Light Pollution
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Light pollution happened slowly at first which was several decades ago it was a process that was hardly noticeable. A light here, a light there, burning way into the dark nighttime realm, helping us see in the darkness when people all their our beds fast asleep. The process still continues today, with little thought ever given to what we are stealing away. Our intentions are good but our methods need adjustment, and they needs to be done immediately. In fact, our methods should have been changed years ago, but nearly everyone has resisted, perhaps due to a profound lack of awareness. The use of too many lights at night can cause environmental pollution, known as light pollution. Light pollution can block our ability to see the original shining stars, which can affect peoples discoveries in astronomy. But since the lights are also very important for us at night when we are driving or walking alone on a street, I think there are certainly some solutions for protecting our natural environment while we can also use the lights at the same time. To admire the beautiful stars in the sky instead of looking at it in a picture, we can start to save energy resources by cutting off some unnecessary lights such as commercial building lights, outdoor residential lights, and by using shielded light to reduce the amount of light that we use in certain areas.
Light pollution is when sky glow produced by the scattering of artificial light caused by the poor quality of outdoor lighting (Nakata) causing too much wasted light dispersed upwards. Therefore recent studies show that “Nationally, more than 30% of the electricity generated for outdoor illumination is simply squandered by being misdirected into the sky. That comes to 4.5 billion dollars annually” (Lipsitz) for the electricity generated to send light into the sky and across property lines where it serves no benefit. Wasted light sent to the sky needlessly and seriously affects scientific research today for professional and amateur astronomers along with some NASA research. Astronauts have complained about this problem for years. Astronomical observatories are closing down because they can no longer see enough celestial objects to justify continuing their funding or research. For example, the Hubble telescopes research is interrupted by light pollution, it was affected so much that astronomers did not get to see certain crashing comets that crash into gravity pulling plants like earth. Astronomers cannot see these comets until they get close enough even if one of these comets was coming toward earth. So if a crashing comet was coming towards earth for impact, the astronomers might not get to see it until it might be too late for the government to do something to destroy it in a safe distance from earth. But we are lucky that the only time this happened before was in the instance where the comets were the size of briefcases and they evaporated in the atmosphere, but maybe the next time mankind might not be so lucky.
So by using only the amount of light we need in different areas, we would be able to properly manage our light resource and easily solve this problem. This will save towns, its citizens, and its business owners lots of money. It will improve the quality of life for everyone who has directed light unnecessarily beaming into their windows and across their yards at night. It will vastly improve the safety for all drivers and pedestrians, and it will greatly enhance the nighttime appearance of peoples communitys by removing the needless visual clutter and glare that is always typical of obtrusive outdoor lighting.
There are several types of light pollution, such as glare, the light that blinds and harms our eyes; light trespass, which is when someone uses a light resource that offends us; clutter, that makes the objects difficult to see at night; and energy waste. Light pollution is caused by light coming from improperly designed street and parking lot lights that are misdirected towards the sky, but omitting the place that people want to be seen (Lipsitz). These lights mainly come from commercial and traffic signs, commercial building lights, sports facilities, and outdoor residential lights. The night is being turned into day in most areas by poorly designed and improperly aimed unshielded outdoor lighting. Lights brighten our roads and highways from dusk to dawn, whether vehicles are traveling or not. It lights our parking lots and building exteriors whether or not employees or patrons are present. We think bright light frightens away crime, but no study has yet proven this to be true. The best assumption that can be made by these studies is people merely have a feeling of safety. Crime continues to rage on in large cities that never seem to sleep while remaining bathed in a nocturnal glow. The glow comes from bad lighting applied by designers who dont understand the four elementary concepts, which are shield it, point it down, dont use more than you need, and turn it off when you are done and not there. As the number of lights we use at night increases because of population growth and industrialization, the more difficult it will be for us to see the stars. However, as the human population started booming in the past and more industries wanted to work later hours than sunset, light pollution increased. In fact, an astronomer discovered this glow because the usage of light was blocking the astronomer from discovering new objects in the solar system.
The knowledge and discovery of the galaxies is a priceless heritage. However, light pollution is blocking the view of stars in the sky. What is going to be discovered by the astronomers? and the valuable knowledge for the future will disappear because we are unable to see into space. In addition to that, two generations now live on our world never having seeing the stars in the Universe (Haas) because of light pollution in most urban areas. And even the people that see stars they cannot really see the amount of stars that they are intended to see without light pollution. Since there is too much light pollution, astronomers try to build their viewing station in the rural area, so there wont be as much affect and the sky will be clearer. Adding to this negative impact, Wesleyan Universitys Van Vleck Observatory is located less than 2 miles away from a bridge that has decorative lighting installed. The lighting design involves an initial cost of over $763,000 to install 172 unshielded necklace lights. These lights have no target to illuminate except the sky, water below, and 160 upward shining floodlights that will only hit 5% of their intended targets. The annual electricity cost to illuminate this bridge will be over $19,500, and as a result, the taxpayers will have to pay this unnecessary price tag. Because of the light pollution caused by the bridge, this vulnerable telescope