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Aug 20, 2023

Who’s afraid of the dark? Advocates talk about light pollution at annual Borrego Springs Film Festival

The annual Borrego Springs Film Festival marks its 10th anniversary this week

The annual Borrego Springs Film Festival marks its 10th anniversary this week with film screenings, award ceremonies, networking events, workshops, and panel discussions from Thursday through Jan. 16. This year, one of those community panel discussions is centered around the issues raised in the documentary "Defending the Dark" and the work to reduce light pollution and preserve dark sky parks and communities, including Borrego Springs, Anza-Borrego State Park, and Julian.

The film, by Tara Zabriskie, documents the dark sky advocacy work being done in Maine, and how that work can extend to other areas to reduce the harm of light pollution to people, plants, and animals with its effects on sleep, bird migration, pollination, and other issues. The panel discussion is from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday at the Borrego Springs Public Library and features Zabriskie, astronomer and scholar Douglas Arion, and screenwriter Matthew Carlson, whose astronomy film "This Wild Abyss," is being screened at 1 p.m. Friday at the Borrego Springs Performing Arts Center.

Arion is executive director of Mountains of Stars, a public science education organization, and professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Carthage College in Wisconsin. He's featured in "Defending the Dark" and took some time to talk about the film, his advocacy work, and ways that people can take individual steps to reduce light pollution in their communities. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. )

Q: You’re part of the "Defending the Dark" community panel discussion on Friday about dark skies and light pollution. First can you talk about what light pollution is and why it's an issue people should be paying attention to?

A: Light is useful and having light in the right places at the right time in the way is a good thing, but we very consistently overlight things and that excess light actually creates a whole suite of problems. Firstly, a lot of that light goes up, meaning it's not illuminating anything useful. If the power went out at your home and you grabbed a flashlight, you wouldn't point it up at the ceiling, you’d point it down on the ground. So, light going up doesn't do anybody any good.

To make that light, you have to make electricity, so you have all of the pollution of that. [According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the national average carbon dioxide output rate for electricity generated in 2019 was more than 884 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour, translating to just over 953 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour for delivered electricity. And, in 2020, the U.S. spent $1 trillion on energy, or $3,039 per person when spread over the population, based on information from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.]

Two, there are links between excess lighting and a variety of hormonally-based cancers and diseases, so if you live in a light polluted area and you have street lights coming in to your home, the incidence of breast and prostate cancer is higher, [according to research published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2018]. Excess light creates glare, so you want light on your target. You don't want light coming into your eyes. For example, driving on highways in the rain with overhead lights actually makes it harder to see than easier to see, so light coming into your eyes has been a problem in terms of other natural effects. It affects birds each year that are trying to migrate, it reduces pollination by insects and birds and that affects your plants, which includes your food. So, it has huge effects on them, as well. It's a wide range of effects on the environment, and it's generally not a good thing, so those are the effects of excess light and the blue lighting that does most of the damage.

Q: What's involved in the work to preserve the darkness of the night skies? And why does that lack of human-made light matter?

A: You can have lighting, but that lighting should meet some very basic characteristics, and the Illuminating Engineering Society and the International Dark Sky Association came up with a simple set of guidelines. One, light should be useful. There should be a reason to have it. You don't just light something for no apparent reason.

It should be controlled; it should be on only when you need it. So, it's perfectly reasonable to have a light by your front door so that you can find the hole to put your key in, but it should be on when you do that; you don't need it on the rest of the night.

It should be targeted, so it should only light what you need to light. If you have a pathway between buildings that people are going to be traversing, by all means, have light on it; but you don't spread light outside of that pathway. A lot of things are grossly overlit, like gas stations. If you notice when you go to a gas station, it feels like you’re going on stage.

And, light should have as little of this blue component light as possible. When you buy a bulb with different temperature markings, you want that number to be as low as possible. So, 2200K to 2700K is much better than 4000K or 5000K. Those commercials for BluBlocker sunglasses, or having your computer screen eliminate the blue light at night? That's an outcome of all of this, [understanding that] having these screens on before you go to bed is a bad thing.

Q: You’re the director of Mountains of Stars, an organization that offers programming that is "creating environmental awareness through a cosmic perspective." What does this mean, exactly? What does environmental awareness through a cosmic perspective look like in practice?

A: If you look out and understand the universe, where things came from, how everything is connected, you can develop a very different viewpoint of where we fit into everything. We very much think of ourselves as humans, and then everything else is below us; but if you recognize that all of the things that have happened throughout the universe to make us possible, the collection of things that makes us possible also makes everything else here possible. We’re all part of the same history and understanding that can change people's viewpoints to say, ‘Oh no, this isn't all just here for me to take.’ That's the beauty of astronomy on several levels. One, it's a study of everything in the universe and that includes us. Second, if you have a telescope, people want to look and you can use that as a way to tell them about how important this is, and how we’re connected to this because it's a very attractive and interesting subject. So, by putting those pieces together, we’re able to connect with people and talk about thinking about big picture things and what that really means so that we can go out and do better.

Q: Without giving too much away, what can people expect from the community panel on Friday? What will you cover?

A: I’m going to talk about a number of things that are happening in astronomy and space that are affecting and connected with the Earth's environment, light pollution being one of those. That will lead into the film, which discusses light pollution and the work we’ve done in Maine to preserve areas. I’ll also be talking about some other things that are happening, including these large collections of satellites for internet service. There are a tremendous number of environmental concerns with doing things like this, including space debris and the production of pollution when these things re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. So, I’ll be talking about some of those as part of the presentation.

Q: And what do you hope people take from the event?

A: Firstly, an awareness of these various issues and the ability to actually go out and make a difference themselves. Light pollution is everybody's backyard light, the streetlight in front of their house, the parking lot of the business where they work; each of these things contribute to it, so you can go and make a difference. You go to your house and you change your lights, then you get your neighbor to change their lights, and so on. You can have an impact on it, so I hope that people will come away and say that having all of these satellites may not be a good thing and if we actually got fiber [optic internet service] out to everybody, this wouldn't be necessary. We can clean up certain aspects of things by providing this alternative and that they’re going to work toward that by talking to their town about improving the lights and making sure that fiber goes out to rural areas. My hope is that people will understand this is a problem and that they can do something on their own, start doing things differently, and help to solve these problems.

Q: You’re featured in "Defending the Dark," and in the trailer, you mention Americans being at a crossroads with light pollution and that "if we keep going the way we’re going, the stars are going to go away…" What do you mean? What are we currently doing that will result in the stars disappearing?

A: We won't be able to see them. The stars will still be there, of course, but we won't be able to see anything. If you were in a major city and you look up, if you can see three or five stars, you’re doing pretty well. If you’re in a really dark place, you can see 3,000. So, if we continue to overlight things, if more streetlights go in with very bright LEDs, if more parking lots get lit 24/7, if people have more lights on their houses …you’ll eventually get to the point that nobody can see the stars at all, like very few people can see the stars now. It’ll be even worse.

Q: How do you respond to people who may argue that more lighting can increase safety and deter crime? If the position is to reduce that light, what would be the alternative for safety?

A: It's not that you don't have to have lights, it's that you have to have the right lights in the right places. By all means, if you have a facility, have lights with motion detectors all around your building. If someone comes up to a light, it comes on and then it goes off. Lighting up the entire five-acre parking lot 24/7 doesn't make sense if the store isn't open and nobody's going to be there. Why not have building lights by entrances and by windows that are motion detected, so if somebody does try to come in, the light comes on and there's a camera there to see? That's an important aspect of the whole light pollution movement; it's not having no light, but it's using light better that will actually make a place safer.

Q: In the trailer, you also say that "we don't own it, we don't control it, but we have a tremendous impact on it." What can people in San Diego do to begin to reduce light pollution? Are there steps people can take individually to address this?

A: Absolutely. One step is to look at the lights on your own property at home and to make the appropriate changes. Have a light by your front door, but have a motion detector, or at least a timer and make sure that it meets the standards I described before: it's down-facing, has the right color, and so on. You can make these changes in your home, you can make these changes at the businesses where you work. You can also pressure businesses that are badly lit to change their lights. Go to your local Lowe's and tell them what they can do better, to look at the products on their shelves and to have only dark sky-friendly fixtures. Those are things that an individual can directly do. At a higher level, work with your town, whether it's a suburb or the San Diego government, and say that you want to have a say in lighting standards and change how streets are lit, putting in LED lights with low-color temperatures, to have the lights dim between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. so that they don't have to be at full brightness. There are things you can do and you can start at your own house, your own business, other businesses, and then move on to your municipal leaders.