light pollution

Friendly reminder that reducing/eliminating outdoor lighting is one of the most impactful changes an individual can take to reduce their ecological/climate footprint.
https://darksky.org/

New neighbors: Wow being in the country is so scenic and beautiful we can't wait to be done with city life and build a house here
Also new neighbors: Put in asphalt driveway, fences, buildings, all flooded with more exterior lighting than a small stadium
They're good people and they put up with a reasonable amount of our shenanigans but I'm only mildly exaggerating. Our other neighbors told me they don't need to buy night lights for their kids because of all the extra light from that place

Moths when excessive lighting at night:
- It's actually a little sadder than that. Most flying insects sense the light above them as the sun (or moon) and orient themselves based on the suns position. Our artificial light tricks them into thinking that the sun is out and they end up orbiting the lights helplessly as their internal gyroscopes are constantly confusing them.
  
  Lil moth rave

Makes me want to take a BB gun to all the streetlights.
- You'd need something more than a bb gun. A halberd would prolly do the trick.
  
  A well aimed shot from a pellet rifle will work. I know because I had a neighbor who left hers on and it came right into my bedroom.
  
  What about a 22 air rifle at about 800 fps?

one night i dreamed that the lights went out everywhere and i looked up at the sky and it was all psychedelic and shit
- I too have had dreams of the northern lights after they came to visit me last year.

When my family complained about lack of street lights at night-time, I said that birds can't sleep. They all thought I was joking, and I kenda went with this story, since they didn't seem to be bothered about wildlife
Like, I kinda get it that turning off the lights at 10:30pm might be annoying and less safe, but realistically.. who the hell drives or even walks at this hours? I mean, people who party do, but that's rare and that's why you have floodlights in cars for, and torches in phones.
At the same time I kinda get it that streetlights would still indeed be safer, and that - in my culture at least - putting animals' welfare near equal to that of humans' is considered weird, if not crazy, so Idk how do I feel about this issue
- huh? lots of people are out after 22:30 (10:30 pm is a wild thing to write), especially in any moderately sized city. And the problem isn't generally street lights since they're very much made to shine onto the ground, the problem is any light source that lets light escape into the sky.
- I just connected car dependancy to excessive light pollution and now I am sad
  
  Yep, you don't normally see flood lights every 100m on a railway like you get on a highway...
- It's not actually less safe. No study was able to show a link between light and safety.
  
  Interesting. Where do you take your knowledge from?

Why are the night critters in bed?

I had a thought last night. Some new cars have "matrix" headlights, which will detect oncoming drivers and use an LCD matrix to block out areas that would blind the oncoming driver.
I was looking at the shadow cast on my back door from a streetlight a couple blocks away and thinking it's a very useful light for people walking on the street. Just not for me standing in my backyard or the birds sleeping in my trees.
I wonder if we could start applying this active matrix technology to streetlights. Each time one is set up, we could program it to illuminate all the walkways but not much else. Just an idea.
- Streetlights have to be as cheap and maintainance free as possible because there are so many of them and if they break they usually need to be fixed asap. I doubt we're ever gonna see such an intricate concept transferred to streetlights on a grand scale but maybe for fancy urban areas.
  
  Or maybe areas like Hawaii where preventing light pollution is of critical importance? I feel like a lot of mass-produced technologies face their main hurdle at manufacturing and if early adopters fund those initial manufacturing costs, the price can then come down quite a lot. But ultimately, it's mostly wishful thinking, how I would want the world to be, seeing the issues all around us now.
- Doesn't need that complex algorithm here because streetlight is static (the walkways don't change), so all you need is just a different light design for each. Or maybe a modular source you can change while installing.
  Honestly a great idea
  
  Don't need an algorithm at all. Just needs what is effectively a lampshade cut to direct the light at the sidewalk and street instead of the houses.