Pie Tins.

LPN February 2025
Light Pollution News Podcast
Light Pollution News Podcast
Pie Tins.
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February 2025: Pie Tins, Light Pollution News.

Host:

Bill McGeeney

Nick Mesler

Nick Mesler is a Director at Evari Consulting, where he takes a data-driven approach to achieving positive street lighting design, livable communities, and active transportation outcomes. Nick considers himself a “plangineer” and prides himself in understanding both the big picture forethought and honest realities of implementation necessary to bring successful projects to life. Nick specializes in transportation safety, with a background in mobility planning and transportation operations. Nick has worked on large street lighting projects across the United States.

Nick is a registered Civil Engineering PE in Oregon and Washington and a registered Traffic Engineer in California. He frequently presents and participates in events through the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), and the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP). He is a member of the IES Outdoor Nighttime Environment Committee and the IES Roadway Lighting Committee. Nick is regarded as an authority on lighting for transportation safety.

Mark Baker

Mark Baker has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mark was a computer programmer for 20+ years and a middle school math teacher for 10+ years. Mark has been involved in the effort to protect people from LED light since 2016. Mark founded the Soft Lights Foundation as a 501(c)(3) non-profit registered in the state of Oregon in 2021. The Soft Lights Foundation is now one of the world’s leading advocacy groups for the protection of people from the harms of Visible Light radiation emitted by Light Emitting Diodes and for the protection of the natural night as a resource.

Isa Mohammed

Isa Mohammed is an amateur astronomer, engineer, and entrepreneur residing in Trinidad and Tobago. He is the current President of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, the Trinidad and Tobago National Coordinator for Astronomers Without Borders, an advisory board member of the North American Regional Office for Astronomy Development, and an ACEAP Astro-Ambassador. Isa is a Director and Sales Manager at Eniath’s Printing Company Limited. Apart from his work in science outreach and education, he is also an avid astrophotographer. When he’s not tending to his business or doing outreach, he can usually be found behind a telescope, fishing, or playing board games with his wife and three sons.

Article List:

  1. Traffic light installed upside-down in NYC — and it’s stayed that way for months, Chris Harris, New York Post.
  2. Upside down traffic light in NYC, Reddit.
  3. This Famous designer changed the way cities think about public lighting, Diana Budds, Fast Company.
  4. Light up the night: Officials tout progress of streetlight improvement project, Hayden Mitman, NBC10.
  5. An Evaluation of Citywide Street Lighting Upgrades on Gun Violence, Crime and Justice Policy Lab.
  6. Investigating the feasibility of nano-grid infrastructure integration into street lighting systems based on energy production and economic evaluation, Nature.
  7. Roadway Lighting’s Effect on  Pedestrian Safety at Intersection and Midblock Crosswalks, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
  8. Electric Utilities Sued Over Lighting and Wildlife Issues, Inside Lighting.
  9. Lawsuits Seek To Protect Hawaiian Seabirds From Too-Bright Streetlights, Leo Azambuja, Civil Beat.
  10. Protecting Hawai‘i’s Rare Native Seabirds from Lights, Powerlines and Structures, EarthJustice.
  11. Hawaiian Electric and Conservation Groups Reach Settlement to Protect Imperiled Seabirds, EarthJustice.
  12. Artificial Light Increases Nighttime Prevalence of Predatory Fishes, Altering Community Composition on Coral Reefs, Global Change Biology.
  13. Artificial light at night impairs visual lateralisation in a fish, Journal of Experimental Biology.
  14. Ecological consequences of artificial light at night on coastal species in natural and artificial habitats: a review, Marine Biology.
  15. Urban–rural diversification in response to nighttime dim light stress in Drosophila suzukii, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
  16. Antelope, Oregon, Drew Reagan, Dark Sky International.
  17. Cottonwood Canyon State Park becomes Oregon’s third International Dark Sky Park, Drew Reagan, Dark Sky International.
  18. Browns Canyon National Monument recognized as stargazing destination with new Dark Sky Park certification, Drew Reagan, Dark Sky International.
  19. We’re losing sight of the night sky. This First Nation is trying to protect it, Michelle Cyca, The Narwhal.

Let’s kick things off today with this gem of public works. Apparently, at the corner of 6th Avenue and Lispenard St, public officials installed a traffic light upside down back in May of 2024. However, hardened New Yorkers apparently didn’t bat an eye, as not one person reported the issue to 311.

In the world of streetlights, it’s probably safe to say that they’ve always been ‘that’ bad. Danish architectural lighting designer Poul Henningsen introduced a radical idea in street lighting back in the 1920s – eliminate glare and adequately illuminate surfaces. He did so by creating fixtures that capped to light at the top, forcing light to bounce downward, while also shielding the lighting element to prevent horizontal escape (ie glare).

The fixture didn’t win over everyone, of course, as the owner of the fixtures, Copenhagen Energy ended up removing some shading to enhance brightness. Henningsen again unsuccessfully attempted to improve lighting in the 1960s with the advent of newer, brighter technologies, by once more reangling and removing glare.

Fast forward to 2025, and many cities have obviously been undertaking conversions for even brighter street lighting with the same apparent faults of the past – namely imposing unintended glare to homeowners, ecological areas, and drivers. Here in Philly, we’re slated to have our conversion completed by the fall of this year, with a projected saving of $8M annually and a projected project cost totaling $91M to be amortized over the course of a decade.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Crime Lab team is also studying the effects of the new lighting transition. Some members are the same members who wrote on the Crime Labs New York Omnipresent study. I will note that the research in Philadelphia, per the Crime Labs website, is to “add to our knowledge connecting street lighting to violence reduction.”

Now Nick, staying on topic here, you shot over a handful of articles, which will be available to our paid subscribers in this month’s mailer. One of them was this study from 2021 out of Virginia Tech. I think this is a very good article to hit on. Maybe you can help me and the listener at home on what goes on at crosswalks?

As a lead in – I’d like to preface with a story from my neighborhood.  Our neighborhood is abutted by two very busy roads. On one of them, a driver demolished one of these new, blinky yellow, ‘Pedestrian Crosswalk’ signs. Instead of replacing the sign in its area, to avoid future costs, the city installed a new sign well offset from the street, not at all in the driver’s eyes. Of course, not like any of this matters here in Philly where pedestrians may have the right of way by law, but don’t tell the residents that.

This study suggested some intriguing alternatives – are you able to tell us more?

Also in street light news, this one somehow evaded me. However, for you at home who listen regularly, you’ll recall that we’ve had some ecological articles on here in the past discussing the vulnerability of shearwater birds to artificial light at night.

In what the Conservation Council for Hawaii executive director Jonetta Peters phrased as ‘the endangered species capital of the world,’ Hawaiian Electric Company and municipal leaders, such as Maui Mayor Richard Bissen, have claimed that obtaining responsible LED fixtures utilizing warm colors and a lower brightness is simply too much effort.

In January of 2024, Earthjustice, an environmental nonprofit issued an intent to sue Maui County and the Hawaiian Electric Company should they not comply with the Endangered Species Act’s provision to protect the listed species. The suit was officially filed in November alleging three defendants – Hawaiian Electric Company, the Maui Electric Company, and the County of Maui.

The issue has apparently been a constant drumbeat dating back to 2019. Not all is lost on Hawaiian Electric.  At the same time, while they were being served, they entered an agreement with the Conservation Council to provide $480,000 to habitat growth for Hawaiian seabirds – including lowering power lines and adding power line diverters. The remaining issue appears to be this stubborn one of the streetlights.

In other ecology news, this is probably no surprise given what we already know about how artificial light affects water based ecosystems. A study in Global Change Biology found that artificial light shone down in areas containing coral reefs extended hours of prey. Artificial light actually promoted activity in daytime fish all through the night, drawing in continued predation and exhaustion among the fish in lit areas.

This study fits in with other studies including one in particular that we saw a few months back where artificial light at night changed pond ecologies through predation. You can find those studies and all of our ecology articles in the research tab of our website.

Also notable this month, a study out of the Journal of Experimental Biology found that exposure to artificial light at night changed the brain processing characteristics of the early development stages of zebrafish. Whereas fish in the control study showed a bias toward a particular hemisphere of the brain, those exposed to artificial light at night did not exhibit such partitioning.  For instance, the control group processed visual information utilizing the right hemisphere of their brain, while the exposed group did not show a preference.

And there’s this very exceptional review study in Marine Biology that looked at the effects, if any, of artificial light at night on coastal habitat over 57 studies. Definitely worth the look.

And here’s an interesting one to close out our ecology news. In the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, researchers looked at a spotted wing fruit fly agricultural pest.  Artificial light at night decreased mating activities in both the rural and urban populations, with the urban population understood to have more exposure to routine artificial light at night. However, egg laying activity increased in rural populations over that of the urban populations when exposed to artificial light at night, indicating that the urban population of flies has adapted to their always bright 24-7 environment. 

I have one more story to end today’s show. Before we get to that, let’s recognize the hard work of these communities.

Finally tonight, I always like it when I can close out with a good story. It’s a nice bookend to a great set of shows. This month, we get to do just that with this piece from the Narwhal.

The Huu-ay-aht First Nation located in Bamfield, BC has seen a dramatic increase in tourism – largely driven by ecotourism including campers and outdoorsmen. One angle they hope will continue to grow that economic honeypot in the offseason is astrotourism.

With a focus on indigenous conservation efforts, the tribe is looking to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada to qualify and bestow a dark sky certification, but first, it will attempt to put together its own dark sky festival.

The narrative of the night sky is baked into the culture of the Huu-ay-aht. The moon bore the first woman, and the first man similarly arrived from the stars above.

I thought this was a fitting way to end, it comes from the author, Michelle Cyca.

When an old-growth tree is felled, or oil spilled into the ocean, many people will recognize this as a profound loss of something ancient and irreplaceable: a wounding of the world. But the unobstructed night sky is a similarly precious natural resource, one we’re losing a little more of each year, and with it the opportunity to learn the teachings and stories woven into the stars.


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