Christopher Kyba@FiveSeventeen That's a shame, sorry to hear that. Some people have had success with a friendly request to the operator (particularly if they are local). At least one such example was presented at #Eurodark.
They Mayor of Guttersloh, Germany, recently decided unilaterally that he would end the practice of turning lights off late at night. Due to public outcry and the opposition of most political parties, the shut offs were reinstated within about a few months. #Eurodark
Königswinter Germany reduced annual electricity consumption for street lighting from 1300 MWh to 385 MWh from 2017-2022, including turning off many streetlights during midnight to 5 am. The result was a savings to the city of 80,000€ per year.
The police of Bonn did a crime study, and found that there was no measurable change.
-Andreas Hänel, #Eurodark
Position paper available here: https://cps.iau.org/documents/42/Draft_IAU_CPS_position_statement_9Z8xEO1.pdf
Really shocking and amazing transition between the last two speakers at #Eurodark
First, Monika Kuffer talked about a few locations where she does research in Africa, where there is dramatic lack of outdoor lighting, rarely punctuated with glaring unshielded lights.
Next, Ching-Chuan Hung talked about Taiwan, where streets are inundated with flashing glaring lights, and the population has among the world's highest incidence of sleep disorders and use of sleeping pills.
Interesting perspective from Paul Marchant "[After working in statistics for 50 years], I am not as confident as I was in my 20s... But I'm still learning."
Kamiel Spoelstra's talk at #Eurodark was also incredibly exciting, I'm looking forward to seeing the papers.
He asked us not to post about it, but I think it's fine to say that they have several really exciting papers in progress, and the takeaway in every case is that artificial light has huge impacts on the behavior of animals observed in the wild.
I was too excited about Andy Jechow's #Eurodark talk to post - amazing results regarding the impact that more carefully directed light cuts the level of insect attraction.
The take home is that controlling spill light can reduce insect attraction by large factors (2 or larger compared to conventional lighting).
See also my "you had one job" post from last week: https://vis.social/@skyglowberlin/112042998249995950
Christopher Kyba (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Norms for pedestrian lighting are nonsense. You can take my word on it, but maybe you don't trust me. Alternatively, you could do some research: https://doi.org/10.1177/1477153517739055 But I think there's probably no better demonstration than the series of photos in this 🧵... Whoever retrofitted the (asymmetric) LEDs in this town installed them in seemingly random orientations, and apparently no one noticed or complained for at least a decade! (1/)
Here's a recent study from a number of members of the same team, "Artificial light at night is a top predictor of bird migration stopover density": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43046-z
They find that skyglow is the second most positive predictor of birds migratory direction (elevation was the largest).
Forest and landcover had a much smaller impact than skyglow. #Eurodark
Artificial light at night is a top predictor of bird migration stopover density - Nature Communications
Twice a year, billions of nocturnal avian migrants traverse landscapes that are changing through natural and anthropogenic forces. Here, the authors identify light pollution as an influential predictor of bird migration stopover density across the USA.
A bird flying at 3 km elevation can easily see lights 100 km away. (Not just skyglow from large cities, but also the lights themselves)
Despite most of the east coast of the US being relatively far from bright skies (as defined by their team), 60% of the east coast is within 100 km of bright skyglow.
Radar data is consistent with the hypothesis that skyglow attracts migrating birds into cities, where they are mortal danger of collisions with (lit) buildings.
-James McLaren #Eurodark