Environment Friendly Outdoor Lighting
The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is an excellent resource for finding manufacturers of environmentally friendly lighting.
The IDA’s mission is to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting.
You can find a listing of IDA-Approved™ Dark Sky Friendly lighting fixtures at http://www.darksky.org/lighting/fixtures/residential-lighting.php
Why should you be concerned with this?
Lights fixtures that shine where they don’t need to have many undesirable impacts:
- they waste a huge amount of energy and money
- they destroy our heritage of star-filled skies.
- they are a threat to wildlife (if you border wild areas) and (you probably don’t realise this
- they are a threat to your neighbor’s (and possibly your own) health!
Health Impacts of Environment Unfriendly Lighting
Light at night has been shown to be the cause of various health problems, including certain forms of cancer!
This probably sounds like a joke when you first read it, but what happens is light at night reduces the production of melatonin, one of your body’s chief cancer fighting agents.
In other words, excessive outdoor lighting can be correlated with the rise in cancer rates in the developed world.
The major goals of the IDA include:
1. Stop the adverse effects from light pollution on dark skies, including:
- Energy waste and the air and water pollution caused by energy waste
- Harm to human health
- Harm to nocturnal wildlife and ecosystems
- Reduced safety and security
- Reduced visibility at night
- Poor nighttime ambience
2. Raise awareness about light pollution, its adverse effects, and its solutions.
3. Educate everyone, everywhere, about the values of quality outdoor lighting
Actions You Can Take:
Unfriendly outdoor lighting is an easy problem to fix - you can simply turn the lights off and the problem goes away.
Benefits: You’ll save money, your neighbors will appreciate it and be a little healthier and we all benefit from reducied green house gas emissions.
- If you can’t keep your exterior lights off all the time install motion detectors. These monitor an area for activity and switch your lights as soon as movement is detected.
- Use energy efficient lights whereever possible which typically means switching from incandescent to compact fluorescent bulbs. These reduce your energy consumption by about 75%.
- Replace all your non-environment friendly light fixtures with environment friendly fixtures. These keep light on the ground where its needed and keep it out of the night sky and away your neighbors property where it does not belong.
