Hello everyone! I am Kelly, and I am a third-year student pursuing a degree in environmental studies. In this blog, I aim to explore light pollution in a light-hearted manner and light-wise (likewise), I hope that you will enjoy diving into the nuances of this topic together with me! :”)

In one of the modules that I had taken last semester on Environmental economics, I was briefly exposed to the problem of light pollution. I was intrigued as I learnt about the prevalence and implications of this problem in our daily lives (albeit only from an economic viewpoint) – something that had not crossed my mind prior. Hence, I would be exploring this pollution form in-depth in this blog.

Air pollution, marine pollution and land pollution are common topics of interests that we all hear about, in academia and media to climate conference agendas. Yet, light pollution always seems to slip off the agenda list, despite its increasing relevance given state of global economic development. Besides, did you know that Singapore is ranked as the most light-polluted country in the world (Falchi et al., 2016), and the ‘use of artificial light exceeds the level of light pollution tolerable per capita’ (Kumar, 2019)?

Figure 1: Satellite image of Singapore and its night skyline (Robert, 2016)

In the following weeks, I would be exploring: the threshold for what is considered good lighting and light pollution, the factors behind Singapore’s status as the most light-polluted country, the implications of light pollution (on individuals, our society, our environment and our biodiversity), and policy recommendations referenced from best-practices around the world. See you in the next post!

Source: Pinterest

 

 

References

Falchi, F., Cinzano, P., Duriscoe, D., Kyba, C. C. M., Elvidge, C. D., Baugh, K., Portnov, B. A.,Rybnikova, N. A., & Furgoni, R. (2016). The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness. Science Advances, 2(6), e1600377-e1600377. http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1600377

Kumar, R. (2019, April 25). Time to tackle light, noise pollution. The Straits Times.

https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/time-to-tackle-light-noise-pollution#:~:text=a%20different%20challenge.-,In%202016%2C%20Singapore%20was%20named%20the%20country%20with%20the%20worst,in%20a%20Science%20Advances%20study.&text=Various%20studies%20have%20revealed%20that,results%20in%20more%20sleep%20disorders

Robert, C. (2016). Singapore has most light pollution in the world. The New Paper.

https://tnp.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/singapore-has-most-light-pollution-world