1. The Costs of Poorly Implemented Outdoor Lighting
Light Pollution
The Costs of Poorly Implemented Outdoor Lighting

2. Light Pollution Purpose of Lighting What is Light Pollution?
Light Pollution’s Effects
How to Stop Light Pollution
What’s Stopping Us?

3. Purposes of Lighting Safety Security Navigation Decoration Advertising
Why do we provide lighting at night?
Safety --> navigation by foot or in car without running into things, tripping, falling
Security --> preventing crime or providing sufficient light for witnesses
Navigation --> roadways, signage, so that we can see where we’re driving
Decoration --> façade lighting, trees, statues and monuments
Advertising --> car lots, façade lighting, signage

4. Light Pollution What is it?
So, if light does all these great things for us, what is light pollution then?

5. Light Pollution—What is it?
Glare
Uplight
Light Trespass
Overlighting
Inefficiency
One way to define light pollution is: light that hinders any of those five goals, plus wasted light and light that does harm.
Glare = veiling or discomfort
Uplight = light that shines upward
Light trespass = light that shines where it isn’t needed or wanted
Overlighting = too much light
Inefficiency = using outdated technology

6. Light Pollution is Glare
Glare from a bank in Perinton
Since changed to much better, well shielded lighting
Camera exaggerates the glare to my eyes, but it can be this bad to people with cataracts, glaucoma, early versions of laser surgery, etc.

7. Light Pollution is Glare
Glare from a pole light with poor shielding
Can you see anyone in the playground beyond?
Light Pollution is Glare

8. Light Pollution is Uplight
More glare
Uplight --> You can see the top of the smokestack (5 storey or so tall)

9. Light Pollution is Uplight
Cobra head streetlights
Upward light from flag light -- much of the light misses its target

10. Light Pollution is Trespass
Cobra head streetlights
Upward light from flag light -- much of the light misses its target

11. Light Pollution is Trespass
Horizontally aimed floodlights plus wallpacks in every direction
Including the direction where you drive into this drive through
Big light is a flag light

12. Light Pollution is Overlighting
More glare
Uplight --> You can see the top of the smokestack (5 storey or so tall)

13. Light Pollution is Inefficiency
More glare
Uplight --> You can see the top of the smokestack (5 storey or so tall)

14. Light Pollution Why is it bad?
So, why is light pollution bad? How does it harm us and our environment?

15. Why is Light Pollution Bad?
Safety
Security
Social
Waste
Pollution
Health Effects
Ecological Effects
So, why is light pollution bad? How does it harm us and our environment?

16. Light Pollution—Safety
Reduced visual acuity
Recovery time
Overlighting
Glare, overlighting, light trespass can all cause problems
3/4 over 75 function at legally blind levels in the presence of veiling glare
Over 85, up to 2 minutes to recover from glare
55-65, 15 seconds
Dr. John Brabyn, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Institute
Too much light can cause discomfort, cause signage and details to become washed out, a big white blur ---> especially the elderly

17. Light Pollution—Security
Reduces fear
Reduces crime ??
We all “know” that lighting prevents crime, right?
There is no proof of that.
Studies clearly show lighting reduces the fear of crime
But no credible study shows that lighting actually reduces crime.
Most crime happens during the daytime
Nighttime crime tends to be situational--fights, muggings, robberies, etc. often occur when people gather (entertainment centers)
British study: 300 burglars asked what factors they considered when deciding to perpetrate a crime. None mentioned lighting. Nearly 1/2 stated that they were not deterred by the presence of witnesses or the possibility of intervention of passers-by
Of 100 car thieves asked, only one targeted cars in unlit places. Only 1/4 worried that a bystander or witness would bother to intervene.
The premise of lighting preventing crime is that criminals will not perpetrate the crime in situations where it will witnessed. But clearly of those asked, they don’t actually worry about being seen.

18. Light Pollution—Social
Neighbor-neighbor tension
Resident complaints
Extreme behaviors
Neighbor’s security light left on shines through windows
Residents complain of business or municipal lighting
Most extreme case, a Maryland man took matters to the extreme by shooting and killing his neighbor over a security light that shone onto his property

19. Light Pollution—Waste
30% of light wasted
$5,000,000,000+ per year wasted
30% waste is a rough estimate by International Dark-Sky Association
Dr. George Nickas of Hannover College estimates this waste to be 5-6 billion dollars
Satellite studies of upward light show cities our size send $2 million or so upward each year
At US average of 8 c / kWh, that’s about 62 billion kWh

20. Light Pollution—Pollution
62 billion kWh = 40 million tons of CO2 = 1.4 million tons SO2 = 1.1 million tons NO
Every kilowatt used causes release of:
1.3 pounds CO2
2 grams sulfur dioxide
1.6 grams nitric oxide
Every kilowatt used causes the release of:
1.3 pounds of CO2
2 grams of sulfur dioxide
1.6 grams of nitric oxide
That 62 trillion kilowatts of wasted electricity is equivalent to the emissions from about 900 million cars.
Cleaning up those emissions would require about 1.3 billion acres of trees
selene-ny.org/lightcost.asp

21. Light Pollution—Human Health
Air pollution related problems
Melatonin suppression
Sleep disruption
Nickas -- light pollution increases lung cancer rates in air polluted cities by 0.16%, which equates to 12 deaths per year in NYC
Brainerd -- exposure to 1/2 footcandle fully stops melatonin production
Blask -- melatonin inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells in-vitro by 30-40%
Blask -- tumors in lab rats grew 2 times as fast for those exposed to normal light during the day and 2/100 footcandle of light at night
Shernhammer -- 8% increase breast cancer risk for night shift workers (1-29 yrs) % increase for those with 30+ years night shift work
Melatonin also contributes to restful sleep
Fatigue accounts for billions in lost productivity each year
Full moon = 1/100th footcandle to as much as 2/100th f.c.

22. Light Pollution—Animals
Birds
Amphibians
Fish
Insects
FLAP million birds killed annually in north America due to nighttime lighting
Buchannen -- amphibians stop foraging and mating in the presence of light
Sea turtles hatchlings
Wash State found that salmon fry congregated under lights, becoming easy prey
We all know the saying “like a moth to a flame”
Tarmann (Austria) -- near extinction of moths in just three years lighting installed for the Innsbruck Olympics
Fireflies -- affects courting behavior, decreases breeding

23. Light Pollution—Plants
Water quality
Trees
Plants
Dr. Marianne Moore -- increased algae growth and poorer water quality in the presence of light pollution
LAN “extends the day” as far as trees are concerned
promotes continued growth
changes flowering patterns
delays dormancy in the fall, prompts early change out of dormancy in spring
larger leaves with stomatal pores that remain open more, leaving trees more susceptible to air pollution
Youngest trees most affected
Most affected: some maples, birch, dogwood, beech
Least affected: ash, spruce, pine, pin oak
Other plants affected, too. Increased weed growth, flowering pattern changes

24. Light Pollution
What can be done?

25. Light Pollution—What can we do?
Technical Requirements
Implementation
The solutions involve two factors:
The technical ways to solve light trespass, sky glow, etc.
The ways that these means can be implemented

26. Light Pollution—Technical
Proper shielding
Proper shielding is the single biggest way to reduce or prevent light pollution
CLICK TO ADVANCE

27. BE BRIEF, DON’T GET TOO TECHNICAL
Fully shielded
no light above the horizontal
minimal light in the degree “glare zone”
How do you know which are good lights?
IESNA full-cutoff
CLICK TO ADVANCE

28. Dark Sky Society makes this sheet of good and bad fixtures available on the Internet
CLICK TO ADVANCE AND DISPLAY URL

29.
Dark Sky Society makes this sheet of good and bad fixtures available on the Internet

30. Light Pollution—Technical
Proper shielding
Amount of light
Curfews
Lamp type
Don’t light
Here’s the URL for the good bad lights flyer
Don’t overlight -- use the IESNA recommendations
CLICK TO SHOW URL
Curfews Sports fields, race tracks, etc.
Decorative lighting (façade, statues/monuments, etc)
Even some businesses
Avoid Mercury vapor in any new lighting, replace it where it exists
Use motion sensor controlled incandescents in place of dusk-to-dawn lights for entry ways
Use HPS in favor of MH unless true color rendering is critical
Finally, don’t provide light if it’s not required -- especially important in environmentally sensitive areas
Be careful to know why you (or an applicant) is lighting -- advertising? Skirting your sign laws by calling it decorative or security lighting?

31. Light Pollution—Implementation
Master plan
Zoning/Planning Board policy
Local law/ordinance
State law

32. Light Pollution
What’s holding us back?

33. Light Pollution—Impediments
Lack of education
Vested and ulterior interests
“We’ve always done it that way”
Poorly written laws and policies
General lack of understanding of lighting
Ask most people and the response you get is “more is better”
Vested interests: utilities, trade groups, & manufacturers
business who want to advertise without dealing with sign laws
Lighting engineers with the “we’ve always done it that way” attitude
“Uniformity” is the mantra of most lighting engineers
New thinking says that it’s not as important as we thought
Try to convince a lighting engineer of that!
Poorly written laws, like the NYS ATM law:
requires too much light
single code for all locations
contains technical inaccuracies and non-existent terms
virtually requires horizontally-aimed floodlights

34. More information www.selene-ny.org www.darksky.org