22. Light Pollution

This episode of The Sweaty Penguin is brought to you by Wet Wipes. Too lazy to wet a paper towel, get a towel that's already wet and contains plastic that can't break down today. Welcome to episode 22 of The Sweaty Penguin, Antarctica's hottest podcast. I'm your host, Ethan Brown. Today we are talking about light. The only thing fret boys can turn on. As great as light is for allowing anyone over the age of 30 to read a restaurant menu and determining if the coast is clear to steal your neighbor's newspaper, too much light can actually cause some real problems. Light pollution, it's a problem that's been growing since the mid 20th century. Growing number of people can't sleep well at night due to the light pollution emitted by the lights of the city. New research shows that those who live in denser areas tend to get more exposure to those bright street lights and that can cause them to get less sleep and something we need. Wow, I didn't realize the light pollution was the reason I'm not sleeping at night. I just figured it was because of spending every week trying to turn a new series to press an overwhelming environmental issue into 20 minutes of roasting fret boys, jokes about Tom Brady, and commentary on BDSM and Bluetooth Dildos that is very careful not to ever include a swear word because, well, what if a future employer listened and heard me say the F word? But it's true. Light pollution actually poses a lot of issues for the environment, human health, and the economy. So today we'll discuss how light pollution works, what problems it's causing, and what we might be able to do about it. Let's start with how light pollution works. Light pollution is the overillumination of cities and night skies by artificial lighting. It's caused by the abundance of light sources emitting light outside of an intended direction. Several types of light pollution exist, including glare, which is a disruptive light that shines horizontally. Light trespass, the unwanted shining of light onto nearby areas, and sky glow, a halo over inhabited areas caused by the scattering of light particles. So let's break that down. Glare occurs when a light is so bright that it hits your eyes and actually causes discomfort or even temporary blindness. Light trespass is when light shines into an area it's not supposed to, such as people's homes. And sky glow is when all the light in an area reflects up and illuminates the night sky. All three of these scenarios boil down to light being shown somewhere it's not intended to be. If you set up a street lamp, you don't want it shining into your eyes or your house or your neighbor's open bathroom window, you just want it to shine directly down onto the sidewalk. Because light in the right spot is really important. You definitely don't want to step on a crack and break your mom's back. But light in the wrong spot is not only wasted light but actually causes a lot of problems. Let's start with the environment. Specifically sea turtles. Female sea turtles actually swim out of the water and dig a hole in the sand on the beach to lay their eggs. They only do this at night to protect themselves from predators and that hot lifeguard that didn't call them back. So right off the bat, light pollution prevents sea turtles from actually laying their eggs. And then when a mother does lay her eggs and the baby sea turtles hatch, the problem gets a lot worse. As they emerge from their nests, hatchlings use the contrast between the relatively brighter ocean which reflects celestial light and the darkened silhouette of the dune to make their way to the ocean. Before human development, they had no problem finding the sea. Now, man-made light is disrupting their natural sea-finding abilities, disorienting hatchlings and attracting them toward beachfront properties instead. They're going to beachfront properties at night? Wow, it sounds like those baby sea turtles are really coming out of their shells. But as fun as it seems to go crash spring break parties and see middle-aged men in flip flops, baby sea turtles who get disoriented and go further inland usually die. Of course, that's devastating for the sea turtles themselves which are an endangered species and it's doubly devastating because sea turtles perform really important ecosystem services from foraging unwanted sponges to maintain coral reefs, to transporting nutrients from oceans to beaches and dunes, to eating jellyfish, which is huge because jellyfish are terrible. Seriously, why is there a creature whose only purpose is stinging humans and forcing us to pee on each other? I know these humans have done a lot to harm their environment, but even humans wouldn't stoop that low. And it's not just sea turtles. Birds who migrate at night can be confused by artificial light and migrate too early or too late fly into cities or even collide with buildings. Bats are less likely to forage with artificial light present, which has actually affected the regeneration of tropical rainforests according to a journal of applied ecology study. Amphibians like frogs and salamanders are less likely to mate when artificial light is present because well, they're classy and don't get down like that. And for insects, light pollution can actually interfere with basically every aspect of their lives. With the flood of artificial light, they can't navigate by natural sources of light like the moon, so they end up getting all turned around and just fly themselves death. And some artificial lights may even give off low levels of UV light, which insects may mistake for UV signatures from flowers. Some lights give off infrared radiation, which can seem like female moth pheromones, which register to male moths in the infrared. It's true. While frogs are just having trouble setting the mood to mate, male moths are quite literally getting catfished. Most of us have probably seen a moth flock to a lamp before and circle it repeatedly like a Volvo XC90 circling the best parking spot at soccer practice. But keep in mind, this is happening to not just moths, but crickets, butterflies, and even fireflies. That's right, Avril City. You think you would not believe your eyes if 10 million fireflies lit up the world as you fell asleep. Try having six billion humans light up the world and ruin your entire life. All of this is contributing to the catastrophic collapses of insect populations all over the world, which is terrifying because in addition to being important parts of their ecosystems and 2009 pop songs, insects pollinate plants, which is absolutely essential for humans to have food. In fact, human life is quite literally predicated on the existence of these insects. And if you're thinking, "Yeah, I know," but they're still annoying, then less light means more insects will be alive, but they'll be flying to their intended locations and not to the lamp in your bedroom. And the list of species impacted by light pollution goes on and on. And I won't be able to cover them all today, but I would like to look at the health impacts of one more that I think everyone can agree is especially important. Humans, which of course evolved on Earth that's spinning every 24 hours, have evolved to depend on darkness at night. The sleep professional will say this all the time if you want to sleep well, no lights, that's the best way to sleep, and a whole host of more serious problems, even cancer, which can be exacerbated by hormone problems that are linked to light pollution. That was astronomy professor James Lowenthal and he's right. Beyond the health of animals, light pollution has a major impact on the health of humans, and let's start with sleep. In the most obvious sense, light pollution makes it harder for most people to fall asleep, unless you're afraid of the boogie man or your boo for a monster's ink, you need darkness. And beyond that, light pollution actually interrupts what doctors and scientists refer to as your circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is the biological clock responsible for releasing chemicals and hormones in the body throughout the day, including the melatonin that triggers our bodies to sleep. What we've discovered is that when we do not receive the right light, we cannot thrive. And if you couldn't tell by those long pronounced compelling pauses, that was a tent talk. Melatonin is a hormone that is produced in the brain and released into the bloodstream that helps regulate our sleep schedule, and when the circadian rhythm is thrown off, so is our melatonin production. If your sleep schedule is thrown off so much that you're not getting sunlight in the morning, or you're on an alternate sleep schedule due to your job, screaming child or burning need to watch friends on Nick at night because Warner Brothers took it off Netflix, and there's no way in hell you're dropping 1499 for HBO Max. You might also be missing out Unvitamin D, which boosts metabolism and increases intestinal absorption of important minerals like calcium, magnesium, and phosphate. And that's terrifying for me because I'm a college student during a pandemic. I'm lucky to get an hour of sunlight per day, and my apartment face is another building that for some reason has lights on 24/7, so my room never gets darker than like the Myel list twin peaks episode. And disrupting the circadian rhythm has more impacts than just sleep. According to scientists, including Dr. Benjamin Smarr, a chronobiologist, and Dr. Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist, lack of sleep or circadian rhythm disruption are likely contributors to cancer, Alzheimer's, anxiety, depression, loss of productivity, dementia, mental fogginess, and even infertility. It's true. And according to pharmacology professor Palaisisone Corsi, the circadian cycle controls 10 to 15% of our genes. When that's disrupted, the list of negative health impacts on the table is endless. Light pollution doesn't just impact the environment and human health, it also impacts the economy. Of course, plenty of what we've discussed so far brings economic costs from the loss of important species to coral reef degradation to reduce pollination impacting food systems to loss productivity from misleap to health care costs, but the most direct economic cost of light pollution is really simple. As astronomy professor Kelsey Johnson explains, "The money that's spent on that wasted light and I mean just the light that's going out into the universe and not doing us any good is $3 billion a year. That's enough money to build like a thousand utility grade windmills or fund the entire DC public school system for over two years or this is my favorite because I really want one but I can't afford one. By 30,000 Tesla Model X SUVs. Okay, you have $3 billion and the best idea you have is 30,000 Teslas. Don't get me wrong, I want a Tesla 2 but after Tesla number 14,357 I think I'd be a little sick of them. I mean if you bought a new Tesla every day it would take over 82 years to hit 30,000 and that's disregarding the fact that it's over an 82 year wait list to get your first one. But that $3 billion is a very literal monetary cost that all of us experience locally and even individually. If you leave the light on when you leave the house or leave a room your electric bill will be higher. If you've got a light outside your house that's on 24/7 and not on a motion detector your electric bill will be higher and if your town has street lights that are not shining directly downward or are clustered two inches apart from each other the town is paying more than they need to which likely means your taxes will be higher than they need to be. At this rate we'll be blowing through cash faster than Quibi which is really too bad because with everyone locked down at home during the pandemic there was no need for mobile content on the go. If only Quibi had launched a few years earlier they wouldn't have gone under due to the pandemic and instead gone under due to it being a really stupid idea. No Chrissy Teigen we don't want to watch you be a judge just because you can roast people on Twitter doesn't mean you can decide actual court cases. And beyond all of that the most well-known or popularized impact of light pollution is actually right in front of us or rather right above us. The places where you can go to see a naturally dark starry sky are vanishing they're shrinking they're becoming fewer and farther between you have to travel great distances from major cities in order to be able to see a naturally dark sky. That was astronomer William Ren and he's right. The only places in the United States that have a truly dark night sky are some rural areas in the west and parts of northern Maine. That's it. That makes it really difficult for astronomers to find places to set up observatories and conduct research since light pollution makes far away objects in space fuzzy and hard to detect but it also impacts every one of us. If we can't see the night sky how are we supposed to know that the little dippers handle is broken or Orion looks like Mr. Krabs. Seeing the Milky Way or other planets or many constellations is nearly impossible from the homes of most Americans and many people may never get the opportunity to experience them. I've only seen the Milky Way once or twice on vacations and while I certainly wish I could see it every night I along with 80% of other Americans can't. And in addition to Stargazers, astrophotographers and general astronomy fans many people find the night sky to be soothing and to benefit to their mental health. In fact the night sky is so cool that when Van Gogh was painting starry night and his friends asked him would you rather have no eyes or no ears he didn't even flinch just cut his ear right off before they could tell him it was a hypothetical. And look none of this is to say light is bad because of course it isn't. Light is amazing and I'm not just saying that because it can beat me in a foot race. Without artificial light we really wouldn't have anything resembling modern society. But like with children, Riverdale episodes and post-abate media coverage too much of a good thing can be bad. And by examining how to most effectively and efficiently use light we can protect the environment's economy, night sky and our own health. So where do we go from here? On an individual level there are a lot of steps we can take that not only reduce light pollution but actually save you money. Turn off the lights when you're not using them. Make sure outdoor lights are pointed down to the spot you want to light up and ideally are on a motion sensor. Don't shine a flashlight directly into your neighbor's window at 4am. You can also make an impact by opting for redder and yellower lights over bluer lights since according to sleep scheduleist Michael Bruce blue light causes the most damage. Short wavelength blue light suppresses your body's melatonin production more than twice as much as other light wavelengths. For outdoor lighting or people who need a night light or any light really avoiding blue light can make a substantial impact. And since it's not too hard to find redder and yellower lights that's another easy step people can take. What about on a larger scale? Towns of course can pass ordinances to reduce light pollution and improve their municipal outdoor lighting. In the United States there's actually several towns that have done this and earned the designation of International Dark Sky Community. The association in town council made two simple changes, shield the light so it only shines where it's needed and change the lights from a bright blue to an orange hue. The town invested about $23,000 to upgrade the municipal LED lights. Town officials say they will see a return on investment within five years because of reduced energy use. Of course 23,000 dollars isn't nothing but given the quick return on investment ordinances like these make a lot of sense. Towns could also consider reducing the number of street lights using lights closer to the ground instead of street lights to shine the light on the groundwork precisely or even turning off the street lights at certain times of day. While there would of course be some safety concerns for pedestrians with that, drivers are largely unaffected by street lights since their headlights illuminate anything or any one in front of them and shine at an angle much less likely to create glare, trespass or sky glow and even with street lights drivers still feel the need to constantly run over chipmunks. Towns can also, like individuals, consider putting lights on motion detectors. Policies can also be conducted on a national scale. France for example recently passed a law banning light trespass and light shown directly up into the sky, setting maximum brightness levels and requirements as to what angles light can shine to prevent glare, restricting blue light and even establishing some outdoor lighting curfews. While some traditions like the 20,000 flashing lights on the Eiffel Tower will be exempt because apparently in France 20,000 lights flashing is a tradition as important as headbutting your opponent in the 2006 World Cup Final to get a red card in the last game of your career, larger cities like Paris have to play ball as well. And of course, one could debate whether a regulatory plan like Francis makes sense or a more market-based approach incentivizing certain technologies and practices over others and using mandates more sparingly would be more effective. But ultimately, before any of this can happen, there must be awareness, not just of the issue, but of the clear-as-day fact that mitigating this issue saves money. Of course, bright lights are baked into our culture, but saving money is pretty baked in too. And I think that's a pretty easy trade-off. And if more and more people and communities improve their lighting, they will not only save money, but protect human health, several important animal species, and the night sky. Because otherwise, humans everywhere will continue to face so many problems that- They end up getting all turned around and just fly themselves death. Do you wish your wipes caused blockages and sewers when you flush to them? Then try wet wipes. Not only do wet wipes not break down because they contain plastic, but they wash up on beaches and get stuck in sewer systems when you flush them. Cool. Wet wipes. The wipes that make your hands so wet, you'll probably need a paper towel to dry it off after. Welcome back to the sweaty penguin. With me today is Dr. Doug Arian, a professor of physics and astronomy, and the Donald D. Hedberg Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurs. and real studies at Carthage College, Dr. Arian, welcome to the show. - Well, thank you very much. It's fun to be here. - So you're also the director of Mountains of Stars, which has partnered with several colleges to offer astronomy-based programs that, quote unquote, create environmental awareness from a cosmic perspective. Could you tell us a little bit about the program and specifically, how does a cosmic perspective play into our thinking about the environment? - So we're in the ninth year of this partnership. The first programs were in 2012. And our goal is to use astronomy as a way to get people to have a different and better perspective about where they fit in. Because if you understand how big the universe is and all the processes that led to life on earth, those processes that made you and me also made everything else. That if you tweak anything in the history from the beginning of how much hydrogen helium there was to how stars evolve to what kind of star we go around, all those things, those things all led to our being here, but they also led to chipmunks being here and maple trees being here. And the life forms affect the rock and affect the geology and so on. So if you understand how the universe was really just one system, I think you can not just think that everything was built for humans, right? Things weren't built for humans. We just happened to be one of the hundreds of millions of species that resulted from that process. - So we're talking about light pollution today. And I'm wondering if you could give us a sense of the physics. Why is it that light way down here on the surface of the earth actually has an impact on what we can see when we look up at the night sky? - Well, air and clouds and dust and everything scatter a lot of light. So if you're producing light on the ground that isn't strictly illuminating the ground, it goes up and it bounces off the atmosphere and bounces off particles and moisture and everything and lights up the air. So you can't see dim things like stars and the Milky Way. If all the light we use was the right intensity and the right color and only pointed down, that's useful, right? We don't see very well in the dark. We need light to see where we're going. That's okay, but so much lighting is actually spraying light straight up. I don't know if you've seen the famous picture, you know, the Earth at night or the US at night. None of that light is actually useful. It's going up, it's just lighting the air, which does no good whatsoever and waste a tremendous amount of energy. There are very few places you can go where the sky is now truly dark where you don't have an impact from human generated light. And so you see telescopes being built high on mountains in the middle of oceans or high up in deserts. So if you think about some of the things that happen that you'd like to watch 24 hours a day write telescopes all around the world watching something, you know, there are going to be spaces where there just aren't good locations for taking that data. And so yeah, certainly light pollution has impacted professional stuff. It's impacted health safety in the environment far more. - In addition to the amount of light, there's also a big difference between bluer lights and redder lights. So could you give us a sense of the science as to why blue lights are having more negative impacts than red lights? - So blue light creates most of the glare. Blue light creates a lot of the light pollution, the bluer it is. And because each particle of blue light has more energy in it, it creates more of the health effects. So for example, if you sleep in a light polluted area, which is the vast majority of people and you have street lights and other lights pouring into your bedroom, that can contribute to a number of diseases. It increases cancer risks. So breast and prostate cancer risks, for example, are elevated. It contributes to diabetes, obesity. There are now connections to behavioral issues and adolescents because of sleep disorders generated by it. But the bluer the light, the worse it is. So if that light wasn't as blue, if you need a night light, for example, put in a red one, right? Then it won't have as much of the health effects, the blue ones or the worse. So the color of the light makes a difference. So then if you look at the different lighting technologies, each of them distributes light over different colors. And how much of that comes from the blue versus the orange and green versus the red, changes how much those kinds of fixtures impact you. So the newest LEDs that are going in these 4,000 K, super bright blue lights that you see on roads, those are really bad. Now the LED, the technology is really good that that color of light is very bad. The street lights you're used to seeing, the high pressure sodium, the sort of pinkish ones, much better, much healthier. But of course they produce more glare. So what you want is an LED fixture that puts out colors like an HPS lamp and those exist. But you have to consciously make the choice to use them. - I'm sure a lot of people kind of have this innate concern at the idea that being darker at night or differently lit at night would make it less safe, especially if you're walking by yourself at night, for example. And it seems like there's actually a lot of evidence to the contrary. What would your message be to people who have that concern? - You want to have lighting, but that lighting needs to be designed so that you can see what might affect you and not have it in your eyes. So if you have a big bright area that's lit with spotlights, those lights are coming into your eyes. And I can hide in the shadow when you'll never see me, right? So that light, by adding light to the circumstance, actually makes it less safe, right? It makes it hard for you to see, easy for me to see. And I jump you before you even know that I'm there. So having big bright lights does not necessarily make things safer. And in fact, studies have been done, which look at brightly lit areas versus less brightly lit areas. And the crime rate is not lowered by doing that. And as a matter of fact, it can be worse. A number of interviews have been done of people who've been convicted of theft. And they go after brightly lit houses because they can see in and you can't see out. Whereas a dark house, they have to use a flashlight to see in. Now they're visible and you can see them, but they can't see where they're going. So adding light does not necessarily make it safer and better. Now, what kind of light should you have? Having lights on motion detectors? Great idea. So if something comes up, light comes on and spotlights it, that's great, right? But you don't need that light on all the time. And that light should only light the area that you're concerned about. Having it last into people's houses across the street doesn't do you any good. This is not a call to eliminate all lighting. It's a call to do lighting that really accomplishes what it's intended to do and has as few side effects as possible. And the thing about street lights is in most places, you actually don't need them. You have the best task lighting in the world, which are your headlights. Now having sidewalk lighting, having low lights along sidewalks, that's really useful because it's a pedestrian, that's where you need the light. Overhead lights really don't help a whole lot. And LEDs are wonderful because they can be dimmed and they can be times. You could have brighter lights at rush hour than have them dim at 11 o'clock so that there's still some background light in case you're walking and then have them come back up at five in the morning for morning rush hour. So that's where if you use the right kind of LED, dim it, boy, can you save a lot of money and make the environment better and safer and healthier at the same time? - Well, can we do as individuals? - Well, you can start off, look at your own property and what you can do to improve it. Well, that make huge differences in health, maybe maybe not depending on the lighting environment, but it could, will it save you money? - Yeah. - So yeah, that's a good reason to do it anyway. The next thing is if you make those changes, you hope your neighbors notice and it gives you an opportunity to talk to them and say, hey, look, I can save you some money and we can make a safer and healthier. Why don't you do yours? And after you get a couple of neighbors doing it, then your whole street does it and so on. If you get enough people talking about it, then you can go talk to your town and go, you know, there are these street lights you put in and they're flying right into my kids bedroom. And I don't want my kid to have that coming in there. I want you to push yield on it, right? So you have to snowball things and that's just things for homes. Think of all the businesses. Think how much money a company could save if it did its lighting better. And that's pure profit, right? You think about all the companies and all the spotlights and leaving buildings lit up all night long. They could save tens of thousands of dollars a year. - Some towns in the country have actually been designated as dark sky communities because they've passed regulations to keep their light pollution below a certain threshold. And wondering from your perspective, what types of benefits have these dark sky communities been seeing? - Depending on the changes that they made, if they went from HPS from Burr or 2200 K LEDs, they are probably spending only about a third as much on their electric bill. So I mean, it's a huge savings when you do things like that. The other thing is the towns that have made the effort to limit light pollution and other locations that get designations like dark sky towns, dark sky communities they're called, like dark sky parks. Generate was called astro tourism. People will actually come out to do stargazing because it's a beautiful thing and people will actually travel there and then they bring their money. So you get an economic boost by having that characteristic. We're working on a big project right now. There's a much higher level and bigger scale thing called an international dark sky reserve. And it has to be a very large area that's truly dark as accessible as programming and so on. And I'm leading an effort in part two. partnership with the Upper H&Mountain Club to designate a large area in northern Maine as International Dark Sky Reserve. And it surrounds the AMC lodges up there. So there are beautiful lodges with great food, beautiful places to stay, great hiking, biking, fishing, paddling. And that area is actually truly dark. It is the only dark area left east of the Rockies in the United States. So we need to preserve and protect it. So we're all going well within the next year or so. We'll have that designation. And that again, it's an important conservation effort because it's an important resource. And it will bring ecotourism to the area, which is very important. So keep an eye out for that. It will be a great thing to visit. From your perspective as an astronomer, why is the night sky such an important thing for people to see? Again, we are a part of this very big universe. And it's very easy to become insulated from that idea. I mean, just think at a smaller scale, people live in cities and aren't connected to a natural environment. So as far as they know, if you never left downtown LA or downtown, pick your city, you would have no idea that there are all sorts of other birds and mammals and reptiles and trees and fish, you know, all these other things. So imagine if you took somebody like that and you blindfolded them and you picked them up and you took them to Yosemite and they opened their eyes and looked, it was like, holy cow, look, look at what's out here. Well, you get that same effect when you look up and you can actually see the stars in the Milky Way. You start reflexively realizing this is one little, you know, ball of rock floating around in space. Dr. Arian, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thanks for having me. This is terrific. Happy to spend time with you anytime. This wraps up episode 22 of the Sweaty Penguin. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe. And if you're a fan of the show, please tell a friend about it or leave us a rating and a review on Apple podcasts so more people find the show. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week. Today's episode was written by Ethan Brown, edited by Frank Hernandez and produced by Ethan Brown, Shane and Demiano, Frank Hernandez, and Caroline Kale. Our ads were voiced by Robert Browning and our music was composed by Brett Salka, special thanks to the Boston University Bill Blad. For bonus content, follow us on Facebook at Sweaty Penguin News, Twitter at Sweaty Penguin Pod, or Instagram at Sweaty Penguin Pod.