Light Pollution News

May 2025: Mother Snowy Owl!

• Light Pollution News / Bill McGeeney / Robert Massey / Michael Calhoun / Phyllis Gricus • Season 3 • Episode 10

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About Light Pollution News:

The path to sustainable starry night solutions begin with being a more informed you.

Light Pollution, once thought to be solely detrimental to astronomers, has proven to be an impactful issue across many disciplines of society including ecology, crime, technology, health, and much more!

But not all is lost! There are simple solutions that provide for big impacts. Each month, Bill McGeeney, is joined by upwards of three guests to help you grow your awareness and understanding of both the challenges and the road to recovering our disappearing nighttime ecosystem.

Bill McGeeney:

light pollution news may 2025. Mother snowy owl. Join us today as we talk about some dark sky messaging fails. Why, salmon need you to switch the lights off? And, oh hey, street lights with headdresses. What the this month? I welcome conservationist michael calhoun, garden landscaper phyllis grickus and from from the Royal Astronomical Society, dr Robert Massey. All this and more is up next. Welcome to Light Pollution News. I'm your host, bill McGeaney.

Bill McGeeney:

Each month, we gather the news together and bring on three great guests to help talk about it. If this is your first time listening, welcome. We do the show twice a month and look at a topic that many folks probably are unaware of, and that is all the ways that our nighttime lighting actually affects our night. Before we get going today, I have just a few things. I'll make them very quick. First, check out our website for links from today's show. That includes a summary and a read-along. And, don't forget, we also have an ecology tab. Through the use of something like a Copilot or ChatGPT, you'll be able to summarize all of the links in that tab. We have all the news and current research on ecology's effects dealing with artificial light at night A very useful tab that we put together for you to listen to. Next, we have many ways for you to reach out to us and ask questions, share comments or otherwise connect with us. You can find all of those in the show notes via whatever podcast player you're using right now. But, to quickly summarize, you can find us on Instagram, linkedin, tiktok and Facebook.

Bill McGeeney:

Finally, we have a sizable amount of costs and effort that go into bringing you to the show twice a month. Some of that cost is covered by our gracious listeners, but we still have big gaps that we're looking to fill. Costs involve show production that's largely me including research, show builds, show engineering that's our man, caden and our robust social media program. That is my wife, caitlin. If you like what we do, why not consider becoming a supporter? You can learn more about the benefits of being a supporter via today's show notes. The cost is very low. It costs $3 a month, which makes it one of the cheapest ways you can continue to expand awareness and communication around this topic of a sustainable night. If you're able to and you find the show valuable, why not support the show? It really does help us a lot For you, the listener who already supports Light Pollution News. Thank you very much. Your assistance helps us pay down many of our fixed costs each month, so thank you once more.

Bill McGeeney:

This month. I'm excited to have a great group of guests for you at home Starting off this month. Let me welcome Phyllis Greikus to the show. Phyllis, you come to the show on recommendation from a friend of the show, diana Ternshek, and you have an extensive experience in landscaping. You've written in numerous publications, including Horticultural Magazine Monrovia, and even won awards for your writing. Which awards did you win, I'm curious about that.

Phyllis Gricus:

So I'm a member of GardenCon, which is a professional organization for garden communicators who are either photographers, writers, podcasters, tv personalities, and it's an organization that's for professional development as well as lately been really focusing on making sure there's correct and informative information out there on social media and have received this award for another article that I wrote for Horticulture Magazine and there are many more to come because it's wonderful to be recognized by professionals in the industry.

Bill McGeeney:

Wow, that's a very bold statement. You have a lot of awards coming down your way. That's a very bold statement. You have a lot of awards coming down your way. I love it. Phyllis, I think you mentioned that Diane Ternshek was an inspiration here, but what got you going down this path? I guess was there a moment in your life before you knew how artificial light affected gardens, where you helped design gardens and then you said, hey, let's put in some spotlights over here and make that tree light up so that you can see it on the moon.

Phyllis Gricus:

I have always been interested in environmental issues, having grown up in Pittsburgh with steel mills around you and lots of environmental changes happening over the decades that I've been here. It started my path in paying attention to the food I was eating, the food I was growing and the air we're breathing. I'm a whitewater kayaker so I'm not on the rivers a lot and I have seen changes in the rivers with the gas fracking that we have going on in western Pennsylvania. So from an environmental perspective, the transition which I made to gardening as a career change in my 40s was a natural progression. I have always gardened and at that point I started to become aware of, you know, chemical use in the gardens and how to avoid that. So I started off as a master gardener and then went on to more professional development and got a degree in horticulture. So it's evolved as each environmental situation presents itself.

Phyllis Gricus:

I've tried to learn more about it Early on. You know rain gardens were quite the thing in Pittsburgh. We have a stormwater problem and you know people were transitioning to rain gardens but many of them were too weedy for the average homeowner to embrace and I guess part of what I've learned to do is take the aspect of architecture and make the landscape match or at least complement the architecture and in that way, making landscapes don't have to be all native and without any real structure, as making them more formal or organized convince more people to plant rain gardens Just been growing over the years and trying to make our gardens healthy for us and for ecosystems.

Bill McGeeney:

Well, my next guest here is Michael Calhoun. Michael, you hail from the amazing state of Oregon where you've been working to do similar things with Phyllis essentially not in the same size, but you guys both are essentially working at conservation angle, just in different buckets. And Michael, you're a board chair of the Columbia Soil and Water Conservation District. You got into conservation. What got you really on the path to be full into conservation?

Michael Calhoun:

Well, I had mentioned, of course it was. My parents were part of the back to the land movement and my dad did teach ecology in high school, but for me I think it was around 2000. Well, I won't date myself, but when I was 16, that's when the topic of climate change really was coming to the forefront and my hometown here has experienced two 500 year floods in the span of 11 years. So I saw the destruction that a large storm events, highly unusual, what occurs here, the damage, and because of those storm events, a lot of folks here were requesting help with restoration on their farms on their river that they live on. And that's how I got into all this.

Michael Calhoun:

And the soil district here which I chair works on river restoration and the native plants, making sure that people are aware we have a lot of doppelgangers here locally, plants that are invasive. They look beautiful but they're causing a lot of damage. So we have native versions If people really love this invasive plant in their yard there's native versions of. But yeah, that's how I got into it was was seeing the destruction that nature can cause and yeah, so I've been working to undo that damage and light pollution just kind of fell into that it's kind of under the umbrella of the environment, which is such a large umbrella there's so many things you can do in the environmental field that light pollution at some point crosses paths with people like Phyllis here who is involved with gardening and landscaping. So yeah, that's my story, how I kind of got into it.

Bill McGeeney:

Let's wrap up the panel of this episode with a name that many of you know and with a name that many of you know, and let me introduce him. Dr Robert Massey, who's currently Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society, leads the external affairs for the RAS. Dr Massey also works on behalf of the Society as an influential member of a number of organizations, including the Executive Board of the Earth Space Sustainability Initiative, and with policy groups for the International Astronomical Union Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Skies from Sallie Constellation Interference. That is a very big mouthful, robert. Yes, it is. You're also part of the UK Delegation Focus Group on a UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Dr Robert Massey, welcome to the show. I feel like I should have had you on earlier, but anyway, glad to have you here. We're going to get a little more into you in the next episode, but for now you know he's there, he's here, he's with us.

Robert Massey:

It's a pleasure to be here and, you know, never too late to go and do these things. And yeah, I quite agree with you about the IEU Center, which we often shorten to IEU CPS. I have heard a rumor they might be thinking about a more concise name for it, which I don't think would be a bad thing. This is a very accurate name, but maybe, just maybe something that's easier to roll off the tongue. But, yeah, it's a pleasure to be here and to be doing this work. I mean, actually, you know we've done it on and off over the years and I think what's been really interesting the last few years has been the expansion to include aspects of more general biodiversity effects.

Robert Massey:

We work closely with Bug Life and their work on invertebrates, who are brilliant. You know, telling people just to do things like close the curtains at night and not light up their guns. That way, you know telling people just to do things like close the curtains at night and not light up their guns. That way, we're working with teams looking at human health and we're also working with people looking at the impact on marine life as well. So I think it's a nice expanding gamma of things, you know, in the way that it wasn't before, when it's just astronomers talking about this stuff. You know it's important to me, but I do recognize that wider society isn't going to necessarily see that as their highest priority. But I think this sort of coalition we've got is really really effective now.

Bill McGeeney:

That's great, yeah, and just to circle back before we get into the show, we planted out some pollinator gardens a couple of years actually, it was last year, it feels like a couple of years ago and it's coming in. You know, phyllis, you know the gardening is happening here and we're using those native plants that Michael likes. And then Bug Life over there, with David Smith and a team doing some great work. All right, let's kick things off tonight with this record-holding car. Who here amongst us wants to have a car with 43,860 LED lights glued to the exterior? Did you guys look at this video? Did you guys see this car? It's like a candlestick on wheels.

Phyllis Gricus:

I did, bill, and I have to say that my first reaction to it was of horror. I do say kudos first of all to Alex and her world record, but that my immediate negative reaction at the opening of that video, where she's sitting in the car and says, let's get this thing started, and this sporty car begins to light up with 40,000 psychedelic LED lights, my response was let's not. I would not want to see that car coming down the road unless it's in a parade. And it was then with a great sense of relief, and her next words were it's not street legal. However, I mean, it is artful, there's a colorful beauty about it, but I think it should be displayed in a dark room with no windows. If we think LED headlights are blinding, can you imagine the crossover of this technology to street legal cars, people driving them around, that they put on those car wraps that are expressive of whatever they're thinking, or even advertisement? It would be frightening to see cars like that on the road, but as an artwork, I think it's a pretty cool idea.

Bill McGeeney:

For you at home. It's a UK resident, alex Wilding. She installed 43,860 lights, won the Guinness Book of World Records apparent record for most lights on a vehicle.

Robert Massey:

And a vehicle, as Phyllis mentioned, is not road legal, thank god, but you can see how bright it was I mean, look, look, I would say, I would say, yeah, I don't want to encounter that thing on the road or anywhere else. But I mean, yeah, you're right. You know, phyllis is right, this is the kind of thing. It's fine in a parade, it's fine as an art installation. But yeah, we don't really want a trend of people deciding say that the best way for their vehicles to be seen is to make them so bright you can't even look straight at them. I don't know, maybe it's my age as well, I think. As I get older, the glare of LED headlights is a bit harsh already, so don't make it worse please.

Phyllis Gricus:

I don't think it's age-related. It's the blue light of the LED lights. They become part of the fashion of the car.

Robert Massey:

It's I saw a paper and I can't remember the context of this, but it was about it was related to light pollution. The idea was that the occlusions you get in your eyes as you get older, they make the scatter worse. So to a certain extent, you know maybe I haven't asked my colleagues in my 20s about in their 20s about this, but you know, maybe they handle it better. But I'm you explanation. Like you, I find it not just so much intrusive but actually really harsh. I don't drive that much, but if I do, it just have these things blindingly at me. It's bad news. And 43,000 of those. No, thank you.

Michael Calhoun:

Watching the video it's amazing what they can do with cars. I've seen locally some vehicles that light the underneath it's like it looks blue, kind of like a flying saucer when it's driving. I guess that's street legal. But seeing this one where it was just covered everywhere, like they said, it's good in a parade, but where else would you take it?

Bill McGeeney:

I mean yeah, I think it depends on the municipality. There's a story that happened around the holidays that a truck was pulled over for having Christmas lights on the cab of the truck and the justification was that it would double over as an emergency vehicle. It would confuse drivers as an emergency vehicle. So I think it just depends on municipality and how much they want to enforce. So how about this for your neighborhood streetlights? Do you at home know how much disdain I have for the ignorance embodied in a lighting? First shielding maybe, policy that so many places seem to implement?

Bill McGeeney:

Well, in Brunnenfertel, the district of Berlin, an artist named Olana Rode found a pretty neat solution to some decorative streetlight pollution, that is, to have the lights wear hats. To paint the picture for your home. There are spherical streetlights that stand up from a cylindrical stem, so they're not all conceptually different from looking at a person's body and their head, the circular top. And so Rhoda did what she thought was the next logical step by adding decorative caps to them. Some lights were bucket hats, some were ball caps, some actually had a wrapping that resembled long hair, and they each apparently had names, like the girl next door or the boom boom or, in your case, phyllis's the gardener.

Phyllis Gricus:

There was a gardener and she was very imaginative and very creative and I think in a way brings more awareness to light pollution from people pass or passing by and seeing those and questioning why those hats are on top of the light.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah and well, these and they're also very creative, right Like. It's a very enjoyable visual sight, well, she's also making a Darth Vader one, if anyone needs a close. That article made me smile. It was enjoyable.

Phyllis Gricus:

You had to ask in your information about what my thought on a hat would be. It would be, since I'm a fan of nature and Harry Potter books I would like to see like a mother owl who wraps her arms around her chicks, as in Hedwig, a snowy owl. I think it would be a great hat on top of that light fixture.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah, so many ways you can go with this. I like that one. That's a good one. I'll have to find her email address and send one over to her find her email address and send one over to her.

Robert Massey:

I thought it was, you know, reminds me of the sort of guerrilla knitting thing where people I don't know about you know this happens so much in the US, but you can tell me. But you know, certainly, the thing where people sort of decorate fixtures and things with knitted, and I thought it's in the theme of that, really, isn't it? You know, it's taking some sort of apart from coming down, the light pollution is taking these slightly depressing fixtures and giving them a bit of life. And why not, maybe that's the next level for them in Berlin as well.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah, that's a really really good analogy.

Michael Calhoun:

My thought was also kind of the Harry Potter theme with a wizard hat or the sorting hat.

Bill McGeeney:

It's got an owl. We got the wizard hat.

Robert Massey:

Okay, robert you have any votes on this. Oh, I think you know. Maybe something like a knitted star to symbolize looking up at the sky, or something you know, just reminding people there's a sky above their heads, as well as a city street below.

Bill McGeeney:

I like it. So that was a fumble Everywhere else. To summarize street lighting, this month we have Freeport, louisiana, and Alice. Texas are upgrading their LEDs with the explicit goal of eradicating and irradiating criminals. Battleground City, washington, is weighing its ability to actually afford dark sky compliant lighting retrofits, which are namely for the retrofitted acorn style lighting. And on a crime front, there is a pre-release of the Philadelphia LED conversion study that we spoke about in previous episodes, done by the University of Pennsylvania. You can find that over in today's show notes. But before we get too far into it, down in DC the downtown cluster of congregations, executive director Terry Lynch is on a one-man mission to make sure every streetlight is lit for fear of people being murdered. It should be noted that violent crimes, including murder, are down 27% in Washington DC at the moment of Lynch's distress. Which brings me all back, in a not straightforward manner, to the US state of Michigan. Michael, I think you'll actually find this one interesting. I think you'll understand it a little more.

Bill McGeeney:

I'm not sure the best way to deliver a plan to protect the night, but Ypsilanti, michigan's city government, probably found the absolute worst way to deliver the news. The story comes to us from Fox 2 Detroit, who built a news report solely out of the turning light off narrative, bumbling the message out from Ypsilanti's city government. In fact, if you head over to our website and click on the clip, you'll be hard pressed not to think that the city wants to turn off all of the lights just to reduce sky glow. As is typically the case local TV news coverage at first glance it appears to look like next to no research went into making this news story. Rather Fox 2 found a council member who couldn't articulate a plan worth a damn and then, in true local TV fashion, dug up the most expressive person that they could find to showcase fear about rampant and unstoppable wave of criminal activity should the plan go into an effect. So let me articulate the issue. Council member Patrick McLean stumbled his way through the hints of what the plan actually is.

Bill McGeeney:

Ypsilanti sits on the Detroit side of Ann Arbor. You'll recall the Ann Arbor put through some new street lighting in the past few months. That dealt a split result to dark sky advocates. While the city nailed the temperature at 2700, the new lights chosen are quite bright, if wattage is any indicator. Ypsilanti is not Ann Arbor, but it was a very early adopter of LEDs dating back to over 10 years ago. So I searched and I wasn't able to find the current temperature in place, but judging from what I've seen online, probably around 4,000 to 3,000 Kelvin in temperature. Now, michael, that swings us over to you. You have a different situation. Over in Vernonia, sitting in a Northwest area, northwest of Portland that is, the town is debating whether there's a retrofit of 5,000 Kelvin color lighting with 2,200 Kelvin color lighting. Before we dive into that too far, I haven't heard of many towns that utilize 5,000 Kelvin color lights. Do you know any reasons why the community selected that to begin with?

Michael Calhoun:

No, I looked into it. There's no document as to why this color or like an oral history from people that have been there handed down, like why it was chosen. So it's just a lot of hearsay. I think it just wasn't, thought it was just, hey, let's order this, oh, that'll be bright, cool, and then just checked it off. And then here we are today trying to get rid of them. So, yeah, I know, as far as I know, there was no advocate of the Kelvin. They just, I just think they it was just a bulb to them.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah, and messaging is so critical in rolling out these retrofits. So I guess tell us a little bit about the goal of Vernonia when you guys are testing out this 5,000, 2,200,. Are there better fixtures that are being rolled out or is it just simply a light bulb change?

Michael Calhoun:

Pretty much a light bulb change. So for your listeners, just visually, vernonia is a town of about 2,000 people. It's in the middle of the woods in Oregon, the nearest towns are 15 to 20 miles away and we have, of course, like many small towns, a downtown main street corridor. Downtown Main Street corridor with. They installed 34 acorn style bulbs in 1999. And for 20 years I don't know what the technology was that they use, but in 2019 is when they switched to LEDs and then I came back from school back here and that's when I got involved with trying to convert them.

Michael Calhoun:

But yeah, we looked into the bulb themselves. Are the horncob style LED bulbs twist in? So yeah, the main conversation we've been having is the color. I will say when they were installed in 2019 with the 5000 Kelvin, there were already complaints from people that they were just too like blinding driving through downtown. So they installed a deflector. It looks like five pie pans stacked on each other, so it kind of diffuses it. It's not perfect, but that's kind of what we got, and the main reason why is to not completely convert it to. Something else would be the cost. It's just there's no money to really do that with a town this size and the budget that we have, and especially grant availability with. Here in America we've got a lot of things being cut, so one of them was, you know, being able to do infrastructure down our corridor.

Bill McGeeney:

The 5,000 Kelvin is pretty shocking, but no one seems to really like the white lights in general. Overall, most people in the surveys that I've seen come through here they prefer that warmer light. Are you seeing that in the side-by-side trials in the town?

Michael Calhoun:

Yeah, we did have a test example by the library and the movie theater and the majority of people that made comments liked the warmer light and the majority of people that made comments liked the warmer light. It's like the words are nostalgic, cozy, retro, but you know, people enjoy it when they see the difference. But in terms of any negative comment which were few it's always the cost. What is this costing us? What I was happy to see was the majority of people who actually took the time to write a survey review. It was always the color was nicer when they finally see them next to each other and understand. You know, I think that's what makes the difference is really seeing the comparison.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah, if I can ask how many people wrote back.

Michael Calhoun:

Well, for Vernonia this was a big number. For our council it was 15 people. But these are meetings where virtually no one ever attends, so you get feedback on practically nothing. So to actually have that written letters like actual, you know individual stories of how the light made them feel, that's big for Vernonia.

Bill McGeeney:

So, when it comes to crafting a message, I think this is where a lot of and you saw that in Ypsilanti you know what they're trying to do and you know what the justification really is, and it's not to, you know, make everyone's streets dark and not to, you know, take away the lighting on the sidewalk. It's to channel the lighting where it needs to be and use the correct color. How do you craft that meaningful message that translates over to you know, just a normal person who's working around town or doing, you know, doing whatever that person's doing.

Michael Calhoun:

For me it's both a passion and then a knowledge of what you're talking about, but not being a fire hydrant. You got to know your audience and choose what makes the most sense, without being like here's all these 20 facts about lights because people are just going to tune out. You've got to know who you're talking to. But yeah, for me it's a passion. You've got to really care about lights to get it across the finish line. So, yeah, a balance of knowledge and passion to get it through to get it through.

Phyllis Gricus:

I think, from my perspective as a landscape designer reaching out to gardeners who are interested in native plant gardens, who are interested in feeding the birds, who are interested in doing things ecologically light component when they are made aware of it as a detriment on their gardens it's like the last little checkbox in terms of ecological gardening, because most people aren't aware of it. So when you respond to a need in terms of something that appeals to them, then you can translate that to a wider range of communities, whether they're gardeners or birders or night hikers. Speak to them about how it affects them personally. It seems to be an effective way for me to communicate this message.

Robert Massey:

Yeah, I mean, from my part I think it's always. You know, I've lived in cities a lot of my life. I don't live in one now, I live in a relatively small town, but that connection, you know, the perception that somehow there's this direct correlation with or direct link to crime, is very much there and I think it's true. Obviously, I guess if you talk about major cities, you know most light pollution advocates aren't going to say make them completely dark. Right, you know. But we do want to emphasize the benefits of better lighting. And I in a previous life, about 20 years ago, I even got my inner London borough to pass light pollution policy. You know people understood the issue. They fundamentally did actually appreciate the sky above their heads as well.

Robert Massey:

And also, you know, I guess there is that Well, how harsh does it have to be? You know, I mean I have some sympathy with the. You know, know the idea that someone say, walking around washington dc trying to get street lights working. I understand that. I can see exactly why you do that, but you know the sophistication of the message. I guess it's about well, look, we're not saying we want to make your life impossible. What we're trying to say is that there is a great compromise here where we'll all benefit. You know we'll have a better ambient environment. That, you know I know we might touch on this in different bits of the show as well is better for wildlife, is better for human health, creates a city that's a more pleasant place to live, and towns and so on as well. And in rural areas it's quite good to be dark, you know we sleep better and all those things too. So I guess yeah, I guess also I suppose it's my messaging on it is I don't dismiss people's concerns out of hand, because I entirely understand why they're bothered about that. Who am I to go around to people living in a crime-ridden area and say you shouldn't have good lighting? Of course they should. It's just that we need to finesse the definition of what good lighting actually means.

Bill McGeeney:

When you come across good examples of lighting. It's subtle, you may not notice it, but it's actually enjoyable. A buddy of mine had unfortunately had a funeral and we went into a bar after the town had a great downtown. The lighting was perfect. The lighting was warm, you could see everything you need to see. It wasn't overpowering, it wasn't in a way that was harsh or obtrusive. And then you look maybe two blocks away, where they have these new condos and everything and the lighting over there is harsh, pretty terrible. It's all the whole side of the. The condos are lit up from really bad fixtures and you really notice the difference. You can really see the difference. Aesthetically it's better. You're more relaxed, comfort-wise, you know you kind of want to be there more because it's a warmer environment and you can really see it. And I suspect the same thing is probably happening in Vernonia, right, mike?

Michael Calhoun:

Yeah, and what initiated all of this is the majority of the town is still lit by high-pressured sodium. So the orangish-yellow light and I'm both nostalgic for older technology so that's how I got into this was I didn't know what high-pressured sodium was. I read in an article they're being replaced. So that's when I started looking into it, looking at the difference between LEDs and the colors that are available for the new technology. So yeah, and in Vernoni I'll also say that the two things I'm working with, we have our city-owned lights in the downtown corridor. Our utility company owns all the others. So it's been challenging working with two different entities and they each have their own board of directors or a council and different people personalities. That's what I've been working with Just two different things at the same time. It's work.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah, it is Robert's over there laughing.

Robert Massey:

Who is this? It's good work, but it's work.

Bill McGeeney:

On the neighborhood front, some common sense that I think everyone here can get behind. The community of Apple Valley, minnesota's code enforcement team, actually issued an article to urge neighbors to be well neighborly with their exterior lighting. Included in the article are tips on how to avoid conflicts with your neighbors, such as by shielding lighting when possible. Aim the lights away from neighboring properties and streets and consider using motion detectors and streets. And consider using motion detectors. Really not that hard, but plenty of times on the show. You know, with responsible lighting you can actually have your cake and eat it too.

Phyllis Gricus:

They develop an ordinance about light trespass or are they just approaching it from being neighborly friendly? Awareness aspect of light trespass.

Bill McGeeney:

That's a good question, phyllis. I think I can't recall. I read that article a little while back and I don't know if they have an ordinance in place, but I assume they have an ordinance in place if that's what code enforcement is requesting.

Phyllis Gricus:

Michael, if dealing with the lighting company is trickier than dealing with local representatives, do they have their own agenda that they're trying to enforce, and can you influence them?

Michael Calhoun:

In Vernonia. One of the things we looked at for the city part was a resolution versus an ordinance. Ordinance, I'd say, would have teeth, legally binding, and a resolution the intent was that it would be. This would be nice to see, so when the lights are replaced years from now, even if it's a full new slate of counselors, new people, there would be consistency. Right now that's on pause.

Michael Calhoun:

There's a faction in town where it's very much you're taking away our rights and then suddenly the president's coming to take away your Christmas lights. They're like oh, it's a slippery slope. That's where we're at right now. But I'm a huge fan of getting it in writing so that there's consistency. And one of the things locally here was that we do have an issue with a bus barn that has an industrial spotlight shining straight out. It's not down on the ground, it's in people's homes and their bedrooms, but because there's no language on the ground, it's in people's homes and their bedrooms, but because there's no language on the city saying they can't do that. That's been an issue. So, hearing about this town, yeah, my advice is get it in writing, otherwise you'll have stories like that.

Robert Massey:

You know, over here I think there are some reasonable ordinances, reasonable rules that are supposed to govern these things, but people don't really adhere to them. So you know the whole thing about domestic security lighting, for example and this is a small town, but you know, and people still have that and it's left on for long periods of time and I'm not, I can't see how it really seriously makes anybody safer, but you know they do it. We're in a national park. Now that's not a, you know, that's not like a us national park, I guess, but it is nonetheless. It does offer these additional protections on light pollution. The south downs national park. If you have those things, you have to have some enforcement or something as well to make them meaningful. Because you know, frankly, I'm sure I could drive around and count all these over bright displays, which tend to be actually more you know the domestic stuff and the over bright displays tend to to be actually more you know the domestic stuff and the over bright displays tend to be more of the villains in this, if you like, than, say, local authorities here. Local government here tends to follow reasonable rules, at least over shielding lights, even if we don't get the right color temperatures. So it's. I think it's complicated, but it's.

Robert Massey:

Yeah, there is certainly a point of saying well, maybe also in the manufacturer of these things too. You, you know, if you say, look, why are you building something? I mean, you know you're running a prison, you know, why do you need something which is so spectacularly bright and why isn't there something included with it on how it's best installed and directed? You know, you can tell me if that's different in the US, but here I get the impression that that stuff isn't in place and so people buy these things. They want to feel safe, or they're just on an industrial site and they light it up as much as possible and there isn't really enough around it to say you know, this is how you do it properly, like we would say with other installations of things around buildings.

Phyllis Gricus:

I am finding in the landscape lighting industry that dark sky is having an effect. Dark sky is having an effect and when I show up at trade shows there are more and more lighting reps talking about being dark sky. Few of them have gone to motion sensitive. I think it would be more, rather than the dawn to dusk lighting timers or suggesting that people turn off their lights at 10 or 11 o'clock at night, I think, changing the message to using motion-sensitive lights so that it's only on when you need it, and I think that is more effective in deterring crime and even deer walking through and critters walking through your gardens. It tends to scare people and critters off. I have shifted my thinking. When I design, I don't design the lighting, I specify the lighting but I look for that. I put that information in there and the clients that I've been able to convince to change their lighting have been really quite happy, in addition to the fact that it saves them money from energy use.

Bill McGeeney:

I think this is a good transition to swing over to some stories on landscape lighting. Phyllis, I'm way ahead of you there. Well, the Irish Times had this one. Joanne Hunt wrote some proper garden lighting from the British gardening charity, the Royal Horticultural Society. So when lighting up landscapes, rhs recommends against lighting ponds, against lighting hedges and against lighting trees. When it comes to choosing light, the society recommends a dull glow of a solar lamp over a dedicated high power flood lighting that I see all the time from commercial installations.

Bill McGeeney:

The RHS claims that lighting pond areas can deter frogs from, say, nesting, create problems for nesting birds and insects. And all of this comes on the coattails of the recent Flavor of the Month campaign by the NGO the World Economic Forum. The organization published an article summarizing much of the current state of how dedicated and persistent artificial light at night imparts changes on our environment and affects human health. So, phyllis, to your point, the messaging is getting out there. What's the common feedback you get from people when you first tell them how do they want to do their landscape lighting to begin with? What do they come to you and ask for?

Phyllis Gricus:

In some cases they have no landscape lighting, so that really gives me the opportunity to start fresh and guide them. However, some people really like to show off their homes and they think that that's a very decorative, complimentary look, and I try and I bring out all of the environmental factors as well as talking about pollinators at night and birds at night. So a lot of my work, even with dealing with the customers, is educational. I like to inform people and usually that leads to a change of thought or they're more interested in learning more. When I first started in my career, I did a lot more educating and having discussions and sharing articles with people. That I'm doing now.

Phyllis Gricus:

Most of the clients that are coming to me now are because they already have an interest, but whenever I have to convince someone or would like to convince someone to change it, I do it gently, without judgment, just trying to point out positives of the lighting, and the one that seems to get a lot of response when I finally get down to it is about saving energy In order to produce electricity. That's a pollutant to create that energy and it costs them and is costing more and more in Western Pennsylvania for energy. It will reduce their electricity bills. When you talk dollars and cents, people respond to that and then may catch up on the rest of it. Talking about saving money is important.

Bill McGeeney:

Do you find that people are more apt to use timers or anything like that?

Phyllis Gricus:

They are more apt to use timers. Convincing them to turn their timers off at 10 or 11 o'clock at night is a little difficult. In fact. You know, if I had my magic wand and I can make the ordinances and enforce them, I would say turn them off. If you don't need them Again, go with the motion sensitive. It's much more effective eat them Again.

Bill McGeeney:

go with the motion sensitive. It's much more effective. I ask Phyllis, because oftentimes you'll see in neighborhoods if you leave, they were like two or three in the morning they still have their whole yard lit up and it never made sense to me. But you know, unless you're like incredibly vain and egotistical, like why you would keep it on all night, right when you are working with people, is there an uptick in them being like, oh, you know what? Actually, timers aren't a bad idea. We can cut it off at, say, midnight or 11 o'clock.

Phyllis Gricus:

I would say I have a very good success rate in converting people to reducing their outdoor lighting and typically, you know, pittsburgh has a lot of old housing stock and so I'm doing a lot of garden renovation and therefore replacing lights that were maybe installed 25, 30 years ago.

Phyllis Gricus:

So it's effective in that regard. And, yes, you know, it does the disconnect of what people think when they're shining a light on their house and the windows and then they're buying window treatments to make it dark because they're shining in their windows. When they make that connection, it's, you know, a light bulb goes off in their head and they say, okay, I can see why we don't need to be lighting up the side of this house. Some people are more flexible than others, but I think you're right, there is a certain amount of vanity in certain neighborhoods with a lot of McMansions and they want to show off. But also I think people from a health perspective are becoming much more aware of the detriments of artificial light on circadian rhythms. Again, reaching them where they're at, where they can understand, is what I try to do.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah, since we're here, let's jump into some ecology news, because I think this kind of leads right into some of the stuff that you're talking about. Phyllis, on the aquatic front, the University of Colorado at Boulder detailed dangers of Chinook salmon as they navigate to the Pacific Ocean. The fish only have a 5% survival rate from birth to ocean and part of that is due to climate change Think warmer temperatures, dams, water quality issues. Human-induced predators are also part of that, including largemouth and striped bass. And what happens is the team tracked 424 salmon via river bank monitoring. They also tracked 23 striped and 17 largemouth bass.

Bill McGeeney:

Researchers found that salmon, due to bulk of their migration at night, they prefer to save energy by riding strong mid-river currents, these same currents that daytime predators such as bass like to hang out in looking for raw salmon. The shocker for the regular listener and my guests here today, I know is that ambient lighting apparently plays into reducing the success of the nighttime migration, because these daylight predators take advantage of artificial light at night to extend their hunting hours. It's suggested that communities near these waterways attempt to limit the direct or indirect light shine onto the waterways to better promote salmon success. Another study from the Marine Pollution Bulletin, researchers looked at the herbivore bolida, an amphiphod I don't know if that's the right way to say it. Oh well, and now I'm going with an amphiphod common to the Atlantic Ocean. If you're not familiar with amphiphods whatever they're called they're a small crustacean invertebrate that look a bit like shrimp. The invertebrate actually reacts differently under artificial light at night, depending on its sex. Males increased their feeding habits under artificial light, while females, perhaps experiencing circadian rhythm disruption, reduced their nighttime food consumption. It should be noted that in the control without light, the situation was reversed, whereby females ate more than males at night. And then we can close out of our ecology news on a good note.

Bill McGeeney:

The first stab at responsible lighting goes into effect in the town of Kaokora on the south island of New Zealand. Last year, kaokora submitted an application to Dark Sky International to become a dark sky sanctuary. The area spans roughly two kilometers of land and was spurred by an effort to further protect the endangered Hutton's Shearwater. The Shearwater has been heavily impacted by artificial light at night. It will now have the added boost of switching over from sodium to new LEDs. I couldn't find a mention of color temperature or shielding that's put in place, but I assume that's going to be part of the deal. So, phyllis, have you seen any examples where you've had individuals with gardens switch over to having a more nighttime friendly mode and in that they've had measurable benefits?

Phyllis Gricus:

I would refer back to what I said earlier, in that people who I have convinced to change their lighting and I asked them to pay attention to their electric bills really seeing a difference in how much it's costing them. I have also had we spoke about earlier in the terms of comfort level how much more comfortable it was for them to be out in their gardens entertaining at night because the light is better.

Bill McGeeney:

There's a home that's figuratively out of this world, and it's located out in Big Bear, california, about an hour east from San Bernardino, and it sits in the world's foremost. It's essentially a bachelor pad for the absolute nerdy. While it's listed as a two-bedroom, two-bath home, in actuality it's a giant man cave equipped with a full observatory that includes a 16-inch Meade telescope, there's a control room for which you can run the telescope out of, an extensive antenna farm for ham radio operation and a fully outfitted workshop, including a lathe. This place actually isn't out of your price range it's 485 000. It's not crazy for california standards, or a home that has comes with a full observatory in it, probably, and it sits in portal 4 sky and, according to zillow, it's completely off the grid. Hey, robert, want to move to the States anytime. I found a place for you.

Robert Massey:

I mean, you know I've not been to San Bernardino and all Big Bear City, but hey, you know I'm willing to have a look. I think I mean, yeah, it sounds fun, doesn't it? I guess it's one of or something where I sit there and learn how to rig up my own solar panels and so on. Yeah, it sounds fun. I think you know these kind of places, you know, maybe, yeah, I don't think my daughter would thank me for that, you know, moving out to the sticks, but yeah, I totally love these kind of places, the fact they exist, and it does also remind me of the fact you know as well that there is that ongoing astro-tourism that people do like to visit comfortable, even fairly small observatories in remote places, because it's so different from our city experience. You know, you go out there, maybe not, maybe not for michael in a rural oregon it's slightly, slightly different again. But you know, even here in my small town, if I go somewhere really dark, it's incredibly special. So you know, I don't know how big dark big bear city is. I hope it's pretty dark.

Robert Massey:

But bottle four isn't bad right. But you know, you think I don't know it big dark Big Bear City is. I hope it's pretty dark. Well, bottle 4 isn't bad right, but you know, you think I don't know. It's just that connection, isn't it? And maybe having a home like that, yeah, I'm jealous Whether I want to move there or not. I think that takes more thinking. There's probably other factors involved if better. But yeah, it sounds like a great spot and I hope.

Phyllis Gricus:

If they can't sell it, they could always Airbnb it as the dark sky this is true, and they could have you doing the lighting in the garden as well.

Robert Massey:

Oh, there we go the absence of lighting.

Phyllis Gricus:

Have a job, travel anywhere UK, california.

Bill McGeeney:

Yeah, there you go, yeah, and it's even equipped for ham radio, if anyone is partaking in that. There's massive towers of the individual built on a property. So, it is an interesting place. Might as well live out your dream, right.

Robert Massey:

Okay.

Bill McGeeney:

Well, I want to thank everyone for this episode. Thank you at home for staying with us this whole time. I want to thank a great group of folks joining me today Dr Robert Massey, landscape design extraordinaire. We have Phyllis, greikus and conservationist, and the person with his mind always on how to better tomorrow. Michael Calhoun. Robert and Michael what's the best way for folks to connect to either of you guys?

Robert Massey:

Well, you can find me on our website, on the Royal Astronomical Society website. You can look me up on various social media platforms. I'm on LinkedIn, for example. There as well. Platforms I'm on LinkedIn, for example, there as well. I don't have my own dedicated personal website, mainly because I just haven't ever got around to putting one together, but I'm not that hard to find if you look around. This is probably an invitation to suddenly get a lot of emails from listeners and I don't really mind. Just forgive me if I don't have the chance or the time to reply to all of them.

Michael Calhoun:

And for me it would be Michael Calhoun Vernonia, Oregon, on LinkedIn. I really enjoy networking with new folks and I post a lot of different articles about projects I've been working on and, yeah, that's the best place to find me.

Bill McGeeney:

Excellent, and Phyllis, if anyone wants to learn more about the work that you do at Landscape Design Studio LLC, or they simply want to get in touch with you, how do they find out? How do they reach you?

Phyllis Gricus:

Well, on my website, landscapedesignstudiocom, they will find the article that I referenced that really started my path down this in terms of speaking about gardens and landscape lighting. They can find that article and download it and read it, as well as others that I have written On Instagram. I'm at Designs Gardens, where I post information about gardens and pollinators and being outside in nature, and I am on Facebook, although I'm slowly moving away from that. I'm finding a younger crowd on different formats, so I'm out there, I'm available.

Bill McGeeney:

Excellent. Well, as a reminder for you at home, if you heard anything on the show that makes you want to shoot over a comic question, don't just reach out. You can feel free to text us in the link in the show notes or you can email us at bill at light pollution newscom. You can also find us online via any of the socials Instagram, linkedin, tiktok, facebook and more advertising and solely rely on the support of you, the listener. If you like what we do, why not consider helping us push forward to keep 2025 a nice and good, responsibly lit year? So today's show is recorded on April 19th, 2025. I'm your host, bill McGinney, thanking you for listening today and remember to only shine the light where it's needed. You.

People on this episode

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Bill McGeeney

Host
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Michael Calhoun

Guest
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Phyllis Gricus

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Robert Massey

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