Latest news with #lightpollution
BBC News
5 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Amazon lights plan at Melton West Business Park rejected
Residents are celebrating after plans for a number of illuminated signs at a new Amazon warehouse have been application to display an illuminated totem sign at the main entrance of the facility at Melton West Business Park, near North Ferriby in East Yorkshire, along with additional illuminated signs around the building, was turned down by planners at East Riding of Yorkshire Council on Horrobin, who lives on Plantation Drive which backs on to the site, is relieved at the decision to reject the signs, saying she would have moved house had they been did not want to comment when approached. Ms Horrobin said: "When I bought the house I fell in love with the garden. "I bought the house really hoping, believing it [Amazon warehouse plan] would never get passed."I'm really glad they have turned it down. Why do you need to have big massive signs, isn't the building big enough?"If the signs went ahead, we'd move."Her son, Christian Horrobin-Laverick, 20, added: "There's so much wildlife coming out of that woodland area and around it. I don't see the point of having these big signs there."Plans for the building were approved in December 2021, despite more than 1,300 to the latest proposal included light pollution and the impact on local residents. Councillor Paul Hopton told the meeting there were no objections to the signs, just them being lit said any drivers "looking for this place" needed to consider a new career if they were unable to find it without illuminated signage."It has been mentioned that there are other Amazon locations that are not illuminated - I don't know why they want to illuminate this one," he Denis Healy also questioned the need for the signs, saying there was no business case for it."Everyone is a customer pretty much," he Richard Meredith pointed out that the warehouse was on an industrial site close to the A63."I can see why Amazon don't think it is a big deal," he he said the horse had "long-bolted" with regards to the original application to build the facility."We can't change the site, we are looking at a couple of lights on it," he rejected the proposals on the grounds of unnecessary light pollution to the area, as well as the impact on neighbouring residents. Dan Bond, 41, who has lived on Plantation Drive for three years, said: "There is no need to have bright illuminated signs, we all know it's an Amazon, there's no hiding the fact it's an Amazon, you don't have to have a big lit-up sign saying Amazon for people to know it's there."It's just a vanity thing."Maureen, who has lived on Corby Park, which is also close to the site, for 40 years, fears that although it is a small win for the residents now, it may not be the end of it."There was a lot of dispute over it at the time a few years back and they still went ahead because we couldn't win," she said."You can see it through the trees, we have the lights each night as we look out of our kitchen straight through the woods. All the lights are on."They will keep trying, they won't give in."Earlier this year, Amazon announced that up to 2,000 jobs were expected to be created at the facility. Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
BBC News
04-08-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Canterbury residents raise noise concerns over padel court plans
Concerns have been raised over plans to build three padel courts and a canopy at a sports centre in residents near The King's School Sports Centre in St Stephens Road, Canterbury, say the development will block views and sunlight for some properties and create noise Dr Stella Bolaki, from The Spires Action Group which opposes the scheme, said the key issue was the "proximity to our properties", adding: I'm really concerned about noise, light pollution, and the way it's going to overshadow the area and deprive us of light and sunlight."A spokesperson for the King's School, which runs the facility, says the plans have been "adapted" in light of feedback received. Planning documents detail the findings of an acoustic impact assessment carried out as part of the assessment concluded that, during a worst-case single-hour period with all three courts being used by four players, the increase in noise would be "moderate" and cause a "significant" impact. 'Sustained rifle shots' However, an acoustic barrier at least 2.8m (9.2ft) high is proposed, which the assessment document said would make the noise increase "negligible" and the impact "insignificant".Rosie Budd, a retired teacher whose home is closest to the prospective site, said: "The noise is apparently like sustained rifle shots all the time, comparable to the sound of very heavy traffic."The 79-year-old, who bought her home when she was widowed and "feeling quite vulnerable", said she never anticipated that such a facility could be built just 4m (13.1ft) away."I carefully chose a situation where more housing wouldn't be built that this sort of thing could happen," she school spokesperson added: "The proposed padel courts at the school's sports centre will be open to the public as well as pupils, and will support good health, fitness and wellbeing for the whole community."While padel is no louder than tennis or netball, both of which are already played at the sports centre, the padel courts will have high-quality sound mitigation in place to mitigate any noise, including an acoustic wall nearest the houses. The courts are also designed to ensure no light can escape from the internal lighting."
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- General
- Yahoo
CNN: Why lights near new Georgia Buc-ee's in Brunswick are endangering sea turtles
It would appear infrastructure and sea turtles don't mix well. On Saturday, CNN released a story detailing how lighting is impacting sea turtles coming on and off of Georgia's coast. Specifically, high-mast light fixtures illuminating the exit of the Buc-ee's in Brunswick. These reportedly cast light far beyond the highway, extending onto beaches even 12 miles away, including Little St. Simons and Sapelo. How do street lights affect sea turtles? Catherine Ridley is vice president of education and communication at One Hundred Miles, a nonprofit working to conserve Georgia's coast. She told CNN that unshielded artificial lights shining brightly onto nesting beaches can override the natural cues of turtles finding their way to the ocean. Essentially, they become confused, drawing hatchlings inland where they die which has already happened in some cases. It's also bad for the adult turtles as nesting females avoid brightly lit areas, reducing their options for safe nesting grounds. Would improved monitoring help? Sea turtle hatchings are generally seasonal, turtles do tend to lay their eggs in the same areas, and there are groups who monitor the nests. But even with all of that, volunteers and researchers can't guarantee they will be at a nest in time to guide the hatchlings back to the sea. Little St. Simons Island Ecological Manager Scott Coleman in an email to CNN: "We never really know exactly when the nests are going to hatch, and in any given nesting season we are monitoring 75+ nests, and often more than 100 nests." Georgia Department of Transportation reportedly owns the lights but they are managed by Glynn County. GDOT is reportedly considering an alternative lighting system, but in the meantime, advocates are hoping for at least some short term solutions like adding shields to the lights. Despite their location, Buc-ee's reportedly does not play a role in the lights' operation and Glynn County spokesperson Brittany Dozier told CNN that the lights were up before Buc-ee's was even proposed for the spot. Nevertheless, CNN says they have reached out to the iconic convenience store chain for comment. Where is the Buc-ee's in Brunswick? Buc-ee's Brunswick location is 6900 GA-99 off of GA-405 and I-95. It's about 25 miles north of Jekyll Island and is Buc-ee's largest stop in Georgia. How many sea turtles visit Georgia? Thousands of loggerhead sea turtle nests are found in the Peach State every year, according to Georgia Wildlife. Last year there were 2,490. Are sea turtles protected? Six species are found in U.S. waters, all of which are listed and protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to NOAA Fisheries. Miguel Legoas is a Deep South Connect Team Reporter for Gannett/USA Today. Find him on Instagram @miguelegoas and email at mlegoas@ This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: CNN reports Georgia's lighting at new Buc-ee's confusing baby sea turtles Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
23-07-2025
- General
- New York Times
Why This Pennsylvania City Put Its Streetlights on a Dimmer
One recent night in July, Denny Robinson, a project manager for the City of Pittsburgh, stood on a street corner in the North Side, lit up by newly installed streetlights, fiddling with his phone. 'Let's dim it down to 24 percent,' Mr. Robinson said, sliding his thumb across the phone's screen. Four nearby streetlights softened to a gentle glow, eliciting oohs and aahs from a small group of onlookers gathered to behold the wonders of municipal mood lighting. Pittsburgh is replacing most of its streetlights — more than 33,000 inefficient high-pressure sodium lamps — with LED versions that are projected to save about $942,000 a year in energy costs while tackling light pollution. The old lights cast an orange glow that bathed the heavens and anything nearby in what Flore Marion, the city's assistant director of sustainability and resilience, described as 'horror-movie' lighting. The new lights are directed downward and emit warmer light than many LEDs. Compared with the old orange lights, the new lights appear brighter when fully turned up, but shields can be added to the fixtures to curb what is known as 'light trespass.' Mr. Robinson said he also plans to dim the new lights between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., which will save energy and money, and, according to the city, cause less harm to migratory birds, urban wildlife and humans. Thanks to urbanization and electrification, light pollution is growing globally by nearly 10 percent a year, according to a 2023 study. Many areas are overlit, which wastes energy, obfuscates starry skies and messes with the circadian rhythms of plants, wildlife and people. Pittsburgh officials had long planned to swap out the city's old streetlights, but for years they didn't have the budget to adopt the types of LED streetlights that other cities were beginning to install. That turned out to be a good thing. The first generation of LED streetlights led to lower costs and energy savings, but also heightened exposure to glare and harmful blue light. 50 States, 50 Fixes is a series about local solutions to environmental problems. More to come this year. In 2016, the American Medical Association warned that blue-rich LED streetlights suppressed melatonin and contributed to sleeplessness, poor daytime functioning and obesity, while also disorienting birds, insects, turtles and fish species that need darkness at night. Some research suggests that bright city lights worsen air pollution by hindering nighttime chemical reactions that clean the air. The City of Pittsburgh included new streetlights in its 2021 budget, and not long afterward passed an ordinance that follows guidelines from DarkSky International, a nonprofit organization focused on fighting light pollution. One feature of the new lights that complies with DarkSky International's recommendations is a relatively warmer hue. Nighttime LED lighting around warehouses and in prison yards often emits bright, cold blue-rich light that can have a color temperature of 5500 Kelvin and up. DarkSky International recommends streetlights with warmer tones and a maximum color temperature of 3,000 Kelvin. Pittsburgh's new lights are 2700 Kelvin. 'We leapfrogged the LED blue-light phase,' Ms. Marion said. According to the city, the new lights will last at least four times longer than the ones they're replacing, saving the city nearly $500,000 in maintenance costs annually. Because it's using less electricity to run the lights, the city estimates it will prevent 12,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. 'It's practical and pragmatic, because of its simplicity and its impact,' said Grant Ervin, Pittsburgh's former chief resilience officer. One of the biggest proponents of Pittsburgh's dark-sky lighting ordinance is Diane Turnshek, who teaches astronomy at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Ms. Turnshek, 70, who grew up in New England, remembers easily seeing the Milky Way as a child. Over time, she grew dismayed at the fact that her astronomy students couldn't readily see dazzling starry skies, and that light pollution often wasn't considered an environmental concern. She was determined to raise awareness about the problem and ways to address it, and worked with the city of Pittsburgh to pass the ordinance. 'It's such an easy fix,' Ms. Turnshek said. 'You turn them off. You use them appropriately. You don't use them when you don't need them. Change is instantaneous and saves you money.' The prospect of dimmer streetlights is often met with public resistance because of the belief that artificial lights increase nighttime safety. But while people may feel safer with more light at night, that doesn't necessarily correlate with crime statistics, said John Barentine, a consultant and former director of public policy for DarkSky International. American cities and towns often vastly exceed recommended levels of illumination, creating glare that can be blinding, he said. Lower-income neighborhoods with more people of color often had brighter lights than more affluent, white neighborhoods, he said. 'We're arguing in favor of public safety by preserving and enhancing nighttime visibility through better lighting design,' Mr. Barentine said. 'We're actually doing people a favor by bringing the light levels down, because we're helping the eye to operate most efficiently under nighttime conditions. We're aiding vision, rather than taking something away.' Still, there are limits to the benefits. Avalon Owens, a research fellow at the Rowland Institute at Harvard University, said that even warm, dim artificial light was usually too bright for most nocturnal insects, which have eyes that are thousands of times more sensitive than those of humans and are most active a few hours after dusk. Motion activated lighting was also preferable, she said. But shielding lights from natural areas did reduce some negative impacts on insects and the species that rely on them, Ms. Owens said. LEDs also use less power, generating fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, and climate change is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity. 'It's a matter of minimizing harm,' Ms. Owens said. The City of Pittsburgh also has about 3,450 LED streetlights with color-temperatures of 4000 Kelvin that will be swapped out for the new, warmer versions. The $15 million project is expected to be completed in 2027. Other places that comply with Dark Sky lighting guidelines include Flagstaff, Ariz., and Jackson Hole Airport, Wyo., Mr. Barentine said, adding that Pittsburgh's Dark Sky ordinance was notable for a city of its size. One afternoon in early July, Chat Ott, an installer, was high up in a cherry picker, swapping out a streetlight on the city's North Side. He's found all traces of wildlife in the old lamps, including mouse nests, old beehives and, once, a startled squirrel. Later that night, Barb and Shawn Jackson, who live nearby, assessed the new streetlights. They liked the safety aspect, they said, because children biked around at night, but they felt the lights were brighter than the old ones, a concern echoed by some on Reddit. Jacob Williams, a press officer for the City of Pittsburgh, said residents could petition the city to dim the lights and request shields for the new fixtures. Ms. Turnshek, for her part, plans to continue advocating for sites she considers too brightly lit, such as bridges. The hope, she said, is that more cities will follow, and more residents will see the advantages of curbing light pollution and embracing the night. 'I would like to teach people that darkness has value,' she said. 'That it's not just the absence of light.' This story idea came to us from a reader. We'd love to hear from you, too. Tell Us About Solutions Where You Live
BBC News
21-07-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Could Surrey Space Centre paint stop 'motorway of satellites' in sky?
Scientists are testing a black paint they hope will stop the night sky turning in to a "motorway of satellites".Noelia Noel, an astrophysicist at the University of Surrey, is working with a team carrying out tests on Vantablack 310, a black paint developed by Surrey NanoSystems which can be applied to satellites. She said light reflecting from the devices was obstructing astronomical ground-based telescopes and "ruining" images for research, including at the Vera C Rubin observatory in Chile."What I am proposing is to minimise the impact, to make space more sustainable, to mitigate the light pollution from these satellites," Dr Noel told BBC Surrey. "This is about cultural heritage," she said. "Imagine you go to a museum and you see a Van Gogh or a lovely Rembrandt and someone comes and scribbles on it with a highlighter."We are doing graffiti on a masterpiece."The number of satellites in the low earth orbit is increasing exponentially, Dr Noel says, adding that they play important roles, including providing GPS and helping us understand and monitor climate change.A UK Space Agency spokesperson said there were about 12,000 satellites in Earth's orbit, with the number expected to rise to 60,000 by 2030 - some experts predict even larger numbers. For example, Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary, uses a growing network of satellites to connect remote areas to fast internet, with previous UK figures showing it could deliver internet speeds four times faster than the Chaturvedi, a 25-year-old PhD student who is testing Vantablack 310, said: "It would be really great if Starlink could use this paint."Not only to protect our skies but also give a message to other satellite operators and encourage them to paint their satellites black."SpaceX did not send a statement in relation to a request from the BBC but did point to previous work done with astronomers to protect the night dark coatings on satellites had led to thermal issues and some electronic components 2020 SpaceX said in a public update that it was "committed to making future satellite designs as dark as possible". Ms Chaturvedi compared the satellites to causing "fingerprints" on the "window to the universe"."The cosmos is humanity's window to the universe, poets have been inspired by it, it has inspired a lot of discussions that have led to the technologies which make our life easier right now," she 310 will be trialled on Jovian 1, a shoebox-sized satellite due to launch in 2026. Meredith Rawls, a research scientist at Vera Rubin, said "many complementary mitigation strategies" were necessary to reduce the impact of satellite streaks on images captured by the said while a substantial fraction of Rubin's images would have a satellite streak, most were not "ruinous", adding: "Despite the increase in satellite streaks, Rubin will still do amazing science."Ongoing work includes developing tools to help identify satellites, avoiding the brightest satellites and tools to help scientists understand when contamination was likely."The specific science impacts depend strongly on the satellite population, which is impossible to predict," she said."However, they will certainly be a nuisance we need to mitigate - akin to 'bugs on the windshield'." A spokesperson for the UK Space Agency said it promotes the sustainable use of space through a wide range of initiatives."We collaborate to develop standards, regulations, norms of behaviour, agreements and best practices that influence and define the in-orbit regime of the future across the globe," they added.
