From: Paul Bogard, Yale Environment360
Published August 28, 2013 06:14 AM
Dark nights getting more and more rare
As evidence mounts that excessive use of light is harming wildlife
and adversely affecting human health, new initiatives in France and
elsewhere are seeking to turn down the lights that flood an ever-growing
part of the planet.
Last month, France — including the City of Light — grew darker late
at night as one of the world's most comprehensive lighting ordinances
went into effect.
From 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., shop lights are being turned off, and lights
inside office buildings must be extinguished within an hour of workers
leaving the premises. The lighting on France’s building facades cannot
be turned on before sunset. Over the next two years, regulations
restricting lighting on billboards will go into effect. These rules are
designed to eventually cut carbon dioxide emissions by 250,000 tons per
year, save the equivalent of the annual energy consumption of 750,000
households, and slash the country’s overall energy bill by 200 million
Euros ($266 million).But no less a motivation, says France’s Environment
Ministry, is to "reduce the print of artificial lighting on the
nocturnal environment" — a powerful acknowledgement that excessive use
of lighting in many parts of the world is endangering our health and the
health of the ecosystems on which we The good news is that light
pollution is readily within our grasp to control. rely. The good news,
however, is that light pollution is readily within our grasp to control.
Until recently, efforts to restrain our use of light have been
primarily in response to the astronomical light pollution erasing starry
nights. But researchers are increasingly focusing on the impacts of
so-called ecological light pollution, warning that disrupting these
natural patterns of light and dark, and thus the structures and
functions of ecosystems, is having profound impacts.
Paris at night photo via Shutterstock.
Read more at
Yale Environment360.
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