Light pollution an important trend

Interesting post just sent out by Cliff Hass of www.crlaction.org

As usual the Irish perspective on "restoring" the "dark" sky is different to what many other developed countries have. I dont mind at all focussing on preserving/conserving dark skies in Ireland since we still have plenty of darkness, however at the same time I'll continue to pester various Dublin councils to reduce light pollution. To see the IDA seem to now strive for mediocrity and not to reduce light pollution can only be seen as a weakness on the IDA's part and is probably best explained by their experiences in a US rather than international context. Then again I didnt fly to Arizona for the AGM so I've no idea of what was discussed!

Cheers,
~Al

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Greetings Everybody:

This morning on one of my 'coffee breaks' I was reading the
April issue of Industry News in LightNow that has a short
article about how lighting designers and specifiers feel
about light pollution. Several months ago I presented a link
to the 107 page light pollution study report offered by Zing
Publishing that is now available for $350 (US).

www.lightsearch.com/lightnow/reports/

The feature article in this month's issue of LightNow provides
some interesting insights about that Zing report. Click on the
first link under Industry News at the following URL to read it.

tinyurl.com/7xwxo

Just a casual observation and informal opinion, but the operative
word 'Zing' seems to be appropriate nomenclature if considering
how much they are charging to purchase this allegedly objective
report based on results from survey questions they asked lighting
professionals about their opinions on what they think works best
for them that only got less than a 7% return on questionnaires,
doesn't it??? Merely an amusing anecdote, no harm intended.
The opinions of these people questioned are quite interesting.

Looks like full cutoff has the greatest popularity, which is great
because it does not take any overwhelming amount of expertise
to make it work better than any other type of lighting equipment
available on the planet. I do find it amusing, if not somewhat
pitiful, that some people who allege to be lighting professionals
find it so difficult to make that light distribution characteristic
work efficiently for them, and that lighting regulations are even
needed to keep their daily practices restrained to reasonable limits.

That is sad, but past practice developed environmental conditions
that currently demonstrates that strict proscriptive laws are needed,
and the more the better where aggressive limits are concerned IMO
if we are ever to ***RESTORE*** the night sky -- a fundamental
ethic serving as a mantra that has drawn all of us together to support
and fight towards achieving a common goal for so many years.
The dark night sky resplendent with stars like our ancestors saw!

Sad also that the IDA board voted last week to remove the word
***RESTORE*** from their original mantra that has carried us
all in a common belief for the past 17 years, but that is progress
perhaps imposed by new players invading the dark sky realm only
to preserve their best interests first and foremost. It doesn't give
me much of a 'warm and fuzzy feeling' that we are making enough
forward progress. Instead, it gives possible indications that we
are loosing much more ground than others would like us to believe!
From what I have been led to understand, the term 'restore' means
to some people's interpretations that we strive to make everything
dark, which has never been the goal with exception to the sky.

More productive might be removing the word **DARK** rather than
RESTORE, in my opinion, because darkness frightens and offends
most reasonable people by giving them the wrong impression. This is
the fundamental reason why Citizens for Responsible Lighting (CRL)
has always been very careful to never mention anything 'dark' and
strives only to obliterate obtrusive lighting that shines where it does
not belong. Both organizations have similar goals, but approach them
from vastly different perspectives regarding what is most important --
results that work effectively, or beliefs in what is most important.
Stars are vital for astronomers, but merely serve as aesthetics for
most of the general public, but glare free environments are vitally
important for the whole of society to improve public safety and
also quality of life. Those are the platforms universally acceptable
and when energy can be saved by not having to overcome glare all
the better to sweeten the pie with significantly lower light levels.

What are your thoughts on that issue? Do you just wish to only
'protect' what is left of the dwindling night sky, or do you believe
we should still keep striving as hard as we can to RESTORE it back
to its best possible splendor everywhere that we can? I think the
latter is what we should all be striving for, but that is merely the
sound of one hand clapping without your contributions collectively
creating a total that is greater than the mere sum of its parts.

If people in the lighting professions would simply learn more
about how the eye reacts to light and glare, as well as the low
if not fractional light levels we need outdoors to see effectively
for the given tasks and visual needs at hand, and they also were
to consider rights of others to not suffer the the numerous and
often negative impacts imposed by their projects that extend well
beyond the scope of their immediate sites of implementation,
maybe society and even the world as a whole would not need to
establish comprehensive and strict outdoor lighting regulations to
keep everyone in check on an even playing field without imposing
negative consequences like light pollution, glare and light trespass
on others?

It works great indoors when we shield lights so no glare is visible,
but most people usually forget that wisdom when designing and
applying the many fixtures used outdoors. Indoors we have the
reflective surfaces of walls and ceilings to enhance uniformity,
but outdoors all we have at our disposal is effective shielding
to reflect that light downward and outward to areas where it is
needed -- predominantly on or very close to the ground. Seems
pretty elementary, doesn't it? I wonder why so many lighting
practitioners seem to express such great difficulty grasping that
fundamental concept, don't you? Shield it, aim it down, don't
apply more than you need, and turn it off when nobody is present
to benefit seems to work very well for resolving most problems
that cause light pollution.

Clear skies and good seeing,
Keep looking up!

Cliff Haas
Author Light Pollution Awareness Website (LiPAW)
members.aol.com/ctcadman
www.crlaction.org

Member: IESNA, CRL, NELPAG, DSS, AARP

Yesterday, I heard on the news that all farmers in the Republic of Ireland will be allowed to build one house on their land no matter where they want it. The is a new planning law passed in the last few days as far as I know and it threatens the dark skies so prevalent throughout Ireland.

www.rte.ie/news/2005/0413/planning.html

Can you guys look into this immediately as a free reign for farmers with the current state of bungalow blitz in the south looks only to get worse.

This is basically Dick Roche looking for the farming vote that other ministers have done such a good job of destroying. Dublin radio this morning and quite a few interesting tangents to take on it, eg. if a rural family has the right to build a house near their partents, do I have the same right in Dublin, and if not is the whole thing unconstitutional.

The guidelines only seem to cover the obvious things, the house must have proper sanitation etc. little mention is made of environmental considerations even in Special Areas of Conservation. Gone are the old asthetic rules about the house having to make some effor to blend in with the surroundings with regard to colour, materials etc.

Particularly worrying IMHO is that this states that the government doesnt have a clue what its doing and has not plan. Villages and Towns now will be built up in a random manner as the residents see fit without any thought for the capacity of the town, infrastructure, and streetlighting. By all means expand villages and let people live where they want to, but this is a recipie for making the same mistakes that Dublin Suburbs did with a complete lack of planning.

Anyway, I've asked Colm to have a look into this further and to see what should be done since he is a farmer in darkest Clare.

My basic understaning is that it is a relaxing the rules slightly to a more common sense level. Basically, up to now, for vast regions of the country, the planning rules prevented people growing up on the family farm to actually build a house there. To anyone who has ever experienced country life, this was a totally illogical policy as it drained the countryside and small towns & villiges of generations of people. As a result, people were been forced to live in towns where they had no cultural or historical association with.
On the other hand, where there are rules, they will be broken. The main problem people may be concerned about is enforcement. However, as banks usually provide the financial arrangements for housing, they impose a tight control over the legal and planning aspects of any house purchase.

As for a sudden burst of housing in the countryside, I doubt very much this will happen with the latest shange in the rules. Besides, one-off housing won't require significant amounts of street lighting, which is one of the main causes of light pollution.

Basically, up to now, for vast regions of the country, the planning rules prevented people growing up on the family farm to actually build a house there.

I think thats the exact case that was allowed. You could only develop in the area if your family was from the area. Thats been my understanding from relations anyway. The new relaxed measures free this up a lot more and will I believe lead to a significant upsurge in unplanned housing (when mummy house and daddy house... oh nevermind! you know what I mean!).

As a result, people were been forced to live in towns where they had no cultural or historical association with.

eh... like everyone in Dublin then...

Besides, one-off housing won't require significant amounts of street lighting, which is one of the main causes of light pollution.

But it wont be one off, over time more houses will be built. If the town planners are not actually planning any of this then the streetlighting will end up as 5000W lights on mini-southforks.

Cheers,
~Al

Can I throw my tuppence worth in?

I know nothing about the change in legislation myself (other than from the 9pm news) but the better half is in this situation - family home in the country etc etc. What I understood was that rules regarding relatives building on family-owned property in the country were being 'relaxed'. Not that anyone could now build on a family-owned property - be they a relative or not.

I also understood that planning applications would still need to be submitted and no unpalnned housing would be allowed.

Anyhow, I think there's a danger of falling into the trap of expecting all these new houses to be built with ulta high power external halogen lamps point skyward. I really don't see why we should expect that situation over and above most people building a traditional house that *doesn't* look like South Fork and building it with minimal external lighting.

We have to give the majority of these potential house-builders some credit or at least not pre-judge what they are going to build.

Of course, I, liike the next man, would like to see judicial application of external lighting both for astronmical and environmental reasons. But I would imagine that few people will be building homes with the intent of deliberately polluting the night sky and wasting energy. There will of course be 'some'...

Cheers

Dave McD