Hello!! I am really excited to be sharing to you about this topic on light pollution! Everyone usually sees light as an essential part of our life and rightly so! Light is essential for us humans to move around with ease and to see where we are going. It gives us the opportunity to do be able to do my activities during the night! It helps us feel safe and comforted. Even sunlight is needed for plants to photosynthesise, allowing it to survive to be food for other organisms as well as to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. However did you know that light can be a form of pollution?

Today, I will be briefly introducing some problems that come with light pollution and in subsequent blog posts, I will be shedding light (get it?) on the specific issues that come with urbanisation and light pollution.

Firstly, light pollution is a product of urbanisation and industrialisation. With the development of light bulbs and LED screens, artificial lighting can be found in many places at night. From the lighting found on roads and walkways, to the bright LED billboard lights found outside stalls. Hence, light pollution is the excessive usage of artificial and anthropogenic lighting that can have devastating effects on the environment around us and on our health as well. So according to the International Dark Sky Association (IDA), there are four different components of light pollution:

1. Glare – excessive brightness that causes visual discomfort
2. Skyglow – brightening of the night sky over inhabited areas
3. Light trespass – light falling where it is not intended or needed
4. Clutter – bright, confusing and excessive groupings of light sources

(Light Pollution | International Dark-Sky Association, 2020)

Not only that, light pollution means that there is a consumption and wastage of energy!!! Recently, I learnt from my class lecture that light pollution “light pollution is estimated to cost the US economy about US$4.5 Billion per year, and the UK economy about £1 Billion per year”!! I cannot wait to share with you some of the problems of light pollution as I was shocked and enlightened when I saw them myself!

References:

International Dark-Sky Association. 2020. Light Pollution | International Dark-Sky Association. [online] Available at: <https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/> [Accessed 12 October 2020].

Featured Image:

2016. HD City Light Wallpapers Desktop Background. [image] Available at: <https://www.desktopbackground.org/wallpaper/hd-city-light-wallpapers-212114> [Accessed 12 October 2020].