Artificial Light Pollution

Artificial lights have helped us correct an imbalance that existed in nature for us — Nights are typically longer as compared to the amount of sleep our brains need. We’ve however taken the artificial illumination to another extreme, where it has detrimental effects on nature and on our own health too.

This post is inspired by a recent call by some scientists to treat artificial light as pollution.

Commentary:

• A light bulb is frequently cited as a great invention. We’ve this story of how many times Edison had failed before …
• And indeed, artificial lights are so useful because these have helped us correct an imbalance that existed in nature for us — Nights are typically longer as compared to the amount of sleep our brains need [1]. Prior to use of fire for creating artificial illumination, several hours would have been lost each day [2]. The inventions and discoveries thereby have led to increased daily human economic productivity.
• We’ve however taken the artificial illumination to another extreme, where it has detrimental effects on nature as described in the above article, and on our own health too.
• In some cultures, it’s common to use amber (yellowish) lights at homes, during the evenings, and white lights at work, during the daytimes. The idea here is to emulate outdoor illumination inside of the building. In some other cultures on the other hand, it’s commonplace to use bright white fluorescent lamps (also known as tubelights) till late at night. Switching to amber lights may again just need a change of mindset.
• One of the challenges is safety and security, which calls for good illumination everywhere. If we can’t solve that issue via cultural improvements alone, I hope innovations in the future can help solve it while still keeping a tab on light pollution.
• With so much already going on needing attention like the current pandemic, safety and security issues esp. for women and children, severe air pollution levels, poverty, et al, a talk about reducing light pollution may not infiltrate our minds deeply, but it’s certainly something to be aware of to keep bringing the positive changes, even if slowly.

Footnotes:

[1] It’s not fully clear to me why biological evolution did not optimize our brains for longer sleeps, trading it off with more active brain during the daytime or merely with reduced calorific consumption. I have seen many articles relating to sleep, but have no clear and complete answer on this. Sleep lengths vary between species and with human age too.

[2] I have read that humans in antiquity used to sleep in two phases at night. Haven’t looked through details of this.

Cover Photo: Pixabay

{Adapted from a prior WhatsApp post on my school’s group and elsewhere on November 7, 2020.}