollution News to build engagement and conversation around these topics, to build awareness on this issue. As you, the listener, settles in, if you like what you're hearing, I ask you why not consider becoming a supporter today?

Bill McGeeney: 2:07

Supporters help us do what we do. It may shock you to realize that all of this operation takes over 40 hours a month to complete. We derive all of our support from you, the listener, and when we can't cover those costs, it seriously impedes on what we can do to continue to grow the show. So if you like this show, if you like what its mission is, why not consider becoming a supporter by following the link in the show notes? Also, while I'm sure you're aware, we have a mailing list. Each month we send out top news items we come across. Newsletter recipients receive access to both monthly shows at once and, hey, if you're a supporter, you'll receive a link to all of the news articles that we pulled from the month, including many that didn't make the cut. Oh, and did I forget to mention show supporters are invited to each and every regular episode recording as a live audience member.

Bill McGeeney: 2:58

So why not consider supporting us so that we can do more to deliver the content you love to you? You can learn more by either clicking on the links in today's show notes or by heading over to lightpollutionnewscom. As is always the case, make sure that you're subscribed to Light Pollution News by hitting that big subscribe button or whatever podcast platform player listener you are using. And why not chime in with your thoughts on LinkedIn, instagram, facebook and many other places? We create shareable content for you to listener each month. Hopefully, it helps spread the word on the issues at hand. If you have any thoughts or you want to comment on something, I'll read your feedback on the show. Simply shoot over your thoughts via the text link in today's show notes or to bill at light pollution newscom.

Bill McGeeney: 3:43

All right, we're cruising right along here in 2025, kicking off this month's episode with three really great guests. This show is one that I think will have a lot of interesting conversation points, and I've really been looking forward to it. Let's kick February off with someone many of you may already know, and he moonlights on occasion as a co host for restoring Restoring Darkness podcast, mr Mark Baker. A short while ago we hung out, we chatted. I was on Restoring Darkness with you, sir. You started out life as a programmer and an educator and then you actually started up this nonprofit Soft Lights Foundation. Why don't you tell me about that journey? What changed your course?

Mark Baker: 4:22

Yeah, bill, hi. Well, right, so I'm not involved in this because it was a chosen path that sort of fell into me. So I went to school and earned a degree in electrical engineering. I became a software developer for many years. I chose to then get involved in teaching, so I went back, got my teaching credential and taught middle school math for about 10 years.

Mark Baker: 4:46

Around 2016 is when these LED lights started to come out and started to impact my life. So I lived in the Bay Area at the time, san Francisco area and I started encountering these LED lights on car headlights. They came in my neighborhood and installed LED street lights which flooded my apartment with this blue rich light, the LED wall packs, and then they had what they call security lights at my school, and so every day was this now sort of assault on my senses, and it became more and more difficult to sort of survive this onslaught of visible light radiation. So in April of 2019, my principal came into my classroom and said well, I've asked the school about those 5,000 Kelvin LED floodlights that they put on the roof, and they said, no, they're going to leave them, and even just talking about it now is very emotional, and so I had a complete catastrophic mental breakdown and the police came and took me to the hospital where I spent four days filled with drugs due to this catastrophic mental breakdown.

Mark Baker: 5:57

I had already been investigating LED lights and their impacts on me. At that time, I'd already started a website, softlightsorg, but then it just I couldn't teach anymore. I couldn't go back to work, so then I had to leave teaching, and now that's what I spend my time with. So Softlights became a nonprofit 501c3 in 2021. I was living in Oregon at the time, so that's where we're registered, and now I basically spend full time trying to help protect myself and protect others from this. Impacts of LED lights.

Bill McGeeney: 6:35

Mark, was that the flicker of the light? Is that what you had trouble with?

Mark Baker: 6:40

There's multiple. There are spatial properties, spectral properties and temporal properties. Each one has their different impacts. For me, the blue rich light is something unbearable. During my time in the hospital I was diagnosed with mild autism, so people with autism have a higher sensitivity to certain types of light. This blue rich light is unbearable, contrast that with a dark night. If something happens, it feels like nothing I've ever felt in my entire life, like the end of the world is coming, like the devil. And other people with autism especially have contacted me and described these same feelings. The spatial properties it's far too intense. So LED lights emit a beam. It's a directional light. It's not something we're accustomed to. It's overwhelming. My sense is this intensity. And then, thirdly, the flicker. I am not personally so sensitive to it, but I'm catastrophically affected by LED flashing lights such as on emergency vehicles, utility trucks, ambulances. Those are really torture.

Bill McGeeney: 7:49

Yeah, when you say catastrophically effective, what happens, what physically goes through your body. On that, it's.

Mark Baker: 7:55

Some people have described it. Some people who have had seizures, who understand this better than me, describe my reactions as a non-epileptic seizure. So there's this reaction where I like enter into sort of I don't know if you remember pokey and Gumby. I think they were in the 1960s, 1970s, claymation world, sort of this weird world. This is what I've entered into and so my cognitive abilities are greatly reduced. I'm in a world that it's hard to describe. I can't really think and it's like I would just rather die than suffer through these LED flashing lights. So those are absolutely the worst I've encountered them, like, say, on an ambulance or something like that. I've just had to stop the car. It's really hard to talk about it, but I may just start crying or screaming or whatever, because it's just such unbearable intensity of this light. I should say the digital pulsing is catastrophic.

Bill McGeeney: 8:55

Yeah, it sounds like torture. Well, also with us today. I have a very informative and actually I'm going to introduce him. Nick Messler and I got your name from a friend of the show, diane Ternscheck. And Diane Ternscheck is not only a friend of the show. We all kind of work together here in Pennsylvania on different things, and you're a data scientist that applies data science to streetlights and to planning essentially urban planning, correct.

Nick Mesler: 9:24

I'd say that's pretty close characterization. We're a GIS company. We're all about the science of where are my streetlights, what do I have, where is the light shining down, where is it not, where do you have dark spots? And ultimately deciding you know what's the most appropriate across a cross section of different disciplines and perspectives.

Bill McGeeney: 9:43

Yeah, and Nick, you hail from Pacific Northwest and I know last time we chatted you're down in San Diego, which is you know, you and I. So, man living a dream. You're part of numerous professional organizations, the IES. You're part of their outdoor nighttime environment committee. Do you serve on that with Travis? Travis Longcore.

Nick Mesler: 10:04

That's right, we're both on that committee. I'm also on that with Travis. Travis Longcore, that's right, we're both on that committee. I'm also on the Broadway lighting committee, but as an advisory member. Yeah, and.

Bill McGeeney: 10:11

I see that you you serve the association of pedestrian bicycle professionals. As someone who's biked tens of thousands of miles around the city, I can definitely, you know, feel a little bit of brotherhood here for any other cyclists out there who drive around by bike. So great. Welcome to the show, nick. How long I guess if you're biking somewhere is your commute? Just curious on that.

Nick Mesler: 10:35

Well, my work commute these days is about 15 steps from upstairs to downstairs, but for a long time I was a cyclist commuter and I got to admit I miss those days biking into the office or skateboarding in the office. I did that for many years in the dark or in the daytime. That's how I got around. For a good long time I've been a city rat my whole life. I grew up right outside Manhattan, san Francisco, and then lived in San Diego for a number of years and you're right, just was there earlier this week and I'll tell you what. It was hard to leave. It was so beautiful. They say it only rains once in Portland and that's from October to May.

Nick Mesler: 11:14

So it's just one big cloud, just one big cloud One big, yeah, so it was nice to escape for a little bit, but now that I'm back, it's nice to be home.

Bill McGeeney: 11:23

That's great. That's great. Well, to wrap up our panel today, I want to welcome back for a second appearance on the show Mr Issa Mohamed. Last time you were on you were back in April of 2024. And, issa, you're always in a very unique position down there trying to raise awareness about night and about the nighttime sky and astronomy down in Trinidad and Tobago with the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy. How have you been, sir? How is life?

Isa Mohammed: 11:49

Oh, so far, so good. Always a pleasure to be on the show, bill, thank you so much for having me. And you know things, they always have their ups, they always have their downs and the Caribbean has its own unique issues with the topic of light and light pollution. But I did have the opportunity to be part of Dark Skies conference there, the international conference that they had, I think it was two months ago.

Bill McGeeney: 12:15

The Under One.

Isa Mohammed: 12:15

Sky, the Under One Sky, that's right. That's right and sort of bring some perspective from the Caribbean because it really is unique and quite different. You know the issues that you have in united states or europe so why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

Bill McGeeney: 12:30

some listeners may not have been here since you were last on. What is different about the caribbean versus, say you know, the us or europe?

Isa Mohammed: 12:40

so it's a whole bunch of effectively small islands, right? If you have light pollution on an island, you can't get away from it. So from the time it spills over your landmass you could no longer drive you know X number of kilometers to get out of the light pollution and into a dark sky. It's pretty much the entire landmass gets covered under a blob of light pollution and there is no escaping it. And you're dealing with small island developing states, and that's a whole other aspect. A lot of these countries are still developing and so culturally there's an association with development and lights and people see lights as progress as opposed to seeing lights as a sign of losing their ecology.

Isa Mohammed: 13:28

And on top of that, in the Caribbean now we have, you know, the sad part about it is that we have a crime situation. When you look at the homicide rate globally, the Caribbean, the islands in the Caribbean, are now populating that top 10 list globally. So, and again, there's a problem here culturally between safety and the need for light, or the perception of safety. So, and the nail in the coffin with it, is because of the nature of the ecology. The endangered species in Trinidad and Tobago in particular, with the leatherback turtles, is a perfect example of one of those endangered species, and they are affected by the light pollution.

Isa Mohammed: 14:09

So you have these and these are the things that could give the islands. You know, that pathway to development, which is the recognition of the ecology and the tourism, the eco-tourism. The pathway is there, but then the other side is forcing its way into the picture. So you have these two conflicting goals. The one side is we need to preserve the natural beauty that exists here, but at the same time, you want to be developed and to have the better services, et cetera. So it's a real balancing act in the Caribbean with life.

Bill McGeeney: 14:42

This is totally unrelated to life, but I remember last time you were on. You guys do a lot of board games, right?

Isa Mohammed: 14:48

Oh God, yeah Well me, I love it.

Bill McGeeney: 14:51

Yeah, so we picked up this game. Heat, I don't know if you're an F1 fan.

Isa Mohammed: 14:57

My wife is.

Bill McGeeney: 14:59

So it's kind of like old school F1 before it became, I don't know, americanized over the last four years. It's a pretty fun little game, so check that out. That's a little pro tip right there Before we get the ball rolling, mark, I want to bounce it over to you. What's going on with soft lights? Why don't you tell me about what is happening with soft lights?

Mark Baker: 15:22

I know you guys have something going on with the Bay Bridge think is going to be a tipping point for us. So since I got involved in this, since LEDs came out 2016,. It's almost a decade already. So over that time, we've been learning what's wrong with the physics of this LED light, we've been learning the legal structure of the United States government, we've been learning about the harms to people, to the environment. So we're kind of putting it all together and so we've been trying to figure out how to get the government to respond and do something about this, and I think now we're kind of there.

Mark Baker: 15:57

Over the past couple of years, the Soft Lights Foundation has submitted numerous regulatory petitions to state and federal agencies asking them to do their job, and all of our petitions have been either denied or they've just been simply ignored. So when the government is acting in this behavior, the only way to get them to do something then is through lawsuits. So, and the same kind of has occurred with companies. So two big things that happened to us last week I want to share with your audience. First, there's a shopping center near me owned by a company called Petrovich Development Company, and I was there and I encountered these blue LED lights on a video surveillance system from a really aggressive company called LVT. They sell these mobile security or they operate these mobile security things and they have blue LEDs that are static and blue that are flashing and when I enter the parking lot and I can see those for blocks away Are these, those pseudo police tower things that I see.

Bill McGeeney: 17:02

What's the point of them? Does anyone know what the point of those are? I mean, I live in a city where people like no one's going to give a heck about tower with cameras on it. Like you see crime all the time on cameras. Anyway, continue.

Mark Baker: 17:16

Oh, that's very important point that you brought up. So blue is specifically chosen to make it seem like it's a police presence. That's not a random color, so. And the intensity is also chosen to instill fear on people. Somehow LBT thinks that the fear is only by people who are going to commit a crime oh, I see the blue light, so I'm not going to commit a crime Completely oblivious to the fact that it's impairing all of us. And for those of us who are sensitive a light, it actually makes it a discriminatory barrier. Like I really, really, really get angry with those lights I can't really see, so it it, it just captures my whole attention.

Bill McGeeney: 17:55

Yeah, that's. That's amazing. I thought those were actually like police issued. I didn't realize that it's a private company and the actual owner of the landlord actually goes out and puts them out there. I didn't realize. Is that what happens?

Mark Baker: 18:06

Yeah, so these companies you know there is retail theft and we don't. There's bad stuff that happens. They don't want loitering, but it's an aggressive behavior. It is a really, really aggressive, robotic police type of presence that they install these machines. They remotely watch us through those video surveillance things. They will bark out orders. If they see something like suddenly a loudspeaker will be yelling at you, they can turn on LED floodlights and suddenly you're blasted by LED floodlights. So these companies think, oh, that's great, we're going to scare away only criminals, completely, completely oblivious. What about their customers? Right?

Mark Baker: 18:46

That are not enjoying getting hit by that or sort of the big structure. That's kind of all over the place. And so this company, lvt, sells this fear. They're on LinkedIn. Their marketing is really aggressive, so they sell this fear, and Isu was talking about, you know, lights and safety. So they sell this fear, and Issa was talking about, you know, lights and safety. In this case, you know they're trying to say that the blue lights scare away criminals. The floodlights will scare away the criminals and so, yeah, light's a big part of their whole operation.

Bill McGeeney: 19:17

I mean, it makes sense. There's a lot of companies. I mean, we use Wyze cameras in our house and you know, all I get is a lot of fear from them. That stuff, there is nothing. But you know that's how you make your money in that sector, isn't it With floodlights? Like your whole job is. It's like the beer industry is about partying. The lighting industry well. The private home lighting industry is about fear, right Well.

Mark Baker: 19:42

I'm in agreement with you. Yeah, so you see all the advertising and it's about the safety and it's just. It's all over television advertisements about home security, and they always show the lights coming on, scaring away the criminals. They know they understand that light is powerful. So I contacted this Petrovich development company and asked for an accommodation and simply just turn off those blue lights. I didn't ask them to take away the whole system, just turn off the blue lights. And they didn't respond. So then I called them and emailed them and sent them letters and they wouldn't respond. So the only way I could get their attention was by filing a lawsuit. So that was about close to a year ago.

Mark Baker: 20:20

So when you do that, I'm just too pro se. I've been learning the law on my own. I'm pretty proficient at it at this point. I'm not a lawyer though, but I have learned a ton, and so I've gone through these steps. So they get their lawyers and they've been fighting me. We had what's called a demur in California, where they try to get my case dismissed. The judge said no, it looks like a reasonable case, allowed it to go on. So we've been through what's called the interrogatory stage, the request for production stage and we're actually setting up the deposition just recently.

Bill McGeeney: 20:53

What would you rather have in place of this? Because, either way, the reason it's there is because the property is in a probably a low income area, that people who own the property don't feel confident in the protection of their assets in that area. So they want to be able to have some kind of deterrence. And the way I see that deterrence, like we just spoke about, it's going to be someone's going to try and use, regardless if it works or not. They're going to try and use light as a weapon, or they're going to try and use something like this which is a tower right. So they want to encourage that occurrence. What would be a better solution for that? I guess Home Depot or whoever's lot is using that.

Mark Baker: 21:36

Well, bill, that's a complex problem right. We got the societal issues. Really, I mean that's so big issues, really I mean that's so big. You know, educating our youth to be respectful, to follow laws, educating our politicians to, you know, care about this kind of things. If you're just so Home Depot, if it's that example, they're just trying to protect their assets, I would definitely say that aggression is not the best choice. You can hire humans to wander around and interact with people and make a share of cookies and, you know, be friendly on the whole thing. Introduce yourselves, you know, make it more friendly, and. But you know the companies are bottom line oriented, so this technological solutions for them seems like cheap way to protect their assets. But I would say invest in humans would be a smarter move. Gotcha Yep.

Mark Baker: 22:28

So to finish, then, kind of the legal things that's going on with that Petrovich development case lawsuit. So in America we have the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was passed in 1990, and it was upgraded in 2008 to be even more protective, and it's an expansive law. And it was upgraded in 2008 to be even more protective and it's an expansive law. But it's left to the individual to enforce it. So you can try to find a law firm that'll help you, but they're all busy, busy, busy because there's so much discrimination going on. That's why I did it myself.

Mark Baker: 22:55

But in California we have something special. It's called the Unruh Civil Rights Act, and the ADA doesn't allow for any damages. You can only get injunctive relief and you can get the lights turned off. That's it. The attorneys could get their fees paid, but in California you can get a damage award. That's $4,000 per incident. Not only that, but Section 52 states that any entity that aids in the discrimination and I just figured this out recently any entity, even if they weren't the ones doing the discrimination, but if they were aiding or inciting this discrimination, they also can be held responsible. So it's fantastic. So what they're saying is everybody has a job to do. Let's protect everybody. If somebody contacts you about discrimination.

Mark Baker: 23:46

you can't just shrug your shoulders and say oh, I didn't know about that or I don't know. It's not my job, actually, it is your job in California. So once I discovered Section 52, then I really pressured Petrovich to settle and just this week they've said OK, we're going to settle, so we don't go through the deposition, we don't go through the trial, and so we haven't signed the documents yet, but it's a big deal because I've learned that we've been going fighting. I mean it's just a total battle. I hate it. I mean I like learning the law, but I don't like the battles. I'd rather cooperate, but that's not how they work. So that's not how they work. So I'm excited that the it's this. This lawsuit is my lawsuit pro se cause. I can't represent the soft lights foundation, but what we can do is take this, this win, this settlement, and then, you know, leverage that across the country or across the world and say, look, you know this was a discrimination caused by LED lights, and so it's something great.

Bill McGeeney: 24:45

Well, congratulations on the settlement there, Mark, and thank you for your hard work and good luck. Yeah, thanks. Let's jump into the warmup here and here's something. If anyone is looking for a gig that pays absolutely nothing but looks pretty, pretty wild, why not volunteer at the White Shoal Lighthouse in Lake Michigan? It's 113 year old lighthouse lighthouse that sits 13 miles from the nearest boat launch and is claimed to be the most isolated lighthouse on Lake Michigan. It boasts a 22-foot ladder that you have to climb up when you get off your boat to get to the actual lighthouse, and then there's another 143 steps from the base to the top, so it's a pretty good workout too. Volunteers who are able to assist say they witness incredible sunrises, sunsets and glimpses of the wide open Milky Way. Who's up for this? Who's ready to ditch their careers and just ride out in Lake Michigan every morning?

Nick Mesler: 25:37

Reminds me of the fire watches they have up in the Pacific Northwest. You drive down in the middle of the woods and you're in a treehouse for a few months just looking for fire, but that sounds good. Like I said, I'm a city rat. I grew up in cities, so I think I might go crazy if I did that too long, but it might be nice for a weekend.

Bill McGeeney: 25:55

Yeah, there you go Yep Isa, I see you smiling over there.

Isa Mohammed: 25:59

I could imagine a few introverts I know who would just love to spend their life just in a lighthouse surrounded by a pile of books. You know, it sounds like a dream. Whether in practice it would actually end up being a dream is a whole other question, completely.

Bill McGeeney: 26:20

I imagine wintertime. It would not be a dream.

Isa Mohammed: 26:25

There's a time when you just need that human interaction man.

Bill McGeeney: 26:28

Yeah, true, true. Well, talking about human interaction, we got some policy news in this first half of the February shows. 2024 was a big year for astrotourism, but also a big year for responsible lighting implementation. Per ECNM. In 2024, the US government's real estate management wing, the General Services Administration, began requiring some exterior lighting to fit into the Design Lights Consortium's LUNA program to promote maximum energy efficiency while reducing negative externalities associated with exterior lighting, such as light pollution. That's an interesting piece there, but we have this one, which I think it would be a really good conversation.

Bill McGeeney: 27:10

The Colorado town of Breckenridge approved an updated ordinance that fast-forwarded residential compliance to a deadline of July 1st of this year, and this has apparently caused a stir. To a deadline of July 1st of this year, and this has apparently caused a stir. What the ordinance is doing is trying to implement responsible lighting. That was set up back in 2007 with the goal of having a full conversion by 2022. However, that was not met, so the community extended it to early 2024. However, the overall hope of the community leaders was to actually have it designated as a dark sky community, so the community residents had an initial 15-year period, which was still not long enough for some, and I'll let you hear from this guy, frank Mason, the dark sky legislation represents the most absurd thinking I've encountered in my 79 years of living. This guy's lived a while. Years of living. These guys lived a while.

Bill McGeeney: 28:03

Mason further goes on to complain about the wasted tax dollars used to pay code enforcement officers for doing their job and blast the city. For spending $3.6 million on replacement street lighting, mason proposes starting a leave our lights alone movement to counter responsible lighting policies. Fellow resident Russ Trowbridge actually wrote a letter in support of Mason, arguing that this is a feel-good objective that lacks public backing. He estimates that 7 15 years to comply to which many were not intrinsically motivated to care and hence further had an extension. At what point does Breckenridge just say hey, you know what, we gave it a fair shot. Okay, it simply isn't something our community wishes to partake in. Or should that community continue to push forward with this agenda? How would they go about doing that First?

Mark Baker: 29:01

the idea is great. So I've been to Breckenridge, colorado, and I stayed there on a vacation. What a great town, so much to do. We were there in the summertime and it's just a lovely place in the mountains, and so they should be trying to protect their natural resource, which includes the nighttime, which is a natural resource. Turns out that the natural night is also incredibly important for our health, just as important as clean air, clean water.

Mark Baker: 29:28

Our United States federal government has failed to recognize this and failed to do anything, although they actually should be. I've received letters from the Environmental Protection Agency telling me they're not authorized to do anything, but that's totally untrue. I've got the statutes. They need to be collaborating with the Food and Drug Administration on this. So Breckenridge has set out to do some work and protect their residents, their health. So what the gentleman who spoke and was upset and seemed to understand was that that light travels beyond his property, so he's impacting his neighbors. He's acting and creating sky glow for LEDs it's so intense he's causing perhaps a migraine for his neighbor, and so it's my opinion that it's fine to use your lights, but it's got to stay on your property. Led light is more than a nuisance, it's actually a hazard. So in Breckenridge, giving these people 15 plus years to convert, I think it shows you something policy wise Don't give them so long. It's not necessary.

Isa Mohammed: 30:30

Give them a year or two, that's all you need time frame right, because even if there were folks there who were behind the project 15 years ago, that's a lot of time for a lot of people to change their minds on something that impacts people very directly, and especially when people feel that their choices are being constricted. And that 15-year time gap was probably quite a bit, and now it's almost as if you have to go back to square one and rebuild the case from scratch and get back to what was probably done 15 years ago that these are the benefits that the community is going to have, these are the, the way it's going to impact everybody's health and that sort of thing, and it's like you're almost going to have to start over from from scratch, and especially if there's talk about a counter movement, that's never a good sign.

Bill McGeeney: 31:24

I would say that's not a good thing.

Nick Mesler: 31:27

My perspective is is that we go to a lot of community meetings and again, this is largely in the street lighting context and not necessarily private lighting but that for just as there's a spectrum of lighting blue to red there's a spectrum of opinions on what lighting should look like. Some people want dark skies, friendly, low CCT, minimum lighting, turn the lights off in the middle of the night, and then there's a whole other contingency that wants more lighting, brighter lights, they want 4,000 or 5,000 K, and that matches a lot of lived experience. So I'm actually pretty sure I'm familiar with some of that.

Bill McGeeney: 32:01

Can I pose your lived experience? Oh sure, yeah, what's a lived experience? So I actually pretty sure I'm familiar with some of that. Can I pose your lived experience?

Nick Mesler: 32:03

Oh sure.

Bill McGeeney: 32:04

Yeah, what's a lived experience?

Nick Mesler: 32:06

Yeah, so we work on large-scale street lighting projects, and previously a lot of the work that my company did at Avare was focused on supporting street lighting conversions and asset management. Just tell me where my street lights are and what do I have, because it turns out most cities don't. Now, more recently, we've been getting into streetlight master planning and taking a look at the many different ways that street lighting, lighting in general affects daily life, whether that's car crashes, perception of crime, the environment, light pollution, bird migration patterns, cyclist behaviors, pedestrian behaviors, nighttime, economic vitality all these different things. What we find is that and this is a generalization is, at broad strokes, we often see wealthier neighborhoods that haven't been historically disadvantaged are often the ones pushing for dark skies initiatives the most Neighborhoods that have not been provided access to quality street lighting and have not had the same level of investment, not just in street lighting but in other aspects of the built environment, and they don't feel safe walking around in their own neighborhoods.

Nick Mesler: 33:16

They don't feel safe as soon as the sun goes down. These are the neighborhoods that typically want more street lighting. Safe as soon as the sun goes down. These are the neighborhoods that typically want more street lighting, and it's something that's born by their experience and the things that they see walking around in their own neighborhoods. That is generally influencing a lot of their opinions on what street lighting should look like in their neighborhood.

Bill McGeeney: 33:35

Yeah, I got you. I'm going to table the street lighting discussion until the second half, until the second show.

Nick Mesler: 33:42

Oh sure.

Bill McGeeney: 33:42

Yeah, but that's a good point there.

Mark Baker: 33:44

Mark, I saw you were going to chime in table the street lighting discussion until the second half, until the second show. Oh sure, yeah, but that's a good point there, mark, I saw you were going to chime in. Oh well, I mean, there's so many things to talk about now. But just recently and, nick, just in the last few days, because I see this sort of thing I started posing this question on LinkedIn.

Mark Baker: 34:03

Around the year 1700, the amount of anthropogenic light would have been essentially zero, so we could just say it's zero.

Mark Baker: 34:07

And so the question should be, I think, asked what is the optimal amount of anthropogenic light that should be in the environment? Rather than saying this is harmful or that's harmful or whatever, let's look for the opposite way, which is what's the optimal amount? And I think if we start thinking about what's the optimal amount you know there's all these complexities If we want to feel the sense of safety, but we also want to protect our health, we want the moths to be able to fly and do their thing, we want to be able to have that sense of awe, of being able to look at the stars, we want to be able to go to a bar and have nightlife, you know, is there a single number, is there a single level or something like that for what's the optimal. And so in Breckenridge they're trying to sort of bring like I'm guessing that they think that they've exceeded the optimal level by putting in these regulations that the optimal level of anthropogenic light has been exceeded, and so they're trying to bring it down. So I'm just throwing that out there.

Bill McGeeney: 35:08

I think you make a really great point. I've talked about this in the past two recordings what's the ideal nighttime Like? Is that a Bortle 5? Is that what we're talking about? We're talking because I mean people need light, you know people and and people want you know. We'll talk about the, the feeling, safety and stuff and say I don't want to jump ship until we get to that part in a second, but like, what's that optimal? Are we talking portal five? Is that? Is that what we're talking about?

Isa Mohammed: 35:33

I would caution against that, because the the amount of light that I mean bottle is how much light is going up into the sky right now. How much light is going up into the sky right Now. How much light is going up into the sky is very different from how much usable light you have on the ground, and I think, in terms of an optimal amount of light, it's the usable light that's directed downwards that matters, and ideally you should minimize the amount that's going up into the air, because the light you need to do your stuff, to feel safe, to drive, etc. That's all light that's coming downwards and shielded and blocked, and so you don't have these direct line of sights to those LED that could cause problems. So I personally don't see it as a bottle number number. I see it as how do we achieve the amount of light that we need to do what we need to do, without wasting and throwing unnecessary light around in a way that could cause damage to our health and environment.

Mark Baker: 36:32

Yeah, that's a great point. So the optimal amount of light is what we need on the ground to be able to navigate. I've got a photo on our website that shows an observatory and the photo kind of makes it seem dark. But I've been to observatories and they use the red light and you can still see fine right, and I've never felt fear in my life at an observatory. I've actually felt great walking with these red lights. It seems to me that the optimal amount of light is quite low and this safety thing for some people who love it bright is the exact opposite for me, who cannot handle this blue rich light. So these 4,000 K LEDs and even the 3,000 K LED streetlights, floodlights, et cetera that are supposedly there for safety is having the exact opposite effect on me.

Bill McGeeney: 37:25

Yeah, I mean, you're talking about essentially the feeling of safety, right, because lights aren't going to, they're not going to prevent or aid in creating a safe or unsafe environment, they're just, they're very minimal environmental impact.

Nick Mesler: 37:37

One thing I will say, is, while the data that we do in the work for identifying what is an appropriate amount of lighting, it's context specific.

Nick Mesler: 37:48

We find that the quantity of light doesn't necessarily change outcomes how much light is actually on the ground but it does influence perception. If you feel safer, you're more likely to be out and about at night, and that's, long term, going to create a safer environment. If you have more people outside, you have this concept eyes on the street. Famous Pennsylvania urban planner, jane Jacobs, is the one who kind of coined that term.

Nick Mesler: 38:12

If you have more eyes on the street, it's thereby creating a safer environment, and the data that we've been able to uncover is effectively that if you have more pedestrian scale lighting, or lighting that's intended use is for the pedestrian environment and not necessarily for roadways or other eccentricities, but is tended to bring visual comfort to people walking around, that is what does create a safer environment. Interestingly enough, though, in cities that aren't comfortable to walk around even in the daytime, we don't see that same effect. So post-war cities that have development patterns that were very car-centric and you might have a hundred foot roadway widths and four feet of pedestrian walking space, those areas, pedestrian-scale lighting don't see the same positive outcomes associated with lighting and crime reduction.

Bill McGeeney: 39:03

You're talking about feeling of safety here. That's right.

Nick Mesler: 39:06

It's perception of safety, because with the actual amount of light doesn't seem to make a difference Right.

Bill McGeeney: 39:11

Yeah, and I'm not going to, I'm not knocking feeling of safety, I get it. We had Jennifer Huygen on here who mentioned how about you know, having minimal lighting and on a park path really would help her feel a little safer. And I had this and I'll have this article actually coming out soon the moment where I actually because I mean I feel much personally I feel much safer in the dark. I do not feel I feel like everyone's looking at you and you're an open target, but in the dark I feel a lot better, and of course, my wife's the opposite. You know target, but in the dark I feel a lot better and of course my wife's the opposite. You know is what it is.

Bill McGeeney: 39:49

But the moment I had the realization of understanding what you're saying, nick, is when I went to argue for having a more controlled intersection. As a biker going across, because you have some street controls on it but people just run lights right. So having a more controlled intersection whereby you had larger vehicles sit back from the intersection more so you can see who's going to be going 45 miles an hour through that light before you enter it, right, and that's what you know. It's not practical. I've never seen anyone murdered there. There's no roadkill there. But you know, as a biker you think about this and I totally get that.

Bill McGeeney: 40:23

I want to move ahead here a little bit just to talk for Breckenridge. Breckenridge actually had a useful pamphlet that described everything that they were trying to do and it was very, very user-friendly and it made sense and it was not an intimidating language at all whatsoever. You can find it over at lightpollutionnewscom. Take a look if you're interested. This is what the ordinance actually looked at doing. Holiday lighting is allowed in all lighting zones. Color temperatures can exceed 3000 Kelvin. Decorative lighting is restricted to two areas either of the roof, eveline, the window trim or columns and railings, part decorative areas along the house. Decorative lights have to be off by 2 am for businesses, 11 pm for residents. New construction limits on residential properties are limited to eight exterior fixtures. I don't really think any of this is nuts. I don't think any of this is creating complicated or like hardships for most people, right? Am I wrong in that assessment? Is that just me with my bias?

Mark Baker: 41:27

No, all that stuff is totally doable. I looked at that before the show and some things are actually really good and some things still need vast improvements. They allow this holiday lighting from November through April. My gosh, why do you need it for so long? So that's certainly bending over backwards for the citizens who want this kind of light. 3,000k that's too high, but it's something. So people that are complaining for these things I think there's always somebody that's complaining. I don't think that, in my opinion, some people are just going to complain, so you just got to say, okay, well, that's your opinion, Thanks.

Bill McGeeney: 42:02

Since we're talking about our relationship with light and darkness, how about what if dark and a dim environment could enhance our abilities? A UK company called Okolo I don't know, I didn't actually research a name on that one they found a way to monetize something that I think a lot of folks who regularly operate in dim or unlit environments already knew, and that is training in these environments can help strengthen other senses. Okolo, if you're not aware, is a system that essentially puts an athlete in a dark room, tosses soccer balls, tennis balls and God help them Major League Baseballs at these athletes. The system begins to cycle through a series of dim color lighting arrangements, including a blue for visual focus, green for peripheral awareness and then red for depth perception, before combining all three Training in darkness. This is really interesting. It's not often we get to talk about sports. I love these kinds of stories. This kind of makes sense to me, but I want to know how do you guys feel about this? Anyone have any similar experiences? Astronomy night.

Isa Mohammed: 43:09

It was with the indigenous Atacamean tribe and they had set up a place where they took each one and each walk through this brushed area and it's in total jet black color Atacama desert environment. You can't see anything. But you're walking on this wooden path through a dry forest and the guide is mentioning how you can hear everything. You could identify species of animals just based on where the wing of the bird flutters. And you start picking up when you have a guide with you and they start pointing out listen to this, listen to that. So that's one thing, and another thing I want to mention is like, for example, my mom, who's one of those people who needs that light to feel safe. But then one time we're doing an astronomy night and switch off all the lights in the area and suddenly she's like but wait, I can see everything.

Isa Mohammed: 44:17

And I say, well, yes, because your eyes are now dark adapted. So you have this entire cadre of people who've never actually experienced being outdoors in darkness, so they don't know how the human physiology responds. They've never had the experiences, so they don't know how the eyes dark, adapt. They don't know how you have the increased hearing, and so there's a whole subset of the population, who simply do not know what it is like to be outdoors in a dark space, and there are benefits that are associated with it. You can see things that you would not think you would be able to see in the darkness Absolutely. When your eyes dark, adapt, you could see things that you would not think you would be able to see in the darkness absolutely. When your eyes darken up, you could see almost everything, especially if there's even any little bit of moon out, you could see everything. So I think there there ought to be, you know, some some greater push into putting people in darkness and see, see how they respond yeah, well put I think.

Nick Mesler: 45:16

I think a lot of it comes down to the amount of light appropriate for a task. You go into a dentist's office and they have the brightest white light available.

Bill McGeeney: 45:25

You don't want them using a red light.

Nick Mesler: 45:26

Nick, probably, honestly, if I was under a red light I'd probably freak out to tell you the truth. But it's funny. You walk around on a trail at night and if you're just under moonlight it's funny. You walk around on a trail at night and if you're just under moonlight it's 0.1 lux. That's rounding error for most lighting design. You can see just fine, but all you're doing is walking along a comfortable path. There's not a lot of immediate danger. You're not looking for cars or cyclists or other pedestrians. Your tripping hazards are fairly minimal. It's really about right-sizing, sizing and just getting the right amounts necessary.

Bill McGeeney: 46:02

I mean, you know, if I'm Mark we covered this in your show If I'm mountain biking, I'm probably going to have a lot of light because I need to lead time. Since I'm going at a high speed, I need to be able to see what's coming up right. But I'm hiking. I've never had a problem. The Milky Way puts out a lot of light and you really like, I've backpacked to plenty of places and I really never had problems at night.

Mark Baker: 46:25

Actually, I enjoy it Just like in the morning and sunset, like it's a very different time. So speed is one of these major problems, major problems. We're sort of adapted as humans through our physiology over millions of years that our walking speed is a certain you know, four miles per hour or something. Maybe if we run it's double that. So if we put ourselves on a mountain bike, now we've doubled that again. But maybe we can do okay in the daylight. But you know you can still crash because you're going a little bit faster than you can react. So now you put yourself in a dark environment and now you're not being able to react as fast. Put yourself in a car that's going 60 miles per hour and now you're having this trouble. So we're coming into a situation where we've invented technologies that allow us to go faster than what our physiology is and then we're trying to sort of say well, what are we going to do? Light up the whole night, so it's just like daytime, so we can go fast.

Mark Baker: 47:27

I think in the early 1900s, when cars were coming, getting invented, I just recently saw online speed limit signs. It was like 15 miles per hour daytime and eight miles per hour nighttime or something like that. Right, and they had two signs, one for day and one for night, and it was quite low. So now I don't see those daytime, nighttime speed limit signs anymore, there's just the one speed limit sign. I don't know why we got away from that, but that, I think, would be kind of smart to sort of like cause we're we're involved a lot in the headlights issue and the headlights issue is brighter is better. It turns out that the people coming the other way into those headlights brighter was not better. So I think that needs to be brought into the conversation. The speed thing and, and I don't know it's a difficult problem.

Isa Mohammed: 48:19

Mark and Nick. I have an interesting question here concerning that. Is there sort of like an arms race in terms of lights that you would find, for example, on vehicle and the amount of ambient light you need around it, like things? You have to keep progressively making things brighter so that everything sort of matches, so that if there's a a lot of bright things around and the sort of ambient light has to go up to to match it, otherwise you look at something and it totally blinds. So is there, is there like sort of an arms race to say, between the ambient light and the, the, the use case light or the usable light it's?

Nick Mesler: 48:56

an interesting perspective.

Nick Mesler: 48:57

I haven't heard it put in those terms, but I mean in a way I think you know it's probably you know the outcome, at least here in the United States.

Nick Mesler: 49:04

I know that headlight laws haven't really changed since the 70s and the technology back then was vastly different. If your need is to overcome you know, a high beam coming the other direction, such that you can see what's right in front of you, because you might be creating something like negative contrast or effectively a silhouette effect. Let's say you're driving at an intersection and you have a high beam point in your direction. You can't see what's right in front of you. All you can see is that beam, or you might even look away, something that's called disability glare. It's so bright and blinding. It's just to look away and now you're no longer looking at what's in front of you on the road. The solution a brighter light for yourself. I drive an old car and the headlights seem to get dimmer every year, something I definitely experience and, as a pedestrian and cyclist who likes to bike around at night, certainly a concern on my part whether or not I'm being able to be seen very easily either.

Mark Baker: 50:01

Yeah, you say you're absolutely right. There's an arms race out there. The brighter is better, and I've seen this in actually I forget where now but in regulations where they talk about the ambient light and that's so that the regulation is relative to the ambient light and then so that would be. That would cause this.

Isa Mohammed: 50:19

An escalation yeah.

Mark Baker: 50:20

Yeah, absolutely. There's no way around it by making a law that's related to the ambient light. So, yeah, this has occurred and so that's why these vehicle lights that have flashing lights they believe that you need to get the person's attention, so they put more and more intense, brighter flashing lights because they think that it's going to make them safer. But in fact you read the news stories and then the police officers and the fire truck people, they're getting killed because now you can't see, so because of that war. So that's what we need is for government officials to recognize the auto industry, everybody to recognize when the war is not the way to go, you know, going backwards, getting it back. That's why I was talking about optimal. What's the optimal? And then this speed idea, though it causes a real problem, because who's going to tell people that, well, to be safer you need to go slower? That's going to be a tricky one.

Bill McGeeney: 51:13

There's this idea that things need to be brighter to make it safer is a very old idea. And I know on this show back January of last year and Adams, john Adams, a future president, john Adams had a way of being condescending. He was a very know-it-all guy, so he's very condescending. He wrote out to Jay and said how can you live in a place that has these kind of I forget what kind of lamps they were, but they were dimmer than the oil lamps that he had. And he's like you know, you're afraid everyone's going to, everyone's getting murdered and whatnot right around you. So this idea of safety and light is a very old idea and there's nothing new about it, right. So it makes sense. You think about human brain activity, right?

Isa Mohammed: 52:09

Like we're very kind of like a hive culture where we can just build upon everything, and it kind of makes sense that that will be the trend in my thought is so, like you know, you just keep going up and up and up, because that's naturally how we think right, yeah, and, and my concern there as you said, if, if, if something is tied to your ambient light and then you say, well, these things need to be x amount above that ambient level, then that raises the ambient light and it just creates a feedback loop that I'll tell you, like, for example, at home, when the dog starts barking out and somebody will you know, drop the lights inside the house so you could see outside better.

Isa Mohammed: 52:51

Or the corollary to that is installing more lights outside so that you could keep your inside lights where they normally are, but just brighten the bejesus out of the surrounding area, and so that means you don't need to take off your lights inside to see what's going on outside. You could leave it here. It's just that you've just dumped a million lumens into the environment.

Bill McGeeney: 53:17

Technology is a wonderful thing, isa boy all right mark.

Bill McGeeney: 53:23

I want to get the recent news that, uh, you were in regarding illuminate san francisco's completion of the new 50 000 led fixture to bay bridge relighting. For you at home, if you've been a long-time listener, you no doubt recall illuminate san francisco. They've been. We've talked about them a few times on the show. They find a way to get themselves in the news and if it doesn't ring a bell, let me rehash what happened.

Bill McGeeney: 53:45

Illuminate San Francisco they're a nonprofit art organization that specializes in installing very bright all-night lights displays, art displays around the city of San Francisco. Past displays and here's a highlight reel include the very bright all-night art displays around the city of San Francisco. Past displays here's a highlight reel include the very bright all-night art displays in San Francisco parks, the blasting of a giant all-night rainbow laser beam down Market Street and now the relighting of the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco to Oakland and additional areas. The cost to install the new lighting tallied upwards of over $11 million, of which a very high majority was donated money Exceedingly high majority was donated money. You'll recall Davis' quote last year. I feel like there's a hole in the night sky and there has been for the past year.

Bill McGeeney: 54:32

Davis is a man who clearly needs the daytime that Issa's talking about here. I'm not going to fault him. I'm sure we all have insecurities and, to Davis's credit, the public response has been, as far as I can tell, overwhelmingly supportive. Right, and I've qualified. It's hard enough for me to convince you listeners to support this show, but folks came out and drove support ludicrous amounts of money into relighting a bridge. Okay, mark, your organization, soft Light Foundation, has brought suit against turning on those new lights. Why don't you tell us what that suit entails?

Mark Baker: 55:03

Yeah, wow, so I didn't know you'd been talking about Illuminate on this show, and so first I would like to clarify I cannot represent the Soft Lights Foundation. Therefore my lawsuit is pro se. I am suing on behalf of Mark Baker. However, I do sign things as president of the Soft Lights Foundation. I've learned a few things about this project. I've been notifying Mr Davis at Illuminate for a year and a half about the impacts of LED lights, not only light pollution, but especially the neurological impacts for those of us who are going to suffer seizures or migraines or have a panic attack or vomiting or whatever it is, because I know these people and I know myself, and so I've been asking about what? About those people that can't tolerate this LED light? So he was brushed me aside. I've also been contacting the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans. There's an agency called the Bay Area Toll Authority, which is the lead agency on this project, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is actually the overseas BATA. What we learn as we get into these government actions is what's called bad faith, and it's pervasive throughout the United States and probably throughout the world. So there are the laws, there's regulations, there's things they're supposed to be doing and they're supposed to be acting in good faith, meaning they should be doing sort of unbiased work and doing their job and making sure they're unbiased work and doing their job and making sure they're doing what's right. These agencies are not doing that. So Mr Davis went around with his handout and collected $11 million from wealthy people in San Francisco and the project originally was 2000,. I don't remember what year it was, but they did it for two years to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Bay Bridge. Ok, so that bridge has been there for 75 years and this was like 10, 15 years ago. It was 2003. I don't remember. So if we imagine that there was no light pollution, almost no light pollution back then when the Bay Bridge was first built, and then they celebrated it by adding these LEDs which had some colors and stuff, and then two years the permit expired and then Mr Davis thought it was really great. So he went around and collected $4 million to do a second version. In the second version they made it brighter and then, just like two years ago, they all kind of burned out. The weather elements got to them, so they ended their life. But he wants to make it permanent and so he went in this time and he wants to double it from 25,000 LEDs to 50,000 LEDs.

Mark Baker: 57:50

But what you have to do in California, where the Bay Bridge is, is you need to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. This says you need to go and perform an Environmental Quality Act. This says you need to go and perform an environmental impact report and lay out what's going to happen when you do this project. And for far, far smaller projects, these EIRs are required. What they did in bad faith action, mr Davis and Caltrans and BATA and MTC, is they filed what's called a notice of exemption. They did a little report with an environmental agency and they did another report with another consultant firm and it's like I just read those because I just got them. And they do these little reports that sort of say well, you know, there's not really much going to happen. These certain fish, we don't think much will happen. These certain birds, we don't think. But it's not a full EIR. In addition, they skipped any public input whatsoever. They're supposed to go through and the SECA requires the public to be allowed to wait in. Do they want this project? A lot of people can't tolerate this light. And so there's this thing, this, filing this notice of exemption. They then acted as if they could just go ahead and just they don't need to do an EIR for this.

Mark Baker: 59:02

So I was contacting these agencies for a year and a half and they kept telling me oh don't worry, mr Baker. Don't worry, mr Baker, we haven't approved the project yet, we're still looking into it. Well, suddenly, in the beginning of December 2024, there was a news article they started the project. I was out of my mind. What do you mean? You started the project. It hasn't been approved, according to you guys. How did you start? So I contacted them and they said oh well, don't worry, mr Baker, we're just doing some preliminary work. What do you mean? Preliminary work? You're out, they got all these people. It's a big photograph. What do you mean Preliminary work? You're out, they got all these people. It's a big photograph. Photo office.

Mark Baker: 59:38

In the news, everybody's saying the Bay Lights are coming back by March. They'll all be turned on again. What do you mean? And so that's when I said OK, you guys are lying to me, I'm filing a lawsuit. So the SICA is a huge law. So I'm no pro at it. I've already made made a bunch of mistakes, but I managed to get my CICA lawsuit in and what happens when you file a lawsuit is then suddenly all those people that were lying to you they're going to continue but they're under the constraints of the court now.

Mark Baker: 1:00:06

So everything sort of changes a little bit. There's timelines for these people. They got to start putting their arguments in writing and they still lie and stuff. But now you get your chance. So we're going to have a hearing at the end of January and I've been telling them start acting in good faith, start recognizing that you're going to have the neurological harms with people with disabilities. It's certainly going to impact seals and birds and viruses and plants and everything. So skipping the EIR is ridiculous. The public didn't get to weigh in, so you certainly skipped all that. So let's start being honest. I don't know I'm in communications with the lawyers now and they're not. You know they don't tell me what's going on, but this whole lawsuit is in progress and what I want out of it is for them to comply. Whether the project can proceed, I don't know. Know, but they have to do first an environmental impact report I.

Bill McGeeney: 1:01:01

I think I feel like the community of san francisco definitely weighed in that they want to have this, I mean this, 11 million dollars donated. Right, you don't donate 11 million dollars. That's not something that, like you, I don't't do, right, that's. That's a big chunk of money that comes in right. Talk, am I, am I wrong? Is that, is that a wrong assumption?

Mark Baker: 1:01:24

When you say that community, you're talking about 10 people or something you know there's. There's multi hundreds of million. There's living there. Now all those tech companies are in San Francisco, so I don't remember who all. They have a board of directors at Illuminate. I don't know who all their donors are, but the big there's like one person writes a $1 million check. So it's not really like little. You know Joe and Jane donating the $10 here and $15 here.

Mark Baker: 1:01:52

When those articles came out in December in the news there was about four or five of them. I got half hate mail, just people completely attacking me and so upset that I would dare to interfere with this project. And then, but the other half were so thankful, my gosh, my wife can't go outside anymore because of these LED lights. I all kinds of weird neurological conditions that you've never heard of. People have these things, and so they were telling me thankful. Somebody called me a couple of days ago and really wants to get more involved. He's writing letters now.

Mark Baker: 1:02:25

I hate those lights, right. So this is that sort of ethical moral dilemma is like, well, okay, if half the people want it and half the people don't, which one do you choose? In my opinion, you got to choose the one that's the more natural, safest, least amount of harm. That's the choice that you have to make and it's just there's. No, I mean, it's just somebody's private idea of what art is. I don't mind if he lights up his own house with LEDs, that doesn't bother me. But this is a public space, do?

Bill McGeeney: 1:02:55

you think this goes back to the first question I think I ever had on the show Is light a pollutant?

Mark Baker: 1:03:02

Yeah, of course it's a pollutant, no different than air pollution. You know we call it electrosmog. Maybe it's a little hard to define because it sort of travels through this ether. It's not even clear how it even works really, so it doesn't have necessarily a medium, so it's a little harder to say what's it polluting. But electro smog is certainly a pollutant and it has incredible impacts on our lives. We are basically, you know, electromagnetic beings. Everything we've evolved is electromagnetic. So yeah, it's a, it's a very important. You know it's polluted.

Bill McGeeney: 1:03:35

I want to go around the horn on that, isa.

Isa Mohammed: 1:03:37

what is your thought is like a pollutant I mean defining a pollutant as something man-made that's introduced into the environment, that has potential negative impacts, then yes, anything, anything human made that goes into the environment, that that impacts things, I think ought to be classified in some way, form or fashion as a pollutant. Now, just because it's a pollutant doesn't mean we've said it several times on this podcast already that we need a certain amount of light to do things right, and we've sort of also said that there may be an optimal amount of light, even though we're probably not sure what that is. So there is a certain amount of light that needs, though we're probably not sure what that is. So there is a certain amount of light that needs to be had out there. But from the minute that you're putting stuff out into the environment that was not there as a result of man-made action, then you classify it as a pollutant. Nick, what are your thoughts?

Nick Mesler: 1:04:35

I saw. It's hard to disagree with that assessment. But you know what Another perspective concrete, rubber, tires, bridge paint and all these other things that this bridge has are pollutants as well, and it's you know. There's many car crashes that happen on that bridge every year. I used to live in San Francisco. I remember when they did that lighting installation I think it was 2013.

Nick Mesler: 1:04:56

All man-made activity is to some extent, you know, pollutive, and lighting just being another. But it's not very much in terms of regulation on what that's to look like. We have, you know, in California. They have regulations on energy efficiency to limit the pollution that's borne by vehicles. You have to do a CEQA documentation for all roadway projects, including bridges. Lighting is very little. My experience is largely you should treat it to some extent just as you would a noise violation. Every city has a noise ordinance. You can't be too loud because if you're playing music off your porch and a neighbor across the street hears it, it's disrupting them. Light is the same way, but very few cities actually have a light ordinance. But the work that we do, we like to think of it in a similar way. If you have a personal light bulb, it should be done so in an intentional way and lighting what's necessary.

Nick Mesler: 1:05:54

Light art installations that's a touchier subject. I think there's light festivals. Portland Oregon is a touchier subject. I think you know there's light festivals. Portland Oregon is getting started on theirs pretty soon. Here they have a light festival throughout the city, different light installations through the winter, and that's something you see worldwide. Many cities, particularly in the north, that experience darkness for a much greater extent of time in the winter months. This time of year they have light festivals and there's a lot of subjectivity that comes with art. I think it's hard to define, but in terms of you know the pollutive aspects of it it's important to note what value is actually bringing and in a place like San Francisco San Francisco and Oakland are probably the two most pollutive cities in terms of light pollution along the West Coast, and the bridge linking them, I'm sure, is a similar deal and I'm proud to hear Nick is that justification for increasing pollution?

Nick Mesler: 1:06:50

Well, it's interesting. In a way it's kind of a drop in the bucket. A good example I like to use pretty often is Times Square. Times Square has streetlights, but for what you know it's not doing. I was just there over the summer. Half of them don't work and the other half that do are on in the daytime. So you know again, what's really appropriate here is providing any value versus just wasted energy. When it comes to art, sure you can have a lot of opinions.

Isa Mohammed: 1:07:16

Is that similar to like this fair in las vegas? Right, so it's. It's, it's big, it's in your face, it's beautiful, but it's from a light pollution perspective, it's it's very pollutive. And then another one is something that we have here in trinidad, where they have now these led billboards on the side of the highway and and at geez these things are. They're a menace, right, but they're there, you know. So you have these things. I wouldn't call it LED billboard art, like this fair pertains to be, but you know these things exist.

Bill McGeeney: 1:07:50

Mark, I want to ask you this Would it be acceptable if they simply turned off the decorative lighting after, say, like midnight?

Mark Baker: 1:07:56

Well, so that's an improvement. Right, I want them to go through the actual legal process. So what they've done is you know they've skipped that and so what you know they didn't want to have to go through. Maybe they're afraid of what they'll find, but I can't say that that's good for the people that suffer the neurological reactions. So I can't support that because it's LEDs. If they were the old, like Christmas lights, incandescent Christmas lights, and then they had them on for a certain period I'd probably say that's okay. Right, you're still harming fish and birds and seals and stuff and you're interfering with the whole ecosystem. I mean, the bay is really important. It should be really really dark. I'm not really clear.

Mark Baker: 1:08:36

I think that this project, even if it's not approved, there's still a bunch of lights on there. I found a photograph and some video from 1960s. That's what I remember. So the 1960s, the car headlights were the yellow color and then they had a couple of these red, slow flashing lights for airplanes and then they had no other lights on the bridge. Oh, they had some high-pressure sodium streetlights and so it's such a gentler and safety-wise.

Mark Baker: 1:09:05

I don't think you're going to have any evidence that shows that the bridge is safer now with high glare lighting, especially like why would you add LEDs to the bridge? If you're concerned about safety, in those documents that I received due to my public records request, there was a comment there from the one meeting that they said they had from the California Highway Patrol about safety, but then there was no more other documentation about it. We know that like in my mind, you know it's like in my lifetime it's going to be impossible to get back to where it was. But that's why I was kind of bringing up this optimal. If you set the optimal first and then we work towards that, that's a help. But for those people who can't neurologically tolerate LEDs, we just got to get rid of them.

Bill McGeeney: 1:09:52

Mark, we're going to finish up right here, I'm going to end today's show, but I want to say this real fast we live in a world of experiential moments and a bridge is an experience, and you can see that, I know, here at Ben Franklin is, I mean, the lights don't serve any purpose on it, honestly, but it's an experience. People want the experience right, and that's why I think personally if you know you had a curfew at midnight for decorative lighting it's kind of a happy medium for a lot of. You know you still have the art, you still have that, but then you just go back to your bridge lights and your ship lights and your you know, your airplane lights and everything like that, and it seems like a happy medium. I hope someday we get to that. So let's stop here today as, uh, we'll pick up the next half of the show in two weeks.

Bill McGeeney: 1:10:36

I'd like to thank my excellent panel of guests today Mr Mark Baker of the Soft Light Foundation, civil engineer Mr Nick Messler and, of course, the man from down by the equator, president of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, mr Issa Mohamed. As a reminder, you can connect with us on whatever device you feel comfortable in. You can find us on LinkedIn, instagram, facebook. I don't know if TikTok is still around. There's a text link in today's show. If you want to comment on today's show, feel free to shoot over a text. If that doesn't work, just feel free to email me, bill, at lightpollutionnewscom, and we'll read your responses after the show. Light Pollution News is a listener-supported show Recorded today, on January 19th 2025. Thank you, the listener, for joining us today. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, signing off and asking you to remember to only shine a light where it's needed.