Rose doesn’t offer a major in astronomy but it does offer a minor in it. Those students brave enough to stay up for countless nights, often in the dead of winter without heat (as heat would affect the telescope glass), get papers published in major astronomical journals each year. Their work got even harder recently due to the new development on IN-46. You can see Wal-mart’s glow from miles away on I-70, so imagine how this affects these students’ studies of the night sky?
It’s called light pollution, and there are steps we can take as a city to curb it. Any new city lamp posts installed should utilize semi- or full cutoff lighting fixtures which direct light wholly downward instead of horizontally, and existing non-cutoff lamp posts should be surveyed to ensure that they are not overly consuming electricity or overly contributing to light pollution. In many cases, the most efficient design that balances these two concerns for the non-cutoff lamp posts where they are placed close together will be simply turning every other one off.
In addition to the design of the light post, we can switch to a different type of light bulb to help reduce light pollution. If we switch to low pressure sodium (LPS) light bulbs in all city light posts, we will not only help with the light pollution but also with our city electric bill as these light sources are 4x or more energy efficient than standard incandescent bulbs. The city of San Jose, CA has been using LPS bulbs since 1980 and many other cities throughout the country have since jumped on board.
New development is important for the growth of the city, but it need not overshadow existing qualities of the community. If we are to truly control light pollution, we need our businesses to adjust their lighting practices as well. I propose that we pass a city lighting ordinance which at a minimum requires the use of LPS bulbs in private parking lot lighting fixtures.
