June 2024: Crap Lighting

Host Bill McGeeney is joined by David Smith of Buglife, lawyer and policy researcher, Yana Yakushina, and Dark Skies Officer for Cumbria, Jack Ellerby.

See Full Show Notes, Lighting Tips and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Like this episode, share it with a friend!

Bill's Picks:

• Why some animals become agitated during solar eclipse, Basel Hindeleh, ABC News. 
• Global study finds there really are more insects out after dark, Mark Wong and Raphael Didham, Phys.org. 
• MHM WANTS TO FIGHT LIGHT POLLUTION, Emmanual Delacour, Est Media Montreal.
• Episode #7: Dark Sky Tourism,  Avery Morgan, Andrew Galster, and Greg Egbert,  The Reflection. 
• Jasper’s dark sky tourism could help combat light pollution: researchers, Local Journalism Initiative.
• Mirrors in space could boost solar power production on Earth. Here's how.,Tereza Pultarova, Space.com. 

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:02

light pollution news june 2024. Crap lighting, boy. Do. We have a great show for you today a wonderful panel of guests, including lawyer yana yakushina from bug life, mr david smith and the dark sky officer for cumbria, england, mr jack ellerby. This month, how did animals fare during the solar eclipse? Are indicator lights making your nights extra bright and a marvelously devious scheme to power solar energy 24 hours a day? All this and much more coming up next.

Bill McGeeney: 0:53

Welcome to Light Pollution News, the monthly podcast where we talk about the month's news as it pertains to the relatively catch-all topic of light pollution, of light pollution. Light pollution news is, first and foremost, a discussion where we aim to not just keep you up to date on news but facilitate conversation around the topics affecting light pollution. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, and I'm quite thrilled to have a slate of guests with me today. You guys are in for a real treat. First up joining us is David Smith, the social change and advocacy officer at Bug Life. For you at home, who may not be familiar with Bug Life, it's essentially an insect conservation trust. We had some articles featuring Bug Life in the past. David works to help reduce pollutants of all kinds that may affect invertebrates, not the least of which includes light pollution. David, welcome to the show.

David Smith: 1:40

Thanks, bill, it's great to be here.

Bill McGeeney: 1:53

Next up and I was originally forwarded your name from past guest, bill Green of the Philly Movement. Thanks, bill, it's great to the space. Jana is a lawyer who has collaborated with the EU Commission, dark Sky International and the International Astronomical Union. Jana is currently working on a PhD over at the University of Ghent, where Jana is crafting a legal framework for recognizing light pollution as a critical environmental concern. Jana, very excited to have you on today. Welcome to the show.

Yana Yakushina: 2:22

Thank you for having me, Bill.

Bill McGeeney: 2:23

I believe I had Bill on. I think it was last summer, and at the time he was doing sidewalk astronomy over in Brussels. And now I see what you're trying to do and I see what he does and he's lighting engineer and working in that space. You guys both are in one of the brightest countries in Europe, right? What's the reception been to the concept of light pollution in the country that's so immersed in light?

Yana Yakushina: 2:50

I mean, first of all, I met Bill like three years ago I think. I mean most of the Belgians just don't know that light pollution is a problem, but during the last years we can see the switch. I mean the governmental switch. The European Commission and authorities started to think about it as an issue. But what Bill does and we organize many workshops around Belgium to raise awareness to public actually that it's an issue. But, yeah, it's growing. It's a very slow process.

Bill McGeeney: 3:22

Yeah, it's a very slow process. I guess it's one by one right, and have you seen positive feedback from people or has it been skeptical feedback?

Yana Yakushina: 3:32

I mean, if you talk to the general public, the feedback is generally positive, even if people have concerns about safety, we were able to explain that it's about the better lighting, not the complete cutoff of the lighting, so then the response is always positive. With authorities it's kind of the same issue, but you're still able to explain how to balance the situation. The biggest problem we had, I think, is when we're talking to industry.

Bill McGeeney: 3:59

What's the industry's concern?

Yana Yakushina: 4:01

Industry, like lighting industry or electrical companies who are responsible, for example in Belgium, specifically for installing public lighting. They always start they don't consider it as an issue at all, like they don't believe it's an issue. I think they should be the main target audience for workshops and explaining why it's actually we should change the lighting target audience for workshops and explaining why it's actually we should change the lighting. The main concern that the new leds are actually good because they're energy efficient, but we're always trying to explain that the energy efficiency is not the only issue of light pollution. So right.

Bill McGeeney: 4:35

Yeah, I guess it's trying to explain, to dow chemical, how certain pesticides are not great for the environment. But a little bit on that side, okay, finally we have a man with us tonight who's literally convinced people to actually turn off the lights. Walk outside and look up. Side note it's always in that order, right, right, jack. It seems that most people walk inside, close the shade, then turn the lights on. I want to welcome Jack Ellerby to Light Pollution News. Welcome, jack. Thank you, bill for having me. Yeah, before we begin today, while many of you were able to see it, mother Nature appropriately felt that being able to see both the full solar eclipse and the aurora event of the century was a bit too much for us here over in Pennsylvania. We were socked in with some of the stingiest, slowest moving rainstorms I've ever seen in my life. Did any of you guys have a chance to actually see that amazing event?

Yana Yakushina: 5:30

only on instagram, literally just by scrolling. It was raining here, so I, I did.

David Smith: 5:36

I had an amazing display. Considering I'm down in the far southwest of the uk, it was really unexpected, but I didn't expect to see it. That night I was actually out looking for hours and then all of a sudden took a look up at the sky and was like whoa, it's here and yeah, we had a great, great few hours of it yeah, david, what did?

Bill McGeeney: 5:54

what did it look like? Because I didn't see it. I didn't see. I only saw, like yana over here. All my whole instagram lit up with everyone I know, except for for people around me like right in the same. I guess geography setting yeah.

David Smith: 6:07

I mean, I've I've never had the chance to see it, see it before. The sky was just, yeah, it was just full of full of color, that's the only only way I can describe it and you could see it changing, moving. It was, I genuinely think, once in a lifetime certainly from from where I lived to get a chance to see it, everything aligned. You know, it was a new moon, it was a clear night. It was still just happened to be awake at that time to to take a look outside. Yeah, I was very, very lucky, I think. Well, I mean more people than ever. I think we're lucky to see it.

Bill McGeeney: 6:38

Perhaps, perhaps, apart from you guys, unfortunately well, could you see it without just naked eye when you walk outside? Was it bright, was it dim? Can you just explain something?

David Smith: 6:48

it was. It was bright. You know it felt like it typical, I think, a thing useful for this, this complaint it felt like there was sky glow. You know it felt like it felt, and a lot of people, I think, have mistaken it for this sky glow, you know, particularly in the past, but especially over the last week or so. So the sky was bright, there was a real color to it and you could see it clearly and vividly just with your eyes. And then, you know, taking some sort of longer exposure on the camera, everything just lit up with loads of different colors, but you could see it moving across. You know it wasn't just a static glow, there was definite movement in there.

Bill McGeeney: 7:25

Yeah, brilliant oh so cool. Yeah, I'm very jealous of everyone who's seen it, but congratulations, I'm very glad that you were able to see it. I know we had travis novitsky on earlier and he does. He kind of makes a side living, side hustle taking photos of these auroras and he wrote a book in conjunction with a astrophysicist, annette Lee and this is some Native Americans here in the States that wrote a book talking about the aurora and the Native American ties to it, like the Native American heritage to it, and it's a phenomenal book Spirits Dancing. If any of you guys are interested, you can definitely pick it up. I think it's in Minnesota Free press in Minnesota or something like that, but definitely highly recommend that. David, do you think that seeing the aura the way you saw it, in a way, so many people saw it because I saw literally everyone went outside it seems like, if they're able to and then looked up? Do you think there's any positive momentum in regards to understanding our relationship to night and the night sky that could be drawn from this?

David Smith: 8:30

yeah, I think so. You know, like you say, so many people saw it. You know it wasn't, this wasn't just something an event confined to. You know the astronomers amongst us, you know it was. It was, it was widely available to just the general public.

David Smith: 8:42

And I think, you know I certainly saw the kind of the nights that followed it where people were going to go out and try and get a glimpse of it.

David Smith: 8:47

You know, once it'd been and gone, people going out and venturing out at night, you know, go into some of the dark places. I don't know jack where you have an influx of people into the lake district or not, but I know certainly some of the some of the national parks down this way had had people going out. And I think that's one of the key things is, actually people realize that there's these amazing things taking place at night that they can go and see. So you know, I think there's some awareness. I still don't think there's that link between the things that impact the night and prevent these things from being seen on a, you know, on a more regular scale perhaps, but it got people outside and I, you know that's one of the best things we can hope for, I think to, to try and bring people along with the the journey that we're trying to take money, what what border were you?

David Smith: 9:31

at I have absolutely no idea, all right do you know what?

Bill McGeeney: 9:35

do you know how big the city, like a zone, is that you're in?

David Smith: 9:39

uh, so I'm, I'm quite, I'm quite, quite rural. I'm on the edge of a, of a national, a national landscape. It's not one of our dark sky parks, but it's pretty dark. Unfortunately they're building a nuclear power station over the hill which normally lights up the sky bright white, all night long, so it's probably not the darkest. But yeah, you know, it's a fairly decent sized town a few miles away. So it was, you know, considering that it's not the best of or the darkest of conditions, it's fairly dark okay, okay, well, you can come north of england where I am.

Jack Ellerby: 10:12

I confess I went to bed early because I was working the day after, but some of the images the photographers took were absolutely mind-blowing. It's the best aurora in england for 20 years and there was quite a bit of facebook chat following about the impact of light pollution. David's right, there isn't that connection really between experiencing that and looking at your own lighting and joining the campaign. But I think we're getting there slowly.

Bill McGeeney: 10:39

Yeah, because I think this is something that could only be seen if you're really in a rural area, right? This isn't something that I could see out my window in a major city, right?

Jack Ellerby: 10:49

People in the smaller towns saw it. It depends the level of light pollution affected it.

Bill McGeeney: 10:53

yeah, Well, there's something to be said about that. So very interesting. This makes for a nice transition so we can switch over to a very healthy set of ecological news here. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's amazing how this topic is so rooted in ecology.

Bill McGeeney: 11:10

Here in North America we witnessed a full solar eclipse that cut through some of the most populated areas of the continent. There were several zoos that sat directly in the path of the eclipse and they didn't hesitate to observe the residents. In Indianapolis, leading up to totality, gibbons, hooted, sea lions began calling, elephants paused their playful antics and birds began roosting to totality. In Fort Worth, tortoises rushed to begin their nightly barn ritual. The silverback gorilla, elmo, yawned more frequently, with yawning kind of being a warning of hostility and dominance and monkey lingo, so he's a little bit uneasy.

Bill McGeeney: 11:47

Nocturnal animals, including some owls, began waking. In Quebec, the Himalayan black bears snoozed right through it. The Japanese monkey, the makake, stopped all movements and entered a moment of serene calm, as did typically vocal red-crowned cranes. Dr Peter Murray, an associate professor over wildlife over at the University of Southern Queensland in wildlife management, posited an interesting possibility for why some animals alter their daytime behavior during a total eclipse. Murray believes that the animals simply responded to the unexpected, unexplained darkness as a bad omen, based on lifetime experiences with dark skies such as rainstorms. He further explains in an article from the Australian Broadcast Corporation that the animal behavior can be manipulated by changing photoperiods, otherwise known as changing the length of the day, hence describing how the eclipse can affect some animals that were previously referenced. Do you guys have any thoughts on that detail right there, because I think that's kind of like a little microcosm into how actual light pollution plays with some of these species.

David Smith: 12:55

There's no surprise whatsoever that animals are going to start changing their behavior where it is an extreme event, to their kind of natural surroundings. You know their normal rhythm and and this this really comes down to where some of the major issues are regarding light pollution and changing those natural cycles of of day and night and changing those levels of light. So you know, in this occasion it's, it's really it's no different from kind of like a extreme weather event or you know unseasonally be cold or hot periods of time of year, where animals are built on this, this cycle and this process that's triggered by these, these natural events and they're going to be impacted by this. It's very different to humans where we know these things are coming, we're kind of prepared for them and we can adapt to them really rapidly. That we, you know just biodiversity doesn't have that ability to effectively grin and bear it, so it's going to change these things.

David Smith: 13:50

So it's no surprise. I mean it's really cool that we're being able to to study that on and kind of see that that change happening, particularly with this eclipse. I think you know, as you say, it's kind of gone for a sort of an ideal place to observe those changes in behavior. But really this is happening on a on a global scale every single night, where we're altering that time of darkness and kind of extending daylight hours into the, into the night. So this is really just a you know a small snippet of what, what we're seeing and some of the problems that we're seeing and changes in behavior in particular yeah, unfortunately playing out over a much longer period of time right and david to your point.

Bill McGeeney: 14:31

We can go inside and create an artificial environment of our own right. I mean, you can't. Animals are just stuck out there and they can do what they can and kind of get away from certain things, but unless you're in a zoo. I guess in the zoo you might have a little shelter, but for the most part in the wild.

Bill McGeeney: 14:49

Well, it's said that insect activity increases by 31.4% at night, but don't take my word for it. Take the findings of Dr Mark Wong at the University of Western Australia, which is a link is over in the show page, which is a link is over in the show page. Interestingly, they found a nocturnal activity spiked around aquatic areas, as nighttime predators such as fish tended to sleep at night, versus terrestrial areas that contended with predatory bats. Also cited as a reason for nighttime activity was daytime temperature. And since we're talking temperatures, a couple of weeks ago we actually had an unseasonably warm spell here. It felt like July and April. At the time, we sat out back for a fire and noticed that there's some blinking in the trees. Within a couple of days, there's a full-blown firefly show in our backyard, probably one of the better ones I've seen in my life. We don't have any direct lights that hit this part of the yard, so it's usually always dark. I'm using this as a transition of one of my favorite dark sky topics and probably one of yours. So let's talk fireflies.

Bill McGeeney: 15:51

Not surprisingly, fireflies, or lightning bugs that are known, around these parts, are facing significant and serious threats from science of the total environment, researchers across four colleges and the united states department of Agriculture identified changing climate patterns related to global warming as a primary culprit, including the greater variation in extreme and unexpected climatic conditions such as drought or excessively wet conditions. Researchers in that study called out artificial light at night, though I have two additional articles that look specifically at how artificial light impacts fireflies. Two additional articles that look specifically at how artificial light impacts fireflies. First, from the Journal of Insect Behavior, we learned that artificial light at night disrupts both predatory and courtship-related communications. They looked at 114 male and 57 female fireflies, the Photinus and the Photuris firefly species, both common to the Americas.

Bill McGeeney: 16:43

Researchers constructed six tent structures with and without white LED lights, including three control tents. The white light temperature was chosen to mimic the human lighting that they would see in the environment. With regards to predation, not much changed versus the population of subjected to light and to the control no light population. One thing to note males flash less when the females weren't flashing. However, for courtship, male fireflies flash less under lit conditions, regardless of what flashing patterns the females did under lit conditions. In a separate article in the International Journal of Tropical Insect Science, researchers found that the intensity of artificial light at night affected the propagation of larvae and adults for three firefly species. This study hinted at a shifting composition of habitat, including increased abundance of larvae prey snails. David, this is your world, although I don't think you guys have fireflies over there, right now we do.

David Smith: 17:43

We do. Fireflies encompass a wide range of of species that use the bioluminescence to glow. We don't quite have the same kind of species that you're blessed with over there and in in the states and and certainly in some of the parts of the world. But we've worms, but they tend to be flightless. Well, the females are flightless and they tend to be the ones that glow. We've got them right across northern europe, a few different species as well, but not quite as good as shows as you guys get, but we do have them and yeah, it's.

David Smith: 18:13

The impact of, of light pollution is is really significant on on fireflies globally. You know there's there was a global study looking at the or global perspective looking at the threats to fly flies. You know habitat loss and changes, key chemical pesticide use and then light pollution is, is is the other thing, and we're we're still learning a lot about them. But you know, I think it's, it's safe to say that the lighter the night is, the less chance that these species are able to communicate, whether that be through you, through attracting their mates or even possibly prey that they can feed on. And then, obviously you see this idea, a lot of the larvae feed or the species feed during their larval stage, so they don't go out and eat as an adult and they need the snails, so getting attracted in towards these areas where there's quite a lot of artificial light and then when they become adults they're unable to perform their usual courtship mating rituals, which can then have that knock-on effect on the population.

Bill McGeeney: 19:14

So, yeah, there's kind of a few few things where light is really causing them problems yeah, I was really shocked to see the show that we saw about a month ago and you know it was like climate change. It's crazy. It was April and it felt like July and they just all came out. It was like a full-on show. The temperature got them moving and since it's a relatively natural area, you know they probably don't have the stressors that you get in a normal yard where you would have, you know, pesticides and you would also have you know endless non-stop lighting from all different areas staying in the insect realm just for a minute. A study out of parasitical research found that white led beta traps were actually less effective than other colored temperatures for lowering potentially malaria carrying anopheles mosquitoes I think the key thing to say with that is you know, it's all of the studies that are coming out on different species.

David Smith: 20:12

it's it's clear to see that color temperature or sorry color of the light.

David Smith: 20:17

It's not going to be a silver bullet for all species.

David Smith: 20:20

Different species seem to react to different colors in different ways. So some species being perhaps less impacted by the warmer colours and then other species being less impacted by the cooler colours, we're not going to solve the impacts of artificial lighting on particularly insects just by switching over to one colour. So I think that's probably one of the interesting things there the white LED traps are not as effective as some of the others for capturing these mosquitoes, whereas the white LED traps are much more effective at capturing some of the other species of insect species around the world. So I think that's probably the key thing to point to. Towards that and it also links back to what you're saying around climate change and, you know, particularly with some of the concerns around the disease-carrying mosquitoes moving further from the tropics, you know, and being able to survive kind of into some of the areas where they're not yet found, I think there's again there's that kind of double-edged sword that's going to be impacting the spread of those species into areas where they're not currently found.

Bill McGeeney: 21:30

Did you read the Royal Transactions B light pollution edition that came out back in November or October and one of the articles in there actually the first article defined light as an environmental pollutant and it made no gripes on it. It went straight to the, to the definition defining it. Because of the effect because I think what you just said there is that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to it is that all light in some way is changing and impacting the environment. Right?

David Smith: 22:01

absolutely there's. There's in my eyes, there's. There's no doubt about it. There's no such thing as particularly wildlife friendly lighting. You can have some lighting that's better than others, but any artificial light is going to change those natural cycles, those natural rhythms of day and night. So there's no such thing as as in my eyes, as wildlife friendly lighting. That's just yeah. Everything we know, we know is causing a change to biodiversity. Some may affect some species more than others, but no such thing as something that's going to be suitable for everything. The only thing is the natural rhythm of day and night.

Bill McGeeney: 22:36

Well, here's one set of creatures that most people don't think of as being affected by light pollution. Researchers in the journal Forest looked at two vascular plants a Japanese spindle tree and the hybrid t rose. It's found that artificial light at night did two things. First, continuous artificial light at night impaired the plant's ability to photosynthesize and respirate, and second, the level of intensity of the artificial light impaired to japanese spindle tree more than the hybrid t rose, and I'm assuming david'd probably don't have any dealings on plants here. You're looking at invertebrates the whole time, or do you guys actually see a kind of a symbiotic relationship going on there?

David Smith: 23:14

Yeah, we do. It's really important. A lot of insects time their movement through stages of their life to coincide with host plants, for example, so they'll emerge from the ground as their larvae or even the caterpillars of moth and things to go and feed on some of the species that they've co-evolved with. So if we're seeing a change in kind of how the plants are growing, so whether they're growing quicker or slower, then that can have that knock-on impact on then the invertebrate species that live off those, and that can be caused by lighting, but also climate change as well. So again, these two things are really significantly linked and the impact on one can have an even greater impact on the other.

Bill McGeeney: 23:57

How do you get down to the variable in that? How do you figure out what is which is causing what effect?

Yana Yakushina: 24:03

I don't think it's possible to distinct. It's kind of everything together, right, we can just try to reduce some of the pollutants or pressures, rather than, like, identify which specific pressure causing the most pain to the environment.

Bill McGeeney: 24:19

Because we see a lot of that on the crime side. Right, it's so hard to disentangle one variable and then identify what is the driver of that. And I'm curious. I mean, I understand for lighting, it's a little easier for insects because you can kind of set up some of these control studies, right, you can kind of set up some of these spaces. You can't really do that on the crime side, but I guess it's just very interesting. How are you able to make the confident argument that saying climate change plays a role here, but so do lights?

Jack Ellerby: 24:53

I think from what David said, he's absolutely right that for biodiversity, any artificial light at night is disrupting their normal patterns. So in that sense, because we have got a crisis of extinction, then there should be a precautionary principle, to accept the positive correlation that more light pollution is going to harm that biodiversity and work on that basis, rather than trying to disaggregate what proportion is due to chemical inputs as opposed to climate change, as opposed to artificial light at night. In Cumbria, where I work now, all our new lighting is generally down to 2,200 kelvins, which is a sort of good balance, because some people have used red lights to protect horseshoe bats but then that's disrupting some of the bird migratory routes. So we've gone for that warm color temperature, trying to get the UV spectrum and the narrow band as minimum as possible. But David's absolutely right, preferably we don't want the lights on when they're not serving a purpose, and that's what we should be aiming for as an organization, a campaign.

Yana Yakushina: 25:58

There was a recent article well, it's kind of not very developed research, but it exists on the coloration between light pollution and, like, global warming and air pollution specifically, and some studies basically indicate that there is a direct correlation between those two because increased artificial light at night stops some chemical cleaning processes in the atmosphere. I cannot explain it in more detail because it's not my field, but there is a collaboration between them. So basically we should maybe in like political work, awareness raising work, should all because people know what global warming is Like. We meet this consequences every day. Like you said, you had the temperature of July in April or May, so maybe we should put like yeah, guys, light pollution also increases global warming.

Bill McGeeney: 26:48

We had. We had one week of winter this year, one week, one week, where it was actually felt like winter and it snowed like three times that that week. So we got it, it came through. It felt like winter and it snowed like three times that that week. So we got it, it came through. It was a nice, good, solid week of winter. But one week everything else was and I guess I'm trying to do the conversion here but usually we're like around, around like three degrees in a winter, three degrees Celsius, usually, like you know, three to four. We're probably in a teens most of the time. But we had that one week where it was right around zero or a little below zero, which I like. I like to be like negative. You know two negative fives.

Jack Ellerby: 27:21

I want winter, I like all four seasons, but you know it's nice to have a real winter, but one week how I how ironic that the led product has reduced energy consumption, but because of that there's so much more going in. So I think I think it's estimated that 16 of all electricity globally is used on lighting, and that's on the increase. It's not right. We're not saving any energy from this product.

Bill McGeeney: 27:46

Yeah and if you look at a lot of the new buildings, new construction that's being set up and I don't know how it is over in the uk, but for sports arenas specifically, that's kind of a focal point to build these like massive, I guess, commercial party atmospheres where everything is lit up, kind of like vegas with led boards and everything around it, and that. That approach you know, you look, you talk about the reduced price of leds. Haven't done anything to cut energy efficient. If anything, we're probably using more energy now with the impact of led LEDs than we did prior. I have a few more ecology ones and then we'll move out of here.

Bill McGeeney: 28:23

So under the sea in the eco-hydrology and hydro-biology journal found that sound and light pollution affected zebra mussels. Light and sound contributed to an increase in free radical driven oxidative damage and a reduction in protein and lipid compounds. From scientific reports, the insect larvae calboras flavicons subjected themselves to a greater risk under direct light sources, say a street light. Under normal conditions the larvae hides deep underwater until nighttime, when it rises to the top to feed under artificial light. At night the larvae hung out in a middle depth, which isn't starved of oxygen like the deeper daytime dust, but rather offers greater risk of predation. And then another one from the Proceedings of Royal Society B found that the artificial light combined with warmer ocean temperatures may increase sea urchin grazing pressures on rocky reefs.

Bill McGeeney: 29:19

Again, I'll finish up with these two environmental ones as well. May I just note a house sparrow from environmental pollution. Artificial light at night only appeared to affect house sparrows when involved in breeding. At that time sparrows began their day earlier. Both exposed and non-exposed house sparrows ended up their days at same time. Also, artificial light did not appear to have much of behavioral change outside of breeding activity. And one last ecology one. Researchers at the university of new mexico nanyang technology university and the national university of singapore identified a blue light at night, which includes include white LEDs, as being a prime threat to migratory birds. All those I think the latter ones are kind of a rehash of studies we've already seen. So that's pretty, dave. Do you have anything additional to add for the ecology stuff before we leave this segment? I think that was a pretty thorough approach on that.

David Smith: 30:14

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just now. We're seeing this body of evidence just grow and grow and grow, and particularly on individual species. There's nowhere that kind of is not being impacted by.

Jack Ellerby: 30:26

It really does.

David Smith: 30:27

You know, particularly, yeah, and this evidence base now is so huge and significant it outweighs a lot of the other pollutants which are treated with much more disdain by particularly by policymakers. You know it's. At what point do do they go? Actually, we can see clearly now the artificial light's having a problem. It's relatively straightforward to solve compared to some of the other issues that I have to work with in, you know, and try and protect invertebrates from light pollution is easy to fix. Like, why aren't we doing it and buying ourselves perhaps more time to to to kind of tackle some of those bigger, perhaps more complex pressures that that we're working with? And you know, to me it's just, it's an obvious thing. Well, to all of us here it's an obvious thing to tackle and work on. But you know there's nothing that's pointing in the other direction, which is saying artificial light is not causing a problem. So really, enough's enough, let's get it sorted and give nature a chance to bounce back.

Bill McGeeney: 31:28

Amen. All right, I'm subscribing, david, all right. So here's a good little spot for a breather, as we just had that excellent ecology roundup and you guys somehow bore with me as I struggled to make it through that one. I appreciate it and I'll thank you at home for really joining us today. I want to thank my incredible panel. Right now I got david smith of bug life, soon to be dr yana yukashina and the dark sky officer of cumbria, mr jack ellerby.

Bill McGeeney: 31:54

As you're probably aware, this show is completely 100% listener supported. You can be one of those listeners that helps us offset our costs of putting the show together. It's not magic, friends. It does cost a bit to run the show and, in addition to some production related expenses ie our man Caden who's listening right now we can put together an extensive Instagram TikTok program that actually helps listeners encapsulate what you hear in the show. Maybe you can use it for sharing with friends or help just spread the word about dark skies. We have a detailed page on LinkedIn for which you can find most of the articles you hear in this story or in this show and be able to share or dive deeper into it, and recently I put together a cumulative list of all the ecology articles that we discuss on this show You'll find over our website, lightpollutionnewscom slash research, slash ecology. Oh, and we even have a new texting line included in this very episode. Just look at the description. On whatever podcast player you have, it enables you to directly contact us without going through the pesky effort of writing an email or trying to reach out to us on social media. If you have any questions you'd like for us to read on show, or if you just want to reach out and say hi, it's as simple as a free text to us. You just click on that link right there at the very top of the show notes for this show on whatever pod player you're listening to.

Bill McGeeney: 33:12

The bottom line what I'm getting to is that if you feel that what we do is important, if you believe in the show and you want to see it thrive in the future, we really could use your hands. Supporters start at $3 a month and literally for the price of coffee. In most US cities, including my old college buddies, tiny town of Berkeley Springs, west Virginia, it's $3 is the price of coffee. So $3 a month, that's all. That's all I'm asking If you think the show is worth it, at the very least the price of coffee.

Bill McGeeney: 33:40

We'd be greatly appreciative. It's an excellent way to say thank you and to help us keep moving things forward. I wouldn't say we're completely solving it, but we're getting there, and production expenses do add up If you're already a supporter, thank you. Thank you so much. We look to continue to push ahead with your support in doing things such as inviting you to live recordings of Light Pollution News, and if none of this is anything that you're either willing or able to do, we really could use some preferably five-star reviews and whatever podcast player you're using.

Bill McGeeney: 34:11

These ratings and reviews act as guides for prospective listeners and without them, to show struggles to hit a wider audience. So thank you once again. I truly appreciate it, and I know Caitlin, who cuts up our shows in a bite-sized pieces for social media, truly appreciates it, and I know our man, caden, who does all of the editing and production work, also is very grateful as well. So, David, before we move on to some of the stuff that I think, yana, you might have a little more impact on. The articles that I saw enter my feed a few months ago looked like bug. Life is making waves in the UK and there were a number of articles whereby bug life had impacted public policy of both small and modest sized communities in the UK. How on earth do you get people excited about bugs?

David Smith: 34:58

And it's a challenge, you know we're up against years of fear and discrimination against bugs, like you know it's. So you know we've got a lot of work to do, but invertebrates are just amazing. There's more species of invertebrates than any other group of animals on the planet, but the variety is mind-blowing and we get to I get to represent those things, you know. Then that's from the smallest roffitors, which are microscopic zooplanktons, right up to the colossal squid and everything in between. You know we're dealing with that huge variety. To get people engaged and infused, it's really a lot to do with education, talking about why, why the invertebrates are so vital to everything that that we benefit from on the planet. You know people are really familiar with pollination and pollinating our crops, helping provide the food we eat, but also insects help keep our soils fertile, they help clean up all of our waterways, you know, and really they form the bottom of the ecological pyramid. So without them supporting and without really good populations and a variety and diversity of insect and vertebrate life, everything above that is going to fall apart. So we start taking away food from some of the more well-known megafauna that we you know that the people seem to love and care. So with without without the small things, we're not going to have the the exciting things that people care more so about you know. So that's a really valid reason to to do that to help support them.

David Smith: 36:29

And the thing that I really like about working in in this field and working with the invertebrates is that the interventions that you make have almost an immediate kind of effect.

David Smith: 36:39

So even if you just plant a few small wildflowers in a pot on a window sill or on a balcony, or if you've got a big garden, almost straight away you'll see insects coming to find those you know, so that that changes almost almost instant and that's really good to have that positive impact in in a world where you know the environment is going downhill rapidly.

David Smith: 37:01

So trying to look for those small little winters is vital. But obviously to converse to that is that they also show the greatest impact to the smallest pollutants or or damaging change that we make as people as well. So you know that's why, particularly when we look at light pollution, the insects seem to be more detrimentally impacted than some of the other species on the planet. Or it may just be that we're studying more individual species and able to show small changes is having a having a worse impact. So I think you know they're a great. They're a great bunch of species to be working with and you know we're doing our best to get there and again just to make sure that people treat them with a little bit more respect than they perhaps have done in the past.

Bill McGeeney: 37:43

I'm very impressed that the work you guys have done you know to to put a topic like insects, which evokes fear and misery in so many people. I, I think you, I feel like you're an insect, either an insect person or you're not. I love it. I think they're so cool and I mean I I know this sounds weird, like the fact of what wasps do and how they live and how they kind of are parasitic and they, they're able, they they control, like it blows my mind that there's organisms out there to do things that insects do, and I hope I never see them larger than an insect. But you know it, it's, it's very cool. It's very cool to see because, david, aren't they kind of like evolutionary holdovers, like if a land that was yeah, in certain places you know some of them have been.

David Smith: 38:31

They've been there and they've been active since you know almost the dawn of time. You know some of the dung beetle species that you know they evolved way before the dinosaurs were about and then they were there clearing up after the dinosaurs and they're still going strong today. So, yeah, I think they're amazing. They'll be here long after we're gone, but the downfall of them at the moment may be a contribution to our downfall. We need to make sure that we're keeping their bodies stable so that we can keep our population stable.

Bill McGeeney: 39:07

Yeah, no doubt I feel like Canadian geese and squirrels will be there too.

David Smith: 39:12

Yeah, probably.

Bill McGeeney: 39:14

We'll see. Yeah, good stuff, man. I've never seen those go through and you had, you know, even got stuff, I think, in front of parliament now, which is, you know, that's amazing, great work. Gotta gotta love it If you can, if you can get people excited about something with six or more legs, I'm behind it.

David Smith: 39:32

Thank you.

Bill McGeeney: 39:33

So here's the interesting story that I wonder if many of you can relate to. The other day I purchased a new headlamp. I have a habit of losing small things. My wife will tell you that anything small, she has to kind of make sure it stays in a certain area or I'll lose it. So, like a dummy, I left my headlamp at a cabin we stayed at and I ended up purchasing a new one, a really nice black diamond headlamp complete with a adjustable brightness for both the white and red colors. But on the side of the headlamp there are these three tiny and, of course, very bright blue LED lights. They literally come on anytime you touch any setting on this headlamp and they're so bright they actually disturb your night vision if you're out in a dark spot and you want to have your night vision. So it forced me to actually pick up a roll of electrical tape and cover it up. Do you guys have any of these things around your house, these indicator lights?

Bill McGeeney: 40:27

I feel like we have the proliferation of pointless blinking lights on things that don't need blinking lights. Well, cnn had a story asking if bright indicator lights were ruining your sleep, and a fellow interviewed in this story actually did the exact same thing I did where you're standing on a ladder, got some electrical tape and covered up pointless indicator lights that were coming from, I guess, maybe a, I don't know. Maybe it was coming from a smoke detector or something. We're not talking about the red blinking light. So if you're not aware, you might want to check this out.

Bill McGeeney: 41:00

And thankfully most routers and modems actually, because they blink, they have a lot of indicator lights on them, but did you know you could actually turn those off. So if you have that in your bedroom or whatnot and you don't want to have the lights on, you can actually go in. And if you go the the address that they give you when you set up there's like a little web address numbers and go in there and have settings and you can go and turn some of those off. Do you guys have any indicator lights in your life that are causing any problems?

Yana Yakushina: 41:27

yeah, I don't have an indicator lights. I think the most disturbing like I have is iphone. Like literally every time you touch it it blinds. Even though it has the minor settings and I have the night regime it has. Now I also have the red light set, it's still blinding me every time. This is the brightest light I have in my house.

David Smith: 41:48

I think that's just a great example where we actually know that light pollution is a problem for us as people, and the industry also knows it's a problem. Right, If they're creating a way that we can turn the lights off, there's a reason, there's a demand for that, there's a reason that we're going. Actually, we don't want these indicator lights on all the time and, you know, even when you look to eye masks and blackout blinds, there is an understanding that light pollution is a problem. It's just that people aren't connecting the dots or the little red indicators all together. But it's, yeah, it's definitely. It's something that drives me mad, particularly when I go to hotel rooms and it's like you've got a pitch black room and you've got one bright red light that just lights everything up.

Bill McGeeney: 42:35

And once you know it's there, you just can't ignore it. Or you have a white blinking light somewhere and hotel rooms are really the worst with that and they're getting worse. Well, you guys heard back in the fall, right when they were trying to put the sphere over in strafford, that james dolan was going to buy people blackout curtains. Just you know, out of the kindness of his heart to put this giant glowing orb in the city. So what a guy. On the research front, we have an article from the Journal of Hypertension Research that involves studying male rats. It found that artificial light at night affected rat blood pressure patterns. Typically blood pressure rises at night, but when exposed to Alan the pattern became unhinged, pointing out potential impacts of cardiovascular control of blood pressure. And an interesting one out of the journal Brain Disorders found that, yes, indeed, life pollution and part of stress is including anxiety and depression on afflicted rats. To offset this, researchers provided effective rats with some sort of curcumin treatment and those rats taking curcumin reduced associated stresses Free. At home may not be aware curcumin is one of the main ingredients in the Asian spice turmeric. So a little bit of health news right there.

Bill McGeeney: 43:49

We have some interesting news out of Texas and I know none of you guys are going to be as close to this story as me or when we had Stephen Hummel back on it, but US Customs and Border Patrol Agency actually has solicited the community comments for a proposed 25.15 mile extension of the planned 44.7 mile non-continuous border wall complex, which features intense stadium style lighting. The proposed stretch, including the currently built piece, sits northwest of Big Bend National Park. Now we just got done visiting Big Bend. We went down to Fruity Eclipse. I didn't know what to expect down at Big Bend, which sits in a desert and it has its own little tiny mountain range that's as old as the Appalachians. Really blew my mind. One of the coolest and most unique places I've ever been to.

Bill McGeeney: 44:40

Big bend is part of the greater big bend international dark sky reserve, which is a joint reserve coordinated by both the mexican and us communities in that area, and former guest stephen hummel believes that if the lighting goes in effect, it will put an end to the reserve. Do you guys have any comparable situations like this? How does the UK work with it? I mean, here we're talking about lighting as a security concern, right? I don't understand why we can't use, why it has to be always on lighting, why you can't dial it in and turn on lights, why it can't be motion detected lighting. But are we the only is the US, the only country, country, the only democracy? I should say that that needs to have massive security lights to wall a border no, it's, it's, yeah, it's.

Jack Ellerby: 45:27

It's interesting.

Jack Ellerby: 45:28

I think the uk and ireland have got the highest density of dark sky reserves, parks, communities.

Jack Ellerby: 45:35

Part of the problem is that the boundaries are drawn, defined, around existing intrinsic dark landscapes, so a lot of the light pollution affecting those geographies are from the urban areas and towns and around and about. So in Cumbria we've actually produced with all the local authorities a guide which covers the middle of towns as much as the deeper rural areas, because we need to tackle it at a macro scale. That covers Cumbria, the Yorkshire Dales, which is a national park, and another special designated landscape. But even within those areas, until we get some form of consent process to ditch the poor lighting and only allow good lighting or no lighting in many cases, as david hinted, we're on the back foot because even in the dark sky reserve, the yorkshire dales, which is part in cumbria and part in yorkshire, there's crap lights being installed by electricians and homeowners basically every day of the week. So we we really can't go on as where we are. So that's got. Reserves are wonderful for raising awareness, but at the moment they're not nailing the solution.

Bill McGeeney: 46:42

We need more than that yeah, and we'll have an article coming up on that in just a little bit, which I I agree it's. It's well, in this case, this is a belief by an agency of a government that believes that the only way to have security is by, first off, building this ludicrous wall I'll put my political flag out there and then, second, to have it lit up, like it's, you know, an nfl stadium, year in or day in and day out, and I mean, I don't know, I don't know what the deterrence is the latest research looked at where there was dimming of streetlights and part switch-offs in Oxfordshire and that showed that crime actually fell overall by 44% 45%, particularly vehicular crime and the thought is that if you provide a bit of illumination, the criminal can A see any valuables within the vehicle and B they need a little bit of light in order to break into the vehicle.

Jack Ellerby: 47:40

So I think there's so much lighting in our environment now that we have to start thinking a bit more counterintuitively and actually darkness can actually provide more safety in many ways, as long as people can feel confident in a darkness. I actually love being in a dark environment because I can spot any threats of lighting coming and my other senses kick in, the sound kicks in and I can detect suspicious behavior more easily in a dark environment. Maybe sounds a bit weird, but I've brought to be in a rural area rather than the town I.

Bill McGeeney: 48:13

I understand exactly where you're going on. That, jack I, I wonder, is part of the reason why people are afraid of being in dark environments. Is it because they're not used to using other senses?

Jack Ellerby: 48:24

I think there's an element to that. But we are as a species, we are quite ocular centric, so I think our visual sense is about 70 of the domination. But certainly when you talk to nick dunn, the professor of lancaster uni, he's looked at the cultural evolution of why we have fear at night and that's where you know the talks that David does and awareness and we all do, it's just making people reprogram the minds that darkness isn't a threat. It's actually really healthy and really beneficial for us in every sense.

Yana Yakushina: 48:55

I was just thinking that we've been brainwashed Like I always compare lighting industry to tobacco industry, because back in the day when they started to produce cigarettes, doctors were prescribing cigarettes to heal coughing issues, so it was kind of a medicine, and all this research was fully funded and supported by the tobacco industry. All this research was fully funded and supported by the tobacco industry and, according to my research and what I can see, similar was going for lighting. There was a lot of research which supported our thinking that light actually decreases the crime. I mean, it probably does decrease the crime, but it's not the only thing we should be focused on when we create a giant amount of light in every street or road, because it's a lot of factors which are involved in it.

Bill McGeeney: 49:44

Yeah, Jana. How do you feel if you're in a city? How do you feel when you're in a dark environment?

Yana Yakushina: 49:51

I mean, I don't think it's well. First of all, I'm not advocating for a complete switch off.

Bill McGeeney: 49:56

What I'm asking is I'm not asking that on a, should we turn lights on off? I had Jennifer Huygen on a while back who was advocating for having always on lights in a park and her concern was it was a safety concern, but it wasn't really a concern that it wasn't. I want to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound condescending, because I didn't want to, I don't want to be insulting there because this is not what I want to do but it wasn't a concern that was, I guess, fully to me. It's fully rational. It was much more of an emotional concern and this is something that I think is probably more based in women than men.

Bill McGeeney: 50:37

I'm not saying that men can't have that concern I'm sure plenty do but if it was something that she couldn't really put her thumb on as a like, there's no, you can't use it as a numbers game saying, you know this, x happens here, y happens there. So I'm curious, you know, yana, you being the only woman on our panel today, what are your thoughts on? Like, how do you feel in dark environments?

Yana Yakushina: 51:03

Yeah, I mean I would agree with the statements to keep the lights on, but it's about the dimmer lights and the warmer lights and actually I'm like a true researcher.

Yana Yakushina: 51:15

Today there was a research, actually societal research survey, about the feeling of safety in women and young girls, and the research found out that they feel safer when the lights are. Lights are on, obviously, but the lights are like dimmer, less bright, because when you have very bright lights, especially in the park, you have this contrast which you mentioned earlier when you're losing your night vision so you see only the illuminated path which you can follow, but you basically cannot see what's going on in the darkness, for example, like in the forest, like if you talk about the bigger country, like you can literally have a pretty, like pretty big forest around you, let's put it that way. So you get, I think you're feeling of safety decreasing with it because of this contrast. So I believe if you redeem the light, you can increase the visibility and people will actually feel safer, including, including, like especially, women and girls, because I also believe as a representative of female community here, I believe in women. The feeling of safety is more concerned when we talk about the lighting.

Bill McGeeney: 52:20

I apologize for singling you out. I didn't mean it. You are the sole representative of all women around the world.

Jack Ellerby: 52:26

I think it's important. In Cumbria we've had some towns where there's been antisocial behaviour towards females through parks at night. Instead we've installed those warm colours 2200, and they're dimmed at 9 o'clock and actually 99% of the public don't know they're dimmed. And I think the key message is you don't need a great deal of lux, you don't need a huge amount of illumination to orientate yourself, see any risk and feel safe, and I think we've been led down that over-intense light. I think you referred to this. Arup did some work with females in Australia and it showed that these 4,000, 5,000 Kelvin lights, as you say, were so damaging the peripheral vision and creating shadows behind trees and bollards that it was actually thwarting the feeling of safety yeah, also when you're a little bit blind, like me, at night, especially when I see a shadow, I can imagine something else, and it can be just a bench.

Yana Yakushina: 53:24

So you know, when you have a very like high illumination, you can also like your brain create something like a dog. Or you know, when you have a very high illumination, you can also like your brain create something like a dog. Or you know, you can glutinate a little bit. So this is also a big case.

Jack Ellerby: 53:36

So blind as a bat is an incorrect phrase, then, isn't it?

Yana Yakushina: 53:39

Yeah.

Bill McGeeney: 53:42

Well, an interesting story out of Montreal, the fourth most populated borough of Montreal, and I'll try and get through this. I've really, really practiced this one and I'm going to slaughter it. Just giving any Quebecois out there a warning in advance. Mercier Oshelaga Mazonov, we'll just abbreviate it to MHM. They decided to circulate guidance for outdoor lighting. It was based on consultations with the Mount Megantic International Dark Sky Reserve and Space for Life. The borough will be dipping its toes into promoting responsible lighting practices.

Bill McGeeney: 54:16

Per the Montreal press release, light pollution is often known for its effects on the night sky, but the misuse of artificial light also leads to a multitude of negative effects on humans and the environment. Leads to a multitude of negative effects on humans and the environment. Although artificial light is often necessary for safety to support various human activities at night, it is important that it is used correctly. Exactly what you're saying right there, Ariana. The guide promotes utilizing responsibly aimed lighting fixtures, utilizing an appropriate amount of light, utilizing warm color lighting of 3000 Kelvin or less, with direct suggestion of 1800 to 22 Kelvin, and request that businesses tone down the lighting when not in direct use, offering up suggestions including highly sensitive infrared surveillance as an alternative to using light.

Bill McGeeney: 55:05

The borough is distributing 24,000 copies of the 12 page guide and there's a link to the French language guide that can be found over on this show's page. The borough is distributing 24,000 copies of the 12-page guide and there's a link to the French language guide that can be found over on this show's page at lightpollutionnewscom. I did not see an English copy anywhere, but I'm sure that one actually does exist. So there's a forward movement by one of the most populated cities in North America, which is pretty interesting. Is that something similar to how you guys do it, Jack? Do you guys do something similar in the Lake region?

Jack Ellerby: 55:38

Yeah, alongside working to influence lighting policies and doing demonstration projects, we work across all organizations charity organizations, local authorities, community groups and businesses increasingly because the Lake District is quite a heavily populated area for visitors every year. So we run dark sky events and dark sky festivals. As you said in the intro Bill. We started doing community lighting switch-offs and they've become very popular because it's interesting. The dark sky movement wanted light cast below the 75 degrees, which is fine, but when you've got light on a 5-meter or a 10-meter column it's not until they're switched off that then your mind is blown away from seeing about 50 stars when the lights are on to seeing about 3,000 in the Milky Way. And yeah, we produce guides, particularly for accommodation businesses, so that their guests can come and stay, take the guides out, know where to look for the Araian constellation.

Bill McGeeney: 56:36

Do you produce guides for the actual residents and businesses in that area?

Jack Ellerby: 56:40

Yeah, only for the switch off areas? Yeah, but a lot of materials are online as well. We've got a body in England called the Campaign to Protect Rural England and I think for 12 years now they've run an annual star count. So in the small moon weather window in the beginning of February they asked residents to go out after seven o'clock, switch the home lights off, let their eyes adjust and then find the Orion constellation and count how many stars they can see within that and that's you know. It's engaged about 4,000 people across the country. It's a nice way of getting people outside, a bit like we were saying earlier about experiencing the aurora Right, it's connecting people with that wider universe.

Bill McGeeney: 57:22

Yeah Well, we have good news from Chile. A regulation finalized in 2023 looks to reduce light pollution on a national scale. The Ministry of Environment started work on revisions to the current light pollution law in 2019. Currently, as a past guest, betty Maya Foote, frank Tarina and Issa Muhammad have referenced, there's still noticeable amounts of light pollution in the Atacama Desert area from miles away from where they were looking in parts of the observatory areas. The new regulation enacted stronger language to protect biodiversity and human health, aiming to reduce color temperature emitting to a maximum of 7% blue light, and promotes responsible fixtures. If we compare light pollution to water pollution, here in the US, it took major disasters and legislation both at the state and federal levels to create countless government agencies to curb water pollution, and at that, while we have a handle on point source pollutants, we are still nearly helpless at curbing non-point source pollutants. Jana, we make rules and regulations or, in Montreal's case, suggestions, but how do we actually obtain buy-in? How do we overcome this persistent tragedy of the commons?

Yana Yakushina: 58:35

I think the best start is awareness releasing. Again, we're coming back to the basics. Not a lot of people are aware that light pollution is a problem, because light is something we used to see every day since we were born, like in the last, let's say, 50 years at least. Well, we love life more right.

Bill McGeeney: 58:50

Like you, love light during the daytime. Right here, what I'm doing right. I need to have. I need to be able to read, I need.

Yana Yakushina: 58:56

We love light and this isn't the main problem with light, because light is something desirable. When we talk about other forms of pollution, like you mentioned water pollution or air pollution or whatsoever it's something what would you like? And also, it was very well communicated to. The marketing campaign about other pollutants are way bigger than we're talking about light pollution, unfortunately. Like thank you for a podcast, like it's an important source to direct people to listen to this right. So, yeah, this is this is the biggest problem and the biggest start is changing the perception. And then, like in your previous discussion, you mentioned presence or existence of guidelines or some kind of documents which we can hang to politicians or, I don't know, communities, and I think it's also an important step to have, like the short documents which will outline the problem itself, explaining why light pollution is an issue, and then suggesting the basic beginning.

Yana Yakushina: 59:53

I don't know measures which can be adopted, like again, david mentioned it already like light pollution is pretty easy to be solved, if we're not talking about indicating I don't know some technical requirements, rather like let's deem a little bit, or like like change the lighting bulbs, so, and if we can have these standards which we can well, guidelines, more like recommendations which we can, or explanation documents which we can hang to political communities. It's also can raise certain awareness and potential actions towards the more serious regulations of law, like I see it as this path kind of, and also communication with the general public and industry through the workshops and so on. But there's a lot of work to do, but I'm happy to see that more and more regulations or standards are being adopted across the globe. Chile is a good example, but they have one of the biggest observatories in the world which also plays a very big role to have this legislation actually.

Bill McGeeney: 1:00:51

Well, they have this legislation, but it was agency-level built right, so it comes down to the enforcement side, and I think that's the question now is how do you enforce it? So I don't know the history in Europe of how some of these other pollutants came to be kind of managed right, but I suspect it took a while it probably took a number of decades to get a handle on some of these other pollutants. Is that what we're kind of looking at here? Is this the preliminary step, kind of set the foundation and then over time, however long that is, you can actually form, you have a legal precedent and you can start forming some structures around that. Is that what we're looking at here?

Yana Yakushina: 1:01:31

It's one point like if we're talking about adoption of new legislation, yes, but on the other hand, we have existing environmental law or policy which can be already used towards any pollutants without adopting any new legislation, and most of the governments actually don't want to deal with adopting new law, especially if we're talking about European Union, which is a very difficult process to adopt any legislation or policy there. So we may point to specific norms or policy points which are already there and say, guys, we will never achieve this like I don't know ambitious targets of protection of 70% of biodiversity by 2030, if we will not address also light pollution. And then here you have this short document which will explain why and hopefully they will act. But it's kind of different steps. At the same time, rather than proposing a new legislation, but also telling them that there's something what is already there and can be used, Certainly in Europe and UK uk.

Jack Ellerby: 1:02:30

Obviously the climate crisis is driving a lot of policy, but when I give my talks grassroot level, it's the wildlife impact which turns people's attitudes and behavior. So I think we're probably playing catch up. So there's only one small piece of law which where you can control nuisance under light pollution, and that is where it's prejudicial to human health and it only affects a certain subset of lights. What we need to do is expand that harm both to the night sky but also to wildlife. You know Bug Life David, who works for Butterfly Conservation. All of these bodies are saying light pollution is a significant issue and there's going to be a catch-up period. And david's done some wonderful lobby which you can borrow us about in europe and globally. And you know you were briefing in westminster last week, weren't you, david?

Bill McGeeney: 1:03:19

so I think things are moving, but it's going to take time yeah, because I mean, with water and air we can physically, tangibly identify with those pollutants. But with light pollution we don't see a decline in insects, right. We don't see the effect it's having because most of us are diurnal, we're up during the day and go to bed and say heck with it at night, right?

Yana Yakushina: 1:03:46

I really think we can observe, though, if you see the tree tree which is just underneath the lighting pole, it will always start bloom earlier. If you talk about insects, if you have, like a light in your garden, it will be full of insects. I mean, we just don't think it's a problem and this is the main issue, like we think it's okay that light attracts so many bags around it. We don't think about it. I mean, it's a general population. Obviously there will be exceptions, like David's or us, who are aware about the issue.

Bill McGeeney: 1:04:19

Well, that's the first step, right. We didn't think that certain pesticides were a problem either, right.

David Smith: 1:04:25

Most pollutants start off as being something beneficial to humanity. You know, it's very hard to compare. I think it's actually hard to compare light pollution to air pollution, water pollution, and actually I see more of the journey that plastic pollution is taking. And you know, we as a society, for 50 plus years, we're just like cool, great single-use plastics. This stuff is brilliant, it makes our lives so much easier, it's convenient. And then, you know, organizations were working on single-use plastics for years. In the same way, the organization been working on light pollution for years.

David Smith: 1:04:59

But it took some significant media moments, led, you know, particularly in the uk, led by sir david attenborough and his blue planet program, which I think kind of had a real global impact. But people go well, this is a problem, this is something you know, we should do something about this. All of a sudden, then it gets press, it gets coverage, it gets the politicians going yeah, we need to do something about this. And it's that surge of movement to address pollutant that, you know, until that moment most people just completely dismissed, and I think people still dismiss a lot of pollutants. But that's that's. You know, that's what we need. We need that will not just from the politicians but from the wider population to kind of keep on the politicians backs, to actually kind of invoke some of these pieces of legislation and just make sure that they are being suitably used to all of the pollutants. And I think jana and I are well aligned on this that really the key step that we want is for light to be recognized formally as a, or legally as a environmental pollutant, because right now we look at all of the legislation, all of the policy, it's it's an emerging pollutant. It's something that we need more research on.

David Smith: 1:06:08

We don't, like, you know, this podcast go. You know however many episodes podcast, every single time it goes out. There's more research, there's more research. We've got so much research on this and, like you know, we we go back to how do we? How do we separate light out? And and politicians will often come to me and can say well, how, just how bad is light pollution? Well, it's irrelevant because it's a problem, so we can do something about it. So why shouldn't we do something about that's? You know, that's what it comes down to. It comes down to some will to actually just make those changes, and right now people are lazy, they don't want to create changes or start to to address these things, and that's, that's the real shame, I think.

Bill McGeeney: 1:06:47

David, it's big enough that you can have a two hour podcast on light pollution. Well, here in the States we do have some legislation that's working its way through. We've mentioned previously in the Massachusetts legislation. Last month we talked about the Illinois Bill 3501 introduced by state Senator Laura Ellman, and this one we spoke about for a little bit and it seems to have passed through the Senate in route to the Illinois house representatives for additional consideration. So that bill is moving through the Illinois legislature. And if you happen to live in Pennsylvania, in this state, right here where I live, we have house Bill 1803 that's been introduced and it is out of committee. And if you're looking for more information, I actually put together a sample letter you can use to reach out to your state representative. There's a link in there that summarizes. That points out to the actual bill. There's a description of the bill summary there's a whole bunch of good stuff over there. Summary there's a whole bunch of good stuff over there. You can just go right over to our website, lightpollutionnewscom, slash HB1801, dash, pennsylvania, and reach out to your legislator. If you're in the state, you can start building those connections and building that communication with your representative. So we do have some pieces of legislation over here on this side.

Bill McGeeney: 1:08:07

I don't know how well everything is going in Europe. I suspect it is very fragmented, as will be you guys in the UK. I remember there was an article that came up where it seemed like a little frivolous article but someone was suing based on that environmental code that you guys had saying that this light was impeding on their whatever. You guys had saying that you know this light was impeding on their whatever. I have to look up that code, but I've never seen that come through. It was kind of a frivolous lawsuit but it was an interesting approach that they invoked what it was supposed to be used for, a light pollution piece as an environmental catch-all. Since we're talking politics, how about this as a fundraising effort by Blaine County, idaho? So there's a Blaine County Idaho Democrats which want to give you a chance to bid on an intimate farm to greenhouse meal with wine, outdoor fire pits, a snow bar and telescopes for night sky viewing with your local astronomers and local experts, and that's an estimated value of $300. That sounds like an actual. You actually get something for that. You know you get something from your government or your representative. Finally, that looks like a pretty fun time out there.

Bill McGeeney: 1:09:23

Okay, so we have another regulatory story here, and this is perhaps a good explanation of why car headlights here in the us have become glare bombs. The story may ring true for anyone who had to replace a windshield with a new vehicle. There's such a thing called as adaptive lighting, which works through sensors and or cameras which identify where optical spot to put a light beam is. We're not talking about auto high beams which turn on and off depending on if it senses another car coming. Now this technology may not be so rare to my guests today. Maybe it is. I don't know how it works in Europe, but it has been existent and in operation, supposedly in Europe for over a decade.

Bill McGeeney: 1:10:04

Here in the good old US of A NHTSA, which is National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, decided that they want to be much more timid about updating its rule to force adaptive lighting standards. So one reason is that shops and manufacturers disagree over the nuances of the rule, but in reality it appears to derive from the high costs involved in testing lighting, which drew pushback from groups involved in the chain of those costs, including dealerships and auto shops. For the short term, at least right now, it's going to be a case of how we learned to stop wearing and love the glare bomb. However, I did find an interesting quote in this one, and it comes from Greg Bannon of AAA, the car and service insurer. The reason the glare seems worse in eyes is that we're much more comfortable with warmer looking lights, not the blue, white ones that we have now, and I noticed this firsthand the other night.

Bill McGeeney: 1:10:58

Parts of the road that I routinely drive had lighting change from 4,000 Kelvin temperature down to somewhere below 3,000. And I got to say it's much less stressful to drive under warmer lights. I didn't even notice I was driving under those lights until I came back to the 4000. And then it hit me and it hits your eye Like you feel. I guess the best way to put it is like you feel like something is assaulting your eye but you don't like there's something visually stressful that you you don't notice until you look and you see it, and then it dawns on you. That's what it is. How is it in Europe? Do you guys have these adaptive lighting standards and does it work better?

Yana Yakushina: 1:11:38

You're talking about the road lighting in general, right?

Bill McGeeney: 1:11:40

Well, in this case it's going to be car headlights. Do you guys have a lot of bright here in the US? When you're driving down the road, it kind of looks like you've got glare bombs blinding you on a way. Is that the same over in Europe?

Yana Yakushina: 1:11:53

I experienced the same.

Bill McGeeney: 1:11:55

So adaptive headlights might not be like the catch, the magical solution to to this problem. Now I see David's shaking his head.

Jack Ellerby: 1:12:03

I was curious about that. We've done some projects where we've got adaptive streetlights and footway lights. So they start at 2,700 Kelvin and then they drop to 2,422 and then they go back up. They're also an indirect light and people find those really comfortable. I always say you can stare for about one second at a 4,000 Kelvin road light. But these adaptive lighting are that warm color temperature. You can stare at them as long as you'd want to.

Bill McGeeney: 1:12:33

Jack, that's an interesting point, Because when I look up right, when I see a 4,000 Kelvin light, it's supposed to be the color of the moon or whatever, but I guess if the moon is about five feet above you, that's the color of the moon. The brightness level is so intense, right, I can't speak to any health issues you get from looking at something that bright, but I can't imagine it being good, like if you're under that for quite a while, but it's so intense, right. You get sunspots from looking up at the streetlight or from looking at some panel that some apartment complex irresponsibly put up and the warm lights you don't notice.

Jack Ellerby: 1:13:07

No, you're absolutely right. And the warm lights you don't notice? No, you're absolutely right. When I started this role four years ago, the highway authority had been installing 4,000 kelvins, because they did get quite a lot of expert advice and they were advised that the moonlight was 4,000 kelvins. But as the technology improved and the energy efficiency ratios were fairly good still for warmer color temperatures Then they switched straight away to 3000 kelvins, after, obviously, I gave them some of the evidence that David has mentioned. And now we're going even warmer because particularly the biodiversity evidence is a no-brainer. We need to get below 2.4 minimum.

Bill McGeeney: 1:13:48

Yeah, and I venture to say people aren't going to notice the warmer lights.

Jack Ellerby: 1:13:51

They're not going to when I talk to people in communities, particularly older people, they find it really glaring and I think at the moment we're just launching an inquiry looking at car headlights and the motor industry bodies are backing that the AA and the Royal RAC in the UK and potentially I think that could be quite a deal changer in terms of understanding glare on the majority of the population and trying to get warmer color temperature throughout of artificial light at night right I think I know where it comes from, because there is a you know statistics which basically indicates that increased glare, which is caused by cars but also the road lighting, causes a lot of traffic issues, car accidents, sometimes worldwide car accidents.

Yana Yakushina: 1:14:43

I think we can literally use this statistical data to prove that we have to switch towards warmer lighting.

Bill McGeeney: 1:14:47

Yeah, and that's kind of why led panels, like the led billboards, will tone down right, so they're not blinding you as you're coming into a turn at night. It would be great to live in a world that you didn't have to feel glare all the time, but I I do want to throw this out there because, jack you, you work a lot with people. I find that glare is not something that people intuitively know. I find that glare is something that has to be taught.

Jack Ellerby: 1:15:18

Yeah, it's ironic that we've replaced a lot of the old sodium lights which are probably about 1800s. They're quite orangey, amber. People were happy with those because you'd actually see them as you approached the lights. But now with the full cut-off streetlights which are the norm now, people are not seeing the light until they almost walk under the column, so they perceive they're less effective. So in many ways you're right, bill, they're not actually noticing it as much. But when I give a talk I have a floodlight which I plug in. So I'm in like a community hall and I blast it on and everyone goes. You know it's like they've been shot, electric shock, you know, and that's that says it all for me. I don't need lots of scientific papers that just says it all it's absolutely nails it.

Jack Ellerby: 1:16:04

I think that's a great problem then they go home and say, oh god, why have we bought this crap from the DIY store and put it on the side of our house.

Bill McGeeney: 1:16:12

Yeah, I'll have to go and get a panel light. That's a great prop. I like that. See how many people want to stay and hang out underneath of it. Yeah, so, and we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the US as summertime lines up and I assume that you guys probably see this as well it's becoming a norm. City of Laguna Beach, california, will opt to forego fireworks this Independence Day and replace them with the twice as expensive synchronized drone show accompanied by music. What would you guys rather have drone shows or fireworks?

David Smith: 1:16:46

I just don't understand this idea of using the, the, the night, the night in this case the night sky as a, as a canvas to and show these things. And you know we talked at the start around the aurora and like how much satisfaction people got out of of that natural thing. Why are we just trying to replicate natural phenomenon somewhere like laguna? Laguna is blessed, it gets, it gets bioluminescent waves. You know quite regularly, and that's through dinoflagellates, little plankton in the water, that when they come in on the waves they're agitated and they release like a blue light. But just go and watch that. Why bother with drone shuttle fireworks? Yeah there's, yeah there's.

Bill McGeeney: 1:17:25

We got to celebrate.

David Smith: 1:17:30

Come on, yeah, there's, yeah, that is we gotta celebrate. Come on, david bar hamburg. Geez, jano, what if? What do you celebrate for? Celebrate throughout the year, celebrate when that thing is happening.

Yana Yakushina: 1:17:34

I don't know like both of them create too many problems, not only for like from the light pollution perspective, but also like they really threatens the species, including domestic animals. So I'm really against both of them yeah, I'm really not on the side of any of the celebrations in this type of form.

Bill McGeeney: 1:17:53

I know, fireworks would always like make my dog terror, would always stress out my dog to a point that I have to get up and hold my dog down and just to control her because she just got so stressed out she would try and burrow herself under, like you know, my bed or something like that, trying to find a spot. Just that she didn't have to. It was a very, very intense moment for her. So I wonder about these, because this is the norm.

Bill McGeeney: 1:18:20

Drone shows are kind of like the thing and, david, to your point, you hit on something that I say a lot is that when we see something magnificent in nature, it blows your mind, it's just whatever it is. We have this intrinsic awe that we stand there. But when we see something that's pretty, amazing or beautiful, that's man-made, it's really great, but the level is still below nature. We enjoy it, but it's not anywhere close to the nature side. We try and recreate a little piece of nature, I think, but we're imperfect so we don't do a good job at it. Maybe that's it, I don't know.

Jack Ellerby: 1:19:04

No, I think you're absolutely right. I did an environmental philosophy MA and it's nature is other than us. We did not create it. It's unpredictable. Here in the lakes there's a lot of pressure for adventure tourism, so putting in cable cars and luge runs and artificial attractions. But the thing is, because it's human-made, it's risk-assessed. It's the same experience every time when you walk in the natural environment. You're getting different experiences based on the light, the weather, the season, seasonality. It's that diversity and unpredictability.

Bill McGeeney: 1:19:38

Yeah, that's a good point. The unpredictability Well, there's an article from Jasper. You know, jack, I think this is lining up to something you might have said earlier, specifically looking at dark sky festivals, and University of Alberta researcher Glenn Wagenard and Clark Benark released a study looking at how visitor outcomes dark sky tourism, how people felt about light pollution, essentially. So if this study sounds familiar because we briefly mentioned it a couple of shows back.

Bill McGeeney: 1:20:08

However, since you are here, jack, I wanted to bring this up my general feeling is that, unlike other fire model pollutants, when I connect with people, right, they get excited about fireflies, they get excited about seeing stars, they get excited about protecting songbirds. These are things that people love and I don't ever hear anyone say like, oh, I don't care about this stuff. They really, really, really enjoy it, but they have zero, zero impetus to change. There's a disconnect. People don't want to change their behavior, even though they enjoyed it. So how would you assess your influence in the lakes region on people being able to go home and say, hey, you know what I'm looking at this? Maybe we need something new for the front porch, like this sconce is just, it's blinding, it's actually hitting my neighbor's property, or maybe I need something new for a garage or what have you. I'm curious about your experience with that.

Jack Ellerby: 1:21:03

I think you know hinting and damning, hinting at it earlier, about the natural phenomena. It goes down to me as a basic that we need a more environmental ethic as a species. We need to see other species on par, both in terms of respect and values and needs, and see the world from their perspective. University of exeter physics and biology departments are working together and they're actually modeling how different types of light affect hedgehogs, moth, pollinators and bats across exeter, the city, in another small town in cornwall, and that is revealing, really revealing. It's showing we have to have a completely different mindset to the function of artificial light on the natural world.

Bill McGeeney: 1:21:48

Do you feel that people are internalizing any of the advocacy you do?

Jack Ellerby: 1:21:54

I think so. I think they are. But you know, if you think, how much information is out there on the internet on your smartphones, people are bombarded with it and when I give my talks I say light pollution isn't at the top of any one agenda. But actually, if you get it right, you're going to save energy and reduce your carbon emissions. Electricity prices have gone through the roof in the uk the last two years because of ukraine, so you can reduce that. You're going to protect the wildlife you love. In general cases you're going to see more night sky. You're going to attract astro tourism in the winter months, which helps the rural economy.

Jack Ellerby: 1:22:26

I remember I gave a talk in a quite a rural village in the Lake District and there was a lady there. She was quite agitated that the council had removed a couple of lights because they were attached to electricity poles and she was lobbying that the council needed to replace these lights. But I found out she was a member of the RSPB, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. So I mentioned how it impacted. You'll all be familiar with the work university of bond, looking at songbirds, you know, singing later into the night and singing almost all through the night with our fish light and I mentioned that story to an issue completely flipped and she became one of the strongest dark sky advocates in that community and I've never forgot that experience, and so I thought you can get doom andom, but I'm hopeful the more conversations we have, the more it will have the ripple effect.

Bill McGeeney: 1:23:12

Yeah, I think for such lighting right when she. Her reaction to it isn't abnormal when they lose streetlights. I see stories like that all the time come through and the media loves to play it up. And the media will, especially TV, like local TV news, which are always trying to play everything up. They love playing it up because it's a way for them to draw audience interaction and then make it look like they're having an impact. By having people complain about having lights out somewhere and how unsafe and how everyone's worried about their community, They'll bring it up to the city and look all official and everything and puts them in a good spotlight. That in itself is a very interesting dynamic that goes on. There's really no, I don't think there's any real statistics on if that that bears out, but I think I think sadly, in our media world, bad news travels and good news doesn't.

Jack Ellerby: 1:24:06

But what I've done? We've done five community switch offs in the last three years. The only complaints I've had are those who said my the lights didn't go off where I live, so they were saying they wanted more of it, not less yeah I, I would complain.

Bill McGeeney: 1:24:19

I would be one of those that would complain about that as well I think.

David Smith: 1:24:24

I think this comes down to, you know, one of the big things around, why the framing of our messaging is so important, and we're unfortunately coming at it from a place where people are immediately responsive. It's either all light or no light, and while I stay quite confident in saying there's no such thing as wildlife-friendly lighting, it's not about removing all lighting. It's about reducing the amount of unnecessary lighting in the first instance and then finding a way that we can live harmoniously with the natural world. You know so it isn't about turning off all lights. It's just about using light in a much better way, not treating it like it's just completely easy to chuck out everywhere and hoping for the best, and I think that's that's vital.

David Smith: 1:25:06

But when you speak to people and when you have those conversations, people on the whole do tend to get it and go oh yeah, that makes complete sense. You're not telling me to. You know, completely shut out all lighting and and have no light in the night. We, you know we need it. It's just important for us to to get around and do what we need to do, and you know it's it's it's kind of you, straight away. You're fighting, you know, a conception that people have built over well hundreds of years ever since we started using light to kind of, you know, stay awake for longer, kicking meats and stuff.

Bill McGeeney: 1:25:38

You know it's so we're fighting against that, but I think that messaging now is we're all becoming a lot more aligned, we all work together on this, and I think that is really starting to help people understand that that this isn't just about completely light or completely dark yeah, there was a article a number of months ago that has a quote that I love to draw from, whereby john adams, second president of the us, back when he was still trying to pull together a constitution and everything, wrote to John Jay who was over in the UK or actually this might've been later down the line, when John Jay was trying to form treaties with the UK and he was complaining about how the John Jay liked dim lights and thought that he was more in favor of getting murdered because he didn't have an always on light. You know down the street and how dangerous everything was and how much safer it will be if lights were always on. So I, you know that was 17, like 80 something, so things haven't. I don't know about safety. I don't know if they've changed much with lights, but that's a whole different topic. I do have a story here that fits in nicely with this conversation, though.

Bill McGeeney: 1:26:54

Outside of Reno, nevada, the Sky Tavern ski area plans to light up the mountain range for sport usage. A group of concerned citizens wrote an opinion piece in opposition to the proposal, citing environmental impact, environmental feasibility, community disruption and increased safety risks. Those topics stem from the main complaint and that is perceived as an assault on the community's night sky. The Sky Tavern plans to install 73 lights which would, per the opposition, deter from both the environmental and aesthetic beauty of the range. However, the Washoe County Board of Adjustment, which is their zoning board, approved of the installation pending the lights were limited to wintertime hours of 9 pm, so they were shut off after 9 pm. Sky Tavern claims that having night skiing will benefit college and high school ski teams. So something like this? Is this a case of just residents being nimby or being not in my backyard, being trying to control the status quo? Is this a nice good, you know compromise? Like there's the ski resorts going to shut down lighting past nine o'clock is what do we think about this? What do we make of this?

David Smith: 1:28:09

so I think there's some really interesting things at play here, like when you look at the risk to winter sports across the world and like that window of opportunity to go and go skiing, snowboarding on the mountain.

David Smith: 1:28:20

That's fundamentally due to this narrowing because of a warming climate. Right, so using more hour, whilst you may get a slightly longer season this year, you may be reducing your season, you know going, you know down the line. So it's tricky because obviously you know this is using light, for you know something that we want to do it's using it for that recreation outside of the daylight hours where we may be able to do it. But you know there is a risk that actually we're going to be shooting ourselves in the third down the time and then have no chance of having having that ability to be on the slope. So it's it's a really tricky one and I think yeah, I do think that this argument is it's not just as kind of minor as having lights or no lights to think actually that the people looking to ski for longer maybe should be looking at the bigger picture of how they can reduce the wider impact on the world to ensure that they can be skiing for years to come.

Bill McGeeney: 1:29:13

At what point do we say yeah, this to me sounds like purposeful, deliberate lighting with a cutoff. Is that what we want?

Jack Ellerby: 1:29:22

I look at it as a macro scale. You and John Barentine, one of the amazing dark sky campaigners in the US, they did work, didn't they? Looking at the growth of artificial light at night across the globe, and I think, in the UK, sorry, across Europe. I think he was saying there was a 10% increase in the volume of artificial light at night. So basically, the mantra needs to be we need to preserve what dark areas we've got. We need to call you know, if we have to capitalize it and humanize it, we need to call it green infrastructure, which has a significant value monetary-wise, whether it's for human health or biodiversity health. We have to change the page we're working on.

Bill McGeeney: 1:30:07

This is a really good little student podcast segment. I call it from the University of Northern Colorado the Reflection Podcast. The student, Avery Morgan, conducted a survey at the Great Sand Dunes National Park to learn about dark sky tourism. Here are some of the highlights. Morgan admits that prior to doing this trip, she felt no connection or concern for dark sky parks, but after returning she had a full appreciation of the value they provide to society. Morgan's survey found that people who attended the park the group that identified as going for the explicit purpose of starry night sky spent on average of $100 to $200 per day. Morgan also found that there's a false equivalency of light and economic development. Essentially, the assertion states that where there's light, there's money, but in this case, the darkness of sand dunes showcase that dark areas could be a reliable generator of money as well. Do you guys, Jack specifically, does the Lake Region benefit? Does it profit from dark skies?

Jack Ellerby: 1:31:03

Yeah, the Lake District is already a World Heritage Site and a national park, a UK national park, so it's got big, attractive brands already. But I am noticing year on year there's more and more businesses doing more dark sky activities, so mountain biking in the forests, canoeing on some of the major lakes at night, as well as astronomy. In the west of England we have a lot of cloudy, wet nights, so the opportunity for astronomy isn't as great as some of the great places in the US and you mentioned Chile earlier but no, it's definitely increasing. The research from Northumberland and Galloway Forest just over the border in Scotland shows that generally ASTHO visitors are staying visitors and all the research shows that if you're a staying visitor rather than just a day fleeting temporary visitor, yeah, there's a greater spend and I think the business community are picking up on that. So, and as well as that, you know we've got brian cox and there's a lot more observatories going in, both in private residences and businesses, so there was real momentum. I think it's.

Bill McGeeney: 1:32:07

It's not mainstream driver of tourism in in the national parks in the uk yet, but it is increasing definitely yeah, because we're seeing a lot of these eco-centric or I guess the environment specifically there's an environmental aspect to certain tourism in different areas, like, for instance, down at big ben.

Bill McGeeney: 1:32:23

They made a big deal that they're in dark sky reserve.

Bill McGeeney: 1:32:25

When you went in camp they came over and talked to you and be like you can do this and and just make sure you know lights are off by this time and and you know, blah, blah. I tallied up the amount of money that the astronomy club and part of spends and I do a lot of camping organization for now we spend at least the money that we spent this year going to one dark sky site. Just a club not talking about individuals who actually drive up just the club itself spends $4,000 a year or at least this year and probably do it next year in a dark sky spot. So that community is receiving just from the club $4,000. It's not talking about people go up there, get gas, get dinner, get lunch, get all the groceries that go up there and get little trinkets, go do some daytime novelties and stuff like that. There's money to be had and I think that's one of the reasons why I like this little story here where Morgan kind of snuffed out some of those details that oftentimes get passed over.

Jack Ellerby: 1:33:26

Certainly the Dark Sky chapter lead people in the UK. What we're wanting to do is bring those experiences to a higher level of population. So we want to bring it into suburban areas and towns as well, because we can be a bit elitist with rural recreation. You have to be fairly affluent to travel into a remote dark area so we're very much wanting to get those nighttime experiences. So in little old Kendall where I live not a big town, 25,000 population we have an old castle right in the heart of the town so we're looking to reduce light pollution as seen from there so people don't have to drive 50 miles to experience the Milky Way.

Bill McGeeney: 1:34:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, wouldn't that be nice just to have your own cause, the national.

Yana Yakushina: 1:34:11

Have a national park in the sky.

Bill McGeeney: 1:34:12

Hey that'd be something. Well, one thing that many of us don't think about when we clamor for just saving the forgotten half of the day is the actual costs involved, and some municipalities have offered rebates, credits or outright subsidized lighting fixture conversions. This one comes to us in David condos at K? U E R radio. Near Zion national park, the town of Springdale met reality firsthand, spent 15 years and over $1 million to install proper street lighting that includes a shielding and automatic dimmer controls. That's not just on a public end Springdale is a community of less than 600 people. Yada, I feel like you know when you study some of this stuff, have you ever come across any of these conversion costs? And how does it even get configured? How do you even consider this from a legal standpoint? Isn't that the big problem with the cell? Is these conversion costs?

Yana Yakushina: 1:35:04

When we're talking about costs involved in like lighting and lighting installations. In the end of the day, it becomes either way. We can use it as an argument for legislation. For example, when the energy crisis started in 2022, there was a massive increase in, let's say, it's not truly light pollution regulation measures or norms or laws or whatsoever, but a lot of municipalities and actually national governments started to cut off lights just for energy saving, for cutting the costs. So it played a big role in that.

Yana Yakushina: 1:35:40

Another point maybe is economic incentives to support this type of changes, which are neglected in the law. Let's take one community in Madrid. Madrid is working very, very strongly in at least not really reduction of light pollution, but keeping it at a certain low level, and in Spain there is no national law to reduce light pollution. So the community starts to think why am I doing this? Because there is no law. They are not supported in any way to continue doing this work to preserve the dark skies in nature whatsoever. So in these terms, we could have used the help of economic incentives and law, like some. I don't know what it can be like some discounts for electricity bills for these specific communities, or tax reductions or whatsoever we can think of with a few of the legal instruments and the connection with the costs involved in lighting.

Bill McGeeney: 1:36:41

Right, those costs, those costs add up. I think that's really a major challenge and, honestly, if you could overcome the costs, I think we'd get businesses on board. I think that's really the fear of a lot of businesses is that are you guys crazy? It's going to cost another how much thousands of dollars to change over just lighting. We can't support that.

Jack Ellerby: 1:37:02

Yeah, I would echo Jana there. The first year, we did the lighting switch off in Grasme, which is quite a touristy town. It was probably about 20% of the businesses that switched off their display lights overnight. You know, outdoor clothing shops, coffee shops, art galleries but after the 2022, last year 23, it was literally 85% of all the display lights went off in those communities and, as you were saying, ultimately that's what drives businesses. They don't care about the bats or the wildlife, or the glare or the pedestrian. It's the bottom line and that's what we need to nail. Well put, jack. Yeah.

Bill McGeeney: 1:37:39

I like that. Well, let's take our final break right here. I have one more really intriguing article to finish up with. Before we get to that guy, I wanted to remind you to head over to lightpollutionnewscom to see any of the articles from today's show. Don't forget you can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit and TikTok, and when you do drop us a line, Say hello. We love to hear from you. If you aren't already subscribed to this show, why not simply subscribe right now? Once subscribed, you'll see Light Polition News pop up each month when we release a new episode. And I want to circle back to you guys to see what cool things you guys have coming down the pipe. Jack, what's the next step for you? In Cumbria, you had major success, right, With the big switch off. Like that was a unexpectedly good event this year. Right, you had three communities Lake District, Keswick, Ambleside and Grasmere.

Jack Ellerby: 1:38:28

Yeah, no, it's building momentum. There's more communities want to do it. The biggest problem is the technology. Some of those communities, the lighting the street lighting is on a central management system so it's quite easy and efficient to switch them off. But Keswick, for example, hasn't, so we had to have four lighting engineers overnight switching them. Well, actually switch them off in the daytime and then switch them all the day off, because we ran it in April, so there wasn't a great cost. But control systems are a powerful driver on that.

Bill McGeeney: 1:38:57

Right, there's no like centralised control for that town.

Jack Ellerby: 1:39:00

No some of the wealthy, particularly the urban authorities, can do that. But I was talking to the lighting manager for the district, the authority where I'm based in the South Cumbria, but he actually said to me in a meeting just this last week. He said, oh, should we do Windermere as well, which is a bigger town just to the south because it's on the CMS system. So I think when confidence is built it will snowball. And, as Jana said, once the electricity prices change there's a lot more European cities switching the lights off overnight. We generally, as a standard rule, dim them by 50% at 9 o'clock till 6 in the morning, but we're increasingly moving to basically 100% dimming from midnight till 6, so they're going off and that's to save energy and protect your biodiversity and basically there isn't any people on the street at that time of day in rural communities.

Bill McGeeney: 1:39:46

Right, right, Jack. Where can people learn more about what you do and maybe connect with you out there?

Jack Ellerby: 1:39:53

Yeah, well, obviously I'm based in a small sub-region, so if you go on the internet and put Dark Skies, cumbria, you'll be able to bring up. We've got lots of blogs of the proactive work we're doing the festivals and the demonstration projects. But David and I work in a UK Dark Sky partnership, so there's websites related to that. We've got a chapter, dark Sky International. We've got a UK chapter. They've got an evolving website. So we're basically approaching the light pollution agenda from multiple perspectives to try and build that groundswell of change that we need, as David suggested.

Bill McGeeney: 1:40:26

Diana, space law appears to be heating up right now A lot of stuff. We'll have a story right after this about some stuff that would affect space law. I'm curious about how all that works. It's my impression that, given the international aspects of space law, it's going to be very hard to have uniform governance, and I know you're trying to focus your studying space law. It's going to be very hard to have uniform governance, and I know you're trying to focus, you're studying space law. Is that right?

Yana Yakushina: 1:40:47

I mean I do a lot of work all around the protection of dark skies. So when we talk about the space law aspect of it like my PhD is focusing mainly on environmental law, so environmental bit of it and protection of the environment but I work with International Astronomical Union, as we mentioned earlier, and there we're focusing more on how we can protect the dark skies for astronomy and this is where actually international space law comes into play. How can it work? We have five international agreements on space, that's it and we try to play around.

Yana Yakushina: 1:41:24

And these are old right.

Yana Yakushina: 1:41:26

Yeah, they start from the 1950s and the last agreement was signed, I think, in the 80s or something and it's all about.

Yana Yakushina: 1:41:35

It has nothing to do with protection of dark and white skies, but here there is a big team of lawyers and other researchers and we are trying to frame how the international space law in particular can play the role in protection of dark skies, dark and white skies for astronomy, because we have Outer Space Treaty which in its articles indicates that it basically protects the use and exploration of outer space, and we try to frame that ground-based astronomy is a form of use and exploration of outer space.

Yana Yakushina: 1:42:06

So in this case we can try to apply this space law international and national also space law framework to the issues of the dark and white skies for astronomy. But another point of it here it's space law doesn't play on its own. We also look into international environment law here and try to basically frame that space as an environment as well as an environment on Earth, and whether it would be possible to, for example, use a precautionary principle or prevention principle, which we use when we talk about the protection of nature, right, can we use it to the outer space and in this case, can we reduce the impacts of the future satellites or the existing satellites. We can have another podcast just on that. I think it's like a major subject to talk about.

Bill McGeeney: 1:42:54

It's great to have these laws, these treaties out there, but if I'm going to start off my satellite constellation program and I don't want to be burdened with any of this other satellite constellation program and I don't want to be burdened with any of this other I just want to build giant, giant satellites that you know, go up there and do communications or what have you, but I don't want to adhere to any of these. I can just go to like Russia right, and launch all of my stuff off, Cause Russia is probably not going to be part of any treaty, right?

Yana Yakushina: 1:43:20

They are part of every single treaty. Well, they are part of every single treaty.

Bill McGeeney: 1:43:23

Well, right now they are Except the moon exploration. Right now they are. No, they are from the beginning.

Yana Yakushina: 1:43:27

Yeah, they're one of the founding countries of the Outer Space Treaty.

Bill McGeeney: 1:43:30

Right, but I'm just saying like right now, I don't think that Russia I was my you know my armchair politician. So I come out like I don't think Russia would be part of any treaty that the US would want.

Yana Yakushina: 1:43:42

So I mean there's a discussion going on. I mean again, it's another podcast, but just long, long story short. There's a discussion about weaponizing outer space and the thing is, russia will not accept the American approach and vice versa, but they both want to mitigate the impacts and not to use the space for war. This is kind of they just have different approaches which don't match, but it's not a dark and white sky discussion.

Bill McGeeney: 1:44:12

I hope you're right on that. I don't know if both countries. I don't know if either country really has the ambitions for turning down weaponizing space?

Jack Ellerby: 1:44:20

David and I keeping quiet while the US and Russia and Poland are buckling out.

Bill McGeeney: 1:44:26

We'll never know, alright, david, so let's get you in here, for oh wait, is there a way people can reach you or learn more about what you do?

Yana Yakushina: 1:44:38

I think the best way to connect with me would be LinkedIn. I'm involved in so many projects so it's very difficult to kind of indicate what is my main affiliation, because we recently, during the Spanish presidency of the European Council, we come up with a project which is Life Evolution Manifesto, and we drafted it together with David and another colleague of ours, and we're always seeking for support like this manifesto to be signed. So, yeah, just follow up me on linkedin and I always publish all this information we're working on excellent, all right, david.

Bill McGeeney: 1:45:10

Moving on to you, is there a corollary organization that we could direct people to like bug life here in the states yeah, absolutely the.

David Smith: 1:45:18

We've got a sister organization, the xerxes society either. They're on your side of the pond doing basically they kind of they represent all the invertebrates in in north america. They work internationally. We able up in a few places. They've got some brilliant resources on fireflies, guidance on on how you can help protect them and encourage them, where to see them and the like, and obviously that kind of spreads out to all of the other species that you've got there. So, yeah, go and check out the xerces society and and that'll, that'll do all of your needs on on your side of the pond yeah, we just actually got a grant from the xerces society put in some native wallflowers so brilliant.

Bill McGeeney: 1:45:58

Yeah, we're putting in some poll. We have two, two, maybe three pollinator gardens we're putting in and very much looking forward. Like you said, the impacts are supposed to be immediate, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing those impacts. It looks very fun. So where can people learn more about what you do and learn more about bug life and anything if they want to get involved or help out? How do people find out more?

David Smith: 1:46:18

your easiest way is is our website. It's pretty, I say it's straightforward to find search Bug Life on Google and then, once you've found the Disney film and had a watch of that and super engaging in insect life, you'll find us on buglifeorguk. So on there it covers all of our, all of the issues, all of the work that we do, and that's the best way. And on the social media channels as well, that's the best way to find out about, about what we have going on.

Bill McGeeney: 1:46:47

Okay, great, oh. Let's finish up today's show with one last article from spacecom, a company called reflect orbital, and I apologize in advance. I definitely want to issue a trigger warning on this, because if you're an astronomer or an amateur astronomer in astrophotography, this is going to be ungodly depressing. So there's a company called Reflect Orbital and is planning to put up some mirrors to reflect sunlight down the solar farms. The plan has put up 57 satellites that would add 30 minutes of additional sunshine to solar power plants. Now, before you crack open that window to your 37th floor condo building, the aim for this is to direct the sunlight back to the predetermined locations, for which former SpaceX employee Ben Nowak claims will make it look like a nighttime glow, akin to quote some construction going on. I have no idea what the hell that means, but the light supposedly will be targeting directly solar power plants. Only, jana, is there any application of this coming up? Do you guys have anything you're working on? I'm sure this is something that has been bantered around. It's probably not a new idea, right?

Yana Yakushina: 1:48:01

This is very scary, I may say, because it's not the only project. Maybe it's just in mind, maybe it's already under development. Another project is Project Solaris. It's basically they want to put a giant solar panel also to the outer space, to put the sunlight through the solar panel and then distribute it to us as a new renewable energy source. I mean, there are too many risks involved with this. As we see, these risks are not always considered and we're talking not about only astronomy, which is obviously the biggest issue, and astronomers will face it first, but I'm also talking.

Yana Yakushina: 1:48:43

I'm not a physicist, right, but I think if we put these giant mirrors on our space, won't we increase global warming at a certain point? Won't we increase the light pollution which is already there? We're currently, with some lawyers, we're actually working on an article to discuss risks associated with this project from the environmental law perspective. What type of environmental impact assessment should be done before giving the authorization of such kind of projects? Because obviously, yeah, solar panel renewables, it's all good, but even on the ground they have their impact which were not considered before being installed, and I think everything what people try to introduce brings additional impacts and we have to try to reduce, which we already have.

Yana Yakushina: 1:49:36

I'm against increased space exploration without the proper risk assessment and we are lacking of international space law, which I mentioned just earlier, and without it like, or we have to build a stronger connection with environmental protection, like treaties or obligations. Otherwise, if we will allow everybody to send this type of satellites or solar panels, what are we going to do after? So it's, it's pisses me off. I mean, there's pieces me off.

Bill McGeeney: 1:50:06

I mean, there's a couple of ways you can look at it right. The engineering solution is, from a technological side, it's pretty inventive. It's pretty interesting that you're able to actually do this right. On the other end We've seen this story before with communication satellites Is it only going to get bigger? Is the first generation going to be smaller and then, before you know it, this thing's going to be a size of, you know, regulation, football field or something, what? Where does this lead to? Right?

Yana Yakushina: 1:50:34

increased space debris and increased space traffic and there a lot of like. Also the problem with depositioning all of it. What we we going to do when it's not working? Where are they going to go? Are they going to go back to Earth, like international space, like I'm going to the space field now, but the problem with international space station is very old and it has to be decommissioned back on Earth and they're planning to do it to the ocean. By doing that, we're increasing so many environmental impacts to the ocean. By doing that, we're increasing so many environmental impacts. Like the project itself is really good, but there are a lot of problems associated with it. How do we distribute the energy around? If it's only owned by only one company, all the money will go to one company. We're creating kind of monopoly on our solar space energy. So like it's difficult for me.

Bill McGeeney: 1:51:27

I'm sure anyone who's into astronomy is I know.

Jack Ellerby: 1:51:30

I'm a simple creature, Bill, but can we not make frugality sexy? Can we not focus on the conserving energy, not continually growing our demand for absorbing, using more energy? Jack.

Bill McGeeney: 1:51:42

AI and LEDs need that energy. Come on now, jack. Ai and LEDs need that energy. Come on now. Yeah, it sounds pretty terrifying to me. I wonder. Like you said, yana, just because we can doesn't mean we should. Maybe we should think about things beforehand. But there's this culture, especially in the tech side, where you just kind of throw it out there and damn the torpedoes and figure it out along the way and you know if you need to fix it. You fix it after the fact or you create these nice, you know ecologies like Facebook, which nothing bad ever happens on social media.

Bill McGeeney: 1:52:21

So, I want to. I want to thank everyone for I want to thank you guys, all of you guys, for being such great guests today, you know, and thank you for all the work you guys do. Soon to be Dr Yana Yukashina, Mr David Smith and Mr Jack Ellerbee, Thank you guys. So I really appreciate you guys spending two hours of your life here on light pollution news. I want to thank you guys on that. As a reminder, Light Pollution News was recorded second to last Sunday of the month.

Bill McGeeney: 1:52:49

I'm sorry, usually we're last Sunday of the month, but second to last this month due to Memorial Day. The holiday is coming up here in the States. You'll find all the details in this show over at lightpollutionnewscom. If you have any thoughts, questions, just want to say hi, feel free to text us in that link in the show notes. Once more, I'm your host, Bill McGeaney, thanking you for listening and remember to shine the light only where it's needed.