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Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects
- Solstinox 6y ago...and get better sleep.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y agoAmen. I would kill for this. I keep my own outside lights off, so there's a bit less blindy light pollution on my end of the street. It's the same reason I never report the nearby street lights when they go out. The best outdoor light is less.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoAhem... I seem to recall that the masts of most streetlights are rather thin. Which meant that one could kick them a few times in ways that make the mast swing. Which could be rather large and abrupt swings at the top, which led to "Wackelkontakt"/ loss of contact, and thus darkness. It was even reversible! Your own personal kick switch for public street lights!
- WarOnPrivacy 6y agoI've used high lumen, hand-held lights to kill streetlights. I haven't found a spectrum of laser that works, yet.
- epanchin 6y agohttps://petapixel.com/2015/02/19/a-laser-can-turn-off-streetlights-that-interfere-with-your-astrophotography/ https://petapixel.com/2015/02/19/a-laser-can-turn-off-street...
- WarOnPrivacy 6y agoNice. I've got a red but it's probably too low power. My green and blue are 1W & 3W but they're too low a wavelength. High powered reds are relatively cheap. I'll look into it.
- luckylion 6y agoThat's a good way to get in trouble, and rightfully so. We're not having streetlights because we want to kill insects, we have them for safety reasons. You do not want to travel in absolute darkness in a city with cars around. Trying to interfere with that because you're too lazy to buy a black-out curtain is a terrible idea.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoWhat if I'd like to be able to see some stars from my bed? Furthermore, not every light, sign makes sense at the place it is. They are mostly stamped out at regular intervals "because we say so".
- luckylion 6y ago> What if I'd like to be able to see some stars from my bed? "My comfort should trump everyone's safety"? Still no.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoAnd the cars you spoke of are stealthed, running dark, or what? /me shakes head and thinks "Here is your sign! Hold it!"
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago"Anything that smells like safety automagically justifies the damage it does. Only monsters want less appearance of safety."
- jacobsenscott 6y agoI'll take "what?" - with "what?" being my headlights only point straight ahead. They don't curve with the road or illuminate the sides of the roads where kids/animals can dart out. I live in a neighborhood with lots of kids and pets. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0386111212000325 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S038611121...
- formerly_proven 6y agoThe way that ("Lampen austreten") works is because the vibration causes the plasma to "disembark" from the electrodes, which opens the electrical circuit, which prevents further power flow into the lamp, which lets the plasma cool down quickly. There's a thermal cutoff switch in the lamp that prevents it from re-igniting on a hot lamp, so the entire lamp needs to cool down before it turns back on.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoThat could be the case, but at the time I felt it was of more mechanical nature. Because in my case they didn't turn back on, not for days, until kicked back into working order.
- k__ 6y agoThis. I had a big orange street lamp hanging right in front of my bedroom for years.
- kaybe 6y agoIn Germany you can generally call the city office and complain and they will put some metal there to block the light from falling into your house. It might be an option in other locations as well.
- mattbk1 6y agoWe were able to do that for an alley light here in small-town Minnesota USA.
- lm28469 6y agoDon't houses in Germany, and western Europe, have blinds ? I only had this night light issue when living in the US
- hocuspocus 6y agoNot everywhere in Germany, or in Western Europe for that matter. I cannot explain why many regions that are fairly up North don't have solid outdoor blinds or shutters.
- vinay427 6y agoWhere did you find a house in the US without blinds? I honestly don't think I've ever seen one without some sort of window covering. The solid exterior blinds that I slightly prefer are much less common in the US, but both still block light adequately in my experience.
- lm28469 6y agoEverywhere I slept in California, from SF to LA and a few places in between had these awful vertical blinds which can't even block moonlight: https://persianascanet.com/wp-content/uploads/Verticales-PVC9.jpg https://persianascanet.com/wp-content/uploads/Verticales-PVC...
- blakesterz 6y agoI always just assumed that there are few insects now because there are so many more insecticides in use, this is the first time I've heard of lights. There's not much explaination in this article, but here's one with some more: Nighttime Light Pollution May Be Cause of Insect Population Decline https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Nighttime_Light_Pollution_May_Be_Cause_of_Insect/a63612 https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Nighttime_Light_Pollution... "An analysis of the effects of artificial light at night on insects shows that there is strong evidence to suggest a link between nighttime light pollution and declines in insect populations."
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoIt's a combination of factors. Insecticides, pollution, loss of habitat, light pollution(especially from daylight LEDs), global warming(throwing off reproduction timing), ubiquitous roadways and vehicles, flat surfaces(beetles get stuck on their back).
- quercusa 6y agoDouglas Tallamy, an entomologist at the University of Delaware, makes a convincing case that one factor is the replacement of native plants with (often showier) aliens which local insect populations can't eat. This then reduces the populations of birds which feed on those insects. Site for his books: http://www.bringingnaturehome.net/ http://www.bringingnaturehome.net/
- masswerk 6y agoI think, compared to twenty years ago, the main factor is the higher color temperature of modern lighting systems. There are numerous studies on cold light attracting insects significantly more than the traditional incandescent light sources.
- etangent 6y agoWhenever I see someone claim a given problem is due to a combination of factors, I get a bit suspicious. First, this seems like a way to say "I don't really know the actual cause." Second, in the real world in situations like these, there is almost always one overwhelming factor that accounts for >60% of total influence. I really do wonder what that is because I like insects!
- fortran77 6y agoThere's technology now to put streetlamps on motion detectors. They can have them very dim until they're needed.
- black_puppydog 6y agoWe have one street like this here in Grenoble. I was so freaked out the first time I walked there, since the lights dimmed up gradually, so it took me a couple of times to be sure I'm not imagining things. :P
- astrea 6y agoI feel like that would be nauseating for residents on heavily trafficked roads
- progre 6y agoMaybe there should't be residents near heavily trafficked roads at all.
- astrea 6y agoThen I would be kicked off my suburban street
- readarticle 6y agoWhy exactly do you think they’re heavily trafficked?
- database_lost 6y agoMy experience in Germany was that a lot of small streets were already pretty dimly lit...
- thiago_fm 6y agoI wonder how many centuries it might take for the US to start to care about insects or the environment like some European countries do with the recent regress in policies overall that isn't about ONLY increasing overall GDP in the US. And I say this even not considering Trump, which is a big menace. But democrat candidates in the US also don't care about the environment, not showing much promise. So do the Americans in general with their huge SUVs and completely unhealthy lifestyles(for them and the environment). I wonder how much this shitshow can go on.
- pointillistic 6y agoSome European countries, named here, only very recently cared more about insects than people.
- yokaze 6y ago> Some European countries, named here, only very recently cared more about insects than people. How is it "more about than"? What are the costs to people by mandating dimming the light?
- AlexandrB 6y agoThe GP is referencing the Holocaust since the story is about Germany. Though I don't know what that has to do with this article or the comment he is replying to.
- hirundo 6y ago> What are the costs to people by mandating dimming the light? It makes it harder to see at night.
- saagarjha 6y agoThat’s not really “more than”, is it? You need to weigh the size of the benefit with the amount of convenience.
- 6y ago
- 42droids 6y agoGerman side streets are fairly dark already. This change will affect ‘large’ polluters, eg. floodlights in car parks, outside store areas, brightly lit buildings, etc. It is a very welcomed change. In our neighbourhood ppl knowingly plant flowers and leave grass grow ‘wild’ to support insects.
- cheez 6y agoI do this too but I get bylaw visits from the city. Which cities?
- 42droids 6y agoDresden. Don’t get me wrong the gardens are neat but ppl keep longer grass, bushes, lots of flowers. Don’t know much about the laws in Germany (only recently moved here) but I can see that ppl care about their environment.
- cheez 6y agoOK thanks.
- aeyes 6y agoSearch for wildflower seed bomb mix, you shouldn't get in trouble for this. My mom used to do this every year when I lived in Germany, looks pretty and zero maintenance.
- rspoerri 6y agoDo you remember the time when you had to clean your windshield after driving into holidays?
- elwell 6y ago> The windshield phenomenon is the observation that recently fewer dead insects accumulate on the windshields of people's cars. It has been attributed to a global decline in insect populations caused by human activity. > The research also found that modern cars, with a more aerodynamic body shape, killed more insects than boxier vintage cars up to 70 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon
- Dahoon 6y agoYes it happened two days ago.
- 42droids 6y agoYap, this is the saddest thing. After a month long road trip around Europe the windshield & front air vent were almost clean.
- theobeers 6y agoI just finished a two-week road trip from Berlin to the Black Forest and back (with other stops in both directions). The windshield was gunked up by the end—more than I expected, but nothing like what I remember from my childhood.
- perlgeek 6y agoSame here. About two years ago we traveled through Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and had quite some insect gunk on the wind shields. When I told my parents, they said "we used to have that after an hour of driving" (and presumably they went slower than we do today, not having access to fast cars in their youths).
- oever 6y agoInsects are spread out over more cars now.
- thatguy0900 6y agoI actually was sitting outside a few nights ago and realized that there was no more fireflies, and I couldn't remember the last time I had seen one. I used to go out all the time during summer as a kid to catch them, they would light up whole fields. That was just like 15 years ago. Pretty sobering realization
- jriot 6y agoMy backyard in Louisiana has quite a few of them at night. I see probably 20 - 50 a night back there.
- WC3w6pXxgGd 6y agoDo you like Louisiana? I've been looking for a warmer, Southern state to move to.
- sonar_un 6y agoMy backyard in Louisiana has zero, zilch, nada. However; when I lived in NYC, I would see them all of the time on riverside.
- thatguy0900 6y agoLucky. I'm tempted to drive out to rural Ohio with my nephew to try to find some.
- burke 6y agoSame in Ottawa, Ontario—only a few times a year, but when they're out, there are loads of them.
- duaoebg 6y agoI always wonder how much of the reduction in cleaning of glass can be attributed to better aerodynamics and better glass.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoMotor cyclists and bicyclists tell the same. I as a bicyclist do too. Because apart from the sting of the wind in the eyes it was necessary to drive with sports glasses/lenses/some visor because otherwise you'd be almost certainly hit by insects in the face or eye. That isn't the case anymore. There simply are less of them in the air.
- odiroot 6y agoCan you get even darker? Streetlights in Berlin (for example) are already uncomfortably dim.
- ashtonkem 6y agoThis is good; we've badly underestimated the cost of excess light pollution. Also good is using more LED street lamps that focus the light where we need it, rather than all over the place. Light pollution is bad, and street lights are very power hungry, with the old sodium lights consuming up to 0.25kWh per hour.
- masswerk 6y agoActually, cold LED light is part of the problem. Better focusing only mitigates the problem they are posing.
- ashtonkem 6y agoWe can and certainly should fiddle around with different LED colors, to balance our need for illumination against the risk of environmental harm.
- marviel 6y agoCan you explain what you mean about the risks of cold LED light? I'm unfamiliar with this problem
- skrause 6y agohttps://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/leds-good-prizes-bad-insects https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/leds-good-prizes-bad...
- masswerk 6y agoThe basic light emitted by LEDs is generally quite cold (high color temperature). We can manufacture LEDs just in a few basic colors, where the blue ones are the most efficient. We haven't managed yet to produce something at scale like the light typically emitted by incandescent light bulbs. RGB light doesn't help here, since this is still emitting high temperature components, which are only mixed with lower energized ones. One way around this is using LEDs indirectly by energizing other light emitting materials, like phosphor, much like it is done in LED filaments, which, of course, comes at a cost. Simple filters don't help, since LEDs emit light only in a rather narrow spectrum (which is also, why they are more efficient compared to other light sources). The problem with cold light is that it is apparently attracting insects much more than broad spectrum incandescent light sources, even more than any potential breeding partners, which in turn affects mating.
- craig_asp 6y agoThis would be great for amateur astronomers too.
- trentnix 6y agoAnd the sales of insect repellent.
- agentultra 6y agoThis is such a great idea. I hope the insecticide regulations go far to restrict some of the worst offenders. Insects, arachnids, and all of our invertebrate, carapace flaunting friends are essential to our health and survival. I hope my country will follow suit...
- LXanb 6y agoThere are loads of foxes and bats in big cities in Germany already. There are tons of insects as well. Humans are already not allowed to build anywhere because of environmental regulations (unless you are a corrupt politician) and to keep the rents high. Germany is getting more and more ridiculous. People must use energy saving bulbs to increase the profit for Philips, but one can legally burn 100l of fuel per day in a car. Noise laws are lagging behind but insects need to be protected.
- masswerk 6y agoInsects are kind of vital to us. Without them, you can't have crops or fruits, no agriculture. The drop in population is already concerning.
- anxkll 6y agoDrop according to whom? The people whose jobs depend on the alleged drop? Yesterday I had 10 flies and 5 mosquitoes simultaneously in my room. What do the bats eat? They are everywhere. There are more bats, foxes, rats and insects in big cities than ever before.
- masswerk 6y agoIf findings are true that insects are more attracted to cold light than traditional incandescent light sources, then it's small wonder you still find significant numbers of insects where all the cold light is emitted, even if they are killed on contact with those light sources or trapped by them (which is a significant problem with mating). Same should be true for any species which follows insects as a source of food.
- axbch 6y agoI'm a heretic who uses incandescent light bulbs (but no car). No shortage of insects in my room. All in the middle of a city. How do those insects mate in the city if light prevents them from doing so? I wonder why we are still alive. According to the Club of Rome we should have been extinct by now. But these things are a nice diversion from the real problems and a good income stream for the pundits.
- burlesona 6y agoThis seems like a great idea, and could also be a nice boon for those of us who like to see the stars. Light pollution is a personal frustration for me as I’ve always enjoyed stargazing but am rarely able to drive far enough out to see very much.
- b34r 6y agoAlso: stars
- tengbretson 6y agoDo they have any places outside of cities and towns that these insects might thrive in Germany?
- pvaldes 6y agoIronically this would create a better surveillance net. With a high light in the background you obtain black silhouettes. With low or none light in the background UV cameras are perfectly able to take photos in pitch black, and a low level of light gave you faces of the suspects instead. So perhaps, maybe, "speculation in action", this is not only useful or exclusively about insects
- allendoerfer 6y agoNo, this is actually about insects.
- ourlordcaffeine 6y agoI wonder if it will make any noticeable difference for astronomers.
- moneytide1 6y agoLight pollution seems to be a good thing to suppress in general (a bonus for astrological sight-seeing). Could one factor be that constant light negatively affects insect (and plant) circadian rhythms?
- veddox 6y agoI think you meant "astronomical" sight-seeing? ;-) Yes, constant light does have a strong effect on animal circadian rhythms, but for insects, the problem is rather that they exhaust themselves from flying around the light source too long.
- auganov 6y agoWhat's the benefit for humans and why can't it be done any other way? I'm not a big fan of encountering insects. Very weird to see someone would actually want to protect them in cities. > Light traps for insects are to be banned outdoors So you won't be able to kill mosquitoes outside?
- danparsonson 6y agoInsects are a vital part of Earth's ecosystem, providing food for larger animals and (especially crucial for us) pollination. > So you won't be able to kill mosquitoes outside? There are plenty of other, more specific ways to do that, no? The problem with light traps is they are indiscriminate. Not to mention that if you apply some repellent, you don't need to kill them at all.
- auganov 6y ago> There are plenty of other, more specific ways to do that, no? The problem with light traps is they are indiscriminate. Well you do usually want to kill as many as possible. Bringing up mosquitoes because it's one of the most common. I cannot go out and sit down in my garden if I have insects flying around. Unless they keep an appropriate distance as to not be intimidating. > Not to mention that if you apply some repellent If you mean the skin applied kind it's totally unsatisfactory. There are chemical sprays/diffusers that work very well, but even though they are marketed as "repellent" they absolutely do kill mosquitoes and many others. That's what I usually use.
- danparsonson 6y ago> Well you do usually want to kill as many as possible. Indiscriminate across species - those traps kill everything, not just mosquitoes. I'm sorry that you find insects intimidating but killing everything is not the answer to that and in the long run, unless you don't care about having food, ultimately counterproductive. > If you mean the skin applied kind it's totally unsatisfactory. Why? I've spent a lot of time in tropical countries and found it very effective. Even just a running fan keeps most mozzies away as they aren't generally strong fliers. The overarching issue is that we need to coexist with our many-legged brethren, however inconvenient it may be.
- Shivetya 6y agoWell as I have posted before, my neighborhood went full LED last year with street lights and so every night is like a full moon. This has become widespread not just in subdivisions but everywhere as people see LED lighting as free. Perhaps they were a bit oversold.
- ip26 6y agoThe low cost can definitely drive the wrong design. But if a redo is being done, it's an opportunity to turn down power levels, use better shielding, etc. Modern LED lights can provide the same visual acuity at both less power as well as less lux, and with less light spillover.
- maskedinvader 6y agoThis is awesome , I wish more countries did the same. Also good news for stargazers, you see more stars at night when city lights are dim or use protection to avoid light pollution.
- mani557 6y agoVery nice
- dandare 6y agoOne summer night I stopped at this petrol station in a woodland area - the neon panels had many inches of dead insect in them. Tens of thousands of specimen, just like that.
- codeduck 6y agoI wish more places would do this. It would be amazing for plantlife, wildlife and amateur astronomy.
- the8472 6y agoSeveral other european countries already have introduced similar laws. E.g. slovenia, croatia, czechia. https://artificiallightatnight.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/0/5/37053463/mohar.pdf https://artificiallightatnight.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/0/5/37... https://www.darksky.org/croatian-light-pollution-law/ https://www.darksky.org/croatian-light-pollution-law/ https://english.radio.cz/lower-house-passes-dark-sky-law-8059407 https://english.radio.cz/lower-house-passes-dark-sky-law-805...
- balozi 6y agoThe cynic in me views this as yet another attempt at fethishizing nature by people who choose to live in sterile urban environments. The problem with this type of fetishization is that it eventually combines with class privilege to produce narrow public policy that seldom promotes the public good. Furthermore, those that live in less-urbanized less-sterile locales are painfully aware that nature and her army of insects always has the upper hand.
- travisporter 6y agoInherent in your statement is the idea that privileged people choose to live in urban environments, which is probably false half the time. I choose to live closer to work in an apartment to minimize my costs and travel time. I would love a backyard.
- lostmyoldone 6y agoEurope is quite densely populated in some areas, and insect populations in these areas have dropped to a fraction of past numbers in some areas, over only a few decades. It's quite reasonable to try to do something about it, as we're actually dependent on insects, to a likely significant but somewhat unknown extent. That there are insects in some places doesn't mean the issues with insect, and general biodiversity loss suddenly disappears. Bugs are everywhere, but there are species disappearing every at a rate much much higher than they should disappear for natural reasons. There certainly are cases where fetishization can be part of it environmental policy, but usually it's then about something you can brag about, not about the impact light has on the sex life of bugs. Even with the possible fetishization of nature, most people still don't care enough to be willing to lower their standard of living, even quite superficially. Generally, I would say cynicism regarding environmental policy is often misplaced, as even terribly inefficient policy makes the existence of the larger issue apparent, and opens the door to better and more informed policy the next time around. Look at almost any are of legislation, the first plodding steps into a new area is often hilariously misplaced, or terribly expressed with the 20/20 of hindsight. Regardless, they were necessary steps. In some areas, biodiversity arguably one of them, the first plodding steps are taken just now. It's progress, if small.
- zackmorris 6y agoThe best thing we can do on a personal level is to stop using broadleaf weedkillers like Scott's Weed and Feed and other herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup). I've been doing handyman work at my boss's house during COVID-19 and he has clover growing in his yard. He has a fair number of bees, certainly more than on my end of town which is all chemlawns. It's arguably ok to use a little weed killer by hand on dandelions if you must (better to spray 2-3 courses of vinegar instead). But killing all clover, morning glories, and other broadleaf flowers in lawns has led to the near-extinction of bees in residential areas. Herbicides and pesticides in agriculture wiped out the rest. Edit: fixed the first sentence to distinguish between broadleaf herbicides and glyphosate (which kills everything).
- duxup 6y ago>But killing all clover, morning glories, and other broadleaf flowers in lawns has led to the near-extinction of bees in residential areas. Herbicides and pesticides in agriculture wiped out the rest. Is that the case for sure? I thought the state of the bee population wasn't quite that well understood... I have no doubt that various herbicides hurt, but I'm not sure that just that science means their current population is entirely due to such use.
- zackmorris 6y agoThere are numerous studies, but since bee populations declined so drastically in the last 20 years, it's looking like the increase in glyphosate for GMO crops is one of the main culprits, or at least strongly correlated with the deaths: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/25/651618685/study-roundup-weed-killer-could-be-linked-to-widespread-bee-deaths https://www.npr.org/2018/09/25/651618685/study-roundup-weed-... Admittedly, my sample size is only 1 as far as clover. I'd recommend anyone reading this to go to a clover honey farm near where you live, to see for yourself. Part of the problem is that so many of us live in cities now that we have no personal experience about the issue, which leaves us more vulnerable to misinformation/propaganda from big agribusiness corporations, their lobbyists and the politicians beholden to them.
- bluntfang 6y ago
- shekharshan 6y ago"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus" -- Agent Smith (The Matrix)
- luckylion 6y agoWell ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals
- shekharshan 6y agoExactly, we are getting overconfident in our ability to control the planet and its resources. I believe we are privileged to share this planet with other beings. Instead we treat animals like some kind of inanimate resource.
- graeme 6y agoYou missed their point. The link shows that reindeer also multiplied far past their carrying point. Agent smith is wrong, plenty of mammals will overshoot given the opportunity.
- glial 6y agoDoesn’t make it wise.
- scintill76 6y agoWell, it was with our help... > In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The Coast Guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer.
- 6y ago
- veddox 6y agoGlad to see they're on to this. However, I gather that this is still a "Referentenentwurf" - i.e. a first draft written up by the ministry staff. This still needs to be approved by the cabinet before even going into parliamentary proceedings. So it's hard to say just how much will actually come of this.
- UncleOxidant 6y agoMaybe they could have a word with Bayer?
- ChuckMcM 6y agoWow. I have to say that I have never considered the case where insects needed to be saved. It seems to me that as lifeforms go, they have been the most durable form of multi-cellular life on the planet. That said, that there are negative systemic effects on the planet's ecosystems that are directly related to the massive production and use of herbicides and pesticides is not as surprising. Light though? Even after reading that article and looking through scholar.google to find papers that associate lighting with insect decline, I'm not convinced the use of lighting at night has a material impact. The ratio of unlit/lit habitat seems wildly in favor of unlit. And yes, I understand that unlit areas are often agricultural, and those areas contain the most insecticide/herbicides. It still appears to me that the root cause is the use of those products in farms and not that cities are poor replacement habitats.
- fwsgonzo 6y agoIt very well could be less of a problem than roundup, but at the same time it's good for everyone I think, that we turn off the lights at night. If only to see the stars.
- boudin 6y agoSound is also actually quite problematic. Flowers can use vibrations to detect the presence of a nearby pollinator insect and makes itself more appealing. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/flowers-sweeten-when-they-hear-bees-buzzing-180971300/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/flowers-sweeten-wh... The sound pollution might have the adverse effect of causing some plants to lose this ability to preserve energy for reproduction, indirectly impacting insects via the food chain. Currently, due to the massive use of chemicals in the countryside, cities start to be havens for insects. There is a lot of beehives in London for example (too much actually according to a beekeeper I talked with). Until we manage to massively shift the way we do agriculture it might make sense to make it as safe as possible for insects in urban areas.
- tksb 6y agoEven if the light doesn't have a quantifiable effect on insects, would it not be wise to reconsider the extended use in absolute "off-hours"?
- Proven 6y agoYeah, let 1,000 people break their leg or arm to save 10 million bugs! Morons
- rafaelvasco 6y agoTalking about dimming lights: Life tip: At night after dinner, turn off all the lights of your house. Use only weak led lights. You'll sleep much better, feel better and save on energy bills.
- at_a_remove 6y agoThis is one of those areas where I actually am in favor of some pretty tight regulation; photons spraying about leads to a tragedy of the commons rather quickly. Drive around -- billboards are lit up at night. Headlights might as well be pointed into the sky and are blinding. Stores are scarcely less well-lit when they are closed than during operating hours. I can go for a walk at night and read a paperback the whole way. Porchlights are left on all night, for no good reason. Sometimes, on a my regular trips to visit a friend, we go out at around one in the morning to a road far from other towns and I can actually see the faint haze of the Milky Way, but in the suburbs, I am lucky to pick out thirty stars and/or planets. I don't even think that all of this constant light makes us any "safer."
- ozim 6y agoFunny thing is that we mostly turn on the lights to keep burglars at bay. I don't have the link but there was some article pointing out that burglars also don't really like dark places. Like using flashlight inside of dark building can easier give out break in. Burglars are also people so they kind of scared of what might be in the dark, like you might miss something on the floor and break your leg or arm and then you would be stuck at the place you broke in.
- brainzap 6y agoIt would also save humans btw.
- yelloworangefog 6y agoI'm not German, but I'm in favor of reducing light pollution in general. I like being able to at least kinda see the night sky.
- dependenttypes 6y agoI am wondering, is there any benefit to having insects in cities specifically? I would understand if this was a law specifically for rural enviroment but what is the benefit for this in the city? Also, other than bees, which insects specifically benefit humans?
- williesleg 6y agoI love bugs!
- ShuckSchu 6y agok
- dcgudeman 6y agoPosts like this are really disappointing to me. I come to hacker news to read about technology and startups. If I wanted to read about general news topics (bees, insects, glyphosate, general monsanto hate, etc...) I would frequent google news, CNN, or reddit.
- yelloworangefog 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- some-guy 6y agoYou must be new to Hacker News.
- jmknoll 6y agoForgive the snark, but if you don't think using technology to make the world a better place is an appropriate topic for HN, you could consider getting your news from techcrunch.
- rat9988 6y agoAs you can see, you'll always have someone replying with the guidelines and act as if we all come here to have the opinion of software people on topics they don't master at all.
- macinjosh 6y agoWhat is more important? Your nan walking home from the corner store after dark under a street light or a beetle? Germany: beetles!
- Scottopherson 6y agoIf we decimate the insect population there won't be any nans or corner stores. If a street light is the only thing keeping your nan safe then maybe your area has bigger safety issues to address. Regardless, for any issue there is usually middle ground to be found and snark comments like yours do nothing to help find or support it.
- macinjosh 6y agoHow dare you use your privilege of living in a safe community to attack my experiences? I think you have some real work to do on yourself.
- kyuudou 6y agoI used to point this out to hipster trendies who illuminate their trees at night. Don't they consider nocturnal life that are dependent on solar cycles for proper circadian rhythms? Seems disruptive. I got the impression the trees were a bit miffed.
- entropie 6y agoHaving light polution in your habitat during night cycles can make certain plants mutate or make them hermaphrodite while growing indoors. The light from a socket distributor might be enough.
- diebeforei485 6y agoOne of the mistakes I see being made is replacing old orange/yellow halogen bulbs with white/"blue" LED streetlights. This is wrong. They should stick to ~2500K bulbs.
- tpmx 6y agoAlso Germany: Shuts down nuclear plants and lights up more coal plants.
- qayxc 6y agoMore coal plants is incorrect and the shutdown of the nuclear power plants was planned anyway. Since the mid 1980s no less... Basically most of the plants that were shut down simply didn't get their runtime extended again and would've been shut down in a few years anyway. And the utility companies owning them get billions in compensation and don't have o pay for waste disposal of all the irradiated parts either... Facts that nuclear proponents always conveniently ignore...
- tpmx 6y agohttps://www.powermag.com/germany-brings-last-new-coal-plant-online/ https://www.powermag.com/germany-brings-last-new-coal-plant-... > What is expected to be the last new coal plant to come online in Germany entered commercial operation on May 30, more than a decade after it was first planned. > The 1,100-MW Datteln 4 power plant, owned by Uniper and located in Datteln in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, opened despite the German government’s stated plan to end coal-fired power generation in the country.
- quattrofan 6y agoGermany saves the insects, China empties the oceans.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of which nations are at issue. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mrtweetyhack 6y agoOpen your homes and let the in
- mensetmanusman 6y agoIn the U.S. town and city budgets have a pretty steady lighting investment component. Because LED’s got so inexpensive, instead of saving money, the savings was used to increase the town luminosity. Now, because we moved away from sodium lights, the amount of daytime-like blue light being emitted during the night has skyrocketed. Wups
- mensetmanusman 6y agoInsects are dead because we manufacturer billions of liters of insect-killing liquid to spray fields to feed billions of humans. Starvation levels have dramatically declined over the last century. Now, we need to fix the problem we induced in our goal to feed the world. The only known solution is vertical farming.
- hh3k0 6y ago> Insects are dead because we manufacturer billions of liters of insect-killing liquid to spray fields to feed billions of humans. That surely plays a role, too. Light pollution of street lights in Germany, however, kills an estimated 1 billion insects _per night_. And then there's cars on the Autobahn, of course. They kill an estimated 100 billion insects per German summer.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoOur ancestors had it right, sodium lamps are better than LEDs.
- sizzle 6y agoWonder if this will increase crime rates... Thoughts?
- Jweb_Guru 6y agoMost german towns have virtually no crime to begin with and I doubt this will change because lights are dimmer.
- hairytrog 6y agoThe machine never slows down to protect weaker species. Such plan may be an attempt to lower power demand at night and make the demand curve more closely match Germany's wind/solar supply curve. It's an effort to lower costs and lower demand for power they'd have to buy from coal/natural gas.
- esarbe 6y agoWhile it's difficult to get hard numbers, the estimations for the decline in insect populations range from 70% to 90% since the 1980 (for some areas). Given that insects are one of the corner stones of our ecosystem, we can congratulate ourselves that we are very successful in destroying our own life support systems through predatory exploitation and sheer carelessness. Well done.
- yurlungur 6y agoI think in general all our life quality will improve if we significantly reduce light polution. Not to mention the energy savings. Sometimes I forget how beautiful the night sky is just because I'm usually so blind to it.
- dutch3000 6y agothis is great. also, why must every stinking device have a light letting you know the device is on or sleeping or whatever. so annoying. monitors, printers, cable modems, routers, everything has freaking, annoying blinking lights. i have to use dark tape to cover it all.
- pers0n 6y agoStop mowing your lawn (perhaps back yard) and you'll see a ton of insects (huge grasshoppers, big spiders, ants, etc) by the end of summer. mowing lawns hurts insects also
- acd 6y agoThis reminds me of my local cities new flashy sport arena. The sport arena has flood lights to make a UFO landing look good. Cant see anything of the night sky with these on. It is also using a lot of power. I remember star nights walking outside as a kid seeing the Milky way Galaxy full of stars. As for ordinary street lights, the purpose of street lights are for crime prevention, but there is motion sensors. Do we really need to have the lights on with no one on a street?