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Feel welcome to edit the list, of course. ] 23:55, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) Feel welcome to edit the list, of course. ] 23:55, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


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== I souldnt ave started readin. ==
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== Light pollution definition ==
For real, what rural night sky actually looks like that? Has the person who made that picture ever actually SEEN a rural night sky, or is that just their imagined impression of what they are missing because "all of these beastly lights everywhere"? Or maybe it's just that they just WANT people to think that's what they are missing? The Milky Way looks like a pale blur. That's it.
Next: "ALL light pollution is caused by unnecessary, inefficient or unattractive lighting" - oh really? So if you had free hand to go through and alter lighting to exactly the way you wanted it - but without removing any lights which people consider NECESSARY, like security lighting, or what have you, suddenly you'd be left with NO light pollution? NO sky glow? How do you figure that one out? We won't even go into lights which YOU think are ugly as hell but another person likes quite well, or which are totally necessary. I intensely dislike the fact that there is now a row of red blinking lights on the ridgeline 10 miles away, but if we don't have them a plane will end up crashing into the new wind turbines (which you probably thought were a great idea). In any case, no, not ALL light pollution is caused by unnecessary, inefficient or unattractive lighting. There would STILL be light pollution if you got rid of ALL tree of those categories, and as usual, even though YOU know what's best (don't you always?), that doesn't mean all the benighted and ignorant will agree with you. The cretins.
Next, before I stop...I had to stop reading...what use is it saying "5 million barrels of oil per day in energy"? There is no-one burning OIL to make electricity. You can use that as an EQUIVALENT amount of energy, I suppose, if you didn't want to bother with scientific or ''actual'' units of energy, and were hoping to shock the public by using a scary sounding phrase like '5 Million barrels of oil wasted per day!".... but this seemed to be actually stating that the US literally burns 5 Million Barrels of Oil per day to run un-needed lighting. No, it doesn't. It really doesn't, and its disingenuous or outright lying to say that it is. At ''worst'' the equivalent amount of coal or natural gas is burned, but in reality a great deal of that energy comes from hyrdo or nuclear or even wind power. Barrels of oil is not a preferred unit of energy consumption. And if one wanted to be at all rigorous, how does that compare to TOTAL energy usage in the US? How much energy is wasted on OTHER things? How many actual, literal, barrels of oil are burned per day, and ow many of those are wasted in traffic jams? Suddenly your "statistics" start to cut the other way, which is probably why you didn't mention any of that.
"5 million barrels of oil wasted per day!" sounds a lot scarier than "the US wastes 150,000,000 BTUS of energy per day (out of 266,000,000,000,000 BTUs of energy per day used). Oh, and why the hell tell us "30% total of energy goes to residential or commercial uses"? That tells us nothing about light pollution, or about how much energy is wasted on lighting; is that just put there to confuse people who can't read well into assuming it means that "30% of total national energy use is wasted on lighting"? Or it supposed to go with the next statistic, which says 20% of the energy they DO use is used on lighting? In which case it could be written more clearly: 30% of US energy usage goes to residential areas; 12-40% of THAT 30% is used on lighting.
I had to quit while I was ahead though, because I was just getting too irritated at the way the whole thing was written. Maybe someday we could have an article that reflects the fact that NOT everyone agrees on how serious a problem light pollution is, or what benefits might accrue from reducing light emissions (apparently at the moment its primarily a problem of "educating" people into agreeing with you; how uncommon to ear that...), or what the best way to do that is. Right now it reads like a press release from a single organization with an agenda....and one that I won't take too seriously, once they start telling me "this is what you sky could look like a night" with an image taken out of a National Geographic, and how "the US WASTES 5 MILLION BARRELS of oil a DAY" running electric lights. After that, everything they say is suspect at best. ] (]) 02:23, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
:Can you please write coherently? This isn't a forum for your personal views, please propose specific, sourced edits. '''<span style="font-family: Arial;">] <small>]</small></span>''' 02:36, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
::If you would actually look at a microcandelas per square meter map of the rural skies you've seen you see that those location(s) are far from unpolluted and rural doesn't actually say much about the brightness of the sky. Much of Australia is fenced, legally owned ranches which is rural not wilderness yet but their sky is unpolluted or almost so while the 20+ miles of nothing but farms in central New Jersey is even brighter than your sky and brighter than many cities (this is actually a criticism of the level names of a common non-technical sky darkness scale which has poorly chosen names like "rural" (level 3) "rural-suburban transition" (level 4), and "suburban-urban transition" (level 7). The very same scale that says the summer Milky Way looking pale high-up instead of like veined marble is a sign that your sky is level 5 to 7 of 9. If the image you're complaining about is still up simply replacing the almost useless descriptor "rural" with "unpolluted" or "nearly unpolluted" or whatever is most accurate and that would've solved the entire misleadingness problem and hopefully prevented you from thinking everyone's dumb enough to lie about something that's easily verified by driving to the Sahara or Outback or the parts of the Western US who's overhead skies have less than 2.52 microcandelas per square meter of artificial surface brightness. And giving the eye at least 20-30 minutes of dark or dim red light to adapt and waiting for the Sun reach 18+ degrees below the horizon which are both in every damn book about astronomical observation. According to Bortle scale 1 even the glare of Venus or Jupiter can reduce the dimmest star you can see, so yes the eye can see some very dim things if you let it. Also low-light threshold is one of the lowest symptoms of thin air so the ideal altitude is supposed to be 6,000 to 9,000 feet. ] (]) 17:16, 26 June 2021 (UTC)


Acording to Darksky international
:::I just removed "barrels of oil". Feel free to edit the article yourselves. ] (]) 08:29, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
"What is light pollution?"
"Light pollution is the human-made alteration of outdoor light levels from those occurring naturally." -> https://darksky.org/


I was on the boad of Dark Sky when this was changes. The reason is that old definition was biased by the industry and was incoherent of other definitions of pollution. Like the pollutants on the "1979 convention on long -range transboundary air pollution", where clearly, is included the light pollution. As is explained by the Legal comision of the UN: https://legal.un.org/ilc/reports/2015/english/chp5.pdf.
==Wiki Education assignment: BioEE1610 WIM==

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‘Air pollution’ means the introduction by human activities,
directly or indirectly, of substances or '''<u>energy</u>''' into the atmosphere
resulting in deleterious effects on human life and health and the Earth’s
natural environment.

This was even explicitly said on other documents: https://legal.un.org/ilc/reports/2018/english/a_73_10_advance.pdf

All this is expresed on more detail on : Bará, Salvador, Carmen Bao-Varela, and Fabio Falchi. "Light pollution and the concentration of anthropogenic photons in the terrestrial atmosphere." Atmospheric Pollution Research 13.9 (2022): 101541.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.14131 ] (]) 16:51, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

:Your was:
:{{difftext|'''Light pollution''' is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial ]. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the day or night.|'''Light pollution''' is the presence of any artificial ]. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to lighting sources, during the day or night.}}
:The sources you're referring to here don't seem to support your suggested definition of all artificial light being light pollution. --] (]) 17:26, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
::On this review paper you can see how light levels https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/22/6400 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.767177/full at all scales are been impacted. You are right that should not be "any artificial light", should be "any artificial light at night" and some reflected light during day (light reflected by some solar panels for example). ] (]) 21:52, 8 October 2024 (UTC)


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To-do list for Light pollution: edit·history·watch·refresh· Updated 2008-09-05

  • It is inaccurate in "Measurement of light pollution and Global Effects" section to say that work by Cinzano et al. "measures" the sky glow by using DMSP observations - this discussion should be corrected to say that this work provides a crude estimate using a model, and only of the zenith. For example, it uses sea-level atmospheric conditions everywhere, which cannot give accurate results in western US nor in aerosol-laden areas. Further, the photometric accuracy of the DMSP data has not been established and has been questioned in the refereed literature. Since someone else wrote this section, I will let them revise unless I am asked to do so. Cluginbuhl (talk) 23:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
      • There is a specific organization that suppress any efforts to give Italy a unique national bill against light pollution, which is Ente Nazionale di Unificazione, founded in the early years of 1900 to standardize industrial testing, materials, procedures and so on.

Its members are universities, public administrations, representatives of manifacturing industries and so on. It produced a specific standard UNI 10819 to (very theoretically) protect the sky from light pollution and some lectures to defend it against the hordes of people that recognized how that standard LEGALIZED light pollution rather than reduce it, but if every one agree I can try to translate their thoughts. To point out how scientists can vary their opinions about this topic it could be useful to summarize prof Zichichi article on catholic magazine "Famiglia Cristiana" and the remarks of prof Maffei, an italian astronomer who pionereed infrared photografic surveys to Zichichi's article. Again, I can traslate. As a final suggestion based on my own experience in Italy I have to remark that the "dispute" about light pollution depends on the strong relationship that links light and energy industries, universities, politicians. Light and energy industries are trying to increase profits and do not accept any regulamentation, universities have to defend their own business and do not like that someone else discovers and applies cheaper and environmental safe lighting rules, politicians fear to lose a powerful argument to gain votes, summarized as "daylight intensity lighting for safety against crime". But I have to remark that only 7 1/2 italian regions on 20, 40% of land and 30% of population have to bear "industrial" lighting rules: in 2007 Liguria, Friuli Venezia Giulia and half of Trentino Alto Adige rejected UNI standards to adopt "zero lighting above lamps" rules. How can exist a "dispute" about light pollution when the majority of a nation says that night skies have to be protected ? --195.210.65.30 (talk) 08:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Check that references are formatted properly, both in the references list and in the article. Seems to be done now. Izogi 03:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Expand the table of luminaires in the Adjusting types of lighting section.
    • This list is based on data in the IDA Information Sheet 52, which still needs to be cited.
      • For the record, that particular IDA information sheet might not be a reliable source... see this discussion. Izogi 23:54, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
        • i tend to agree with izogi and question the validity of this as a source Anlace 22:45, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Expand the Organisations section so that it explains a bit about the formation of various organisations, instead of just listing a couple.
    • It might be useful to include a lighting engineering organisation or two, if there are any prominent ones.
    • Are there any well known organisations that actively counter what anti-LP campaigners say? If so, it's probably worth mentioning them to maintain a neutral point of view.
  • Add a more specific citation for the information in Interruption of the eco-system which refers to Michael Mesure's comments about the deaths of millions of birds. (Although I don't doubt he's said it, I couldn't find a reference, myself -- Izogi) Well tidied up by a helpful anonymous user—Thanks heaps. Izogi 10:23, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Some of the text in the Types of light pollution section might actually belong in the Consequences of light pollution section, or maybe not.
  • Consider expanding the section about Redesigning lighting plans, or perhaps merge it into other sections. It seems a bit short right now. Done. Izogi 03:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Should the paragraph about Calgary be moved to this section? Done. Izogi 03:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Maybe think about adding a section to do with the current state of light pollution around the world. (Don't know how this would work, but the text about Utah having the least LP in the US doesn't seem to fit well in the Consequences of light pollution section.) Thoughts? Izogi 8 July 2005 07:01 (UTC)
  • Note something about pollution of the radio spectrum. (This may actually warrant its own article, but it should at least be cited here.) Izogi Added a disambiguation page and (for now) linked it to a radio spectrum pollution stub. Izogi 05:45, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Establish better link to Lighting article and to energy conservation in generalAnlace 17:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

To-do list

Here's a list of possible things that the article might benefit from, in no particular order:


1. Remove the liberal bias from the article. Oh wait, you wouldn't have an article without that...

Reality has a liberal bias. Not necessarily for things that only affect relations between humans (whether kookoo anarchists should let legal heroin stores open in front of schools or not, is Hamas evil..) but definitely for environmental things. The conservative track record is very bad on that. And don't say liberal is tree hugging people that want no wood to be used ever and think the tree's spirit speaks to them, the average liberal's nothing like that.

Feel welcome to edit the list, of course. Izogi 23:55, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: BioEE1610 WIM

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Light pollution definition

Acording to Darksky international "What is light pollution?" "Light pollution is the human-made alteration of outdoor light levels from those occurring naturally." -> https://darksky.org/

I was on the boad of Dark Sky when this was changes. The reason is that old definition was biased by the industry and was incoherent of other definitions of pollution. Like the pollutants on the "1979 convention on long -range transboundary air pollution", where clearly, is included the light pollution. As is explained by the Legal comision of the UN: https://legal.un.org/ilc/reports/2015/english/chp5.pdf.

‘Air pollution’ means the introduction by human activities, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the atmosphere resulting in deleterious effects on human life and health and the Earth’s natural environment.

This was even explicitly said on other documents: https://legal.un.org/ilc/reports/2018/english/a_73_10_advance.pdf

All this is expresed on more detail on : Bará, Salvador, Carmen Bao-Varela, and Fabio Falchi. "Light pollution and the concentration of anthropogenic photons in the terrestrial atmosphere." Atmospheric Pollution Research 13.9 (2022): 101541.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.14131 Pmisson (talk) 16:51, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Your change to the lead was:
'''Light pollution''' is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial ]. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the day or night.+'''Light pollution''' is the presence of any artificial ]. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to lighting sources, during the day or night.
The sources you're referring to here don't seem to support your suggested definition of all artificial light being light pollution. --Belbury (talk) 17:26, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
On this review paper you can see how light levels https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/22/6400 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.767177/full at all scales are been impacted. You are right that should not be "any artificial light", should be "any artificial light at night" and some reflected light during day (light reflected by some solar panels for example). Pmisson (talk) 21:52, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA24 - Sect 200 - Thu

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 September 2024 and 13 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Qiuyi Y (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Qiuyi Yang (talk) 03:14, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

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