There was a time when street lighting means someone had to go light the lamps. Electricity changed that, but street and outdoor lighting has been quietly going through a new revolution: LEDs. The problem, though, is that LEDs provide what scientists call “broad white” light and there are concerns about the impact the unnatural lighting will have on ecosystems, including people and animals.
Of course, the first step in worrying about something is to measure it. You would think that satellites would have a bird’s-eye view of the nighttime lighting landscape, and, of course, they do. But most of the imagery isn’t suitable for looking at the spectrum of wavelength data scientists need to quantify what they call ALAN — Artificial Light at Night.
The ISS imaging is, however, sufficient. Using special data techniques, they were able to track the adoption of LEDs over sodium lights and other technologies between 2012-2013 and 2014-2020 across Europe. For example, in the title image, you can see Belgium with an orange tint indicating low-pressure sodium lights. The Netherlands, France, and the UK have a more yellow hue, indicating high-pressure sodium lamps. Germany is more of a blue color due to fluorescent and mercury vapor bulbs.
The data shows that LED adoption is happening at different rates in different countries and the paper discusses the potential biological impacts ranging from melatonin production to impacting the lives of insects and bats. Besides that, the sensors used to measure the intensity of artificial light from space now respond to the wrong wavelengths, and are thought to underreport readings as more and more LED lighting appears. The real gem, though, is the Materials and Methods section discussing how they processed and calibrated the data.
This is one of those unintended consequences where making any change seems to impact a lot of non-obvious things. For example, reducing sulfur emissions isn’t always as good as you think it is. Then there is the problem of running “endless” wells dry.
Since LED light actually seems more natural than older types of outdoor lighting such as mercury vapor and sodium vapor, this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Beyond the fact that sensors in space aren’t designed to pick it up, this seems to be a matter of researchers attempting to justify their employment.
LED is not more natural than normal filament lamps though. It has a much more blue tint, and also is often controlled with PWM.
Especially new screens have much more eye straining LED backlight, compared to older screens.
LED light is not more natural.
LED can have whatever color you want it to have. The ones in my room can be white, blood red deep blue, green, orange and more.
By natural light, I think he means however how most LED hues seem to appear similar in color and light up the ground in a similar color as the full moon
Natural light comes with heat, which helps limit your exposure… Dr Jack Kruse: “Blue light will raise your blood glucose & make you insulin resistant…” https://bit.ly/3nRmV10
Doctor?
Lighting doesnt ‘maker’ you do anything. However a certain lifestyle may cause you certain problems in those area. Although it’s never been proven. It’s just like cancer, smoking doesnt ‘make’ you get cancer, however if you have risk factors already it may (or may not) cause you to get cancer. Make and cause are not the same thing. No doctor is gonna make that mistake
Light comes in many varieties and can make you do lots of things. It can be visible or non visible and includes gamma rays, radio waves, micro waves, x rays, etc etc, so yes, it can cause cance. It can do much more. It makes you wake up. It can make you happy or sad. It can make your head hurt. It can even burn you. It makes you wise to the truth but also can blind you. But rather than continue such an esoteric lesson on light how bout a technical lesson on the light emiting diode. It is constructed from materials called semi conductors, in this case mainly germanium or arsenic. Its color is determined by other semi conducting materials that can be added to it, not many of which are super great for us or readily disposable. It does not require pwm ( pulse width management) to operate but uses a process called rectification, which uses plain old diodes to convert sinusoidal ac electricity into dc electricity that the led can use. The light released is released in the form of a photon which lends it very different characteristics than say, sunlight, incandescant light bulbs, or other light that is produced thermogenicaly and radiated out.
Okay now lets slow down a bit. What scientific studies are you quoting? And who is paying them for it? There are just to many people throwing around false facts and figures besides misquoting them.
RjRodgers
OMB / Mil-Stnd-499B
Systems Engineer
True, we have Led reading light with colour temperature of sun, very good.
You are simply looking at what the eye can see. The light spectrum is absolutely not natural compared to other sources. It’s designed to look the same. But it’s only peaking at the specific vawelengths visible to the eye, with others conpletely missing. It’s also flickering in a different pattern, again not visible to the eye. Infrared is completely missing. It’s not natural in any way shape or form, just because it looks the same color.
Shoo. Armchair scientist. Get off of the internet and go to a real school.
Wow so many conspiracies all in one comment. Most of what you are saying is just wrong.
Do you really expect anything different?
How many conspiracy theories in the recent months have turned out to be true? All you gotta do is wait… sooner or later the truth comes out.
Woah woah, slow down pal
5g is really the same as older tech like 4g/3g when it’s running in lower frequencies. (Below 5ghz or so) It’s the mmwave that hasn’t really been used in the past (30 ghz and above) and more research really should be done before installing everywhere.
A BILLION people reporting problems? Exaggerate much?
But good news — cloth for your blindfold is in the aisle next over from the tinfoil for your hat.
Or your mask…
It would be very interesting to hear where your information came from.
Your first statement about LEDs isnt entirely wrong but regardless your numbers are way off. For example the 200x per second varies between countries. North America tends to use 120 hz electricity networks while Europe uses a lesser 50-60hz depending on where you are. The LED flickering depends on the Hz so a 120hz electrical network will flash 120 times per second. While yes, this has the possibility to enduce migraines or blurry vision, there is no concrete evidence directly relating the two together. People also tend to forget that every lightbulb flickers regardless of the type of bulb you use whether it be LED, Incandescent or any other.
Sorry but you’re just wrong. Europe uses 50hz while North America uses 60hz
Thank you!
OMG, so wrong. Any industrial LED lamp uses smoothed DC, so no flicker unless the driver is malfunctioning. Furthermore the phosphors on LEDs would further smooth out any flickering. Even consumer grade LED bulbs have a rectifier *althoughqualitymight vary). Only your LED Christmas light strings would have a flicker since they don’t use a rectifier.
Incandescent light does not flicker
I’m not defending what u replied to. That said NA is 60hz other places 50hz and what rate the LED flickers at is dependent on the design of the bulbs power supply.
Also filament/ incandescent naturally smooth out power cycles. It’s because light is a byproduct of the heat they produce and the filament itself has a thermal Mass/doesn’t cool off fast enough for the ac cycles to be observed by humans. Another way to put this is the response time of the light source is too slow for it to represent the flickers.
60 hz is US. If a new vaccine c as me out and 50 people had adverse reactions. It would be pulled.
How much bad shit is ok? ,
Are you Bill Gates who has decided he is God and its OK for “technology ” to kill?
Money drives bad sicense. Always follow the $$$.
America uses 60 hertz Europe uses 50 somebody else needs to do their homework
That flickering frecuency in sync with AC is a thing of old tech. LEDs are controled by PWMs pulse wide modulation. That is why LEDS don’t work with old dimmers. So the frecuency differs from that 69 or 50hz.
LED lighting is capable of emitting all wavelengths in the visible spectrum. This is a well known feature of LED lighting. Why all the drama?
Because night time is meant to be dark. All life other then cave dwellers and deep sea have evolved with this environmental constant.
The author didn’t do a great job of explaining it but circadian rhythms, physiological responses to light and a whole raft of animal and plant behaviour can be affected by higher frequency visible light. LEDs are more efficient too so often they make them brighter.
Whether this causes observable changes and whether these are a problem are open questions.
So, by that issue, artificial lighting between dusk and dawn has always presented such a problem. The article speaks to the wavelengths that most LEDs seem to default set to being an issue, but that is easily resolved in the fact that LEDs can be set to multiple wavelengths and intensity. What am I missing here (an honest question, not a bait or knock)?
Kevin – correction: more *human* life. Animals are currently in the middle of a massive eviction l extinction event.
Leds are way brighter which is a problem in its self.
Yet, when the first artificial light of any kind was introduced by man, animals adapted.
My thought is that street lighting could and should now be more sensor controlled, dimmed until someone comes along – better for safety for walkers, crime detection for lurkers and dimmer conditions for night dwelling creatures
Oh my this is really a good idea, it could save on energy and help mankind in several ways
Some communities actually do this. Not nearly enough do. So-called “dark sky” communities also usually require that the light be directed down, with reflectors, so that there isn’t a ton of night sky light pollution. It makes a pretty big difference.
Maybe all places can adapt to this
Dark is by no means a constant. The moon and clouds constantly work together to change the availability of darkness at night. Travel well north or south of the equator and you might have a different perspective of night-time darkness.
As with everything else, there will be positive and negative affects from the change. In my view studying these is reasonable and prudent, hyperbolizing potential negative outcomes is not.
Actually, no, they do not… RGB LEDs blend light together to approximate other colors, but in the end, they are just 3 colors, just like CRTs were. White LEDs use a phosphor that is a bit more wider spectrum, but even that has holes and hot spots. Some applications it doesn’t matter, but others it does. Much the same reason some people get headaches from fluorescent lighting, LEDs can have the same effect as they are just the solid state versions of the mercury vapor that drove the tubes of the past.
There are far more then 3 colors of LEDs. Yes, most white LEDs are phosphor converted, however, many direct colors can be generated by LEDs.
Josh, I’m speaking in the case of white lighting for this, yes, you can get yellow, orange, cyan, violet, probably a dozen or so emission colors, but each color requires its own chip… you’re not going to make a commercially viable light source with a dozen LEDs in one housing… you’re going to use a phosphor coated job… and again, like fluorescent lights, it’s going to be a discontinuous spectrum because of it.
This is why humanity will destroy itself. Too much hubris, too little knowledge.
Ok, DS, what did I saw was incorrect there for white light emitting LEDs? I remember my physics classes, do you? You want to talk about humanity destroying itself, but yet YOU have no idea how a white light source even works. Bet that degree in lesbian dance theory is really coming in handy, eh?
There are lots of kinds of LED lights. The ones that can be any color consist of 3 LEDs and are not the ones that are the problem. Most LED lighting is a UV or Blue LED with a white phosphor. They have a broad spectrum light with a peak in the UV or Blue, which is ot natural. The Blue messes with people’s circadian rhythms and it is unknown the impact on wildlife. It is more close to daylight than traditional lighting, but the problem is that we are meant to have a break from daylight when it is not day. Some people are way more impacted than others and they are still learning the impact.
The whole point of a led is that it omits most of the frequencies that are not the ones we have receptors that peak at receiving. Also it flickers in a different pattern than normal bulbs. That it looks the same is in no way a good measure of it being the same, in any way at all. The biggest inpact is potentially the high intensity of the peak frequencies, and the complete lack of everything in betwee, which you cannot see. They are designed specifically to exploit the eyes blindness to such differences, and that is how they use less energy. It’s like giving you food that tastes the same, but which contains no vital nutrients. You can’t judge it on the taste alone.
They got their skivvies all bunched up in a knot thinking they are the next Einstein!
What a load of crap. Publish your so called facts.
I operate a legal Marijuana grow in Oregon and we grow exclusively with LED lights for our indoor and vegetative plants. In flower we have UV and Red led’s that we switch on…… this replaced HPS lights
I agree. I also operate a legal grow on Oregon, we use hps/mh. I personally use both, and plants just grow better, more natural under led. Landraces really like led.
Thanks for the helpful data!
Quality LEDs do emit a more natural spectrum, especially from plants point of view.
YES!!! This is the point to be made, that LED lights should (for the most part) be required to mimic the spectrum of sunlight.
Required?
A plant doesn’t really care about visible light. They just need the UV light to grow, all the other frequencies doesn’t matter. That’s why vertical farming uses UV lights over regular LED light strips.
Sorry this is not correct. Most plant growth is driven by the visible 400-700nm spectrum. The regions just outside of that (far red and uva) also contribute, but have a greater impact on morphology than growth, and most of the time a plant can grow very natural without any UV because blue light triggers basically all of the UVA photoreceptors.
I’m a horticultural LED director. We usually use spectra that have a pretty similar spectral balance to sunlight, and typical white LEDs are the main contributor to that because they are not that different than the sun spectrum overall. However, evening/morning light has less blue than midday sunlight, so our bodies respond to blue by “waking up” more, which means light at night should be the lower blue LED options (this is not hard).
The biggest problem with LEDs is that they flicker at very high frequency, it is not a steady source of light
That depends on how they are driven. It’s not always the case.
Every led in my house can be adjusted to what ever K temps I want. Warm or cool. Why does Europe have an issue ordering the correct temp bulbs or something?
That it looks the same does not mean it is the same. The actual light is so massively different that if you could see it, you would think you were in a different dimension entirely. They are designed precisely to trick your eye, and save energy by doing exactly that. The K temp does not address the issue at all.
Unlike sodium or mercury lights, led lights cant be filtered out from terrestial astronomical photographs. A royal pain in the arse and basically makes amateur astronomy a thing of the past in the regions afflicted by these diabolical LED full spectrum lights. Why humanity fears dark so much is far beyond my understanding.
Definitely finding this one out the hard way. My area is so light polluted (Bortle 8, 7 at best) that sometimes you cannot even see all the stars of well known constellations, let alone any nebulas or any other deep sky objects. Telescope light pollution filters (usually) filter out the sodium lamp spectrum and are supposed to help but now I’m skeptical when all the light pollution seems to be LED based. I’ve adjusted my observing expectations accordingly- star clusters are cool and do OK in urban area. No doubt they are much better under dark skies, though. Planets are still pretty great though, being quite bright. a
Who sets the rules for brightness??? I find almost all exterior lighting to be exceedingly too bright. How much money would they save by reducing the total bright and using better focusing.
Absolutely! We are losing the night. The efficiency advantage of LEDs is being used for brightness rather than energy saving. I find the effect rather jarring and I am not getting used to it at all.
IES illuminating Engineering Society publishes guidelines for recommended light levels in a given indoor or outdoor location.
Municipalities like El Paso, San Diego, Tucson all have ordinances regulating light power densities per a given area, and the two last cities regulate the spectrum that can be used for nearby observatories, or sea turtles returning to lay their eggs.
In the United States, it’s individual municipalities that set rules for lighting requirements for public and commercial development (I would asuume the same is true for Europe). An electrical/civil engineer prepares what’s called a Photometric Plan that is submitted with construction documents to the local municipality for review to ensure their public lighting requirements are being met. This involves what type of lighting is used as well as the illuminated area and brightness. From my experience, the most common types in the local jurisdictions I’ve been involved with are Mercury Vapor and High Pressure Sodium.
Ask Hawaii, the big island has very strict lighting laws due to the observatories there , all the street lights are very low yellow and face directly down with very low spread.
It’s not the light! It’s the reflective particles from geo engineering
Crime flourishes in the dark.
The real solution to crime is social equity and education not brighter lights
The solution to crime is punishment & removal of the criminals from society.
Yes!
Ditto to Ed’s comment!
Social equity… Lol…
Social equity? The solution to crime is better parenting, but none of this has anything to do with the topic, troll
Nailed it. The problem is the people doing the crimes do not fear the punishment. Make the punishment severe enough, guess what, people stop doing it. Well, the sane ones anyway.
Social equity will NEVER happen on this planet. Sad, but true.
Ed says:
September 20, 2022 at 3:17 am
>The solution to crime is punishment & removal of the criminals from society.
Works great, reason for the US prisons being so empty, innit?
Ed got it right! No more placating to mental illness spread as logical solutions! Do the crime do the time! Including capital punishment
If punishment and incarceration worked, we would have the lowest crime in any modern country. Instead it is far higher. Social equity is actually a much better solution.
And what exactly is social equity anyway? Can you define it and how it ‘theoretically’ works?
Well said
I feel social equity is just another control. It is not what they do, it is what I do. The idea of social equity seems to lie in the idea that what they do or I do is a matter of what they say we can do. So, the quality of the controlling “they” is really the issue as regardless of how brilliant or aware someone is, the control of human behaviour is a matter of the individual. Some individuals do a great deal more than others and if there is more put in then there is more output. The problem is just how malicious or benevolent it might be and no one, group, religion or government has been a good arbiter or steward of any of it. I certainly don’t have an answer for it any better than anyone else, for me, it is more or less the model of causality and with that the equal probability of anarchy or order as for the most part even our current legal system and apparently all legal systems of the world have removed the consequences of action in some horribly inequitable imbalance where only the doers win, more or less. Right or wrong. Ethics, it seems is an ornament on a tree that some best others with as long as the pointing finger does not turn back on it’s owner. From a long time of looking, it seems one human drive we all share is to somehow be above or immune to whatever the “law” is or at some point we pervert it into it’s oxymoronic doppelganger. IMO.
As for the night sky, only in some hurricanes, when all the electricity is off have I been able to stare up at an immense sky full of a blanket of little dots of light and just be in awe of the sheer number of lights I see from stars whose light itself may be very very old by the time I am able to see it. There is not much like it to compare with, for me anyhow.
This is a common misperception. Actually, there’s no solid proof that crime levels are any higher in residential areas with ‘poor’ lighting (i.e., natural darkness). In fact, a lot of data shows the exact opposite. Criminals don’t walk around with night-vision goggles and don’t want to stand out by using bright flashlights.
This. And criminals also employ the hard shadows and ability to silhouette oneself that street lamps provide to their advantage.
Best time to do burglary of homes is mid afternoon when the most people are at work. Only rob businesses at night, not homes.
Please…low lighting entices criminal actively…oh wait lets NOT light up the yard to keep theives from breaking into my house…
Pretty sure crime happens during day light hours too
What data?
Crime in the dark, not with rose bushes everywhere. Total darkness and thorns is much better than any lighting.
We use prickly pear cactus around the edges works beautifully ouch ouch
So does Batman
An important point, to often forgotten- courtesy of modern liberal society!
What liberal society? You mean 2% of the population that is liberal? Most people are stuck in the 1970s.
Feets:
‘Liberal’ is a tricky word.
Anywhere but in the USA it means ‘in favor of liberty’. Traditional liberal values ‘freedom of speech, open markets etc’.
In the USA it means ‘Opposed to liberty. Afraid to call themselves Marxist, but reds nonetheless. Moronic children!’
This causes endless confusion. American conservatives are European liberals, but don’t like ‘liberals’. Europeans say WTF I’m confused now? (or VDF?)
Seems I have some scientific minds here, so I suggest on another perhaps related subject, that Carbon is not the only emission. Einstein said energy is not destroyed, it only changes form. My question: What happens to the heat energy converted from solid, liquid and gas forms?
The heat goes into the atmosphere, and adds a small amount to global warming. It’s not the cause of global warming. The cause is that the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are throwing off the balance/ratio of heat held in the atmosphere to the heat that escapes into space. So, C02 acts as a blanket, causing the heat that would otherwise be radiated into space to be held in the atmosphere, thus warming the planet. The warming causes ice at the poles, that would otherwise reflect sunlight back into space, to melt, leaving dark ground/water to absorb even more heat from the sun, perpetuating the problem further…
Such foolishness, co2 does not cause global warming. Just look at the research around the world (e.g. Finland) which proves this fact. Consensus is not science but the lemmings will follow to the bitter end.
I agree with Doug. CO2 does not cause global warming. Historically when CO2 levels were highest we had ICE AGES !
Do your research you brainwashed lemmings!
I’m not sure what you mean by “consensus is not science”, because scientific consensus is actually what research is about. Combining many pieces of information into the most likely current hypothesis. One study can usually not cover the whole picture so you need to combine several to make sure what you find is not caused by something else than what you think.
And Joe, you can’t compare the situation from 500 million years ago one on one with the situation now. The sun was cooler then and the orbit cycles were different as well.
The the idea is that the fear of darkness being a common trait exhibited across humanity is a legacy trait instilled in our species thru good ol fashioned classic natural selection. When we find ourselves in the modern world yet with irrational fears of things that offer little danger to us like being alone in the dark, gross creepy crawlies bugs, and being high up above ground, they are instinctual artifacts of millennia of humans being too pussyfooted to go follow along with their foolish friends, who then survive to pass on their cowardly chromosomes. All of the fearless bravehearts who dared go out hunting at night, reach into dark holes for unknown treasures, and scale treacherous landscapes, ultimately ended up being the hunters that get hunted and eaten by nocturnal predators, get stung or bit by venomous creatures, or fall from cliffs and trees thus ultimately failing to pass on their genetic heroism to future generations, who were more meek and timid, but possessed the natural sense not to take foolish risks to win Darwin awards.
Darwin Awards, what a great series!
Love your “Darwin Awards” angle. — and the “cowardly chromosomes” are likely to enter my personal repertoire…
So he problem isn’t so much LEDs, but white LEDs? Sure, LEDs are not as ‘pure’ as sodium or mercury lamps, but surely filtering out red or orange is much easier to do than trying to deal with a “white” source?
Individual LEDs are quite pure, and their emission spectra have peaks that are determined by their composition, just like light bulbs (and it can make chromattic aberration through a lens quite bad, too). It’s just that there are SO MANY compositions/blends out there that it isn’t as simple as incandescent/discharge lamps, where you can filter almost all of it out by filtering for a very specific set of wavelengths, since they all emit approximately the same ones.
Even just impurities/imperfections in the manufacturing process can make LEDs from the same bin have slight variances in their color and brightness. If you’ve ever bought a bunch of individual LEDs for a project and tried to match them, you’ve probably encountered this problem, even if they came off of the same tape. Processes and binning HAVE gotten better, over time, but it’s still an issue.
White LEDs are usually made from a blue die combined with yellow phosphor. The spectrum from the phosphor is very wide to produce a reasonably natural color representation.
Well, if you turn out the lights in some places you have robberies and murders go way up, just saying, sometimes there is a reason to be scared of the dark.
Could be motion activated in those areas. I don’t think there are too many situations where you really need constant dusk to dawn light.
Good point. I live in a small town, and they’ve replaced all the street lights with led lights. First, I’ve noticed a reduction of bugs that are attracted to them. Not necessarily a bad thing, but then I haven’t seen any Bats since then either. Maybe it’s the color? Or maybe it’s the flickering that’s just so unnatural wildlife doesn’t like being around it? Regardless (and getting to your last point), the most enjoyable night I’ve ever had at my current house, was when the power was out all night. I sat outside in a lawn chair staring at the sky for hours! It was beautiful! Streetlights glare on windshields, so it doesn’t help drivers. And not many people (besides me) walk at night anymore, and if you do, flashlights are a dime a dozen. So seriously, what’s the point? I’d rather not have them.
Flash… What?
American for torches, mate
I think the bats followed the bugs…. I mean that’s their main food source…
Since bats are blind, I really doubt the light bothers them….
Bats aren’t blind
Humans can use the gift of sight to avoid dangers, natural, predator, or human. But this only can happen if you can see them. Hopefully this has shored up your understanding on humanity’s fear of the dark.
That is a billion Dollar question….
People fear the dark because bad people prefer the cover of darkness to commit their crimes.
It’s sad that so many people seem to live their lives in fear of something, everything.
Well there are plenty of dead fearless people so there’s that.
That just isn’t true. When I used to commit crimes (in my youth) the only ones you committed in the dark were consuming alcohol/cigarettes/drugs. Every time one of us did something that was detrimental to another person it was done in full lighting, even if it was nighttime. Criminals/hooligans have the exact same limitations on their vision that everyone else does. It’s extremely difficult to steal/vandalize something that you can’t see.
I think decision fatigue leads to more nightime criminal activity than any lighting issues. That being said, the opportunity to explore new things and find out what drives me did so much more to make me a better person than the month in jail. Jail is like training camp for criminals: you’re taught new/better ways to crime and you make a bunch of criminal connections and there’s no better way to network with criminals than jail. If you want crime to go down there needs to be options for everybody to make a decent living that aren’t dehumanizing or demoralizing. Almost nobody prefers to crime instead of going to work at a job they love or think is fun or interesting. There’s very little satisfaction in committing most crimes
Well said. It is quite interesting how do many replies on this specific topic have been ignorant of everything from the physical science of radiance to the social science involved in actually reducing crime.
As you say, prison dues not reduce criminal activity and most prosecution has little to do with the act rather than the class of the person convicted. They more we can remove the reasons for this activity the less will need to be spent dealing with it.
Well it’s very evolutionary, bad things happen in the dark, always have, suddenly tigers!
There was a vote near mea recently, 4 old people said they would feel scared walking at night, do they walk at night? Unlikely. Has there been any trials? Nope. Humans are silly.
LEDs have a lazer effect on the eyes. The light pollution part is just a part of a long term problem.
The quartz use in making comes from Iraq hence the war. The towers were a cover for what creed saw as a booming industry.
The good news is a green led can be blessed and cleansed like a crystal.
Humanity has feared the dark since the beginning. Before, it was a fear of non-human predatory threats, now it’s human predatory threats.
Regardless of whether they are more or less a natural light, if it’s nighttime, it is NOT natural.
Okay. TIL the moon isn’t natural.
Last time I checked very little of the modern world is natural, including looking through a telescope.
Oohhh… Nice knowing you Rsm61. May you rest in peace.
Through the eyes of a human, there is little problem. Ben for the eyes of nocturnal creatures that have evolved to be active at dusk or at night?
The scientists have justified their employment.
Seems to me the real problem with astronomy and the brightness level over the past decades is the the increased particulate matter in the sky from geo engineering operations. Reflective particles…
Bullship. Light pollution of any kind is generated by the SOURCE of the light itself. Reflective particles are a secondary issue contributing to the main problem.
Yes true, that LED uses 10% of the electricity of other forms of Artificial Light, however the paradox here is that all claimed energy savings by switching to LED is pretty much out the door, because now we’ve found a way to save more energy, people feel they have to install 20 lights where there used to be only 2 lights. And those energy efficient lights they are install in more quantities are brighter than their counterparts too. So the meet effect, is more lights, more raw materials consumption, more greenhouse gas emissions, more carbon production and finally more light pollution. That’s the real paradox.
Absolutely. These people have nothing better to do. It doesn’t matter what color the light is. We will adjust. Is the same if the temperature of the Earth increases by .00005°. We will adjust. Scientists who sit around dreaming up ideas such as this to justify their existence need to find another job
All of you are stupid. “THE LIGHTS!!!! NOOO… LET EVERY SPECIES LIVE!!!! NOOOOOO……., FACT IS… Nobody cares but some humans. Stop trying to save live and expect your life to succeed. Extinct? More like, stfu human!”
Seems that’s precisely the problem. The more it mimics sunlight, the more it might disrupt day/night patterns in wildlife.
Scientists just looking for an excuse for a budget, and not genuinely curious to learn and solve problems, go into fields like geology where they can work for huge mines or oil explorers, and get paid to find extractable resources.
The big question is how to the led compare to generated natural lite from stars moon and sun during the night when we had nothing?
Just a thought
So does nature go forward or regress or go unchanged
Sounds like someone jonseing for a new source of government largesse to “study the problem.”
Neon and LEDs are emitting an in even light spectrum, this is clearly in unatural and causing a pressure on sensors like human eyes. You may imagine it to walking bear foot on knives instead of an evenly flat land. All leaving creatures developed a self control imposed on their sensors, enabling their sensors to respond correctly to a much wider and delicate signal levels. All that is lost if an uneven light in frequency and strength is bombarding sight sensors. Most cruel interegators do use these techniques to break a person, why use it with insects, animals and person gazing at its recently
aquired screens
It’s all about the rhythm and pulse of the frequencies. All frequencies are natural but not all frequencies are resonant with earth’s natural ecosystem. Or ours either. We don’t see the incoherent pulses of LED frequencies but we can definitely feel them. Natural doesn’t always mean healthy. Be careful, there are a lot of invisible unhealthy frequencies out there. Lighting is one of the worst toxins around. And so silent, so innocent that we don’t even realize
I’m sorry, did you say natural light isn’t healthy? All human beings from the beginning of humanity live with natural light every day of their lives. It’s how human evolved and how we exist.
Of you want to “rabbit-hole” natural light to mean straight from a star with no filtration, well humans never existed under that. That takes the vacuum of space, and there are multiple classifications of stars that emit different wavelengths and energy signatures of light.
Patrick might be suggesting that LED is a.. if not ..the solution is correct BECAUSE the spectrum of light emitting diodes can be adjusted to suit hundreds of thousands of spectrums. The have far less light pollution than much of the lighting tech thats in place now not to mention they use a fraction of the energy of all the bulb tech in this conversation..thereby drawing on less resources and “ergo” waaaaayyy better for the evo systems.
Why, thank you. I wasn’t suggesting that it is a perfect solution for the human dynamic of our species spending more active time outside of our ancestral relatives experience; I do believe that our command of technology can minimize our impact on an ecosystem which follows “natural” rules, by adjusting properly, with LED and subsequent techs. Whereas, earlier lighting systems had no regard for the possibility of a disruption, and being nature based had no control over that disruption. So, to say that LED has greater detriment to the environment over previous human interference in the night cycle, over previous attempts, does ring hollow. Maybe the default wavelengths of those LEDs is not optimal, but it is easily correctible.
I’m not sure how LED is any less natural than any other from of artificial lighting we have used for the past 100 years. Change the color if you think that’s the problem. Either way this a weak argument as there is no practical alternative with current technology and projected energy demands.
Use less electricity by getting more efficient stuff , was t not that way!!!!! Good grief, make up your damn mind.
You sound like an LED salesman… absence of evidence of harm is not the evidence of safety… Artificial Light, Chronobiology and LED Hazards https://vimeo.com/301352213
So well said! I
If all these so called experts have a problem with outdoor lighting, just do away with it. Who needs all that light pollution anyway. Load of old crap. Save loads in energy costs.
Lol, no their trying to justify the “stranger things” ALAN is used for.
-No/low NASA budget
-climate tech hack, refraction in peer lit
Who cares? Is this an emergency?
LED lights create an unnatural glow in rural areas that used to have dark skies. In time, this will severely affect the natural rhythm of nature.
Yes, most LED lights are towards the cooler color temperatures which is closer to natural sunlight, but herein lies some of the concern. This “whiter” light is closer to sunlight which naturally causes melatonin levels to drop making a less than ideal light for night time. Also the intense nature of LEDs can really adversely affect night sky viewing.
The light spectrum is absolutely not natural compared to other sources. It’s designed to look the same. But it’s only peaking at the specific vawelengths visible to the eye, with others missing. It’s also flickering at a much more square pattern, not visible. Infrared is completely missing. It’s not natural in any way shape or form, just because it looks the same.
It’s unfortuate… Every story for the past 20-30 years that says “has scientists worried” or “scientists are warning” …Seems to shut the brains of most people off. No one seems to care about things that actually do matter anymore, The general population has become the idiocracy
Boy keeps crying wolf.
Keeps crying “Wolf”, killing the wolf, tidying away the body and the rest of the world says “See, there was no wolf”. See Y2K bug or Ozone Hole.
Idiots keep crying “boy keeps crying wolf”, so don’t listen to boy, until he’s eaten by a wolf, along with the flock. What the boy actually said was “We might have a wolf problem”, and the media screamed “BOY CRY’S WOLF! AAAAHHHH!!! LOCK UP YOUR WIVES AND DAUGHTERS!!!”
B^)
Exactly.
Keep crying ‘wolf’ (thing of several topics here) and people will turn a deaf ear. Or flip flopping depending on where their funding is coming from, or changes in their models, or changes in input data or….. A new theory arrives …. You name it….
Unfortunately that is what happens when early phase research is picked up by mainstream and treated like every supposition from the paper’s author is fact – when it is generally saying nothing more than ‘erm guy’s have we actually looked at the knock effects of x, and maybe we should before rolling it out around half the damn planet in a weekend’ along with some small scale test(s) that say ‘these area I have tested showed an interesting result that warrants further study’…
It is how science works, and has to work! I may have an idea that is entirely wrong, but my test showed something suggestive. That leads to the paper I publish getting responses from those that insist I must be wrong and those that think perhaps I’m right both! Along with all the conversations I have about it over a nice cuppa tea developing the concepts, sparking new ideas on tests to perform.
That is alot of we don’t conclusively know everything but x is interesting enough to worry over and argue about until sufficient proof comes along to prove an existing theory or a new theory comes along that actually matches with the experimental results..
But like all things media these days its got to be big flashly headlines and often very little actual fact relayed, just lots of emotive language wrapped around the tiny bits of data cherry picked to create the narrative desired. Used to be most publications would publish a vast quantity of verifiable data so you could draw your own conclusions along with the writers opinion on what it means. But these days such detailed recording seems to be largely dead…
Science is not incorruptible. Unfortunately. People like to believe so, but it’s not true. It’s made of people, after all. And it’s also a problem that scientists fifty years ago created all these modern wonders of which scientists today say have awful, apocalyptic effects—as they simultaneously create newer modern wonders. Some of which will inevitably be the subject of yet more scientist worry fifty years from now. People get understandably wary of this cycle.
Science will sort itself with time. Doesn’t work by consensus, one scientist that’s right and can prove the alternatives false is the winner. Might take a generation dying, but that’s old news.
When it happens, reporters will get the story wrong. They always do. Wrong Casandra draws eyeballs.
I blame the lack of any math or science requirements in J schools. They are terrible. Curricula is like an Education school.
‘Science’ on the other hand will continue to shamble along it’s dumbassed unfalsifiable path. But nobody takes sociologists/economists/astrologers etc seriously except others who agree with their ideology. Same as it ever was.
Internet was supposed to fix this. But eternal September in middle school is the rule now (‘You can’t be right, your parents dress you in cheap unfashionable clothes!’)
Internet was supposed to fix it, but there are too many people with ill-conceived opinions they sell as facts who fill the internet with bullshit created from whole cloth, while the real educated individuals are too busy actually doing real research (i.e. not “internet” research) to counter the bullshit effectively. It’s because people listen to the person spouting the message, rather than listening to, and rationally evaluating, the message.
GREAT book:
Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth – July 21, 2020
Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless – or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics, nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for extraterrestrial life. As Science Fictions makes clear, the current system of research funding and publication not only fails to safeguard us from blunders but actively encourages bad science – with sometimes deadly consequences.
Stuart Ritchie’s own work challenging an infamous psychology experiment helped spark what is now widely known as the “replication crisis,” the realization that supposed scientific truths are often just plain wrong. Now, he reveals the very human biases, misunderstandings, and deceptions that undermine the scientific endeavor: from contamination in science labs to the secret vaults of failed studies that nobody gets to see; from outright cheating with fake data to the more common, but still ruinous, temptation to exaggerate mediocre results for a shot at scientific fame.
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” – Marcia Angell (2009)
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, ‘poor methods get results.'” – Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet (2015)
So please note that not science has a problem, but medicine and psychology has (probably due to a lack of understanding of math, especially statisics)
That’s a little bit rough, but still.
“Evidence-based medicine” is a recently popular (post-2000s) trend in the field, where they actually look statistically at outcomes and figure out what actually works, rather than each doctors relying on their own anecdotal results and what essentially amounts to the rumor mill: “This worked all five times I’ve tried it…”
On one hand, individual doctors have varying skill, and individual patients varying needs. There may be a lot of variability in outcomes, making the statistics hard.
On the other… what the hell were they basing medicine on beforehand if not scientific evidence? Yoiks. Especially in a high-variance environment! Double-yoiks.
(Slightly unfair, doctors understand a lot about the underlying biology/physiology. They’ve got more than pure stats on their side.)
But still, Evidence-based probably a welcome trend, IMO, and an antidote to the small-sample selective studies that Winston was indirectly citing.
Medicine isn’t science.
I don’t know… we can now ad artificial life at night to the lexicon. Is Al “AI” Williams Imagining the first AI Nightlife?
Change the bloody phosphors.
Doesn’t change the problem – it’s the intense blue light that LEDs give off that is causing the night-time issues. The phosphors convert the blue light to longer wavelengths, so you can change them to whatever you like, the LED is still going to have too much blue in the spectrum to be suitable for night-time lighting.
I suppose you could go for UV diodes and go from there, but those would be less efficient and the point of using LEDs would be lost. Arguably, the point of using LEDs for street lighting is already pretty moot because they’re not that much more efficient or long-lasting, and they have a host of other problems including the light quality issue.
Filters then? Why can’t we make a filter to go over the light that produces a more desirable color? One that can get rid of the intense blue lights. Heck, we have blue-blocker eye wear, would filters like that work?
That’s effectively what putting more phosphor over the LED does – eventually the original excitation wavelength is completely absorbed.
Take a look at the PCA spectrum at https://volt.org/ecologically-responsible-led-lighting-options/ – the PCA LED has almost no blue emissions.
And the downside is lower efficiency. The blue-green-yellow emitting LED lights are pushing 100+ lumens per Watt while the filtered or true amber LEDs are 70-80 which is way less than the traditional options – except for the smaller size bulbs where the gas discharge lamps perform worse.
The selling point of LED is to use less energy, which they simply don’t if you don’t want blue light.
Using slightly more expensive design, LED lighting with a better spectrum and nearly as good efficiency can be designed. See donklipstein.com for general information on LEDs. Red-orange LEDs are available at 148 lumens/watt; green LEDs at 152 and even 237 lumens/watt. Combining these and perhaps others can give good outdoor lighting. Good design and construction can fix durability problems.
Poster “None” above implied PWM control was a bad thing; but simply using an inductor can smooth the current flow to the LEDs.
Most of the LED street light teardowns that I have watched show that these are incredibly efficient with the light that they produce, largely due to the inclusion of lenses. It sucks that it’s not as easy to filter as mercury or sodium vapor, but I would bet the farm that from a global warming perspective they are way better for the environment.
One thing not accounted for I believe is the increasing reflectiveness of street surfaces to combat the heat island effect…
Perhaps a dedicated dark time should be proposed via legislation to shut off all outside lights from 12-5am m-th. Slightly different hours could work during the weekend.
Yeah, but I can’t imagine that orangey monochromatic light was very good for us, or nature, either.
The blue-tinted light from LEDs is very effective at killing any semblance of night vision or dark adjustment, so you can’t see outside of the immediate areas being lit. They make you night blind. Sodium lamps don’t do that.
That’s also one of the reasons why animals run in front of cars in the night. They can’t see anywhere else after getting blinded by bright light, so they go where they can see.
“so you can’t see outside of the immediate areas being lit”
Oh that explains a lot! I always wondered why they seem so bright yet somehow make it harder to see compared to just moon light.
The human pupillary light reflex also responds to shorter wavelengths more than longer wavelengths, so your iris becomes smaller in response to blue light because the eye thinks you’re looking at a brighter light. It doesn’t do that for amber colored light.
This response is not done by rods or cones in the eye, but a third type of cell called melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells (mRGC) which are neurons that respond to blue and green light. These neurons are also responsible for modulating your circadian clock. They’re like a vestigial light sensor left over from when the eye evolved out of skin cells.
could light with a broader spectrum (closer to what the earth gets from the sun) more easily trigger daytime behaviors in wildlife?
That’s what the LEDs are doing with their high color temperature. It’s less efficient to produce red light using phosphors, especially at low lighting levels where the apparent brightness of red light drops due to the Purkinje effect, so all the high efficiency LEDs tend to be “daylight” biased to gain higher lumens per watt.
Lumens don’t measure absolute brightness but subjective brightness. As a result, the lamp and the light itself appears brighter, but most of the objects it illuminates actually turn out darker. The trouble is that street lighting is too bright for dark adaptation to take effect properly, so it actually should be biased towards red and contain little to no blue.
Of course, you could drop the lighting level to the point that people did get dark adaptation and save a ton of power. Blue light becomes useful at very low light levels – but then you couldn’t read street signs because the fovea becomes useless and all you can see is general shapes with your peripheral vision, and you’d get blinded for minutes each time a car passes by.
I was thinking more about alterations in the sleep-wake cycle but that’s definitely an interesting take.
Certainly would help the criminal element in our society :) . Lets just go back to medieval times … Light some ‘natural’ torches :) .
Hmm, lit or some sort of glowing application on the streetlight would be better all-around for me. Blue light plays hell with my ability to read.
Irgg. Street *sign* not light.
Bioengineer cat-eyes into everyone.
It was a lot less bad. Wavelength-wise at least. Energy-wise, not so much. And a lot less of the Earth was lit up like a Christmas tree back then as well..
Perhaps turn the lights off at night. After a certain time, will help the greenhouse emissions and the night life, we seem to be putting more and more light into unused streets, for heavens knows what rationale. It security or safety or similar b.s.
but perhaps Iam a luddite.
Here (France), more and more villages shut down outdoor lights between 1 AM to 6 AM.
Studies showed that it increased security. An explanation could be that when the lights are off, you will easier see a burglar and its hand light.
From my point of view, it’s not relevant to light the streets when every car or pedestrian has its own light source.
By the way, I am not sure that this could apply to big cities …
1 AM to 6 AM is the French burglars union’s lunch break.
OMG, this made me laugh so hard! Funny on so many levels!
I barely recall Winnipeg night sky glowing from mercury vapour. Then the big energy saving switch to sodium vapour and now the switch to dazzling white (purple?) LEDs. The colour is harsh.
My son and I have talked about street lights being motion triggered. They could run dim until people are detected (cars have their own lights). This would help save more energy, improve dark skies and provide awareness of where people actually are.
In the place where I’m living motion triggered street lamps are being installed. They have normal brightness level until 9:00 pm or so. Then they are dimmed. When motion is detected they have a smooth transition to normal brightness. And they have small solar panels (not sure if they feed the grid or if they have a battery inside) on each side . Pretty neat :)
In fact, GECurrent does make motion sensing lights. But the cities won’t pay the added expense.
That’s because most of them get their street light electricity for free.
It’s a hidden tax they imposed when they sold the service area to the highest bidder.
No light, of any color, should be on anywhere unless there is somebody there, at that moment, who needs it. We have sensors in this day and age.
No outdoor light should be brighter than needed to help you find your way and keep you from stepping in chuckholes-or-whatever.
… and given the availability of both car headlights and bright, long-battery-life LED headlamps, and the fact that surveillance cameras don’t need visible light, it’s not clear there there should be any outdoor lighting anywhere at all.
Switching the lights off when there’s no-one on the street would cause an annoying disco effect when someone does goes by. If the lights aren’t on at all, the same effect happens by car headlights, especially if people then turn on their high beams to see further down the street.
It would also be very good for muggers who can simply stand still to fool the PIR sensors and wait in the darkness.
An “annoying disco effect”, even every few minutes, is a lot less annoying than having the lights on all the time, at least for me. Obviously if you have constant traffic, you can leave the light on, assuming you have one.
… and game out that “mugger” thing and get back to me. If you are looking to mug people, you do not need to be invisible. You just have to not instantly be identifiable as a mugger. A mugger just needs spot with enough foot traffic to provide victims, but not enough to provide witnesses/rescuers/police-callers. The risk factor is isolation, not lighting. Not to mention the fact that PIRs are not the only sensors available and it’s actually not that easy to stand that still for that long.
No need for disco effect if you ramp up the light levels slowly. Not following what you mean with the car lights, but agree that modern lights seem to fry the retinas compared to old halogen lights. Criminals are criminals regardless of lights or not. You will get mugged just the same.
Might work for a pedestrian, but the cyclist or the car will be far gone before the lights go up – unless you light the whole street in advance.
The light up the road told the next one that someone was coming.
But it also told the NSA where you were walking (or riding), when and with who, where you stopped etc. But that’s already happened at the traffic lights.
car headlights and headlamps definitely are not enough to allow people to safely navigate the world at night (or after mid-afternoon, in some parts of the world). well lit streets are safer for cars, pedestrians and cyclist alike and not just from a traffic point of view.
i agree that we could easily cut back on a lot of “wasted” lighting (e.g. huge street ads or, god forbid, times square like installations) and we could use more efficient systems but keeping cities in the dark would simply make them unlivable for most of the population.
Citation needed. People say “well lit streets are safer”, but evidence seems to be thin on the ground.
True about crime rates, it’s more about perception of safety than actual safety itself (on the other hand if people don’t go outside because they don’t feel safe you’re still negating them access to public spaces).
For traffic accidents there’s a bit more evidence, some resources i quickly found:
https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/roads/street-lighting.pdf
i have no idea who’s actually behind rospa and if they might be biased but they quote scientific works.
RoSPA – Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents.
It is the opposite in regards to safety.
When the street are dark as oposed to lit, you will notice other road users much earlier if they have their lights on.
The issue is, you can’t drive “fast” when the streets are not lit.
“When the street are dark as oposed to lit, you will notice other road users much earlier if they have their lights on.
”
And that is exactly the issue. You ignore cyclists or pedestrians like many car drivers.
The super bright car lights are no match to what a cyclist has let alone a pedestrian that is usually not lit.
The issue is when light blinds people, because it’s too strong or lights in the eyes. But if it is diffused from above, it’s much better.
If all pedestrians and cyclists wear safety reflectors drivers would have no issues detecting them. As anyone used to driving in the dark can tell you, dont look at the bloody headlights.
You’ll notice there’s something, but without seeing the surroundings it’s hard to judge where they are exactly. Just a spot of light in the dark doesn’t tell you near or far.
Or what it is. A car, a motorcycle? Is it going fast or slow?
I enjoy cycling in the dark. But if a car is approaching me with their high beams on in a dark unlit area, i cannot see anything. I cannot see the edge of the road. I cannot see the centre markings. I can only see my little round spot of light my 1w LED shines onto the pavement so i can just about stay in the centre of my lane.
Of course the car is supposed to use their dipped beams when other traffic is around, but it is sadly a fact of life that there are plenty who don’t care. Perhaps because i might be on the cycle path next to the road so i’m not technically part of their traffic, but nonetheless i can’t see shit if even just one vehicle uses their high beam.
So in the end, it’s not so easy to go completely without street lights.
You’re borderline suicidal. The idiots don’t see you in daylight. Find a trail.
Many LED headlight kits are way too bright. But ‘more better’.
Cars will get night vision before they are fully automated.
I have walked down a street with motion sensing LED streetlights. It was terrible, though it was mainly an implementation issue.
The problem was that each light only turns on as you pass underneath it, so you are permanently walking into your own shadow as you walk away from the triggered light towards the next unilluminated one.
This is where the energy codes are steering energy and light usage. It will only get worse. Office receptacles controlled via motion/occupancy sensors
Scrap all
Artificial lighting……!
Sun up
Sun down .
Energy problem solved.
And criminal activity up! Safety down.
There is no factual evidence for this. The claim is solely based on hearsay and personal opinions
36% reduction in certain serious felony crimes in bad neighborhoods, controlled study. https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/projects/crime-lights-study
No doubt prison yards too.
Nothing to do with normal neighborhoods.
Maybe no ‘factual’ but certainly ‘anecdotal’! After we had our utility put up a street light for yard and alley, we have had no more problems with people hanging around in the alley, or cruising around in our backyard checking for open doors…. And seems to me, we all ‘lock’ our doors at night now too. And most of the break-ins I hear about are night time events… By the police blotter reports anyway…. So it goes :) .
”
Scrap all
Artificial lighting……!
”
What a wonderful idea idea…
But aren’t tallow candles artificial?
Could this put Germans at more risk for eyesight damage?
https://preventblindness.org/blue-light-and-your-eyes/
Maybe, yes. As a German, I can relate to this. Unfortunately, our govs are somewhat short sighted, I think.
It took years after the introduction of LED street lights that my city investigates the effect of blue light on moths etc.
Despite the fact, that each of us citizens know how much LED bulbs at home attract moths and other insects.
That being said, these horrible “energy savings” bulbs (aka grave lights, because giving depressions) of the early 2000s were much much worse. They stank, they broke quickly and did attract all sorts of creatures. Ugh.
Personally, I think the situation is totally crazy. Here in the 90s, we had much more orange street lights. They were friendly to the eye, calming to the soul, fine for the animals and didn’t draw much energy. Why did they went away? 😢
Fake environmentalists pointing the finger and shrieking about ‘toxic’ chemicals and/or power consumption in order further their own political agendas.
The average sodium lamp draws 400 watts and has to be replaced every couple thousand hours. They DID draw much energy.
I am very glad that sodium light is going, that ugly color the light of hell. I feel sorry for those having to try and see in low pressure sodium. Wetness doesn’t show up in such poor CRI light. The real problem is aiming, the complete elimination of globes and sideways emission of light outdoors. I can see more with moonlight intensity of LED light than the gobs of light with a rotten CRI. Light is a exponential quantity and a little goes a long way. The downtown areas need no more light than full moonlight intensity.
Why not just amber LEDs? They’re monochromatic and quite strong as well as efficient.
isn’t low pressure sodium more efficient?
I don’t think so, and even if they were on par with LEDs the maintenance would make it less cost effective
Lifetimes are similar for continuous use.
For traffic lights there is no contest, LEDs rule where the lights don’t need heat for snow removal. Even there, thermostats and resistive heaters are cheap.
Amber LEDs exist. They were created because astronomers demanded them to be used near some ground-based observatories, because the narrow emission lines can be filtered out of the data. The problem is that they are not sold commercially and city lighting engineers don’t demand them. This is an easily solvable problem.
You can get them in any color you want. My bedroom lighting can change to every color of the rainbow at the push of a button.
Yeah but those are more expensive than single-color variants. Gotta justify the extra expense.
Even certain single-color variants may be more expensive depending on manufacturing capacity, which ultimately depends on current demand.
I miss the old sodium street lights.
So much so I have a salvaged one in the corner of my room. A bit bright to be sure, but what a wondeful monochrome world it creates.
🦙 a world you can grow weed in 🪴
Pointless and uneconomical where legal.
Just use the sun, it’s great for growing crops. I grew under lights for 20 years. Never again.
Six plants is more than me and all my friends can smoke (average crop is 12 lbs of tops). I’ve got _pounds_ leftover from last year and the first plant of this year drying now. Already making extract from all but the tops. Got about 500ml of oil left, but it’s just too strong. One of my teenage dreams has come true.
Also squared cubed law. Sun is far away so ‘even better’.
Also also no AC bill for plants. It’s gleat.
We recently were approached by the electric company to swap out the sodium street lights for LED lights in our neighborhood. During the process, we discovered that they had a color of LED that approximated the warm color of the old lamps instead of bright white. We went with that option instead and I personally love it. The neighborhood has many trees and it feels more natural than the lights at other communities that opted for the bright white lights.
So it is possible to use LED lights that are a bit lower on the color temperature scale for street lights.
I build custom led flashlights as a hobby. You are touching on something I always try to explain to people. 3000-4000 kelvin is much better for overall usability than 6000-6500 that many people want. The cool white “feels” brighter for the same lumen output. They also tend to be minutely more efficient than warm white LEDs. I often take people out to a field and show them 2 identical lights. Only difference being cold white (6500k) vs warm (3500k) . Cold white looks amazing, until you realize you can’t see the trees on the other side due to the refraction of all the blue bouncing back in your face. Any fog, dust, or pollen will cause that. The warm white cuts thru it, almost like a fog light. . . .hmmm. Then I flip the warm white to 75% and you can still see the trees you couldn’t see with the cool white on max. Very few buy the cold white after seeing that demonstration.
Photonic crystal shielded incandescent filaments may be the answer as they are efficient and spectrum tuneable. https://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophotonic-incandescent-light-bulbs-0111
The idea of reflecting heat is old. I remember bulbs that had an inner film to do so.
LEDs are tuneable too, and are MUCH more efficient. It looks like a non-issue
http://drbulb.com/leds-in-hollywood
You could completely reverse global warming and people (fringe “scientists”) would moan about it. I think people prefer a good moan than progress.
The word ‘progress’ has be coopted by ‘progressives’ (reactionary reds that liked the 1920s).
The question is ‘progress’ to what exactly?
First they tried replacing sodium etc with LED lighting. but then they realized that was just spending money and contributing to the GDP of China.
Now with energy costs so high it’s just easier to turn off all the lights at night and pretend to be North Korea.
Not exactly a bad thing.
We can’t even fix the antiquated daylight savings time offset here.
I have observed one actual and one potential unintended consequence of LED lighting…
Older vehicles with factory window tints (i.e. light tints legal everywhere) and probably a lot of aftermarket tints, seemed tuned to sodium lights. Under sodium they just seem to clip the glare a bit and don’t seem a lot darker at night than untinted. Under LED lighting, they seem to be a very dark near blackout tint, 80% or so. Quite hard to see out of when you are reversing etc at night.
Potential unintended consequence is mostly indoor use. Incandescent, flourescent and compact flourescent put out a mild amount of UV light. LED don’t. While LED might reduce cataract risk, and add months on the durability of interior plastics and finishes, they don’t have the weak sterilisation effect UV does. It’s weak, but it is very constant, with some lights on hours daily. Absence of this probably results in enhanced viability times for virii, bacteria, mold spores. For “germs” that are only viable for minutes, it probably doesn’t matter much, but for ones that persist hours, there may be a measurable difference between LED lit and flourescent or incandescent lit environments. I would not be surprised if it could be demonstrated as affecting the Covid R number by 10% for indoor transmission. i.e. if we’d had the pandemic a decade sooner, it would have been fractionally less bad due to damping effects in preferred lighting choices. (You could also have said that for the 1990s, before everyone forgot why they had screened customer service desks, and got rid of them for “friendlier, more personal” environment. But also it might be a ton of little things we’ve changed over the years that gradually made us more and more susceptible to a more severe pandemic. TB vaccination which was stopped as routine has been suspected of conferring minor amounts of protection also, keep removing all those 10%s that were unknowingly bricks in a firewall, and it reduces to barely a speed bump.) …. …. However, before we condemn the interior LED, we need to remember it’s advantages… or remember the disadvantages of others, incandescents use way too much power, compact flourescents aren’t as power friendly as advertised due to power factor slew problems, contain toxic materials, and don’t last all that long. LEDs being driven hard for efficiency mean we ain’t getting decades out of those either, but average cheap CF vs average cheap LED seems to be going about 1.5 years to 3 years for me. If investigated and determined to be a serious factor, we could put one UV LED in per bulb or something.
Never mind that UV would kill all kinds of organisms, cause cancer and such at the UV-C range that would be required. Hell, UV-C lights are *not allowed* to be sold to consumers. Your “solution” is worse than the “problems” you’re trying to solve.
Try again. You missed it. We’re not talking about high intensity short wave UV that fries everything in seconds, just UVA that’s partially effective only over hours, as we have tolerated for decades when put out by incandescent and flourescent lighting.
Umm, incandescent lamps don’t put out UV. Fluorescent and LEDs generate UV, but those get converted to visible light by phosphor. They might “leak” a bit of UV in cheap or end of life bulbs, but at really low levels which would have essentially zero effect on microorganisms. It just wouldn’t be intense enough of a UV source.
The problem with noticing that incandescent puts out UV is when you eyeball the emission spectra 55W of a 60W are turning into heat so the IR is extra loud and the scale of the graph is accommodating that. It’s like a linear height graph, with Empire State building at left and mount Everest at right, and saying from that, that the ES must be the tiniest most insignificant building in the world. Meanwhile the visible portion might be the Burj Khalifa but just because that is also taller it doesn’t make the ES ignorable.
Yes, it’s weak. Yes you should not plan on using it to sterilise anything you want sterilised, but an effect is there. It is though a watts per time relationship, lot of watts in a tiny amount of time = good sterilisation, but also tiny amount of watts in a long period of time = some amount of sterilisation. I’m not saying you flick the light switch and shazaam, everything clean. I’m saying leave the light on 8 hours and it knocks it back a fraction. Whether it’s flu, common cold or whatever a couple less people infected per hundred slows it down. Gradual attrition measures like that aren’t noticed until a few of them are gone. Like the final levels of a tower defence game, nothing kills everything, just wear down the hordes of enemy by constant attrition.
LEDs can and SHOULD dynamically alter brightness based on activity nearby. The technology to do so is cheaper than the light itself and extends the luminaire lifespan to essentially “forever” whilst reducing light pollution down to negligible levels (led lights can range from off to dim when inactive and have overnight off periods too with activation still happening when needed)
Older tech wasn’t dimmable or practically switchable (most had very short lifespans if turned on/off repeatedly as anything with a starter or filament is only rated for 200-700 power cycles). LEDs have on/off cycle ratings starting at 50-60,000 operations
LED lighting can give you back dark skies whilst still achieving security and safety – IF local bodies overcome inertia and corner-cutting when installing it. As a nice bonus it can save an extra 5% or so energy consumption to be used for charging electric cars instead
After reading some of these posts I think I know what happed to “The National Inquiror”, it’s now on the internet!
I expect to read this headline here soon, “Scientists Worry That Women Having Babies With Extraterrestrials Poses Danger For The Human Species
First they took away our incandescents, because they were inefficient.
Then, they took away our CFLs, because they had mercury.
Now, they are coming for our LEDs…
Or maybe they want to discover the optimal wavelengths for the LEDs.. They don’t have to be broad spectrum.
I personally don’t care for LED bulbs, yes in theory they save energy, but I have yet to have a single bulb last longer than what they are rated for. Most die within a year of normal use, some within 3. All that I bench tested to find the flaw, died due to a failed capacitor in the power supply. And don’t get me on recycling, these things are worse than anything else, lots of heavy metals in this e-waste and I bet most don’t give it a second thought and toss them into the waste bin.
You got me there. I hadn’t even tought about it. I have been tossing them in the mixed waste bin like regular light bulbs.
Yaaa, something we tend to forget. Moderation. Everything is still about the most, the fastest, tallest, and of course, brightest. Human nature, eh?
TO AUTHOR:
You wrote, “… intensity of artificial LIFE from space…”
Do you mean, “… intensity of artificial LIGHT from space…”?
LED lights are of the devil, Mama
I think building cars with FLIR HUD would gi e better night safety than street lights. Street lights with FLIR could communicate to an entire area to activate when needed. Moderation in street lighting as with most thing would be better than an either or solution.
LED lights are of the devil. M mama said so…
Colors of LED ligth is customizable too…
Led light comes on any Kelvin degrees, you just have to choose 3200K of you want the same colour temperature as tungsten
Could we concentrate on the biggest problem of all, and take it down to the next biggest problem?
The pollution crisis which they want us to refer to it as Global Warming or the new one, Climate Change, which is like calling the stage-4, cancer, Appetite Change, to distract from the real problem, this human created environmental disaster is the biggest problem if we don’t count human stupidity.
For scientists to worry about the negative impact of LED lights on ecosystem is like worrying about the quality of lighting and impact it might have on the person reading books while that person has lung cancer and is chain smoking cigarettes.
Out planet is having a major lung cancer as sources of pollution as contributors to the disease increase, the sources of cure are decreasing, such as deforestation and human overpopulation as the worst parasite this planet has ever seen. While it just takes common sense and empathy to understand it, it requires compassion, to do something about it, all being discouraged by distracting propaganda.
Your not wrong. I live east of San Diego in a place called El Centro, California. It’s on the border of Mexicali, Baja California. It used to be a mostly farming community and rated one of the best places to live in all categories. Now it ranks among the very worst for many reasons. Mostly the poor air quality. It’s really bad. We have the New River that flows out of Mexico and down to the Salton Sea. It provides a lot of pollution and it’s what most people talk about when they talk about our poor air quality. It may have been one of the major components contributing to the poor air quality but now it’s seems like it’s a scapegoat for all of our pollution because no one wants to point the finger at the biggest producer’s of contaminates in our area and I imagine every town across the US….the railroads. Diesel locomotives run all night long every night here. The plume of diesel exhaust can be seen on Doppler radar. It’s massive. The next largest contributor is the 2 crematoriums that are here. I don’t think the average person realizes the amount of pollution that is produced every day across the United States from diesel exhaust from the rail yards and outgas produced by crematoriums. And those are just the 2 biggest producer’s. There is also all of the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer chemicals that are floating thru the air all the time because they use crop dusters to apply these chemicals. And on an average summer day here the temperature is 119°F. At this temperature there is alot of ionization of the smaller droplets and on some days out here you can really feel yourself sucking for air because of how much ozone burnoff your inhaling. I cycle 30 miles daily and have to really watch the air quality monitors in the area to plan my route so as to have the best air possible on my ride. I’m in peak physical condition. 3% body fat. I’ve been doing it a very long time and enjoy being fit and athletic. I estimate that here in my area just a short 10 years from now at the rate we are going..the air will be unfit to breathe. It will be unhealthy to go out and exercise outdoors here. You will have to do your exercising indoors. Diesel exhaust is known to cause sudden cardiac arrest when inhaled while riding. It’s happens all the time in the big city’s like Mexico city and even in New York. Diesel exhaust stays low close to the ground and can become condensed. If your heart rate is elevated and your sucking air as a runner or cyclist and hit a thick patch of diesel exhaust and cannot find your way clear of it fast enough it can and will kill you. It’s like running into a wall of ammonia gas. Sucks all the air right out of your lungs. Point being we need to stop using diesel across the board. Our entire commerce is dependent upon diesel and it’s killing us more than anything else. The crematoriums also. That’s my 2 cents. I really don’t think we have as much time as many people think. It’s a serious emergency right now and little is being done. Biden did make a serious effort to get us there by implementation of electric government vehicles by 2024 which will help. But I don’t think it will in the long run. Building the batteries that power these vehicles creates just as much pollution as diesel exhaust, and we don’t yet know the adverse affects it will have on the environment. There’s nothing in place for recycling of the batteries yet either which is troublesome. Cell phones either. We want to clean up the planet we have to do so by not throwing everything away. We should be recycling everything. If it cannot be recycled it should not be manufactured. It all ends up in the ocean or land fills. There so much we are not doing that we could be it’s sickening. Glad your on the right side and see it for the emergency that it is. 10 years from now you in big city’s you will need to wear a respirator everywhere you go outdoors or risk serious health problems. That’s my prediction. I’m not Nostradamus but I can extrapolate data and it’s not difficult to see where we are headed.
Unfortunate that easy solutions aren’t even mentioned such as just making LEDs that emit a better light spectrum for street lights. We have color tunable LEDs for inside our houses so what makes it impossible to do it for street lights?
Well, if it’s a real problem, as someone doubted up here, then let’s change the LED color.
I don’t understand where is the problem, LEDs can have all the spectrum of colors, if it’s so dangerous for the environment let’s change it by law.
End of concerns.
Scientists should worry and focus their talent and sharp minds on other stuff, on real problems of this sick planet, not the color of the street lamps.
Come on.
Exactly WHY we do need scientists; 240 comments and the word MOTHS appears once, they are pollinators but also in the food chain for insects, amphibians mammals and reptiles and since artificial light of all types their numbers have plummeted
What a giant discussion about a non-problem. LED is better, safer, cheaper, more controllable, more efficient than ANY other artificial light ever created. You want to go back to burning wood, charcoal, gas, turpentine, whale oil, etc? Or extremely toxic old electric bulb technology? As far as ppl or animals, they are not living under these. The ones being discussed are just in certain public thoroughfares. The animals and ppl can go on to there homes and they’re not going to be affected by blue screen issues (which is a false issue in itself). Give me a break.
There are some smart folks making some good comments. All I can say for sure is everyone I have ever checked is allergic to led lights. That can’t be good long term. I can fix that for one person in one minute but I can’t fix the world. Even though I am not allergic to them I will avoid as much as possible
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