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Night Lights Drive Pollinators Away from Plants
- xoa 9y agoReposting this in the context of yesterday's HN discussion "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074" [1], because reading through it I saw a lot of discussion about pesticides but surprisingly nothing at all regarding nighttime light pollution. This also seems like an area where there is more easy direct action potential for technologists. Both individually and in terms of community ordinances we should push to better take advantage of advances in LEDs and sensors to try to reduce color temperature at light and try to better ensure that lighting exists only when and where humans actually directly need it at the time, rather then the current dumblight defaults of "always on, lots of spread, and always at the same temperature". This really seems like an area where at least some form of win-win is possible, because we generally don't really need lighting on when literally nobody is around, it's just been that way by default because there was no better way to ensure it would be on if somebody came around. Fixed color temperatures have been a matter of necessity given the technology available. So there should be a lot of room to reduce wasted light (and in turn energy) and benefit pollinators. Personally this provided the impetus to get my camera, door sensors, and other presence detectors all linked up with my lighting at last so that outdoor lighting is by default off at night except when directly needed. I'd support a national push to develop more directed, warmer, and smarter street lighting and the like as well. ---- 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074