Light pollution and energy bills

Reading this USA Today story just made me frustrated. The topic was cool – reducing urban light pollution to save energy, money, and celestial views. The problem was that the article made no mention of how these cities were planning on doing it.

Great, the article did list the states that were changing light laws, but the author John Ritter (not that John Ritter) decided to leave out what the laws regulated and failed to tell us just how city lighting could be made more efficient. And this was a front-page article.

The piece basically reports that bright lights blot out our views of the stars (wow), that 2/3rds of Americans can’t see the Milky Way (where did that stat come from?) and that cities were trying to do something about it (shocking).

I am left with more questions now than I had before I read the article. What laws have been passed, how do they regulate light pollution, how can lighting be made more efficient, how much power is saved, and how much money is saved in taxes…?

But thank you Mr. Ritter, I now have a new topic to research. I’ll come back to everyone once I get a little data.

Listen, sorry if I sound a little cranky today. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. The street lamp outside my window buzzes and flickers. Also the awning of the all-night bodega across the street constantly bathes my room in eerie day-glow green. Think I might need to buy an eye mask, either that or drink a bottle of Nyquil before tucking myself in each night.