WEBVTT - How Light Pollution Works 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.360 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.919 and there's Chuck and there's Jerry over there, and I 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.239 just want to say this is stuff you should know, 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:27.600 the Chuck's Birthday edition. Birthday Chuck, Thank you, thank you. Okay, 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:32.080 So back to it. Yeah, we got a I got 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:37.280 approval from Josh to do a special front loaded listener mail. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:39.960 I'm a little tense about this. I'm not I'm not 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.400 gonna lie. Really, you were like, it's his birthday, I 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.160 gotta do it. Yeah, I had to give in. Uh 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.760 for those of who don't know the end of the podcast, 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.319 some people just switch it off when you start your 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.840 little uh dobbledygook at the end. But we read mail 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.880 from listeners which can be informative and instructive and fun 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.080 and heartwarming and say ad and they're really good. So 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.320 you've been missing out if you don't listen through to those. 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.120 But I'm gonna do want to hear at the front 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.640 because this just came in as sheer coincidence that it 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.920 happened to dovetail with today's topic. So while Alex lash 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:21.160 Here of New Zealand did not suggest this uh topics 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.160 such that we took the suggestion we are already doing it. 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.720 You sounded like a mobster trying to stuff So here 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:32.680 we go from Alex. Hey, guys, following up on the 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.480 National Park app, I like to suggest you complete the 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:40.319 trifecta and do dark sky reserves and marine reserves. I'm 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.039 from New Zealand. My dad played a part in the 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.039 formation of our own dark Sky reserve in the McKenzie Basin. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:51.600 There's a joint effort between the local uh Maori eui. 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.720 I'm probably just mispronouncing everything. Uh Takapo tourism, which is 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.360 the town in the University of Canterbury who ran the 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.160 Mount John of Erbitory in the area. My dad was 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.520 head of physics and astronomy at the university at the time. 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.320 It is a truly life altering experience to look up 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.040 and see a skylit brilliant by the Milky Way with 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.120 no light pollution and into Capo you can do a 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:15.680 tour uh to look through some of the telescopes for 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.079 a better view. And this from Alex lash And he's 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.360 attached a picture of a of a photo that his 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.560 friend took of the night sky with the observatory in 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.919 the foreground, and he was like, there is no special cameras, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.160 just mounted on a tripod to lead that exposure open 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.120 for a long time. And brother, it is. You should 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.840 check out this email from Alex. It is unbelievably gorgeous 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.160 and we forget what is up there in the sky 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.040 when you live in in most places in the world. Yeah, 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.679 I mean they say that in the US and Europe, 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:56.240 nine percent of us live in light polluted skies that 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.440 are so light polluted that we can't see like the 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.040 Milky Way, you just can't see it. It's there, we 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:05.040 just can't see it because of all the light that 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.160 we put out. And so yeah, so that is an 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.360 amazing photo. So to see something like that in person, 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.720 it really kind of and to realize that it's out there, 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.040 it makes you kind of sad. But at the same time, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:20.280 it makes me very determined to go somewhere and see. Unfortunately, 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.239 I've been looking around. There's not a lot of places 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.440 that I want to go anyway, So it's gonna have 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.280 to be a special trip, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.959 And it is. You know, occasionally when I have gotten 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.040 out to the desert or out in the middle of 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.920 the ocean on the one cruise ship I went on, 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:38.960 and you see those stars, it is a reminders like 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.280 those things are always up there, and so we get 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.480 to see so little of that in the city. Uh. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:47.440 I mean, you're lucky if you get a smattering of 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.800 stars if you live near a city on any given night. Yeah. No, 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.640 it's definitely true. And like skyglow in and of itself. 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.120 If you don't stop and think about what it is, 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.360 it can be kind of beautiful in a weird way. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.680 It makes you feel like you're alive and connected to 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.760 everybody who's alive in that city, right then, weirdly, or 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.840 does for me, I should say. But but when you 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.000 but when you do stop and think about what it is, 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:12.840 it can make you pretty sad. And then when you 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:14.680 do see something like you get like it's just a 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.200 taste of what the night sky is supposed to look like, 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:21.039 like chuck in a truly like dark night, like a 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:26.880 night sky that isn't polluted with light, Like Venus and 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.440 Jupiter are so bright they can make you cast a shadow, 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.440 that's how bright they get. The Milky Way does too, 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.960 like you can cast a shadow from Venus and Jupiter. 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.920 It's just mind boggling to think of you can't even 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.359 see Jupiter. Maybe you see Venus, like if you're lucky 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.680 around a city, But like you said, smattering of stars 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.520 and some skyglow is basically what you get. So I 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.760 think the thing that really kind of makes me feel like, man, 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.560 we were so close. It was up until even like 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.880 sixties seventy hundred years ago, like you didn't have to 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.200 very far from a place like Atlanta or New York 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.000 or Boston or you know, wherever any city to to 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.000 go find something like this, like maybe just drive out 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.560 beyond the city limits are here or there. Um. But 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:17.360 today we've been increasing our artificial lighting even faster than 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.560 our pollute. Our population has been growing, and so it's 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.400 gotten to this point now where we've lost a lot. 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.720 And there's some people saying, hey, not only are we 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:29.520 losing stuff, we're actually gaining all sorts of negativity too 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.680 that we need to start addressing. And that is the 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.400 upshod of light pollution. It really does stand as a 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.480 type of pollution when you dig into it. Yeah, and 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:40.479 this is one where we're gonna you know, arm you 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.600 with some information, maybe gently remind you about some best 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:49.960 practices without trying to be to preachy about what you 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:54.360 do at your own home. But you know, it's not 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.840 just skyscrapers and and big city stuff. It's the individual 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.960 humans home that as far too much light pointing up 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.400 at the sky these days, and it all adds up, 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.720 it does, and um, a significant portion of it is wasted. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:14.320 If you start looking at um light pollution. Uh. I 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:18.280 guess warning people, right, yeah. Uh, you know, if you 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:20.920 start hanging out with that crowd, you'll find that they 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.800 also very frequently say, hey, you can save a lot 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.120 of fossil fuel emissions and a lot of money on 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:30.280 electricity if you just use sensible lighting that doesn't pollute. Yeah. 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.200 So let's talk about the history of it a little bit, because, 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.400 like I was saying, it's not a very old problem 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:38.640 that we faced, but it's really kind of grown by 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.760 leaps and bounds in recent years. Yeah, and big thanks 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.760 to Olivia for help with this one. I think this 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.200 is kind of right up her alley. Uh. She points 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.479 out that, you know, astronomers obviously were some of the 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.040 very first people to say, hey, we've got a problem 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.719 going on, and this was in the late nineteenth century. 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:03.640 There was an astronomer name Givon, Yeah, who talked about 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.640 cold smoke a problem and of itself and quote the 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:12.400 abuse of electric lights end quote, that we're basically wrecking 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.800 uh Giovanni's view from uh the observatory in Italy there 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.080 at Brera. I guess in Brera, but the Brera Astronomical 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.720 Observatory it's in Milan actually so. But the problem was 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.400 that Sappiarelli was too cool to take his sunglasses off, 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.920 so he was not exactly like um, a reporter you 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:38.120 could rely on unreliable narrator in Gucci sunglasses. Yeah, I've noticed, 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.800 like I've I've gotten to this weird point in my life, chuck, 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.200 where rather than use the word I'm looking for, I 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.280 use five different words that are clumsily strung together that 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.040 kind of get across what I'm trying to say. You've 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.280 gotten to this point, Okay, I feel like it's stepped up, 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.320 all right. Yeah, I need a little more perspective on 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.600 myself to be thinking about how I be. No, don't. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:03.680 You don't need to think about that anymore than you 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:09.760 already do. Okay, So, uh astronomers were among the first. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.560 They were also authors Olivia points out there was a 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.440 naturalist and author named Henry Beston who was a great quote, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.800 it's kind of sad. Uh, there's a night mind you 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.560 with lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.000 of night back to the forest in the sea. Today's 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.160 civilization is full of people who have not the slightest 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.160 notion of the character or the poetry of night, who 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:40.920 have never even seen night. Yeah, we take those people 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:42.600 out and in the night think what was there? Who's that? 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:47.360 Who's there? Where's my flashlight? So things really kind of 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.400 got going like like people people were aware, like there's 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.480 there's all sorts of light pollution going on. Um, all 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.240 you have to do is try to get some sleep 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.840 in a in a city where there's tons of lights 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.160 on to under stand light pollution and have it affect you. 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.920 So it's not like people didn't realize there were issues 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.679 with overuse of artificial lights along the way, but it 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.520 wasn't until the fifties that anybody actually started to do 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.560 something about it, which, if you stop and think about it, 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.319 if if really we started to run into this problem 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.280 around the beginning of the twentieth century. Less than half 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:24.640 a century later, UM, people were already moving to address it. 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:26.920 And the whole thing started in Arizona thanks to a 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.679 richie rich astronomer Personval Lowell, who had built um an observatory, 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:36.520 great Lowell Observatory out there, um near was it flag Staff, 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.760 I believe, and the Grand Canyon. Yeah, and um it 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.360 was a great space at the time when he built 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.480 it in four But by the time I think that 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.439 nineteen fifties rolled around, when they were looking to expand 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:54.199 their like, already, Flagstaff is just too bright for our telescope. 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.080 What are we going to do well? And they said, 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.360 and this is what all observatories. Basically he had to 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.400 do was move out even further. So they moved out 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:08.120 about twelve miles southeast of the city. But then even 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.120 then they were like, you know, at some point this 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.959 is gonna be a problem as well because of the 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.160 way that humans just expand their footprint with suburbs and 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.439 ex serbs, and so let's actually do something about it. 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.360 And so the Flagstaff City Council is a sort of 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.199 one of the first measures in the United States on 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:32.319 light pollution banned the searchlights. When you grew up in 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.880 the seventies and eighties, you remember this you don't see 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.320 you don't see him anymore, which I guess this is 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.720 why I've seen it as recently in the last like 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.000 ten or fifteen years. Oh really, I have seen one 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.960 in and I didn't even remember them until this article. 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.800 But uh, when a big business would open up, or 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:53.360 just any business that could afford dire spotlights, they would 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.360 have these searchlights, spotlights like these bat signals, just kind 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.640 of flowing back and forth in the night sky, and 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:01.680 I get you know. The idea was you would just say, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.640 what's that light? Yeah, drive, I need to drive toward it. 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:06.760 I got nothing else to do. I need to find 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:13.840 out if there's a new Aaron rent exactly exactly. And 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.920 people do that, I guess because they used them. I mean, 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.280 those search lights weren't cheap to rent, I would imagine, 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.240 so they must have been effective if people use them 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.719 for that long. I remember those all the time when 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.400 I was a kid, and Flagstaff City Council said, at 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.960 the very least, no more of those dumb things. They're like, yeah, 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:34.920 it's exciting, true, but it's it's wrecking Percival Lull's telescope. 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.880 So they actually, yeah, they were the first city in 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.720 the country and maybe even in the world to pass 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.360 something that protected dark skies, and that kind of set 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.160 like the tone for the Flagstaff and Tucsign area, which 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:52.080 I can't remember if they're even remotely close to one another. Um, 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.120 super close. Now, our good friend Blair Bunting actually uh, 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.160 I think they live in Flagstaff now, so he's probably 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.120 gonna send us an e disabusing me of any notion 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.600 that flag Staff and Tucson are anywhere near each other. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:10.520 But the I guess Tucson copied Flagstaff maybe and started 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.920 to say, hey, we should protect our dark skies too. Yeah. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:15.440 I think it was just sort of in the air 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.960 in Arizona. And in the early nineteen seventies Tucson pass 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:23.880 some laws that said, hey, all these lights that are 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:28.040 pointing upward, let's just point those down at least. Uh. 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.560 And then over the next few decades they moved like 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.920 two different kinds of lights that were a little softer 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.120 on the visual spectrum, not as bright. One of the 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.040 big problems we'll talk about later is all the blue 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.680 light these days from led s and electronics and things 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.600 like that. But um, do you have the blue light? 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.600 Oh my god, are you? Are you trying to get 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.680 better sleep, and like not looking at your phone before bed. 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:56.240 I've got that um that night shift thing on where 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:00.360 like from sunrise to sunset it's um or suns set 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.880 to sunrise, it's like a yellow it's like yellow stuff 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.640 automatically it does that. Yeah, and I don't. I try 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:09.960 to read books more at night too. I think it's 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.120 but it's more just like the light bulbs, those light fixtures, 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.120 I don't care what time of day it is. They 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.400 just look like you've made the decision to to do 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.480 everything you can to drive yourself insane. So you're you're 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:27.560 going with the blue light led eds. Well you should 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.880 avoid those, right, I think so, Yeah, I don't have 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.560 them in my house. Good for you, Chuck. I mean, 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:35.920 that's one of those things like l E d s 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.719 are great because they last a long long time, but 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.360 they make different kinds of l D s now, so 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.319 you don't have to have those blue light ones. So 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.640 there's this group called the International Dark Sky Association. They 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.559 were founded in night by somebody who was part of 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.679 that push and I think Tucson and start protecting the 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.280 dark skies. They are big time into saying like hey guys, 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.959 we need to figure out some something else. But aside 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.960 from these blue A blenk l Eds that are really 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.040 not good, we'll really just stop all over blue light 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:06.959 l e d S whenever we get a chance later 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.240 in the episode. But the point is is the International 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:14.160 Dark Sky Association has been introduced now and they are 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:19.880 responsible for Alex Lash's favorite thing, certifying dark sky places 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.160 around the world. Actually I think there's a hundred and 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:27.080 seventy of them. Yeah, like dark sky sanctuaries. Basically, UH, 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.360 if you do the right thing. If if this is 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.240 your goal and you do the right thing, some people 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.560 might say it's the wrong thing. Um, you can get 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:42.200 certified places in I believe, um, Minnesota. I think there's 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.760 a park in Maine the UH caught it in Woods 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:50.360 and Waters National Monument and Maine. UH Cosmic Campground in 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.680 New Mexico one that is I don't think on the list. 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:57.120 But I had a dark sky experience at Sapolo Island, 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.600 Georgia a few years ago. Uh. This is when I 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.640 was at the very misguided notion that I was going 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.240 to try and direct a little independent movie. And we 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.400 a couple of friends of mine and I went down 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.040 there to scout Sapollo Island, which is one of the 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:15.360 Barrier islands of Georgia that is virtually uninhabited that there's 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.960 still some of the original gichi Uh people that lived there, 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.080 but it's like there's no electricity. So the guy that 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.280 showed us to our place was like, take your flashlights 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.160 at night because there are no street lights. There are 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.440 very few people and it is dark. And we got 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.560 this little golf cart to ride out to the lighthouse 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:39.800 and original golf cart it was pretty original. Um, but 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:41.560 we got out on the little road, the dirt road 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.680 and turn the lights off, and man, it was unsettlingly dark. 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.480 You could you literally could not see your hand in 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.920 front of your face. Oh really, I was gonna ask 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.080 you if your eyes acclimated to the dark so that 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.200 you could see better than you thought you could eventually, 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.120 but this is like when we first switched them off, 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.280 and you just forget about just street lights and just 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.120 people and all the light that comes in. So it 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.120 was saw the best guy there I've seen in a 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.320 long time. And um, it's just weird when you're in 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.840 a place that's super dark. Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:15.760 because you're not used to it. You're a city slicker. 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.000 I'm a city slicker. So um, that's pretty much brings 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.720 us up to where we are now in history. As 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.480 far as light pollution goes, it's a big old problem. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.240 There's some people at the fringes of this starting to 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.440 try to get everybody else on board, and we're gonna 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.680 kind of dive into what actually makes light pollution. After 0:16:34.760 --> 0:17:02.920 a break, let's do it a birthday break. Oh okay, 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.000 and we're back and it's still Chuck's birthday. Happy birthday again, 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:11.359 Chuck fifty one. It's a weird number. Yeah, but if 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.560 you add them together at equals six and six is 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:18.680 perfectly fine. All right. So my daughter's age comes full circle. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:21.879 By the way, I took her to her first pro 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.480 sporting event last night. Went to a Hawks game. Oh wow, 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.359 what do you think? It was interesting? I mean, I 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.359 knew we would have to leave it like halftime just 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.120 because of bedtime. But she made it through the half, 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.720 got a little squirmy. But you know NBA games, there's 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:40.480 a lot of extra fun stuff going on. Fire cannons. Yeah, 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.119 they had dogs catching frisbees and T shirt cannons and 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:50.280 all that. Yeah. On the court, it was great. Uh So, anyway, 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.200 light pollution, I guess we should talk about the four 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.639 main kinds, right, and I have bigger problems with some 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.919 of these than others. Yeah, So the idea, the International 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:06.280 Dark Skies Association UM has basically identified four types. The 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.040 first one is glare, and that is basically like, if 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:13.960 you look up at a street light, yeum, the that 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.480 light is going to basically hurt your eyes. You're looking, 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.159 You're you're being hit with glare from the street light. 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.959 That's right, that's a kind of light pollution. It makes sense. Um. 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.520 The the reason that that's light pollution is ideally, you 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.800 should have to be standing directly under that the light 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.680 fixture of the street light and look up for the 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:36.880 for that glare to happen. That's just not the case. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.040 You can be half a mile away and look at 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.399 a street light from the side and you're still going 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:45.760 to get hit with that same glare. That's why it's 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.080 a problem. That's what makes it light pollution. Right. The 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.840 second one is want to have a big problem with 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.720 is a light trespass. And this is when you have 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:01.439 a neighbor or somebody that has a floodlight like pointed 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:05.600 in your bedroom window and sometimes they just keep it on. 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.359 Um that's not the case with my current neighbor. Just 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.880 to be clear, I don't think he listens, but he's 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.200 he's pretty good. He like I do, have the motion 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.520 sensor floodlights that only pop on when something is moving. 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:23.119 But be aware of the light that you cast from 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.800 your home. Is is all I'm that's is preachees I'm 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.920 gonna get. I just realized two days ago that the 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.919 old front security light replaced all the rest of them 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.640 with those motion detector ones. But the one I've left 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.000 so far, um, the it's it's very old, like the 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.119 the on offs which is actually like rusted in place. 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.080 It's been on all day and all night like, and 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.719 it has been shining at my neighbor's house luckily, Luckily, 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:53.879 I think their bedroom is on the other side and 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.600 they're also there. They're very friendly. Um, they would say 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.520 something if there was an issue. Um in very friendly. 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.879 Man are very friendly people. But I just realized it. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.639 So now I ordered like a replacement light and had 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.560 to turn all my lights off because that one is 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.560 just sitting there, sitting on It's crazy. And also when 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.480 I think about the electricity, it's wasting during the day. 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:20.880 It's like, come on, don't be so stupid, you stupid light. Uh. 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:26.120 There's called clutter, which is um. I mean, it's described 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.320 by Olivia as bright, confusing, or excessive groups of lights. Yeah. 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.600 I looked into that. What does confusing mean confusing is that, UM, 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.000 we have something called contrast illumination that we use for 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:43.760 night vision. So a light that looks um less bright 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.440 than another light is going to be further away. With 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.760 artificial light, that's not necessarily the case. You could have 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.920 like a porch light that's even brighter than a street 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.399 light that's further away, and it's going to confuse our 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.320 eyes and mess up our night vision. And then also 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:00.760 I have the impression that just having a big smattering 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:04.119 of individual lights across the landscape at night is is 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.720 clutter as well. But I think the problem is it 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.440 really messes with your night vision. Yeah, we do have 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.080 a porch light. To be clear, I'm not advocating for 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.560 like total darkness of your home, but we leave the 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.119 porch light on at night. Uh, like Tombodette says to do. 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:23.280 And that's it. You got a Motel six now at 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:27.160 your house. I live in the management office. It's quite 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:32.159 nice and comfortable. It's affordable. Yeah, it's your side hustle. 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.159 Then you've got skyglow, which is I think everyone kind 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:37.680 of knows what this is. This these are just the 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.760 culmination of city lights. And if you've ever driven into 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.080 Las Vegas from the desert, you see that skyglow from 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:46.920 a long ways away. It's just sort of a big 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.399 glowing dome in the distance. And that one seems to 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.200 be a problem that's not just from light pollution, but 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.360 also air pollution too, because you can you can see 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.880 skyglow just fine on a cloudless night and it's reflecting 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.359 actually off of all the particles in the atmosphere. And 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.679 then if there are clouds, you can see the clouds 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.280 usually quite clearly. You're not supposed to be able to 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:11.600 see clouds, but that's part of skyglow as well. And 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:15.200 as we'll see the villain of this episode, um blue 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:20.280 wavelength led lights are particularly problematic with skyglow because those 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:24.360 blue wavelength that blue wavelength light actually travels very far 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.680 and can create skyglow hundreds of miles away from the city. 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:30.880 When you're when you're way far away from the city, 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:33.560 you'll still be able to see it just fine. Yeah, 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:35.440 And Lyddy included this fun you know we're kind of 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:37.200 talking about he kind of just forget in the city 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:39.640 and you get used to stuff. She included a fun 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:45.240 little story from when Los Angeles had a big power 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.800 outage across the city and people are calling in very 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:51.479 concerned and reporting what ended up being the Milky Way 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:54.480 galaxy in the sky, right like if they thought it 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.399 was a gas cloud or something. I'm not sure, just 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:01.080 something concerning. I think, like, hey, there's a weird looking 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:05.000 glow in the sky, and uh, they went, it's fine, 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.840