On December 2, 2000, the Light Pollution Awareness Website was selected as a featured site in Lightspan's StudyWeb® as one of the best educational resources on the Web!   StudyWeb® is one of the Internet's premier sites for educational resources for students and teachers.   Since 1996, Lightspan's expert reviewers have scoured the Internet to select only the finest sites to be included in StudyWeb's listing of educational links.

On October 25, 2001, the Light Pollution Awareness Website (LiPAW) was granted the Griffith Observatory Star Award for presenting useful, thorough, and accurate information in a well-organized and attractive way, making the night sky more available to everyone.

On November 4, 2001, the Light Pollution Awareness Website (LiPAW) was awarded the Stellar Link Award by astronomylinks.com.   Astronomylinks.com is a website dedicated to the finding and presenting of the best astronomy and space links on the Internet and your site was found to shine out among the best.

An interactive reference library and discussion group has been created on the Internet where all who are interested in learning more (or teaching others) about curbing Light Pollution and enhancing the long term sustainable development of their districts, counties, communities and residential associations are welcome to join.   Anyone who works in community planning, public works, or zoning departments is highly encouraged to join this Forum.   Membership is free!   Local, state, and Federal officials are cordially invited to join this oracle offering unique information to learn many revolutionary ways to address various enigmatic aspects of obtrusive outdoor lighting by applying sound engineering principles of the IESNA, IDA, and CIE.

The benefits of taking proactive measures to comprehensively address a subject as seemingly simple as outdoor lighting can help to significantly improve profits and reduce accident liabilities for business, reduce expenses for municipalities, improve the nighttime safety and visibility for all drivers and pedestrians, improve the quality of life for citizens, enhance property values, and vastly improve the welcoming peaceful nighttime visual appearance of communities and their surrounding environments.   The International Dark-Sky Association and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America can provide information that will help your community achieve these worthy goals.   Many of their members belong to the DarkSky List Forum and they volunteer many hours dedicated to helping others learn more about these issues.   These concepts provide a win win solution for everyone.

Our ultimate mission is to restore the dark night sky around the world to the condition it previously existed for our ancient ancestors eight generations back or more, where we can finally all enjoy the splendor of a profound natural resource offered only by a stellar vista that provides the view of up to 11,000 visible stars on any cloudless summer night the of the year.   Everyone young and old is awed by the natural beauty of the stars overhead, and it is a view that is rapidly disappearing around the globe solely because of obtrusive outdoor lighting.   The solutions are elementary -- If illumination is truly needed to improve safety or security be sure to use only as much light as needed for the task.   Install only well shielded and properly aimed outdoor lighing that remains within the property boundaries.   Use light only when and where it is needed for a specific task at hand.   Keep light from shining above the horizontal plane and into neighbors' yards and windows, and turn the lighting off or reduce it to minimal amounts when nobody is physically present to benefit by it.

This very important natural resource has enveloped the Earth since the dawn of time itself and it is worthy of our aggressive protection for all future generations to enjoy and admire.   Were it not for man's imagination and burning desire to explain and quantify the physical interactions occuring between the stars and the planets traveling across the the night sky, Johannes Kepler, René Descarte and Isaac Newton may not have developed the Calculus to the extreme degree that they did.   Without the Calculus it would not be possible to have modern engineering and design as sophisticated as we know it today.   The fundamental principles for many of the worlds physical sciences and religions are based on the observations of the stars over the millenia, and we owe them the protection they deserve shearly out of respect for what God and they have provided us with.   Please join us and thank you very much for your concerns over this very important issue.

Thank you for visiting this website published to help improve long term sustainable development for all municipalities, improve safety for drivers and pedestrians, improve the quality of life for citizens, enhance the nighttime community appearance, benefit our health and well being, and raise public awareness about a fragile and precious natural resource that is being rapidly destroyed.   The starry night sky has all but disappeared in many areas and has been effected to varying degrees for nearly 90% of Americans!   With dark-adapted eyes, we should be able to see at least 2,600 stars under mildly polluted residential skies on any clear moonless evening.   In remote rural areas that have not suffered urban sprawl and overdevelopment it is possible to see four times that many stars on a clear night.

Today, in most urban areas, and now even many suburban and rural areas less than 100 stars visible in the night sky.   This happened because of wasted illumination needlessly spilled to the sky from poorly shielded and improperly installed outdoor light fixtures.   Obtrusive ourdoor lighting shines visible glare and severely diminishes our ability to see properly in the nighttime environment.   This condition also has a serious effect on our safety and quality of life.   Most of us have not noticed the dwindling view of the stars because Light Pollution crept up on us slowly, one obtrusive light after another over the past three decades.   Most children born today will never know the splendor of a star filled night sky and that alone is tragic.   My own daughter never saw the Milky Way until she was 14 years old, and that is our stellar address in the Universe.   We pump so much stray light into the sky today that we cannot even see our own stellar back yard.

Light Pollution occurs when too much artificial illumination enters the night sky and reflects off of airborne water droplets and dust particles causing a condition known as skyglow.   Light Pollution occurs when unmanaged glare emitting from improperly aimed and unshielded light fixtures causes uninvited illumination to cross property lines or shine bright light into drivers' eyes.   When this happens, the safety of pedestrians is often placed in jeopardy.   That pedestrian put in this condition may be you or your child someday.   Light pollution also occurs when too much artificial illumination causes nighttime visual performance to be impared.   It is completely unnecessary and as a result it causes damage and confusion for both flora and fauna alike.

Light Pollution affects everyone's quality of life and many of us do not even realize it.   How so you might ask?

• Light Pollution robs us of our right to privacy and fair legal use of our land when glaring unshielded lights shine artificial illumination onto our property at night.   It is an unwelcome violation of our space and is known as Light Trespass.   Many communities have nuisance laws that prevent this abuse so check with your local Zoning Enforcement Officer if it is happening in your yard.
  
  
• Light Pollution also robs us of our right to a good sound night's sleep when artificial illumination coming from poorly aimed and unshielded light fixtures shines glare into our windows at night.   Occasionally, poorly aimed lighting gets so bad that even the best blinds and drapes cannot end the spill of light into a room.   When excess light spill gets as bad as it is shown in the photos below, the only way to achieve a dark bedroom at night seems to be to board up the windows because blinds, shades and room darkening drapes do not work against it.
  
  
• Too much artificially generated light at night can have very adverse affects on our health by disrupting natural hormone production that our bodies require!   Research in this area is indicating more links to some very interesting medical questions about how natural circadian rhythms, when disrupted, can increase the risk of certain types of cancer.   For instance, low levels of melatonin have shown to increase growth of tumerogenisis implanted into rats with in vivo studies and has also proven to facilitate the growth of certain human breast cancer cells with in vivo research studies.   Artificially generated light at night affects the pineal gland's ability to produce melatonin (the sleep hormone).   This effect is governed by highly specialized receptor cells located in the eye's retina.   This same circadian disruption occurs in blind people as well, provided their eyes have retinas.
  
  Research indicates this hormonal effect is not being governed by a visual response, but rather, by autonomic responses when even small amounts of light penetrate the eyelids over a period of several hours, such as while we are sleeping.   Higher intensities of light (1000 lux or roughly 100 footcandles) will disrupt melatonin production immediately, however, the same levels of disruption will still occur with very low levels of light over a longer period of time, indicating the effect is cumulative. (Dr. Richard Stevens, et al., UCONN Health Center)
  
  Scientific research has not yet determined just how much artificially generated light at night will peak the hormonal response threshold to the point where it will cause various physical damages in the form of premature cancer development to occur in humans.   However, enough evidence has been collected to indicate that we should take great care to always assure our bedrooms and surroundings remain as dark as possible throughout the night.   A very interesting research article was published in October 2000, in Cancer and Causation magazine titled, "Light in the Built Environment: Potential Role of Circadian Disruption in Endocrine Disruption and Breast Cancer", written by Dr. Mark Rae (Director of Rensellear Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center) and Dr. Richard Stevens (Epidemiology Department at University of Connecticut Health Care Center).   This article can no longer be listed at this website due to copyright permission being recinded by the publisher, however, copies may be available from the publisher's website for a modest fee.   Another recent article was released by the Associated Press on October 16, 2001, titled "Working Night Shift in Bright Lights Increases Breast Cancer Risk, Studies Find", where it states that men and women who work the night shift in brightly lit environments suffer a 60% greater chance of developing breast cancer!   Yes, men can get this disease, too!   Light is not nearly innocuous as we have traditionally been lead to believe in the past.   More extensive research continues along these lines every year.

The examples listed above occur to a great number of people every night.   These conditions are commonly known as Light Trespass.   It should be one your rights not to be forced to suffer this kind of abuse.   In some communities this practice is against the law and is clearly defined in local or state ordinances.   In communities where no lighting ordinance exists, the suggested solution made by the lighting offenders and many town officials is usually to purchase blinds, shades, or room darkening drapes.   If that doesn't work you can always move somewhere else.

These are ridiculous suggestions because they require you to spend your own hard earned money in order to keep someone else's light from beaming into your house!   What if that light is spilling onto your property with such intensity that it no longer allows you a view of the stars overhead?   What do you do then?   Put up a 50 foot high fence to block the light?   That view of stars has been there since the dawn of time itself, and it should be each person's inalienable right to view unencumbered, the way it was always intended to be.   This starry night view is possible to achieve again through the application of responsible nighttime lighting.   How many people do you know who have requested someone else to shine lights into their windows all night long?

What is wrong with this picture?   How about keeping the light on the property where the luminaire is installed and on that property only?   Is this act of simple consideration too much to ask for?  

If someone introduces artificial illumination into the nighttime environment it should be their responsibility to control it.   Luminaire owners and installers should assure illumination is kept within their property lines and not spilling all over the neighborhood and also into the eyes of all drivers and pedestrians passing by.   Proper aiming and shielding by light fixture owners allows nighttime lighting to be easily controlled.   Unfortunately, this considerate behavior usually does not happen, however.   That occurs because no National or local law exists that defines your right to not be flooded with light at night, and until some form of law does exist to prevent this from happening you are open game for anyone who wants to put up a light and shine it on your property!

Light pollution also affects your quality of life in the following ways:

• Light pollution severely affects our nighttime visual acuity because it blinds us with glare coming from obtrusively bright streetlights and unshielded floodlights.   The eye will always adapt to very low levels of illumination, but it will also always be attracted to the brightest object in view.   Well designed outdoor light fixtures do not show the source of illumination when they are properly shielded and installed so no light shines above the horizontal plane.   When the source of the illumination is visible it is always brighter than the target area being illuminated.   That is the source of what we know as glare.   Glare is the adversary of all who travel or try to protect property in the night.   Glare belongs in the prison yard of a 1950's movie, not along the community streetscapes we travel, or in our back yards.

  Glare generated by obtrusive outdoor lighting should not be allowed in any community nor on any roadway because it diminishes our ability to see properly and can adversely affect the safety of drivers and pedestrians.   Depending on the brightness, glare coming from an unshielded fixture can disable drivers from being able to see anything except the light itself.   When this is allowed to happen, pedestrians are put in very serious jeopardy because they disappear in a veil of luminance.   If outdoor lighting is properly aimed and also shielded it does not produce disabling glare and this improves both safety and security for everyone.   Bring this to your town manager or state legislator's attention.

• Wasted electricity from excess illumination spilling into the sky and across property lines wastes an enormous amount of energy needlessly, serving no useful purpose whatsoever.   If you see roadway, billboard or security lighting shining into the treetops it is needless waste.   In areas where electricity is generated by using fossil fuels, this needless waste contributes to additional greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, which have been attributed by numerous noted physicists and scientists to be contributing to global warming.   This past decade was the warmest ever recorded in over a century of record keeping, with 1998 being the warmest year ever.   As a result, governments the world over have agreed to abide by the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates the reduction of man made greenhouse gas being pumped into our atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels and agricultural management protocols, among other things.   The International Dark-Sky Association estimated in 1996 that nearly 1.5 billion dollars of electricity is being consumed for illumination carelessly spilled directly into the sky each year by the United States alone.   Considering inflated fuel and overhead costs since then it can be conservatively assumed this figure today exceeds 2 billion dollars annually.   The extra electricity waste being caused by light spill that results in light trespass beyond property lines has not been calculated but it could easily triple if not quadruple the amount going into the sky.   Six to eight billion dollars of electricity consumption burns an enormous amount of light bulbs!   The majority of this electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, also.   It only makes sense to conserve electricity where possible, and turning the night into daytime conditions is neither prudent nor necessary.

  Got Light?   Click on this image to see a larger version of the "Cathedral of Light" erected at a Nazi propaganda rally held at Nuremburg in 1936.   ©1936, Der Parteitag der Ehre vom 8. bis 14. September 1936. Offizieller Bericht über den Verlauf des Reichsparteitages mit sämtlichen Kongreßreden (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1936)

  History of this infamous event is available at..."The Oath Under the Cathedral of Light at the 1936 Nuremberg Party Rally".   It is something that should never be forgotten due to the severity of events and enormous human suffering that soon followed.

  Visit the following website and see if you notice anything similar to the 1936 "Cathedral of Light" held in Nuremberg?   Review the recent Towers of Light Proposal" suggested to honor the thousands of people who recently succumbed to a terrorist act on September 11, 2001.   Please take a moment to send your comments at that website if you do not approve of their memorial proposal.   These people deserve much better in the form of a memorial to honor their passing and demonstrate the spirit of America.

• Light pollution caused by obtrusive luminaires that are not properly adjusted and shielded needlessly robs everyone of their inalienable right to view the stars.   This view has been an integral part of this planet since the dawn of time itself.   We can no longer see our stellar address in many areas and the problem is growing worse with each new powerful light that gets installed.   The Milky Way actually frightened many people after power went out in a Los Angeles earthquake in the mid-1990s.   People were afraid the earthquake had caused the mysterious cloud that traversed the night sky because they had never seen it there before.   That mysterious cloud was actually the Milky Way!   The Milky Way galaxy is our stellar address in the Universe and most of us cannot even see our own back yard any more.   Many of our children and young adults now think Milky Way is just another candy bar, never having seen the splendor of its awesome beauty overhead.   Community leaders can fix this problem by instuting comprehensive outdoor lighting ordinances that require shielded lighting that does not shine illumination above the horizontal plane or by including this requirement in the local zoning regulations.

Affecting the Cure for Light Pollution

The cure for this needless waste of electricity and extra light spillage is relatively simple to achieve.   Use properly aimed shielded fixtures that keep the illumination within the property line where the luminaire is installed.   Use low wattage energy efficient bulbs that provide only as much illumination as needed, distribute the illumination using shielded fixtures that point light downward and do not shine glare above the horizontal plane, and only use outdoor nighttime lighting for as long as it is absolutely necessary.   Security lighting provides the best performance when administered using infrared proximity sensors that cause lights to turn on suddenly when someone approaches a building.   This causes an immediate change of the surrounding environment that will drive most people with ill-intent away and it also raises immediate attention to the area from both neighbors and law enforcement officials.   Security lighting that remains on all night draws absolutely no attention.   More often than not, events occurring on such a property will go unnoticed because anyone seen there is usually perceived as belonging there.

Here are some excellent guidelines how to Take Action!

How can you help cure Light Pollution?   You already have a very good start.   If you have read this far, you are now aware of many of the problems relating to Light Pollution.   Please consider joining an educational organization like the International Dark-Sky Association, or a light pollution awareness group in your area.   Learn as much as you can about it and inform others along the way as you go about your daily routine.   Please contact your local officials and also Congressional representatives in Washington, DC, to request they take proactive steps to address the light pollution problems that are affecting the quality of life for you, your family, the local community, and the entire Nation as a whole.   Help others achieve methods of reducing light pollution when you can by providing them with ideas and good lighting suggestions from what you have learned.   Inform them of reputable manufacturers you know of that offer good lighting products.   Politely suggest they shield and point their lights downward to keep the illumination on their own property.   The New England Light Pollution Advisory Group offers an informative "Good Neighbor Outdoor Lighting" brochure that can help, too.   Most people are in the dark about good outdoor lighting practices and they will most likely appreciate your advice.   Your voice can and will make a difference.

Many states and communities have recently passed laws regulating outdoor lighting practices over the past decade, and the trend is accelerating on a worldwide level at a record pace.   Conserving energy and natural resources is the burgeoning new way to enter the millennium.   Light pollution costs much less to cure than it does to perpetuate, and there is no messy toxic residue to clean up afterwards.   Putting an end to light pollution is a responsible and ethical thing to do, and it will enhance the quality of life for nearly every citizen in the process.   It is an equation where the whole equals more than the sum of its parts.

Establishing outdoor lighting ordinances will help to prevent this kind of eye abuse from occurring to you and other members of your community.   Controlling outdoor illumination does not affect business in a negative manner in any way, shape, or form whatsoever.   In fact, it actually helps boost profits for businesses that are achieved through utility cost savings.   Responsible nighttime illumination using luminaires that employ full cutoff optics (FCO) that do not shine glare or create too much illumination makes roads and parking lots much safer for both drivers and pedestrians.   Removing glare and skyglow also helps to beautify the nighttime appearance for communities, changing them from appearing like the midway concession stands at a country fair into a warm and inviting place to live that can instill a great sense of pride for everyone in the community.

In the interest of reducing glare to improve safety, security, and visual acuity after dark, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America recently dramatically lowered their recommended illumination levels for the nighttime environment.   Their publications can help teach DOT officials, utility companies, town planners and zoning officials how to achieve this desirable effect with both grace and elegance.   The IESNA publication of Recommended Practices "Lighting for Exterior Environments" RP-33-99 is available to order from the Internet at: http://www.iesna.org   It is a good read and well worth the investment.   Every town should have a copy and abide by this excellent advice when applying light to the night.

Read an abstract about Light Pollution presented to the 2000 World Congress on Managing and Measuring Sustainable Development.   Where Has the Night Sky Gone, and Why Should We Care? is a presentation that may help to raise awareness and help us discover new ways to manage our environment better than we have done in the past.

To learn more about the issues of light pollution please visit the LiteLynx List™ research page.   You will find:

• Numerous organizations helping to educate others
• Existing and proposed laws to control light pollution
• Numerous articles printed in magazines and newspapers
• Photos showing light pollution
• Links to discover who to write to in order to establish a cure for light pollution
• Lighting manufacturers and related information

IDA Lighting Code Handbook Version 1.12

International Astronomical Union Working Group on "Controlling Light Pollution"

You may wish to bookmark this next page.   The award winning LiteLynx List is world renowned and it continues to grow and evolve as the research into Light Pollution, health and sustainability issues continues.   Please visit this site again frequently, and tell your friends to stop by, too.   Better yet, ask your local, state, and federal representatives to visit this site also.   The LiteLynx List is dedicated to bringing you the latest and most comprehensive long term sustainabile development information avaliable.

Shielding Plans and Diagrams