Combatting Light Pollution in Houston
Environmental sustainability is a crucial part of maintaining well-being both now, and in the future. A large and important part of maintaining environmental sustainability is to combat pollution. There are many different types of pollution that are addressed in different ways. One type that is not often thought about, however, is light pollution. It is generally ignored, and not thought of as having the same negative, long-term effects on the environment as other types of pollution, but it does have important effects, and it is something that can be easily reduced at a local level.
Light pollution negatively effects most species of plants and animals, as well as humans. Before industrialization, plants and animals lived according to the sun's patterns for millions of years. They evolved to be this way. When you throw in huge cities that light up the sky for hundreds of miles around, nature is completely disrupted. Nocturnal species are unable to hunt the same way in the light, and some of them can't find shelter without pitch darkness. The flight patterns of birds are disrupted. Insects are attracted to the bright lights and die off at high rates. Even humans, who are also designed to sleep in the dark, experience negative effects on their eyes, brains, and sleep patterns.
Luckily, this is a problem that can be combatted in many different ways, so that individual cities can make decisions on how to reduce their own light pollution. If I were to create a policy for the city of Houston, there would be several components to help us reduce our light pollution. These would be carried out over a period of 5 - 10 years, so that they would have a large, positive environmental impact over time, but would not have as much of a negative economic impact short term. The first of these changes would be to make street lamps, which appear throughout any large city, more environmentally friendly. There are several ways in which this can be done. The easiest two are to fix the orientation and color of street lamps. To do this, the fixture on top of street lamps would have to be replaced with a more shielded fixture that is oriented more downwards so that they cast the glow where it is needed, on the street, and not into the sky. Fixing the color is much more straightforward. Blue tinted lights, like LEDs which are often used, negatively impact the environment a lot more than lights that have a more yellow or orange base color. As the lights burn out, they could just be replaced with the warmer-colored lights, so as not to waste any extra time or money, but to have the same environmental impact. The same thing could be done to individual residences. If the white or blue bulbs were slowly replaced by yellow ones, it would make a huge difference. The last step of my policy would be to create a "lights out" time for large industrial and office buildings. This would not mean that they literally have to turn off their lights, they would just need to reduce the light by turning off unnecessary ones or adding shutters or curtains to the windows so that some of the light is blocked. This would be expected to be complete at 11:00 every night, and would be in effect until 5:00 every morning.
Houston is a huge city, so hopefully if this policy were to work well, other cities would begin to follow suit. This would have a huge impact on light pollution worldwide, and greatly improve our environmental sustainability.
Sources:
"Light Pollution Effects on Wildlife and Ecosystems." International Dark Sky Association, n.d.
Web. http://darksky.org/light-pollution/wildlife/. Accessed 20 September 2018.
"Outdoor Lighting Basics." International Dark Sky Association, n.d. Web.
http://darksky.org/lighting/lighting-basics/. Accessed 20 September 2018.
"Lamp Spectrum and Light Pollution." Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition, 2 May 2018. Web.
http://www.flagstaffdarkskies.org/for-wonks/lamp-spectrum-light-pollution/. Accessed 20
September 2018.
Light pollution negatively effects most species of plants and animals, as well as humans. Before industrialization, plants and animals lived according to the sun's patterns for millions of years. They evolved to be this way. When you throw in huge cities that light up the sky for hundreds of miles around, nature is completely disrupted. Nocturnal species are unable to hunt the same way in the light, and some of them can't find shelter without pitch darkness. The flight patterns of birds are disrupted. Insects are attracted to the bright lights and die off at high rates. Even humans, who are also designed to sleep in the dark, experience negative effects on their eyes, brains, and sleep patterns.
Luckily, this is a problem that can be combatted in many different ways, so that individual cities can make decisions on how to reduce their own light pollution. If I were to create a policy for the city of Houston, there would be several components to help us reduce our light pollution. These would be carried out over a period of 5 - 10 years, so that they would have a large, positive environmental impact over time, but would not have as much of a negative economic impact short term. The first of these changes would be to make street lamps, which appear throughout any large city, more environmentally friendly. There are several ways in which this can be done. The easiest two are to fix the orientation and color of street lamps. To do this, the fixture on top of street lamps would have to be replaced with a more shielded fixture that is oriented more downwards so that they cast the glow where it is needed, on the street, and not into the sky. Fixing the color is much more straightforward. Blue tinted lights, like LEDs which are often used, negatively impact the environment a lot more than lights that have a more yellow or orange base color. As the lights burn out, they could just be replaced with the warmer-colored lights, so as not to waste any extra time or money, but to have the same environmental impact. The same thing could be done to individual residences. If the white or blue bulbs were slowly replaced by yellow ones, it would make a huge difference. The last step of my policy would be to create a "lights out" time for large industrial and office buildings. This would not mean that they literally have to turn off their lights, they would just need to reduce the light by turning off unnecessary ones or adding shutters or curtains to the windows so that some of the light is blocked. This would be expected to be complete at 11:00 every night, and would be in effect until 5:00 every morning.
Houston is a huge city, so hopefully if this policy were to work well, other cities would begin to follow suit. This would have a huge impact on light pollution worldwide, and greatly improve our environmental sustainability.
Sources:
"Light Pollution Effects on Wildlife and Ecosystems." International Dark Sky Association, n.d.
Web. http://darksky.org/light-pollution/wildlife/. Accessed 20 September 2018.
"Outdoor Lighting Basics." International Dark Sky Association, n.d. Web.
http://darksky.org/lighting/lighting-basics/. Accessed 20 September 2018.
"Lamp Spectrum and Light Pollution." Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition, 2 May 2018. Web.
http://www.flagstaffdarkskies.org/for-wonks/lamp-spectrum-light-pollution/. Accessed 20
September 2018.
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