Today, most of the world's environmental issues can be summed up into the words "global warming", "alternative energy", "pollution", etc. However, another form of pollution is slowly but glowingly getting more attention.
Light pollution ("sky glow") is the excessive and unnecessary amount of artificial light in the sky. Most of this scattered light comes from parking lots, street lights, etc. Most lamps at these locations tend to give off the "yellow" light we are used to seeing. On top of that, the lamps themselves have shapes that don't restrict the direction in which the light travels. In order to address this issue, cities have started switching to LED lights. However, because these lights still contribute to light pollution, an effective solution has not been created. In terms of the effects of light pollution, it has reportedly become more of a problem for humans, the environment, animals, and basically the whole world. One thing that humans (and even animals) will have to deal with are the changes in sleeping patterns. Although these patterns have developed over thousands of years, they will become irregular and eventually promote health issues. Currently, the specific consequences of light pollution have not been identified but many can be predicted using information from studies based on the effects of light on humans and environments. On the bright side, however, (pun totally intended) social awareness has increased in recent years. If this continues, hopefully effective solutions will come to light (pun not intended) before the consequences of light pollution become another major problem for the world to deal with.
The following audio,"The Vanishing Dark", from the podcast: Nocturne is another great resource.
(It offers a lot of great insight that will raise your awareness and desire to find out more!!)
3 Comments
Mr. Coli
1/17/2016 11:43:00 am
What a fascinating article and analysis. It is very striking the difference between the night sky in Reno, and the night sky in Orlando. It was very sad to see so few stars, even though it was a clear night. It is interesting to see if we could possibly control the direction that light shines. Looks like an excellent area to research!
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Rachel
1/18/2016 08:11:06 pm
Wow, I have never heard about such thing as light pollution. I find this very interesting and think it would be cool to continue looking into this and see how it will continue to affect people
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Jesse Moreno
1/24/2016 11:07:29 pm
It'll be nice when we get to see the skies again, without the pollution.
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AuthorIBCP student at Wooster High School aspiring to be an civil engineer Archives
November 2016
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