Re: Light pollution

[Jan Hollan <jhollan@amper....muni.cz>]

> Dear Mr Hollan
> My name is Pierre Barthélémy. I'm a French journalist (science writer)
> and I work for the newspaper Le Monde in Paris. I've written some
> articles about light pollution and I'm very interested in the new Czech
> law that prohibits it. I would like to ask you a few questions. If you
> could take a little time to answer them, it would be very kind of you.

Dear Pierre,

I am happy I can help raising awareness of the possibility of sustainable
lighting in another countries as well.
 
> 1/ What is the history of this law ?

Some hints are contained in the correspondence I wrote earlier, 
  http://amper.ped.muni.cz/jenik/letters/zak_oo/msg00104.html
 (that's in German, however) and
  http://amper.ped.muni.cz/jenik/letters/zak_oo/msg00105.html

In short, in June, I got a proposal to include the light pollution
prevention into the bill -- Stanislav Fischer, representative and reporter
for the law for the ``EU committee'' wrote me. Another representatives got
the same idea in summer. 

End of August, I gave the first drafts of the needed documents to
rep. Fischer, then in September, a group of astronomy representatives gave
the final versions to the ``Envir. Committee'' and then to the whole
House. 

LP has been included into the law a bit other way (just a few paragraphs)
acc. to the proposal of the Env. Committee (signed by the reporter of the
law Jiri Drda) and with a correct definition of the LP submitted by
Stanislav Fischer in the following months, a final version came in
December.

The Senate, due to lack of information, hesitated to let such a novelty as
a LP prevention becoming a part of the law (esp. in the existing form,
letting much power to the government). Fortunately, the much better
informed House voted over the Senate and Vaclav Havel signed the bill. Of
course, we would prefer having concrete measures wired into the law
itself, but lack of time probably led the House to the present short
version of including the LP into the law. The precise text of the
implementing regulations can be (and is) subject of public discussion yet
-- we are not worried, as our arguments are valid and proven.
 
> 2/ Why is the Czech Republic the first country to adopt such a law ? Do
> the Czech citizen feel concerned with this problem ?

The unique cooperation of those, who were most aware of the problem, i.e.
astronomers (as everywhere), brought this. One astronomer has been inside
the House, namely Stanislav Fischer. The other astronomers left their
research work for a while and behaved like responsible citizens, educating
the politicians, people from the Ministry of Environment etc.  The broad
public and journalists are becoming involved now as well, perhaps thanks
to the disputes about the objections raised by some advocates of the
current lighting practices.

> 3/ What was your part in this historical law ?

I am still the only Czech member of IDA (as far as I know) and nobody else
here knows the consequences and remedies of LP so well. I have prepared
all the Czech texts (original or translations) backing up the inclusion of
the LP into the law (even the paragraphs themselves, however, the wording
of the law took a different, much shorter outline), drafted then the
implementing regulations for the Ministry, and wrote most articles on the
topic in Czech. Fortunately, another people write nice articles now too,
astronomers and even professional journalists.

> 4/ In how many places have the new light fixtures been put in ? What are
> the results and the reaction of the people ? Have you seen any
> opposition ?

There are some examples in many places in Czechia already. I know just a
couple of them -- those that my colleagues or I have noticed. At least six
towns in Czechia use fully shielded fixtures for some applications
already, without any ``external force'', just to get quality lighting with
low costs. 
 
> 5/ Is it possible to evaluate the improvement of the viewing conditions
> ?

I plan to do some research at this field, i.e. photometry with digital
cameras. I am not aware of any quantitative results being published. Such
results can be computed as well, with the help of lamp photometry data
supplemented by producers, however measurements in a real world will be
much better. 

A simple look at almost any settlement from a hill or a tower at night
shows convincingly, that most of the current light going just above horizon
is directly from the bad lamps. So, eliminating that direct light by using
fully shielded lamps should help a lot.

Any street lit by fully shielded luminaires is pleasant to look at, the
improvement is vast, anybody agrees when comparing the two kinds of
lighting (polluting and glaring vers. quality lighting). 

> 6/ Are you going to promote this new law in other countries ?

Just as I will be able to, within a limited time, when asked for. I have
many other fields to work at (astronomy education, promoting solar
heating, passive houses, strawbale building, climate protection,
sustainability, ...).

> 7/ What is your first name (I saw Jenik and Jan...) ?

Officially, Jan, pronounced like in Dutch. But it's a very common name
here, having many variants in ordinary speech, as Honza (Hans in German),
Janek, Jenda, Jano, ... -- people call me Jenik mostly, and it's of course
more distinctive than Jan (there are often several Jan's together, calling
them differently helps a lot). And I got a minor planet from Petr Pravec,
named Jenikhollan. Jeník is more effective to shout (then Jan) when people
are trying to find me...

> Thank you very much for your help.
> Best regards
> Pierre Barthélémy

thank you for your interest, 
wish you clear unpolluted skies to see the present magnificient comet,
 
 Jenik
 

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                                Jan Hollan
              N. Copernicus Observatory and Planetarium in Brno
Kraví hora 2, CZ - 616 00 Brno                        +420 (5) 41 32 12 87

                                   home:
Lipová 19, 602 00 Brno                                         43 23 90 96

                 member of the Society for Sustainable Living
             and volunteer of the Ecological counselling Veronica
Panská 9, 602 00 Brno, Czechia                  fax:  +420 (5) 42 21 05 61

e-mail: hollan@ped....cz             http://astro.sci.muni.cz/pub/hollan

             and, specifically, http://www.astro.cz/darksky
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