Light Pollution And The Problems It Creates

The incandescent light bulb was a phenomenal discovery that occurred during the late 1800’s and was mainly invented by a man named Thomas Edison. It became a recent essential product that we humans use on a daily basis in many more appliances than one. This invention was created in 1890 in New Jersey by Thomas Edison to help people to be able to work during the night after night had fallen and to make people’s lives easier ("Edison's Lightbulb”). It helped many people in an amazing array of different ways, however, everything has it’s disadvantages, and so did the incandescent light bulb ("History of the Incandescent Light.”)

In the Los Angeles Times 2012 article “Let There Be Dark”, author Paul Bogard’s main purpose is to persuade his audience that natural darkness should be preserved. Paul Bogard describes the “smoky trails” left by meteors in the Minnesota summer night skies and the problem of light pollution diminishing the “irreplaceable value” of our natural darkness.

A world without the excessive use of vapid lighting will allow people to enjoy the magnificent stars as captured in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. Bogard then moves on to establishing the beauty of Paris as the “City of Light”. In stark contrast to its status as a city illuminated by beautiful artificial lighting, the city has taken steps to limit the use of these excessive lighting, in turn turning Paris from “a city of light” to “a city of light … before 2AM.” This dichotomy allows Bogard’s audience to appreciates the importance of preserving the night sky via limiting the presence of artificial light. If a city which is famed for its use of artificial lighting is able to preserve the natural darkness while concurrently preserving its natural beauty, it is a given that society will be able to mimic this

In this part of the essay, Bogard provides a comparison of photos of earth from the 1950s to today, citing that light pollution increases by “6% every year.” One can deduce that population increases, technological increases, and growing urban centers are the cause of more lights on earth. With the advancement of human knowledge comes consequences, even consequences that we may not even take into consideration until someone like Bogard calls our attention to them. Many people have had the experience of viewing the awesome photos of earth taken from one of the missions to space or one of the space stations.

Straub, Lana. “After the Frack: Bright Lights in the Middle of Nowhere.” Earth Island Institute, 1 Sept. 2015, www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/after_the_frack_bright_lights_in_the_middle_of_nowhere/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

Have you ever wondered what light pollution is? Light pollution is the effect of artificial lights on the night sky. The problems of light pollution in the United States includes the hampers of our view of some of life’s most spectacular sights, the harming of wildlife and it prevents us from seeing the night sky.

Simply, living in the modernized age has faced us with the large issue of light pollution within the United States and other urbanized locations. After the invention of the light bulb, by Thomas Edison in 1879, the problem of light pollution has been exponentially increasing throughout the years. The brightening of the skies above our heads at night, due to man-made sources, had led to disruptive effects across the globe. For instance, light pollution washes out the view of the Universe; therefore, interferes with astronomical research on the ground. At the same time, light pollution can also have devastating effects on the natural ecosystem on Earth. Consequently, this type of pollution from light can also result in the increase in adverse

Light pollution has become a problem for sea turtle hatchlings along developed coastlines. The hatchlings have a natural instinct to move to the brightest direction which on a naturally lit beach is the night sky over the ocean. However, the artificial light that is found on developed coastlines, disorients sea turtle hatchlings and as a result they move towards this light instead of the ocean. According to an article on conserveturtles.org, only 1 in 1000 sea turtle hatchlings survive to maturity therefore changing artificial lighting practices on beaches would help the sea turtle population. The implementation and enforcement of artificial light ordinances for coastal homeowners would be a solution to the effects of light pollution

Imagine living in a world where there is absolutely no darkness. Many people have claimed that they cannot imagine a world like that. However, Paul Bogard has argued that the world become like that if there are no actions done to prevent this from happening. In fact, this is all happening because of light pollution that exists in the world today. Many of the cities in the world are often recognized as the “city of lights” and while this title sounds nice, it actually has a negative impact on the society. The endless light pollution that are released into the atmosphere are already negatively affecting the human life. In order to make to prevent this situation from worsening, Paul Bogard have decided to stand out and convince his readers to

How there is something greater than us, but in the world we live in, we seem to lose ourselves due to the many material objects we have.

The researchers developed the ‘world Atlas of artificial sky luminance’ as a means of mapping variations in light pollution around the globe. The baseline for the data begins with “Natural lighting levels (which) are governed by natural celestial sources, mainly the Moon, natural atmospheric emission (airglow), the stairs and Milky Way, and zodiacal light” (Research). The research article provides a baseline equation of what defines a clean moon-less night - “22 magnitude per square arcsecond in Johnson-Cousins V-brand. The results found that although the sky immediately above the source of the pollution was the most intense, light pollution managed to “function with peak at intermediate angles.”(research) which the article later states is 30° above the horizon. A surprising detail was that light pollution managed to extend beyond the horizon by a significant amount and still hold a substantial impact on the night sky. The exact statistics used by media sites are “that about 83% of the world’s population and more than 99% of the U.S and European populations live under light-polluted skies. Due to light pollution, the Milky Way is not visible to more than one-third of humanity”(Research). As a surprising detail pertaining to population density, Canada has roughly 80% of its land-mass with pristine skies yet 97% of its population live in some form of light-polluted levels. All other G20 Countries are broken down in the same way. The obvious conclusion is that light pollution is a global problem that “has enveloped our planet in a luminous fog that prevents most of Earth’s population from having the opportunity to observe our galaxy”(Research). Proposed solutions brought forth by the research article can only speculate like future

The work of Steven Holl is one of endless exploration. His interest in the phenomenology and perception of space is seen in his work. Daylighting is an essential “material” in his work, his intuition and experimentation are a process he embraces. He focuses both on the scientific exploration but also a deep human experience. “Science remains essentially mysterious, yet our daily scientific and phenomenal experiences shape our lives, experience sets a new frame from which we interpret what we perceive,” says Steven Holl. His use of phenomenal lighting as well as scientific lighting, combine

As a society, we take for granted simple things like turning on a light switch. It is interesting to think of Thomas Edison visiting New York City or Las Vegas in today’s age, for him to stand in amazement at all the electric light we now have. Internationally, people are able to work longer and into the night with the help of light. Construction workers can work on highways at night to lessen the impact construction has on traffic. People can even drive at night and do errands that we did not have time for during daylight hours. All this is because of the light bulb. The light bulb has come a long way, from the fires of cavemen and early inventors, to fluorescent lights and now to the modern day LED light. The life cycle of the LED light

Most people have heard of air pollution, water pollution, and many kinds of pollution like them. Issues like these are covered extensively in the media and are targeted by many environmental groups. In fact, many of these issues play significant roles in political elections. Though these kinds of pollution are widely known, there is another type of pollution that receives far less attention. Few environmental groups mention it, and many members of the general public have not even heard of it. However, it is just as common and arguably as dangerous as the pollution types listed above. This pollution is known as light pollution. Fundamentally light pollution is the excessive use of light in urban areas, where growth of population and businesses brings with it large amounts of unneeded light. This light pollution causes countless negative effects ranging from the inhibition of scientific research to a believed negative impact on health. Light pollution 's most notable effect, however, is on the night sky. As more and more lights are installed, more and more stars are blotted out by the resulting skyglow. Because of this, light pollution is by far the most severe impairment to astronomy at both the recreational and professional levels. It also has a slew of other negative effects such as changing the habits of animals and contributing to an increase in cancer risk. Due to these problems, there have been several proposals to stop light pollution. The three most commonly proposed

Artificial light since its creation has benefited society by creating more time for a productive day not only for work but also recreational activities. Artificial light has many benefits, however when the excessive light does create negative impacts such as becoming inefficient, annoying, and unnecessary. Many officials such as environmentalists, medical researchers, and naturalists agree that light pollution is one of the most rapidly growing and widespread forms of environmental pollution. More scientific research are suggesting that light pollution can have lasting adverse effects on both human and wildlife health [2].