I hike at night fairly regularly and use either a dim red light or no light at all. I'm willing to bet that most people don't have any idea how good their fully dark adapted night vision actually is, especially with any sort of moonlight. The bigger problem I've found are bright lights that just blow out your night vision entirely. It only takes a few seconds to undo 30-40 minutes of adaptation.
An issue is that they advocate for 3000K color temp which, while it's a significant improvement compared to many LEDs, is still very much too blue and not amber for nighttime. 2200K should be the target: https://www.atpiluminacion.com/energy-savings-dark-sky-prote...
I'm convinced, but then all the links to actually acquiring the bulbs are broken or for wholesalers.
The city of Flagstaff page says the following:
Though it is still generally true that any LED product described as “Amber” will have lower impacts, as of early 2024 we cannot recommend any particular product as the quality control of the consumer-grade product lines is not providing products with consistent spectra.
It looks like this is still a nascent product line for residential lighting.
Ah ok. The naked globe type things that illuminate the vast cosmos above, I have seen in places like semi-private walkways around condo buildings or some commercial properties. Never as a high-powered municipal street light for traffic.
Our new ones are extremely bright arrays of white LEDs, pointed down at a 45 degree angle. They may technically be collimated downwards, but it's bright as day underneath, and there is considerable reflected light going upwards.
"a 100 W light bulb turned on every night for a year takes equivalent energy output from burning half a ton of coal"
I get that this film is probably dated, but there are so many things wrong with this:
1. 100 W for 8 hours at night * 365 days in a year is 292 kWh; a ton of coal burned in a power plant produces ~1,000 kWh. so, much less than half a ton. still alot though...
2. modern 100 W light bulbs typically use LED and only require ~14 W of power (so ~14% of the power draw)
3. neither of the above actually matter though because power at night is essentially free; wind turbines, hydro, geo thermal, etc. all continue to work at night and can't be easily shut off, even though demand for power is much much lower.
given that energy waste is not an issue, the benefits of solving this problem are restricted to being able to view stars, preventing a few birds from running into buildings, and requiring residents near outdoor lighting to install curtains (though it seems like even with lights that are dimmed and pointing downwards, most people that live near them would still install curtains anyways, whether for darkness or just privacy...).
This must be weighed with the benefits of having lights on in the first place.
> 2. modern 100 W light bulbs typically use LED and only require ~14 W of power (so ~14% of the power draw)
You are limiting yourself to residential light bulbs, which previously typically came in "100W" (actually 1,600 lumen) and "60W" (actually 800 lumen) varieties. Yes, the modern indoor 1600 and 800 lumen bulbs now use less power.
But if you look up street lights, you'll find HPS/Halide can use 100-400W, while modern LED use 50-150W. Also architectural lamps that wash against the side of a building may have different outputs.
Given the hundreds/thousands of street lights out there, if (say) half the light is going up (or even sideways) that's a lot of waste: we could all the photons that are going up/out could be redirect down then we could reduce the power needed even further.
> 3. neither of the above actually matter though because power at night is essentially free; wind turbines, hydro, geo thermal, etc. all continue to work at night and can't be easily shut off, even though demand for power is much much lower.
And what does this light do to people's (and animals') circadian rhythms? What does the excess glare of street lights do to road users (like drivers), especially after it has rained? What have we lost 'culturally' by not being able to see the stars?
It's sad to see more sites not testing outside of the Chrome/Edge/Safari cartel. Here are a couple related resources which actually display in a non-Chrome browser:
There are quite a few homes in my area that still use gas lamps at night. The HOA is pretty good about sending letters to people who install 100w 5500k led cannons in their exterior fixtures.
This is one of those issues where, assuming the lighting is sufficient to keep people safe at night, only some a few bloody-minded people would object to it, and everyone else can find a reason to like it.
From someone who suffer from light-sensitivity - LEDs are a disgrace. I am happy to see this discussion here - seems there are more people with similar issues with LEDS.
There is no "person A's sky only receives light from lamp A and person B's sky only receives light from lamp B" repeated 500,000 times. Both will make their own "simply existing in a city should not..." and "they can take that upon themselves" arguments about it and the problem that it's about what should be done with public space rather than the inside of their homes will still remain.
The article would be a lot shorter if it were as easy as individuals taking on their own citywide lighting choice and perspective. Signed as someone who now lives in a much, much smaller "city" than before :).
Your argument is that someone stating "night time should be night time" has the same standing as someone stating "night time should be day time," just because neither person owns night time?
People feel their perspective about outdoor light is the obviously principled one which is uncontestably based on obvious realities everyone should agree of until they start talking at the bar about which hour offset the local clock should be in winter.
The posted page goes through great effort to frame the problem from every perspective it possibly can precisely because it has spent enough time on the topic to understand how people won't agree it does/doesn't make obvious sense for a city to be dark because the sun went down. It's not because the author forgot to think of using a 3 line comment declaring it obvious instead, they know many people have many different angles they consider the important reasons it should be light/dark.
No, not really. There is a null state of the world on this dimension and many others.
Next up in Zamadatix's Magic Mirror Funhouse: "It's purely a matter of opinion whether or not you want your city:...
1. Constantly blaring a siren (for no reason at all other than my opinion) at 100 dB
2. A thin layer of battery acid covering the ground in all public places
3. Live shooting ranges operating on every avenue
4. A perpetual smog that smells of rotten eggs
Many people have many different angles they consider important reasons for the sirens/battery acid/live shooting ranges/smog."
Again: You can go sniff your rotten egg smog on your own time, outside of the commons we all share. Whether its my obligation to find my preferred egg-free air or your obligation to find your preferred rotten-egg air (privately) is not really just a matter of opinion, even though we may both have opinions on it.
I'm not really going to engage on the "$person's magic mirror funhouse" type conversation as it doesn't go anywhere.
My opinion is it'd be nice to have dark skies. I'm talking about how we can properly dismiss the alternative views, not why I think x is what you as an individual should want to prefer or not.
If the majority of people want something of the commons other than what I want then I'm going to assume my preference is the one that seems like rotten eggs for some reason to a lot of people, figure out why it is, and debate it. I'm not going to assume they just need me to state I find the opposite a problem so it's on them to of
figure out - I'll just be left with what I see as a rotting eggs smell and nobody who cares because it doesn't seem that way to them.
But we're not having a conversation about the full scope of reasons a person could want A or B. I'm saying the null hypothesis is Dark Nighttime. You are insisting it's not. GP above said one argument against Dark Nighttime is that it puts them to sleep. That is not a good reason, as Nighttime for humans is meant to be sleep time, and for animals where nighttime is meant to be wake time, the dark is what keeps them awake.
If GP wanted to raise issues like safety, then we could have a conversation about that topic, where there are legitimate positions to hold. But they didn't, and neither did you!
They said dark lights make them sleepy and you argued there's no "default state" of darkness at night, it's purely opinion. Both of these specific arguments are very bad.
You'll be hard pressed to convince everyone the null hypothesis should be either A or B, which is the biggest reason it doesn't get anywhere to argue from that stance alone. For more than the lifetime of anyone living in a city, the baseline expectation of a city has been "light pollutingly bright". Similarly, making light is something a city has to do so one may argue the baseline is "a city is dark unless we do something". But is it still a city if you do that for all things about the city? There are dozens of arguments why the null should be A or why the null should be B. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter unless all you want to comment is "the null agrees with me so it's your problem" so we don't actually need to halt until everyone to agrees what the null is to debate what we should do.
So instead of commenting to ahmedehab_01 it's a feature & not a bug, their problem to deal with (for which they'll think & say the exact same in reverse - which as just as valid unless you can first get everyone to agree what the null should be) we can just skip to talking to the merits of their point, as you already did here.
I.e. yeah, white does keep people up more. Amber's impact was low enough it's not an impact to safety though & the inverse (not being kept up as you walk around a city) . There's no option which has every benefit so we need to weigh all of the impacts as a whole, which means it may have a few downsides like making you sleepier walking around at night. That speaks directly to why we should turn down the light pollution regardless of the null, and is exactly how the article went about it (which could be referenced again for the safety portions or the like). It's not even 100% clear ahmedehab_01 was saying "because of this, we shouldn't have dark lights". They may have just been casually lamenting one particular downside. The chain kind of forced it to be taken as a debate opener, and then forced a choice of which null should be assumed, and then went a long way of debating that, and then finally talked about what was really said only at the end.
I’ve been in cities with inadequate street lighting, and driving in them at night is terrifying. Car lights are not an adequate substitute on a busy road. I agree that in small towns and the country, street lighting is unnecessary.
I love my evening walks in the vineyards around our place, wine growers have these 4m wide tarmac access roads that criss-cross hills with vineyards for easier access, but nobody is there during late evening/night (sans infrequent dog walkers).
I never have to use any light, light form stars, moon and glow from nearby villages is enough to see the road, it doesn't contain any potholes or other tricks. Watching big 100km lake, villages and towns on its shores, with alps in the distance.
All that being said, its a terrible idea to expect whole villages or cities should work like that. Paired with cyclists is much worse, is it really that hard to imagine why? Even for cars, there are many things my head lamps reveal a bit too late compared to seeing people or obstacles well ahead, ie unlit clueless cyclists like you would be one strong category.
There are lots of safety arguments for street lighting.
For one, as a city dweller, I would be absolutely terrified walking around at night, having to rely on a flashlight to see anything. Not just a "scared of the dark" thing, but good outdoor lighting discourages things like robberies and assaults. And sure, cars could just use their headlights, but still, visibility in populated areas would be very bad, and safety for pedestrians at night would be awful.
The site links a couple studies coming to a different conclusion about crime. Feeling safer doesn't necessarily mean you are safer.
As for pedestrian safety, button-activated lights over crosswalks are one potential alternative to always-on outdoor lighting. It might lead to a considerable safety improvement once people got used to the light being an indication that pedestrians are likely present.
This is an issue driving the mistaken belief that we need more and more light, especially bright blue LEDs. The LEDs have a hard cutoff between light and dark zones, and both the blue tint and the excessive brightness of the lights decrease your night vision and make your eyes become more unable to see anything outside of these small lit zones.
The low-frequency flicker also reduces motion resolution, and these LED lights are typically narrowband, meaning the CRI (Color Reproduction Index) is typically low enough that it meaningfully affects resolution across the board, from motion resolution to shape resolution.
Typically under these bright blue narrowband LEDs I still find myself squinting and unable to make anything out, despite the intensity of the light. The whole industry of public lighting is a massive scam that is completely out of touch with the research.
It does link a couple studies to back up that claim. Critiques of those studies or evidence for the opposite would contribute to the conversation; this does not.
Used to use this to great effect for capture the flag when I was a kid. We used to do it across the whole neighborhood. We realized that standing in shadows cast near street lights were excellent places to just stand and watch the other team. The bright light makes your eyes adjust and the shadows from nearby tree trunks become black voids.
There are some nice curb-cut effects of dark-sky lighting:
- The circadian rhythms of birds and nocturnal creatures are less severely affected
- Amber lights produce less insomnia
- The dumb streetlight across the street doesn't blind me from my bedroom window
> The dumb streetlight across the street doesn't blind me from my bedroom window
I had this issue, and I contacted the power company to re-aim the offending streetlight.
I hike at night fairly regularly and use either a dim red light or no light at all. I'm willing to bet that most people don't have any idea how good their fully dark adapted night vision actually is, especially with any sort of moonlight. The bigger problem I've found are bright lights that just blow out your night vision entirely. It only takes a few seconds to undo 30-40 minutes of adaptation.
An issue is that they advocate for 3000K color temp which, while it's a significant improvement compared to many LEDs, is still very much too blue and not amber for nighttime. 2200K should be the target: https://www.atpiluminacion.com/energy-savings-dark-sky-prote...
I'm convinced, but then all the links to actually acquiring the bulbs are broken or for wholesalers.
The city of Flagstaff page says the following: Though it is still generally true that any LED product described as “Amber” will have lower impacts, as of early 2024 we cannot recommend any particular product as the quality control of the consumer-grade product lines is not providing products with consistent spectra.
It looks like this is still a nascent product line for residential lighting.
I've not seen a streetlight anywhere that wasn't collimated downward. Traditional neons are amber.
So we had it right well over half century ago as far as street lighting went.
I've seen pretty much every variant of https://i.imgur.com/l9msIIM.jpeg somewhere around most places I've visited in North America/Europe.
Ah ok. The naked globe type things that illuminate the vast cosmos above, I have seen in places like semi-private walkways around condo buildings or some commercial properties. Never as a high-powered municipal street light for traffic.
Look at the lights next time you are in Gastown.
Our new ones are extremely bright arrays of white LEDs, pointed down at a 45 degree angle. They may technically be collimated downwards, but it's bright as day underneath, and there is considerable reflected light going upwards.
Good intentions, but these days there's an even bigger threat:
https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/115840278905803451
https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116796122687129600
https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/03/31/starlink-spra...
the film in the article says:
"a 100 W light bulb turned on every night for a year takes equivalent energy output from burning half a ton of coal"
I get that this film is probably dated, but there are so many things wrong with this:
1. 100 W for 8 hours at night * 365 days in a year is 292 kWh; a ton of coal burned in a power plant produces ~1,000 kWh. so, much less than half a ton. still alot though...
2. modern 100 W light bulbs typically use LED and only require ~14 W of power (so ~14% of the power draw)
3. neither of the above actually matter though because power at night is essentially free; wind turbines, hydro, geo thermal, etc. all continue to work at night and can't be easily shut off, even though demand for power is much much lower.
given that energy waste is not an issue, the benefits of solving this problem are restricted to being able to view stars, preventing a few birds from running into buildings, and requiring residents near outdoor lighting to install curtains (though it seems like even with lights that are dimmed and pointing downwards, most people that live near them would still install curtains anyways, whether for darkness or just privacy...).
This must be weighed with the benefits of having lights on in the first place.
> 2. modern 100 W light bulbs typically use LED and only require ~14 W of power (so ~14% of the power draw)
You are limiting yourself to residential light bulbs, which previously typically came in "100W" (actually 1,600 lumen) and "60W" (actually 800 lumen) varieties. Yes, the modern indoor 1600 and 800 lumen bulbs now use less power.
But if you look up street lights, you'll find HPS/Halide can use 100-400W, while modern LED use 50-150W. Also architectural lamps that wash against the side of a building may have different outputs.
Given the hundreds/thousands of street lights out there, if (say) half the light is going up (or even sideways) that's a lot of waste: we could all the photons that are going up/out could be redirect down then we could reduce the power needed even further.
> 3. neither of the above actually matter though because power at night is essentially free; wind turbines, hydro, geo thermal, etc. all continue to work at night and can't be easily shut off, even though demand for power is much much lower.
And what does this light do to people's (and animals') circadian rhythms? What does the excess glare of street lights do to road users (like drivers), especially after it has rained? What have we lost 'culturally' by not being able to see the stars?
It's sad to see more sites not testing outside of the Chrome/Edge/Safari cartel. Here are a couple related resources which actually display in a non-Chrome browser:
https://www.darkskynova.org/
https://darksky.org/
That site works fine in Firefox.
Can Elon please paint the satellites non-reflective darkness? They're funking up my stargazing
There are quite a few homes in my area that still use gas lamps at night. The HOA is pretty good about sending letters to people who install 100w 5500k led cannons in their exterior fixtures.
I was staying on the main page waiting for something to happen, and then I realize I should scroll down!
I love the concept, but not sure how we can convince everyone to follow.
Many of the links have soft 404s as well. Seems like a dead site.
This is one of those issues where, assuming the lighting is sufficient to keep people safe at night, only some a few bloody-minded people would object to it, and everyone else can find a reason to like it.
Ok, I’m sold. Can I get a link to some high quality residential outdoor fixtures? I’m digging through the links on that page and not finding much.
I wish they made lights monochromatic in one R, one G, one B wavelength, that way they'd be easier to filter out in astrophotography.
Sodium lights were acutally kind of nice because they're mildly filterable with dinodymium glass.
I think the heat differentials and particulates would still make city astrophotography pretty sub par.
i like the concept but i don't like the stock images
From someone who suffer from light-sensitivity - LEDs are a disgrace. I am happy to see this discussion here - seems there are more people with similar issues with LEDS.
My only gripe with amber lights is that they make me sleepy easily.
Feature not a bug
Simply existing in a city should not compel you or other creatures to stay awake
If a person wants to stay awake at night then they can take that upon themselves
There is no "person A's sky only receives light from lamp A and person B's sky only receives light from lamp B" repeated 500,000 times. Both will make their own "simply existing in a city should not..." and "they can take that upon themselves" arguments about it and the problem that it's about what should be done with public space rather than the inside of their homes will still remain.
The article would be a lot shorter if it were as easy as individuals taking on their own citywide lighting choice and perspective. Signed as someone who now lives in a much, much smaller "city" than before :).
Your argument is that someone stating "night time should be night time" has the same standing as someone stating "night time should be day time," just because neither person owns night time?
No, they don't actually.
People feel their perspective about outdoor light is the obviously principled one which is uncontestably based on obvious realities everyone should agree of until they start talking at the bar about which hour offset the local clock should be in winter.
The posted page goes through great effort to frame the problem from every perspective it possibly can precisely because it has spent enough time on the topic to understand how people won't agree it does/doesn't make obvious sense for a city to be dark because the sun went down. It's not because the author forgot to think of using a 3 line comment declaring it obvious instead, they know many people have many different angles they consider the important reasons it should be light/dark.
No, not really. There is a null state of the world on this dimension and many others.
Next up in Zamadatix's Magic Mirror Funhouse: "It's purely a matter of opinion whether or not you want your city:...
1. Constantly blaring a siren (for no reason at all other than my opinion) at 100 dB
2. A thin layer of battery acid covering the ground in all public places
3. Live shooting ranges operating on every avenue
4. A perpetual smog that smells of rotten eggs
Many people have many different angles they consider important reasons for the sirens/battery acid/live shooting ranges/smog."
Again: You can go sniff your rotten egg smog on your own time, outside of the commons we all share. Whether its my obligation to find my preferred egg-free air or your obligation to find your preferred rotten-egg air (privately) is not really just a matter of opinion, even though we may both have opinions on it.
I'm not really going to engage on the "$person's magic mirror funhouse" type conversation as it doesn't go anywhere.
My opinion is it'd be nice to have dark skies. I'm talking about how we can properly dismiss the alternative views, not why I think x is what you as an individual should want to prefer or not.
If the majority of people want something of the commons other than what I want then I'm going to assume my preference is the one that seems like rotten eggs for some reason to a lot of people, figure out why it is, and debate it. I'm not going to assume they just need me to state I find the opposite a problem so it's on them to of figure out - I'll just be left with what I see as a rotting eggs smell and nobody who cares because it doesn't seem that way to them.
But we're not having a conversation about the full scope of reasons a person could want A or B. I'm saying the null hypothesis is Dark Nighttime. You are insisting it's not. GP above said one argument against Dark Nighttime is that it puts them to sleep. That is not a good reason, as Nighttime for humans is meant to be sleep time, and for animals where nighttime is meant to be wake time, the dark is what keeps them awake.
If GP wanted to raise issues like safety, then we could have a conversation about that topic, where there are legitimate positions to hold. But they didn't, and neither did you!
They said dark lights make them sleepy and you argued there's no "default state" of darkness at night, it's purely opinion. Both of these specific arguments are very bad.
Now we have a discussion :D!
You'll be hard pressed to convince everyone the null hypothesis should be either A or B, which is the biggest reason it doesn't get anywhere to argue from that stance alone. For more than the lifetime of anyone living in a city, the baseline expectation of a city has been "light pollutingly bright". Similarly, making light is something a city has to do so one may argue the baseline is "a city is dark unless we do something". But is it still a city if you do that for all things about the city? There are dozens of arguments why the null should be A or why the null should be B. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter unless all you want to comment is "the null agrees with me so it's your problem" so we don't actually need to halt until everyone to agrees what the null is to debate what we should do.
So instead of commenting to ahmedehab_01 it's a feature & not a bug, their problem to deal with (for which they'll think & say the exact same in reverse - which as just as valid unless you can first get everyone to agree what the null should be) we can just skip to talking to the merits of their point, as you already did here.
I.e. yeah, white does keep people up more. Amber's impact was low enough it's not an impact to safety though & the inverse (not being kept up as you walk around a city) . There's no option which has every benefit so we need to weigh all of the impacts as a whole, which means it may have a few downsides like making you sleepier walking around at night. That speaks directly to why we should turn down the light pollution regardless of the null, and is exactly how the article went about it (which could be referenced again for the safety portions or the like). It's not even 100% clear ahmedehab_01 was saying "because of this, we shouldn't have dark lights". They may have just been casually lamenting one particular downside. The chain kind of forced it to be taken as a debate opener, and then forced a choice of which null should be assumed, and then went a long way of debating that, and then finally talked about what was really said only at the end.
Who has the goal of "convincing everyone" of anything? Maybe you misunderstand how policy gets set...
The safety argument for street lighting makes me sad. I'd prefer if people just used their phone torches at night.
I used to cycle home in pitch black, watching the stars. Never had any incidents, others would notice me or I them before anything happened
I’ve been in cities with inadequate street lighting, and driving in them at night is terrifying. Car lights are not an adequate substitute on a busy road. I agree that in small towns and the country, street lighting is unnecessary.
I love my evening walks in the vineyards around our place, wine growers have these 4m wide tarmac access roads that criss-cross hills with vineyards for easier access, but nobody is there during late evening/night (sans infrequent dog walkers).
I never have to use any light, light form stars, moon and glow from nearby villages is enough to see the road, it doesn't contain any potholes or other tricks. Watching big 100km lake, villages and towns on its shores, with alps in the distance.
All that being said, its a terrible idea to expect whole villages or cities should work like that. Paired with cyclists is much worse, is it really that hard to imagine why? Even for cars, there are many things my head lamps reveal a bit too late compared to seeing people or obstacles well ahead, ie unlit clueless cyclists like you would be one strong category.
There are lots of safety arguments for street lighting.
For one, as a city dweller, I would be absolutely terrified walking around at night, having to rely on a flashlight to see anything. Not just a "scared of the dark" thing, but good outdoor lighting discourages things like robberies and assaults. And sure, cars could just use their headlights, but still, visibility in populated areas would be very bad, and safety for pedestrians at night would be awful.
The site links a couple studies coming to a different conclusion about crime. Feeling safer doesn't necessarily mean you are safer.
As for pedestrian safety, button-activated lights over crosswalks are one potential alternative to always-on outdoor lighting. It might lead to a considerable safety improvement once people got used to the light being an indication that pedestrians are likely present.
Why can the user only accept, but not reject the cookies? I personally do not care, I block them in the browser.
Why is the "e" in "responsible" on a new line?
why are you asking dang these questions?
(probably just a mistake. I moved the parent to the toplevel now.)
Oops, thanks.
> Too much light ... makes us less safe by creating harsh shadows and giving criminals a place to hide.
LMAO
This is an issue driving the mistaken belief that we need more and more light, especially bright blue LEDs. The LEDs have a hard cutoff between light and dark zones, and both the blue tint and the excessive brightness of the lights decrease your night vision and make your eyes become more unable to see anything outside of these small lit zones.
The low-frequency flicker also reduces motion resolution, and these LED lights are typically narrowband, meaning the CRI (Color Reproduction Index) is typically low enough that it meaningfully affects resolution across the board, from motion resolution to shape resolution.
Typically under these bright blue narrowband LEDs I still find myself squinting and unable to make anything out, despite the intensity of the light. The whole industry of public lighting is a massive scam that is completely out of touch with the research.
It does link a couple studies to back up that claim. Critiques of those studies or evidence for the opposite would contribute to the conversation; this does not.
Used to use this to great effect for capture the flag when I was a kid. We used to do it across the whole neighborhood. We realized that standing in shadows cast near street lights were excellent places to just stand and watch the other team. The bright light makes your eyes adjust and the shadows from nearby tree trunks become black voids.
[dead]
How much crap to go through before finding out what it is? This is like one of those recipe sites
From the article:
> See 6 important reasons for using it, or skip to What is Dark-Sky Lighting?
Thanks! We've changed the URL above to jump to that section (submitted URL was https://www.savingourstars.org/darkskylighting ).
Also from the article "2 minute read". And I thought that those news about atrophy of attention span are exaggerated.
To be fair, I saw that, I saw the “skip” link, and thought “that’s ok, I’ll just scroll down” on my phone.
It took SO many scrolls to get to the point. So the frustration is justified.