Light Pollution Reflection / Refraction Number 12

Posted on April 30, 2008

WARNING:

I guarantee my reflections and refractions will create controversy and confrontation; and quite likely I'll step on many toes, but it's time to be brutally honest. So, if you are thin-skinned proceed accordingly--take your hand off the mouse and back away from the computer.

TURN OFF YOUR ^~#_@!=* LIGHTS Part 2

Please read Part 1 before Part 2.

Remember the boogeyman?

Me too!

As a boy it helped to have a light in my bedroom, but now I'm an adult and no longer afraid of the dark. Indeed, as an astronomer, I welcomed the dark. It's sad the rest of Homosap's can't (won't?) mature enough to also embrace darkness.

When will our species mature, grow up and accept darkness as part of life?

Every day in America more than 300 million members of our species slug it out with their personal boogeymen / boogeywomen; and every night after sunset, millions of lights switch on across America to keep the boogeymen at bay!

No one knows how many outdoor nighttime lights there are in America. I'll conservatively estimate one outdoor light per person or 300 million blazing lights, most of them NOT dark-sky friendly! When will the species mature?

Light pollution wastes at least $5 million nightly over America! Inexcusable, reprehensible, irresponsible, unforgivable, intolerable, indefensible, unjustifiable. When will Homosap's grow up?

Pointblank:

THE SOLUTION TO LIGHT POLLUTION: TURN OFF AT LEAST

30% OF THE LIGHTS BLAZING OVER AMERICA!

No Excuses! No Compromises! No Exceptions!

YES, I AM SHOUTING! AND YES, YOU HEARD ME CORRECTLY! TURN THEM OFF!

Turn off at least 30% of all our nighttime lights permanently! There, I said it out loud, publicly!

We don't need 300 million lights guzzling fossil fuel every night, magnifying Globoil Warning, and obliterating the Milky Way! When will the so-called "intelligent one" mature?

Yes, I know the heresy, the astronomical apostasy, of what I'm saying. And yes, should they bother to read this R & R, I know the staffs of glossy astronomy magazines, the IDeAs hierarchy and individual astronomers will spit nails!

But someone must make mainstream what we all know deep down inside to be the truth... Someone must step up and speak for the stars and tell the truth...

The only real solution to light pollution is to

TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!

"Whoa, there, Stargeezer! Don't get your underwear all tangled up in a big ol' knot! Hasn't this business about turning off lights been tried before?"

Yes, it's been tried before, but not the Stargeezer way, the NRA way... The Dick Cheney way! First, we shoot out all offending lights! No! No! Settle down, NRA members, democrats and republicans! I felt the pressure there for a moment of all your ammo'd-up guns pointing at me, Denny Crane: I'm just kidding! I've never turned off a light in an illegal way in my life--something a lot of NRA members certainly couldn't boast about--and though I'm often tempted, I'm not starting now!

But seriously, let's start by turning off, say, 1% of 300 million or three million lights, hardly a drop of water in a bucket, or more appropriately, a molecule of hydrogen in a nebula.

How many lights does this mean we have to permanently turn off?

For a community of 1,000 people: only 10 outdoor nighttime lights.

A small city of 50,000: 500 lights turned off.

In a city of 200,000: 2,000 darkened lights.

One million people: 10,000 lights off.

Ten million people: 100,000 blasting, blazing lights, POOF! Gone!

Still, three million lights turned off! That's a lot of wattage not used! A lot of money saved! A lot of fossil fuel not burned, and oodles of carbon dioxide that doesn't contribute to Globoil Warning!

Of course this would mean the outdoor lighting industry--now completely umbilicaled to the IDeAs! and the electricity generating folks--coal, oil, nukes, etc.--won't be happy. Oh, they'll howl the usual epithet..."Jobs, jobs, jobs!"

GOTTA KEEP THE CORPS. ALIVE, YOU KNOW!

Hey, no cheating, people! Oh, I know humans! No fair counting lights that would ordinarily be turned off anyway.

Will such a "stunt" eliminate light pollution? NO, of course not, but it's a start!

To be noticeable, to actually eliminate enough light pollution to make a difference, we must turn off at least 30% of the 300 million lights polluting your sky, my sky, most every American's sky!

That's nearly 100 million lights across America turned off, darkened, eclipsed, not wasting energy and fossil fuel and not contributing to Globoil Warning!

But, Stargeezer, how do we turn off all those lights? Ah, that's the essence of Part 3, TURN OFF YOUR &^~#_@^-! LIGHTS! Coming soon.

Just moments after placing this R & R online (4-30-08), the Iowa Utilities Board voted to allow a new $1.5-$1.8 BILLION coal-burning power plant to be built here in central Iowa. IJNE! And the usual round of comments begins..."Jobs, jobs, jobs!"

Of course, it would help if we would grow up as a species, mature a tad, and start using our heads for more than a place to grow hair! Anyone wanna guess when that will occur!?

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NO EXCUSES! NO EXCEPTIONS! NO COMPROMISES!