polarized light pollution

I just learned about polarized light pollution via this post on PopSci.com. I've talked about the ramifications of regular ol' light pollution on nocturnal species but little did I know, artificial polarized light reflecting from shiny urban surfaces like buildings and car windows is confusing wildlife. Birds and insects are mistaking these surfaces as bodies of water. A study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment offered an example of the disruptive effects of polarized light pollution: "Turtles frequently ingest plastic, especially transparent plastic bags, because they confuse the polarized light from them as that from prey."

The Brightest Full Moon in 15 years

So perhaps the comment I made last night about "light pollution being at an all time high during the holidays because even the semi-rural suburbs were glowing in the distance" might have been... ugh this is painful... wrong? Oops. Yesterday, Wired's Clara Moskowitz wrote about the phenomenom:

"Because the moon orbits along an egg-shaped ellipse, not a circle, its distance from us changes. Today, the moon is approaching its nearest point to Earth, so it should look about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than this year's other full moons, according to NASA. Since the moon takes about 28 days to orbit Earth, it reaches its point of closest approach, called perigee, about once a month. But since the moon's orbit isn't a perfect oval — rather, it wobbles — some perigees are closer than others. Tomorrow's approach will be the closest the moon has come to Earth since 1993."

poultry pollution

We've talked about the negative effects excessive poultry production has on the Chesapeake Bay in some previous posts and Ian Urbina addressed Maryland's growing poultry pollution problem in his recent NY Times article. It turns out 650 million pounds of chicken manure is produced in our state each year. Holy crap. Pun intended. From the article:

As the amount of cropland in Maryland has shrunk and the number of chickens raised has grown to 570 million, these mountains of manure have become a liability because the excess is washing into the Chesapeake Bay, one of the nation’s most polluted estuaries, and further worsening the plight of the fishermen who ply its waters.

Poultry is Maryland's most lucrative form of agriculture and state officials are finally starting to realize that being able to sell masses of skinless, boneless chicken breast for around $2 a pound has consequences, like growing phosphorous and nitrogen levels in the bay.

Read about proposed regulations and farmers reactions here as well as in the aforementioned NY Times article. I'm not sure, however, how fair it is for the liability for manure to fall to the growers raising the chickens, rather than the larger companies that "own the birds, provide the feed and drop off a new batch of chicks every eight weeks."

NYC recognizes light pollution problem

New York is ranked as one of the country's most light-polluted cities by the International Dark-Sky Association. On Saturday, the NY Times reported that due to the rise in energy costs and more sophisticated lighting systems, Manhattan has dimmed it's nightscape. Yay!

Some highlights from Ken Belson's article:

Motion sensors ensure that unoccupied offices, storerooms and canteens go dark after workers and cleaning crews leave at night. Dimmers soften overhead lights that once could burn only bright or not at all. Timers guarantee that buildings fade to black while the city sleeps.

“The tall tower with the illuminated floors on all night long is probably a thing of the past,” said Randy Sabedra, the owner of RS Lighting Design, who is helping to create a new map of the city’s most prominently lighted buildings.

New York scores a 9 on the 9-point Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, the association’s favored measure, along with other major cities like Houston and Las Vegas; a typical suburban sky ranks a 5, while Tucson, which has stringent outdoor lighting codes, is also a 5.

State Assembly passed legislation in June requiring that new outdoor lighting have shields that reduce glare and waste; the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat, said it would most likely be taken up by the State Senate if the Democrats manage to win a majority on Tuesday (Republicans currently hold a one-seat advantage).

City Councilman Alan J. Gerson has introduced a variety of similar measures — to require full streetlight shields and motion detectors in all commercial and government buildings, and to mandate more efficiently lighted billboards. The first of the proposals could be taken up as early as this month.

Light pollution

Something tells me I am going to take a lot of heat at the next dinner party for posting about this but I can't help it... I am concerned about light pollution.

This months print edition of Nat Geo discusses how nighttime artificial light distorts biological rhythms, disorienting humans and animals and disrupting natural patterns that have evolved without the hazy glow surrounding cities and the bright outdoor lights in our neighborhoods. Here is an excerpt from one of his posts, Ecological Light Pollution:

Humans have been aggressively lighting up the night for just over a hundred years, and though scientists have spent only a fraction of that time exploring the impact of the unintended peripheral glow on the natural world, observational and experimental data show that it affects how animals move about, communicate, find food, and even select mates. The most famous example is newly hatched sea turtles that become disoriented by the light from brightly illuminated beach communities and have difficulty finding the ocean. But behavioral changes have been documented in a wide range of species, including birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, and amphibians. Not all species respond to light in the same way. Many nocturnally migrating birds are drawn to the source and can wind up circling round and round lighted towers, often colliding with other birds or dropping from exhaustion. Some animals, such as mountain lions, avoid lighted areas at night; other species are able to exploit such areas—foraging longer or targeting prey that congregate near lights, as some bat species do. But the increase in foraging hours can have its downside, putting animals on the prowl at risk for predation. The overall effect on complex ecological relationships is not yet fully understood. There's also evidence that our grand transformation of the night might have serious implications for our own health. The contrast between dark and light allows our bodies to calibrate our circadian rhythms, such as hormone levels and sleep schedules. Disrupting these can have a dramatic impact. Researchers think this phenomenon may help explain higher breast cancer rates in societies with brighter nights. Studies on shift workers exposed to nearly constant light during the night hours reveal a higher risk for the disease, perhaps because of altered levels of melatonin. Other research shows that blind women have a lower occurrence of breast cancer. One study that looked at a general population also found a correlation between neighborhood nighttime light levels and breast cancer incidence.

Since reading Scriber's article, I can't stop hoping to see a truly starry night - but unfortunately live in between the sky glow from Washington DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis. He talks about what we used to (or should) be able to see as far as planets and constellations... it's upsetting. I am even thinking about going to the next (rather unbearable) homeowners association meeting to talk about replacing the enormous glowing street lamps in our 'hood with a model that reduces glare and focuses light downward.

The entire article is currently only available in print and online to subscribers, but I recommend picking it up or at least reading the article abstract and some posts by the author here.