The Night Sky Is Getting 10% Brighter Every Year (theguardian.com) 108
fjo3 quotes a report from The Guardian, written by Tove Danovich: Every year, the night sky is becoming 10% brighter. Eighty percent of people live under light-polluted skies. And while the UN declared a healthy environment -- clean air, clean water -- to be a human right, I believe we also all have a right to darkness as well. This doesn't mean turning off every streetlamp. But do we really need bright white floodlights at the front of every garage? Replacing lights with ones that are bright enough to do the job -- and no brighter -- might make it so I wouldn't have to get in my car and drive for hours to see the night sky as it actually shines above us. To preserve the darkness would mean rules and enforcement around the warmth of the lights, where they point, and how bright they can be. It would mean not putting in three lights when one would do. If we recognized that darkness is something we need, we'd become more careful about chasing it away.
[...] Access to darkness is about more than stargazing. The night is its own habitat. Artificial lights confuse animals who use the moon to navigate, whether they're baby sea turtles navigating toward a parking lot instead of the ocean or moths who fly in circles around a lightbulb. Lightning bugs and frogs need darkness to complete their courtship rituals. Migrating birds get thrown off course by the bright lights of big cities. But the effects of light pollution linger even after it's daylight again, becoming visible. Research has shown light pollution is breaking the relationship between plants and pollinators, changing the time of year trees break into flower, and disrupting circadian rhythms for all living creatures. This includes humans. Whether it's artificial lights indoors or creeping in through the window at night, studies have found that we need darkness in order to rest, recover and stay healthy.
[...] Access to darkness is about more than stargazing. The night is its own habitat. Artificial lights confuse animals who use the moon to navigate, whether they're baby sea turtles navigating toward a parking lot instead of the ocean or moths who fly in circles around a lightbulb. Lightning bugs and frogs need darkness to complete their courtship rituals. Migrating birds get thrown off course by the bright lights of big cities. But the effects of light pollution linger even after it's daylight again, becoming visible. Research has shown light pollution is breaking the relationship between plants and pollinators, changing the time of year trees break into flower, and disrupting circadian rhythms for all living creatures. This includes humans. Whether it's artificial lights indoors or creeping in through the window at night, studies have found that we need darkness in order to rest, recover and stay healthy.
Where i live... (Score:4, Informative)
... in the UK the council replaced sodium street lamps with allegedly more energy efficient white LED lights and in the process turned the fairly dim but usable orange sodium glow into virtual daylight all night. We used to be able to sleep with the curtains open but not now.
Re:Where i live... (Score:5, Funny)
Last night I closed the curtains because the moon was keeping me up.
Re: Where i live... (Score:2)
Not sure if that was a joke, but under dark skies the moon is extremely dominant. Our astronomy club opens its dark site to the public on the first quarter moon. And virtually everyone is surprised at how much the moon dominates the whole environment. You're constantly aware of its precence, if not from directly looking at it, then by the very disticnt shadows it casts. People frequently say they knew astronomers complained about the Moon but had no idea how much effect it really has under dark skies.
Re: (Score:2)
I experienced this recently while camping on the night of a full moon. It was BRIGHT. The shadows it threw were surprisingly distinct, and it made the tents glow after it came over the trees. It never seemed that bright in the city. Yet this would have been familiar back before electrification. The things we forget about...
Re: (Score:2)
No joke, when it's full and in my bedroom window it makes midnight feel like dawn.
Re:Closed curtains because moon too bright (Score:2)
The moon is fake! The woke commie Dims turned the rigged puck-lamp too high! [blogspot.com]
Re:Where i live... (Score:5, Insightful)
allegedly more energy efficient
Way to go telling everyone not to take anything you say seriously. If you can't even admit the basic fact of energy efficiency of one of the most efficient light source humans ever developed, why should anyone bother reading past this part of your post. If you had a point to make you lost a lot of readers before they got to it.
Re:Where i live... (Score:5, Informative)
The funny thing is there's not that much difference in the raw bulb efficiencies - LPS is slightly lower, but not dramatically. But LPS have more fixture losses (the bulbs are omnidirectional), ballast losses, inefficient dimming (and only to slight degrees) for morning/evening, and so on. LED's high CRI (vs. LPS's virtually nonexistent CRI) can sometimes mean you can use less light, too. In practice, you can use something like 30-40% the electricity with LED streetlamps as with LPS, despite the raw bulb figures not being very different.
But no question that LED is much worse for astronomy. LPS was almost a pure spectral line, very easy to exclude. White LEDs use phosphors and deliver a broad spectrum white (apart from the source's blue peak). Pretty much the worst spectrum you could have apart from incandescent. : It kind of sucks that we have to use phosphors in the first place, as they're wasteful - but unfortunately, LEDs have a "green gap"; in the green spectrum, existing tech has a dramatic drop in output and efficiency (and corresponding increase in price) - while green is what our eyes see best. There's still ongoing work to fill it, but it's been a slog. If we could skip the phosphor and just have a mix of different coloured LEDs, the fixtures would be even more efficient, and it would be much easier for astronomers to filter (esp. if the frequencies were standardized)
Re: (Score:2)
So "not that different" translates to "less than half" by the time you finished the paragraph? We're not slicing technology into arbitrary components here, the only question is what light his the ground compared to what electrons go in.
But yeah LEDs are nasty for astronomy. My LPR filter has become increasingly useless over the years. There is still plenty of scope for narrowband astronomy though. The problem then is the extra time, effort and expense involved.
Not all street lights are focused on phosphor b
Re: (Score:2)
The wildlife in Amsterdam is very engaging to watch!
Re: (Score:2)
Did you miss the phrase "raw bulb efficiencies", or were you under the impression that streetlamps are raw bulbs and nothing more?
Re: (Score:2)
Did you miss the phrase "raw bulb efficiencies", or were you under the impression that streetlamps are raw bulbs and nothing more?
Did you miss my second second sentence? Or were you under the impression that your original post was in any way relevant to the discussion?
Re: (Score:2)
It seems you went into a friendly, informative, non-disagreeing reply with a view to win a "Being An Argumentative Asshole Online" competition, and congratulations, you won!
Rhetorical (Score:2)
But even a low-skill artisan can make glass and smelt metal--incandescent bulbs were made stably, a century ago. I design electronics for a living and know about the PhDs, physics and engineering that goes into just making diodes, let alone entire circuits. Even though the LED bulbs may be more efficient, what ha
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry about that!
Light bulbs are very small things; the energy that goes into making them is likewise very small, regardless of type. The electricity an incandescent bulb burns is, by contrast, not at all small. You also have to replace the incandescent bulb far more often.
There's all sorts of exhaustive analyses out there [pnnl.gov], but the TL/DR is:
One incandescent bulb takes ~1-1,5kWh to manufacture and lasts ~1000 hours
One LED bulb takes 8-20kWh to manufacture and lasts ~25000 hours (commonly modern home constr
Re: (Score:2)
Modern Slashdot. Technical details? How dare you include details! Stupid nerd!
Re: (Score:2)
If they're both brighter and more efficient it could still be using similar amounts of electricity.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of the solution overall, not the individual device.
Re: (Score:2)
I honestly have no idea what argument you are making. You even agreed with me in the first 7 words of your post.
Re: Where i live... (Score:2)
The amount of needed light is the goal. Efficiency is then the amount of electricity needed to reach the goal. If you overshoot light output that's wasted energy.
Re: (Score:2)
Cool. I understand what you're saying now. To be clear it's completely irrelevant to the topic and has nothing to do with street light replacement which is done in a way to meet target lux requirements, but at least I understand what you're saying.
Re: (Score:2)
Where I live I doubt anyone saved much money going to LED street lights. For the first few years LEDs burned out quite often. Then with the power savings, they put in way more street lighting (part of why cities are getting brighter and brighter). Personally I much prefer sodium lighting. It's so much easier on my eyes.
Around the home, LEDs are things I love to hate. They are just engineered to fail and will never last the 20 years some claimed. I am constantly replacing LED screw-in bulbs. Sometimes
Re: (Score:2)
Who said it was about saving money?
Then with the power savings, they put in way more street lighting (part of why cities are getting brighter and brighter).
And you think the lack of LEDs would have caused them not to increase lighting? Not sure why on earth you would think that. But really it is completely irrelevant to the OP's silly post.
Around the home, LEDs are things I love to hate. They are just engineered to fail and will never last the 20 years some claimed. I am constantly replacing LED screw-in bulbs.
You are engineering them to fail using light fittings that concentrate the power at the electronics. There's nothing wrong with your LEDs, it's the capacitors and driver circuit your setup is burning out. I have replaced one LED in the past decade. It's time for you to consider your light f
Re: (Score:2)
I'm confused why you're confused why I think that. Of course they would not have put in more lighting if everything was sodium.
Wow I'm glad you have it all figured out and have good luck. Regardless of type they are engineered to fail. Big Clive has confirmed that over and over again his analysis of LED lighting. I've lost all kinds of LED lights not just the bulb style. But yeah you're right. I'm doing it all wrong!
Re: (Score:2)
Of course they would not have put in more lighting if everything was sodium.
On what basis? Street lighting is designed against a target lux requirement, not against the requirement to maximise how much power you can pull over a cable. Especially considering adding additional street lights is a very expensive project the driver behind it has zero to do with whether you put LEDs in or not. Just saying "of course" doesn't make something right. Have a think and come up with the justification of why an infrastructure project goes ahead and use that to think about why your post makes no
Re: (Score:2)
I always preferred bayonet mounts over Edison screws. Thankfully 90% are the former around here. But I digress... I changed all my light bulbs to LED ones about nine years ago when we did some renovations and haven't changed any since. What the hell's going on with yours?
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably his LEDs are in light fittings which trap heat at the base and kill the electronics. That's a thing that happens (and we had that in our old apartment). After replacing a few LEDs over and over I changed the fittings and (other than moving house) haven't replaced a bulb since.
Re:Where i live... (Score:5, Informative)
It was a decision that weighed up the pros and cons.
Pros:
- Broader spectrum light has better colour rendering, i.e. you can see things like road markings and hazards better with it. Sodium is very narrow spectrum.
- CCTV can see a lot better with broad spectrum.
- Whiter light appears brighter to humans even when the light output is lower than redder light.
- LEDs are more efficient at higher colour temperatures, although the difference is small now.
Cons:
- Can mess up the natural day/night cycle for living things, from insects to humans.
- Some people prefer orange.
If it is bothering you then contact your council. They can install a shield that stops it shining into your bedroom.
That's what curtains are for. (Score:2)
Mine work quite well and hold up the blackout panels underneath them. I have no problem making my bedroom pitch dark because I cut rectangular panels of lightweight aluminum-clad siding to fit inside my windows. Masonite etc is cheap, and cardboard not pretty but works in a pinch.
Effective outdoor lighting is useful for work and play. Many residents of extremely hot areas like Las Vegas or the Middle East stay indoors and come out at night because daytime heat is (even more) dangerous. Brightly lit roads ma
Re: (Score:2)
Besides, your eyes will start to adjust to the dark after you're in it for a few minutes, and be fully adjusted after about 30 minutes. Last month there was a horrible storm in my area, all power was out for days in my city and surrounding cities/towns, and for weeks in some neighborhoods. Mine was out for 9 days. Even though it was obviously considerably darker at night, I didn't
Re: (Score:2)
One is left to wonder if the new LEDs actually consume less power than the old sodiums (given they're so much brighter), but they do seem to last longer, so there are less cases of lights not working than before. LEDs are also a lot more directional, so whilst bright at ground level, they're not beaming as much light into the sky. I wonder why they didn't put a bit more shade around them to avoid illuminating peoples houses...?
What your council should have done, and could be convinced to do is to dim the li
Re: (Score:2)
I agree the quality of the LED light from these things is horrible, but they are 50-70% more energy efficient
https://www.accessfixtures.com... [accessfixtures.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Dimming them not only directly saves power, but also dramatically increases their longevity, and also increases their efficiency (saving even more power). :)
Re: (Score:2)
Im not seeing it mentioned, but that light also affects mental health and sleep cycles. Its pretty well documented how blue light helps the brain work out what time it is in the day and year. Theres strong evidence to suggest that bluer lights (for instance white leds) can assist with seasonal depression, whilst conversely warmer less-blue lights can help with insomnia (As someone who is basically an insomniac with seasonal affective disorder, I use color change leds to cycle between them with bright white
Did this guy pay for an account to spam from? (Score:1)
Otherwise it seems like B!zX would ban him for competing
Crime (Score:4, Insightful)
or paranoia, take your pick, but if it is a question of stargazing or crime, crime will win out. Always.
Re: (Score:2)
Police data reveals more crimes happen near street lighting than in dark alleys. Street lighting indicates a high activity area, with crime being proportional to the level of activity, not the ability to hide.
Re: (Score:2)
Per this [nrdc.org], studies are inconclusive, but the most important part Even if streetlights have no effect on crime, they make people feel safe.
Let me try this again [fnord] paranoia [fnord].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
this is why no crimes occur during daylight hours.
Re: (Score:2)
which is also why we need day light savings...
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
or paranoia, take your pick, but if it is a question of stargazing or crime, crime will win out. Always.
That's a hilarious idea. We don't actually care about crime. For example wage theft exceeds all other theft combined but we spend much more effort on other types because people are fucking stupid and don't demand it... because again, they don't actually care about crime enough to even know that.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Who's doing the bulk of that fraud right now? He wears orange clown makeup and used to rape kids when his dick worked.
Re: (Score:1)
Goes TDS
Trump's a Dick Sucker! Did he suck off a CEO, a horse, or an ex-president?
Re: (Score:2)
In other pedophile news, the Minnesota senator who wanted to make TDS an official affliction was sentenced for soliciting a minor. https://www.cbsnews.com/minnes... [cbsnews.com]
Re: (Score:3)
You don't need nuclear level glow to deter crime. No one is suggesting turning off all lights. A not insignificant portion of lighting also doesn't need to be on all the time. Take the article example of garage lighting: this can be on a sensor if crime is your concern. Also crime is important to prevent by lighting up the ground. A great many lights spill light into the night sky, and you're not worried about being mugged by batman.
Re: (Score:2)
I was wondering why street lights don't have motion sensors. Maybe it's because the range of the sensors is too low. Typical PIR stuff won't work very well at that distance. Or maybe the lights going on and off all the time would be distracting or annoying for residents.
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking about the latter myself. As someone who doesn't have black-out curtains in the bedroom I suspect a blinking light may drive me to get some.
Re: Crime (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Really, it's like nobody ever heard of lampshades (I guess "hoods" in this case). But I never understood why the light has to shine up into my 10th floor apartment. Maybe it's to chase away spiderman.
Plenty of people "heard" of them, and then came the architects.
Street lamps don't fight crime (Score:2)
But on the other hand it feels like Bright Street lamps make crime harder and America is a nation of 12-year-olds so we are very much feels over reals.
Re: (Score:2)
are you claiming American citizenship?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, are you saying that corruption will manipulate politics into allowing dark skies so that more crime can take place?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Oh god! I forgot elections are coming which means every zealot will do their best to alienate everyone from their side.
You might have heard directives that people should pull over only in well lit areas, or women and the like should stick to well lit areas, etc.
And as people are simply everywhere, that means the entire globe will be lit eventually, your erudite suggestions notwithstanding.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, there's always one drug addict willing to try that.
It's got nothing to do with hiding in the dark but this year, in my town, the homeless have been more anti-social and more threatening, than usual. I wonder if it's the higher cost of living.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know why this is marked troll. Orange jesus is using your tax dollars for his political ads https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
Correlation or causation? (Score:1)
IQ measurements keep going up.
Autism diagnoses keep going up.
The price of food keeps going up.
People get a year older every year.
Something fishy is going on.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, someone keeps stealing my water. I'll leave a glass of water out overnight, and the next time I check it, it's lower. I swear I'm not making it up, it's happened multiple times.
How long.. (Score:3)
before its brighter at night than it is in the daytime?
Re: (Score:3)
10 years ;)
Re: (Score:2)
How do you plan to handle achieving 1000W/m2 of lighting *before* losses?
I think realistically you'd need orbital mirrors for that.
Re: (Score:3)
About 5 billion years.
Re: (Score:2)
Just think! Photovoltaics to collect power from the night sky. To power all the night time illumination. Infinite power!
Just like tax revenue. Let's get to work on it now.
That isn't a report... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
We investigated the change in global sky brightness from 2011 to 2022 using 51,351 citizen scientist observations of naked-eye stellar visibility. The number of visible stars decreased by an amount that can be explained by an increase in sky brightness of 7 to 10% per year in the human visible band.
Star visibility is an opinion? Were all the participants lying to push some agenda here?
Re: (Score:2)
Yup - "I believe we also all have a right to darkness as well." And that's just one example.
Therefore, it is an opinion piece. Q.E.D.
Choose Where You Live (Score:2)
The point is, we moved out of the city to enjoy a quieter (and less nocturnally illuminated) life. No noisy urban madness. No super bright lights. No r
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Choose Where You Live (Score:1)
We should be sensible about lighting (Score:2)
Ignorant (Score:2)
Re: Ignorant (Score:1)
Aethetics (Score:2)
Aesthetics also have value too.
The endless yellow glow of sodium lighting is, at least in my view, miserable to look at. I'd much rather have a the occasional pool of a bright white light. This isn't practical for central city districts, but perfectly fine for leafy suburbs.
Directionality is relevant too: a bright white light outside my garage to guide my car home only needs to be a tightly directed downward pointing spot with coverage no bigger than my own driveway. That's less light pollution than the tal
10% EVERY year? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That does not seem reasonable or even likely. over 10 years, it would be 100% brighter? Really? I don't mean to be so pedantic, but that just seems silly.
You can't be pedantic if you can't do the math right. A 10% increase every year for 10 years would be 160% increase.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You think it's unreasonable that nighttime brightness has doubled (actually 1.5x) over the last ten years?
Starry nights were wonderful in my home town but (Score:2)
I've haven't seen anything except the moon in decades since i became a big city resident
Playing games with stats again (Score:2)
What they really said is they saw what they estimated to be about a 10% decrease in ability to see faint stars in the night-time skies each year from 2011 through 2022. But this article was written back in 2023 ... three years ago. So why is it "news" on Slashdot right now? And more importantly, is there any follow-up research showing this 10% annual reduction in darkness is continuing?
It stands to reason that as we improve night-time lighting in cities and towns on our roads, this would be a trend. But it
Re: So why is it "news" on Slashdot right now? (Score:2)
The editors don't edit or care enough to listen. The owners don't care either, despite the old Slashdot having vastly more users.
Being "Slashdotted" by users flocking to mentioned sites went away along with Slashdot influence.
Captain Obvious (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
because they are? But it reflects back up in the sky when the light hits the ground... Could paint the roads vanta black...
What color is your asphalt?
Not so sure I'd like black concrete highways...
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, like "Farm Aid" (Score:1)
We should be at about negative one million family farms in the US by now. Because trend lines never change ...
10% brighter every year. How long until we go supernova?
Time to move? (Score:1)
Replacing lights with ones that are bright enough to do the job -- and no brighter -- might make it so I wouldn't have to get in my car and drive for hours to see the night sky as it actually shines above us.
This is a much, much smaller issue than you seem to think it is.
If looking at the "night sky as it actually shines above us" than maybe it's time to move out of the city - remote jobs are a thing, and housing is cheaper outside major metropolitan areas, win-win!
Re: Article. (Score:2)
Garage lights are for the crackheads (Score:2)
Lights on around the house seems to deter the POS junkies that we no longer keep in jail.