Water pollution isn’t only an issue for America. Light pollution is also an increasing problem in our urban cities. Light pollution, also thought of as photo-pollution, is the occurrence of anthropogenic light at night. It isn’t only a hindrance to astronomy, but it also impacts us directly.
It affects our mental state as well as our health: it has also been shown to cause eye fatigue leading to car accidents. Fortunately, it is the easiest kind of pollution to control.
Who is affected?
This phenomenon doesn’t just affect humans. Even plants are determined by the organic cycle of night and day. If you own a garden, you’ve even more reason to be worried about light pollution. It’s the alteration or degradation of pure light in the environment by the debut of artificial lights.
It’s the overuse of artificial lighting, not just in brightness, but in addition to the period of time left on. Both key concerns are, naturally, cost and security. A large sum of time and research was invested in understanding these kinds of pollutants. Light remained stable in just a few nations.
For the organic world, however, lights have changed how days and nights do the job. Artificial light may also fragment insect populations, leaving them vulnerable and not as resilient. Blue-rich light at night is very harmful — and it just so happens that our cities are full of them.
Where does this happen?
In short, everywhere. Residents of LA haven’t been in a position to observe the stars for a short time. And while quite a few cities in America developed outdoor lighting standards to guard their citizens against light pollution, this is a problem that’s cropping up in metropolitan areas everywhere.
Unsurprisingly, Europe’s wealth and superior population density create a lot of light pollution. Since humans evolved against the rhythms of the organic light-dark cycle of night and day, light pollution has effectively carved out a niche in how our bodies work, severely disrupting our normal processes.
Bad lighting is so commonplace, and it is hard for individuals to recognize that it’s even there. But the truth is that we’re starting to slip into a system where we output more light than we need, far longer than we should, and far brighter than we can stand looking at.
What can we do about it?
Sometimes, it’s as simple as turning off the lights. Other solutions will require more complex work, like replacing our current lights with more eco-friendly alternatives, or at least drafting legislation requiring this kind of work on a bigger scale than the solutions we’re already implementing now.
Light is one of the essential things that we need for our survival, but too much of anything is always bad. It falls to us to be aware enough to know the dangers of light pollution and to pull the plug on this particular type of environmental hazard before the damage becomes too high for us to ignore.
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