What we may think as innocent lightings may in fact obscuring the skies, misleading the wildlife and disturbing our sleep
BEYOND the limits of Karachi, just after the Toll Plaza, is one of the favourite hangouts of the city’s residents. With families, people converge on dhabas or small roadside restaurants, off National Highway to enjoy an outing away from the rush and the madness of the city. It is also here, that one can enjoy unpolluted skies and gaze at the stars, unhindered by incessant artificial light throughout the city. Congratulations Karachi, albeit a developing city this metropolis has joined the league of cities around the world that are suffering from the problem of light pollution. But apart from stargazing, this pollution is having its adverse effects on the migrating wildlife as well.
Of the many hazards that the birds, flying South for the winter have to face, one of them is finding their way through the pollution of artificial light. They often mistake and are attracted by illuminated skyscrapers and in the process lose their way. Exhaustion then takes over and the dies en route. But the problem isn’t a new one. In fact it has been there for some time and scientists have been calling for immediate measures to contain this spreading nuisance of societal development.
From streetlights to illuminated signs and brightly-lit homes and offices, artificial lighting has added to the miseries of the migrating birds; as it has for the people living under them. Apart from the sleepless nights, city dwellers are fast losing sight of the night’s deep velvet skies. Thanks to light pollution, the Milky Way is dimming and is already behind a cloud of glow produced by artificial lights.
Pierantonio Cinzano and Fabio Falchi of Italy’s University of Padua estimate that two-thirds of the world population, including 99 per cent of the people in continental United States and Europe, live under light-polluted skies. Their study also reveals that more than two-thirds of the Americans and more than one-half of Europeans can no longer can view the Milky Way from where they live. And the problem of light pollution is being compounded by a more familiar enemy: the traditional pollution itself.
Microscopic particles, including airborne dust and water droplets, reflect the light back to the Earth. So, as the pollution increases, so does the glare.
But for astronomers, the problem is well into its epidemic proportions. As cities have swelled to suburbs in the last hundred years, stargazing pastures have been taken over by human development. Malls, gas stations, all came with their lights and the resulting light haze. And since governments and others around the world aren’t doing much about this matter, the astronomers have now become activists; protectors of their domains. Stargazers have already started to push for anti-light pollution laws throughout the world and they have already established an association for the purpose. The International Dark-Sky Association argues that it makes economic sense for businesses and homeowners to adopt low-glare lighting, since light beamed up in the sky is energy wasted . They’re also pushing legislatures and city councils to ask businesses and homes to cover their lighting with hoods in order to limit light scattering upwards and have motion sensors that will activate lights only when they’re required.
In England though, this problem is being dealt with on an official basis. Ian McKechnie, a senior Environmental Health Officer says: “Light pollution is now 28-30 per cent worse than it was ten years ago and most alarmingly half of the areas in East Yorkshire that had dark skies ten years ago are now polluted with light. We’d like more legal powers to control light pollution.”
There does seem that some success is on its way. The House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee is calling on the government to do more to tackle the problem. In Guernsey, well-known for its clear skies and is popular with stargazers, astronomy activists are working towards awareness among the masses. As Debbie Quertier of the astronomy section of La Sociiti Guernesiaise stresses that islanders can also do things to ensure light pollution does not become a problem in Guernsey.
“The UK is the second worst place for light pollution after the Netherlands and I hope Guernsey won’t go the same way. I think whenever people are thinking about new developments they should stop and think how necessary the lighting is. “We are all guilty, sometimes we just don’t think.”
Bob Mizon of the British Astronomical Association says: “You would have been able to see the Milky Way every clear night for the past five million years, and now people have taken it away from us because they can’t aim lights properly. It’s ridiculous. Some of that light has taken millions of years to get here and we snuff it out in the last millisecond of its journey.”
Astronomers remember the time when the UK had a great tradition of both amateur and professional astronomy. Yet 80 per cent of the members of the Society for Popular Astronomy cannot see the Milky Way from their homes. Today, more than half have to travel between eight to 80km to see it, some even further.
Apart from the light pollution interfering with the night sky, significant amounts of energy are wasted in all-night and sometimes daytime floodlighting of buildings. And latest evidence even suggests that human health could be at risk due to unnecessary high levels of lighting.
According to studies, we need darkness to make our bodies’ systems work properly. The hormone melatonin, produced only in the dark is turned off even by a modest level of light around the bed at night. In animals it has been proved that the immune system is damaged by constant exposure to light. And it’s the cities were the effect is really evident.
In Italy there is only one city with more than 250,000 inhabitants — Venice — from which the average person could hope to see the Milky Way from the city centre on a clear night. Even though Venice is embedded in the strong sky glow from nearby Mestre, the romantic low-intensity lighting in the city centre saves its heavenly views.
Most cities are beyond saving, but it is the countryside that is increasingly threatened. Small villages in Britain still lack street lighting, thank heaven, making it possible to sit in the garden on a summer evening and bluff your way through the planets and constellations. The same is the case with most of our villages.
Nevertheless, there are those who defend bright lights saying that they cut crime, though there’s little or no evidence to this matter. Bright lights force people to use thick curtains and close shutters, making street crime easier to commit undetected. A study, conducted by the US Department of Justice found no correlation between the level of lighting and the amount of crime. More crimes are committed in broad daylight than at night. A dark wall does not attract graffiti artists, but a brilliantly-lit one does.
Ninety per cent of the European population lives in perennial moonlight: even when the Moon is pale, the light levels they experience at night are those of a full moon. For half of Europeans and two-thirds of the Americans, it is even brighter than that. For a sizable minority — 40 per cent of Americans and a sixth of the Europeans — the fabulous ability of the eye to adjust to varying light conditions is no longer needed. When they look upwards, the sky is so bright that the eye never even becomes adapted to night vision.
Light pollution threatens to deprive most people of the precious experience of seeing thousands of stars at night, the sense of peace and solitude in the countryside after dark and the opportunity to live without being dowsed in the aggressive lighting of neighbouring premises when trying to sleep. Light pollution is not only detrimental to the science of astronomy, but it is wasteful of energy and causes distress to many individuals.
What we may think as innocent lightings may in fact obscuring the skies, misleading the wildlife and disturbing our sleep
