Looking Out for Looking Up:

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Looking Out for Looking Up
ARC 12th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks

• Preserving and Enhancing the Adirondack
  Night Skies

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Wilderness
Definitions
Wild
Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state
not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed
Something characterized by bewildering vastness
Something characterized by bewildering vastness
The wilderness doesnt stop at the treetops!
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Outdoor Lighting

• Purpose
• illuminate what we need to see
• playing fields, streets, sidewalks, pedestrians,
  pets, thugs, etc.
• warn of dangers

Outdoor lighting is not to protect us from the
dark
But thats what much of it tries to do
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Outdoor Lighting

• Lighting Assumptions
• More light, brighter light is better and safer
• Everyone wants more light
• lighting up my neighborhood is OK
• Light always has a positive effect
• Darkness is unimportant

... and it's scary!!
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Lighting Safety Studies

• No significant reduction in crime with lighting
  (eg. US Dept of Justice cf. www.darksky.org/infos
  hts/is063.html)
• Dark Campus Policies have reduced vandalism at
  some schools (http//www.darksky.org/infoshts/is05
  4.html)
• Lights help criminals see victims, goods
• Lights in typically dark areas attract attention
  so crimes can be stopped

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Light Pollution

• Glare
• light that interferes with sight
• Light trespass
• lighting others property
• Energy Waste
• illuminating undersides of airplanes
• Sky Glow
• obscuring our view of the sky

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Light Pollution

• Glare, Light Trespass, Sky Glow

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Glare

• Eye brightness range of about 1 million
• Iris size adjusts to light levels
• Eye switches from cone to rod cells
• rods more sensitive to low light averted
  vision.
• rods adjust to light level dark adaption.
• Eye can discern details over 101 brightness
  variation in a single scene

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Glare

• Direct bright light that reduces the eyes
  ability to see dimly illuminated objects.
• Bright lights vs. pedestrians, animals

Light fixture easy to see!
Shadow VERY dark!
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Park Street at Night Glare
Direct light from acorn and drop-down fixtures,
and headlights very bright.
Street well lit!
Students seen as shadows against glare
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Glare

• If unshielded or poorly-aimed lights are in view
  of drivers, then the lights set the upper
  brightness range - things 10 times less bright
  like potholes, trees or pedestrians become
  featureless.
• Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

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Glare is Deadly

• East Hampton, NY

John Jiras, 71, killed while crossing street from
movie theater to parking lot http//www.danspapers
.com/paper/archive.html
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Reducing Glare

• Shielding lights
• No light emitted above 20º below horizontal

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Full-Cutoff Lights

• International Dark-Sky Association (IDA)

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Light Trespass

• Healthy, Safe, and Energy Efficient Outdoor
  Lighting Act
• A7404 (Assembly), S4474 (Senate)

placement of a light in a manner whereby
illumination or glare is cast unnecessarily on
the property of another with the effect of
reducing privacy, limiting use or enjoyment,
hindering sleep and/or detracting from the
appearance of the illuminated property
Retirement Home at night
and the neighbor's house
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Light Trespass

• Harmful to
• Human health, linked to
• circadian rhythms (sleep) disruption
• increased cancers
• damage to childrens eyesight
• Wildlife
• nocturnal animals
• insects
• birds

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Health Effects

• Links to many health problems appearing

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Wildlife Effects

• Attraction, fixation repulsion
• baby turtles in Florida head toward highway
  instead of ocean
• Disorientation
• birds fly into buildings, towers
• disoriented animals use extra energy
• Disruption of biological rhythms
• Robins in UK singing at night
• disturbs egg-laying in moths
• (http//www.darksky.org/infoshts/pdf/is187.p
  df)

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Wildlife Effects

• Research in beginning stages

Even brief exposure to bright light can cause
some nocturnal frogs to freeze for hours.
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Energy Waste

• Estimated energy usage cost

Dark-to-Dawn lighting
Mercury Vapor
http//www.netacc.net/poulsen/lightcost.html
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Sky Glow

• Village and city light domes obscure sky

Familiar North Country Scene
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Sky Glow

• Adirondacks in darkest part of eastern US
• A resource to be preserved and cherished!

Ottawa
Watertown
Syracuse
Albany
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Dark Sky Preserves

• Healthy, Safe and Energy Efficient Outdoor
  Lighting Act

areas of the state which are especially
suitable for astronomical observations and/or
which provide, due to their darkness, nocturnal
benefits to flora and fauna, or to citizens
desiring views of unpolluted or relatively
unpolluted night skies
sounds like Adirondack Park
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References

• International Dark Sky Association
• http//www.darksky.org/index.html
• SELENE-NY
• http//www.selene-ny.org/default.asp