A Problem to Be Taken Lightly (or Not)

No. Is light polution? No

Defining pollution as meaning something unwanted that is in an unacceptable place, then, yes, as far as this individual is concerned, the light is a pollutant.

Does any reader have a better definition for the word?

There is an obvious solution to that problem we country folk figured out a long time ago. DONT LIVE IN THE CITY IF YOU DONT LIKE WHAT GOES ON THERE!

I would assume someone that well off would have at least one intelligent friend who would have figured out that its darker at night out in the country than in the city.

The question looked for and deserved a reasoned response not for facetiousness.

We live in the country, well certainly in a rural location and surrounded by ancient woodland but light from the nearby city and its university on the hill affects both our ability to observe the sky at night and background illumination.

Neither the city nor the university need the ammount of illumination used. I haven't evaluated the excess illumination but I'd bet that a 50% reduction would not have any deleterious effect on actual safety or the sense of being safe.

The excess illumnation that I am postulating is light pollution.

Wow that is a pretty broad definition that could include many common household items that just got mis located. The more typical definition I am used to dealing with concerns something that is a byproduct or waste which is harmful or significantly detrimental to us (or other living organisms) in the natural environment or the habitat in which we reside.

Thus light can be a pollutant if it is a waste product or byproduct that is significantly detrimental or harmful to us (or other species of concern). However, I believe that is not the case for this MP, he probably is just concerned about his personal ability to conduct groundbased observations of the stars, which is a personal hobby in and of itself detrimental to his productivity in society.

Unfortunately this is not just a problem for amateur astronomers - the pros don't like it much either. Check out the link in post #12. And it's not just a problem for humans. If I remember my Discovery channel 'biology class' correctly, baby sea turtles find their way off the beaches where they are born to the ocean where they will spend their lives, by moving 'toward the light', which is slightly brighter at night over the water than over the land. As more of the towns and villages along their coasts become electrified, they get confused and walk inland instead. People and other critters that dine on sea turtle will be disappointed. I don't begrudge the people living in some small fishing village the right to light their homes and streets and cantinas at night, but there is a downside. It would be wise to find less wasteful ways to light up the night, but people are not always wise.

I think Princeton has the definition accepted by most of sociaty...

"Undesirable state of the natural environment being contaminated with harmful substances as a consequence of human activities"

Two points from the above definition (one mentioned already by another post)...

1. "Undesirable" is a mater of perception by parties involved. This case would be City dwellers. Who generally do not mind, buildings obstructing the view, cement covering ground, etc.; so most likely do not mind a little less darkness.

2. Light, in this situation, can hardly be conceived as a "harmful substances".

In closing argument; staring at the natural non man-made Sun can be harmful to your eyes. So what do we do, we do ... So move out of the city if the light bothers you.

Sorry mate you are just flat out wrong.

Light is a pollutant insofar as it affects the enviroment in a detrimental fashion. Oh, and yes, I do live out in the countryside and enjoy some magnificent night skies. However the nearest town (about 12 miles away - pop 6-7k) with a smal city (circa 25 miles off - pop 250k) beyond it throw enough light into the night sky to leave an orange glow on that horizon.

No Northern Lights for me then!

Of more serious note is, as one of the other commentors...er... commented one of wastage. A serious amount of energy is wasted on a nightly basis but over lighting areas in out tons and cities.

I do not advocate blacking out cities without concern; there are serious social issues that would come to play in that instance. But I do believe that the targeting and focusing of out night time energy usage needs to be looked at. Efficiency should be our watchword in everything we do and blasting the night sky with light when it should be more accurately focused on the ground is not efficient.

<...A serious amount of energy is wasted on a nightly basis but over lighting areas in out tons and cities...>

Quite so. However, a recent move to turn off the street lights in a town locally between the hours of 00:00 and 05:00 to save energy, and therefore its money, has been met with a level of objection and outrage from the community.

Good lord my spelling is atrocious..... Early start after a late(ish) night.

Yes, I think that turning off lights may not be the best solution - that would be a social issue - but there are engineering solutions to this wastage that may well be economically viable.

I agree with your post and all others as far as we need to conserve energy, be green, not wasteful. But that has nothing to do with the original post I was replying to. Replying about the energy aspects of city lights is taking the post out of context.

The original post was ...

"...famous astronomer, is upset because the amount of light pollution in the UK increased by 26%..."

It went on to ask should we "treat light pollution as seriously as other forms of pollution".

... thus my reply "light is not pollution" (or should not be treated as series as other pollutions like exhaust, trash, chemicals etc. anyway).

If we all want to change the conversation to energy conservation, then ...

YES, we should use energy efficient lighting, management and automation to reduce energy waste.

For those out in the country, yet still bothered by city light, I understand how they feel. It is unfortunate but inedible, that with civilization, evolution, progress, convenience.. we will lose some of the great beauties the earth had to offer, say back in the cavemen days.

This light pollution is a product of our subsidized energy prices. If and when we come to terms with the true costs of that energy, we will turn down the lights. In the mean time things are likely to get worse. Designs for street lamps that focus the light toward the ground have been around for several decades, but are still not widely used. Many architects like to show off more than just the ground floor their work. Home owners with money to burn like to light up their homes and landscapes at night, with 'up-lights' on the ground shining up through their trees. Businesses like to mount large brightly lit signs to advertise at night. I think it is wrong to assume that this is all about security. In their own way these folks are trying to make their homes and buildings more 'beautiful'. It is a matter of personal taste whether this man made beauty trumps the natural beauty of a night sky, but so long as it is affordable many people will choose to keep the lights on.

The maps on the linked page below show that there really isn't much 'country' to escape to.

http://www.noao.edu/education/gsmt/lp

I've been a country dweller all my life and have seen significant declines in and the outright disappearance of many species of nocturnal insects due to the introduction of all-night outdoor "blights" in rural households. (I know it's the lights, because of the hordes of dead moths etc. that could be found within the glare of the first Go-Mart thing built @ Big Otter - where it used to be dark all night.) The Luna moth, for instance, I used to see regularly on summer nights when I was a child, but to see one now is a rare occurance. I can't think when was the last time, in fact.

In the last 30 years there has been a tremendous influx of people from cities and suburbs, a good many fleeing the hideous strip development so prevalent to the north. Unfortunately they've brought it with them - even to making country roads look like city streets.

I love to "run with the pack' (my dogs) at night. There is plenty of light to see by from moonlight or starlight or even ground glow once your eyes are adjusted to darkness. But one of those "blights" can throw shadows a quarter of a mile away - they're impossible to escape - and ruin night vision. (Although it's an interesting exercise to spare night vision by navigating with closed eyes through the "bad patch", judging direction by the feel of the road and where the dogs are [highly problematic sometimes] if you have to do this the whole route, it gets tiresome.)

Furthermore, I can't imagine "blights" make households more secure. No one used to feel the need to lock doors, but since the influx there are thefts - and guess when - during daylight hours when people are at work.

My greatest grief is the death of wildness all over the world - even if attempts to live it are certainly in the realm of fantasy.

For anyone who thinks that all of the country side is so well lit up feel free to come out to the family farm and have a wild run thought prairie at 2 am on a moonless night! I wont tell you where the barbed wire fences, tree limbs, creek drop offs, and badger holes are but hey if its as well lit as you say it is you can tell me!

Greetings to my Minot area neighbour! The geographical middle of the continent... I live on the south edge of a 600,000+ person city, a few hours north-east of you. Electricity prices here are the lowest in North America, so everyone can afford to leave all sorts of lights on all night. I do not. I can go to my back yard and do most things with no flashlight, on moonless nights. If there is low cloud/ fog, it is very bright in HPS frequency light across the whole city. Enough light to read by.

I drive overnight quite often, and just love to stop on a clear night to admire the stars and Aurora. There are still parts of North America where the ambient light is not a problem. I can see that Great Britain may not have any of these left. This is clearly pollution in my book.

I am pretty sure that back in the 1700s Ben Franklin complained about streetlight designs that wasted the light into the skies.

I think he was offended from a purely practical standpoint in consideration of what the real purpose of the streetlight is.

I don't see any harm to either the environment or us if guidelines were published that attempted to encourage a bit more beauty in the lives we share.

Certainly for some it is a more serious issue than for others, and it may not rise to the concerns we might more commonly have about the cleanliness of the water, or air, but it is not an issue that is completely without merit to attempt to consider.