Scribd
Upload
87 views

Reading Text 18 Light Pollution

The document discusses the issue of light pollution and efforts to address it. It notes that light pollution has increased across the country as more lighting illuminates more than its intended target. This excessive lighting obscures views of the night sky and can have negative impacts on wildlife, energy use, and safety. Some cities like Tucson have passed ordinances and made infrastructure changes to reduce light pollution by using more efficient lighting that directs light downward rather than scattering upward. Reducing light pollution can benefit astronomy research and save on energy costs.

Uploaded by

Bui Chi Thanh (K17CT)
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
87 views

Reading Text 18 Light Pollution

The document discusses the issue of light pollution and efforts to address it. It notes that light pollution has increased across the country as more lighting illuminates more than its intended target. This excessive lighting obscures views of the night sky and can have negative impacts on wildlife, energy use, and safety. Some cities like Tucson have passed ordinances and made infrastructure changes to reduce light pollution by using more efficient lighting that directs light downward rather than scattering upward. Reducing light pollution can benefit astronomy research and save on energy costs.

Uploaded by

Bui Chi Thanh (K17CT)
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

READING TEXT 18

Light pollution
A After hours of driving south in the pitch-black darkness of the
Nevada desert, a dome of hazy gold suddenly appears on the
horizon. Soon, a road sign confirms the obvious: Las Vegas 30
miles. Looking skyward, you notice that the Big Dipper is harder to
find than it was an hour ago.

B Light pollution—the artificial light that illuminates more than its


intended target area—has become a problem of increasing concern
across the country over the past 15 years. In the suburbs, where
over-lit shopping mall parking
lots are the norm, only 200 of the Milky Way’s 2,500 stars are
visible on a clear night. Even fewer can be seen from large cities.
In almost every town, big and small, street lights beam just as
much light up and out as they do down, illuminating much more
than just the street. Almost 50 percent of the light emanating from
street lamps misses its intended target, and billboards,
shopping centres, private homes and skyscrapers are
similarly over illuminated.

C America has become so bright that in a satellite image of the


United States at night, the outline of the country is visible from its
lights alone. The major cities are all there, in bright clusters: New
York, Boston, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago,
and, of course, Las Vegas. Mark Adams, superintendent of the
McDonald Observatory in west Texas, says that the very fact that
city lights are visible from on high is proof of their wastefulness.
“When you’re up in an airplane, all that light you see on the ground
from the city is wasted. It’s going up into the night sky. That’s why
you can see it.”
D But don’t we need all those lights to ensure our safety? The
answer from light engineers, light pollution control advocates and
astronomers is an emphatic “no.” Elizabeth Alvarez of the
International Dark Sky Association (IDA), a non-profit organization
in Tucson, Arizona, says that overly bright security lights can
actually force neighbours to close the shutters, which means that if
any criminal activity does occur on the street, no one will see it.
And the old assumption that bright lights deter crime appears to
have been a false one: A new Department of Justice report
concludes that there is no documented correlation between the level
of lighting and the level of crime in an area. And contrary to
popular belief, more crimes occur in broad daylight than at night.

E For drivers, light can actually create a safety hazard. Glaring


lights can temporarily blind drivers, increasing the likelihood of
an accident. To help prevent such accidents, some cities and
states prohibit the use of lights that impair night-time vision. For
instance, New Hampshire law forbids the use
of “any light along a highway so positioned as to blind or dazzle the
vision of travellers on the adjacent highway.”

F Badly designed lighting can pose a threat to wildlife as well as


people. Newly hatched turtles in Florida move toward beach lights
instead of the more muted silver shimmer of the ocean. Migrating
birds, confused by lights on skyscrapers, broadcast towers and
lighthouses, are injured, sometimes fatally, after colliding with high,
lighted structures. And light pollution harms air quality as well:
Because most of the country’s power plants are still powered by
fossil fuels, more light means more air pollution.

G So what can be done? Tucson, Arizona is taking back the night.


The city has one of the best lighting ordinances in the country,
and, not coincidentally, the highest concentration of observatories
in the world. Kitt Peak National Optical Astronomy Observatory
has 24 telescopes aimed skyward around the city’s perimeter, and
its cadre of astronomers needs a dark sky to work with.

H For a while, that darkness was threatened. “We were totally losing
the night sky,” Jim Singleton of Tucson’s Lighting Committee told
Tulsa, Oklahoma’s KOTV last March. Now, after retrofitting
inefficient mercury lighting with low-sodium lights that block light
from “trespassing” into unwanted areas like bedroom windows, and
by doing away with some unnecessary lights altogether, the city is
softly glowing rather than brightly beaming. The same thing is
happening in a handful of other states, including Texas, which just
passed a light pollution bill last summer. “Astronomers can get what
they need at the same time that citizens get what they need: safety,
security and good visibility at night,” says McDonald Observatory’s
Mark Adams, who provided testimony at the hearings for the bill.
I And in the long run, everyone benefits from reduced energy costs.
Wasted energy from inefficient lighting costs us between $1 and
$2 billion a year, according to IDA. The city of San Diego, which
installed new, high efficiency street lights after passing a light
pollution law in 1985, now saves about $3 million a year in energy
costs.

J Legislation isn’t the only answer to light pollution problems.


Brian Greer, Central Ohio representative for the Ohio Light
Pollution Advisory Council, says that education is just as
important, if not more so. “There are some special situations
where regulation is the only fix,” he says. “But the vast majority
of bad lighting is simply the result of not knowing any better.”
Simple actions like replacing old bulbs and fixtures with more
efficient and better-designed ones can make a big difference in
preserving the night sky.
*The Big Dipper: a group of seven bright stars visible in the
Northern Hemisphere.
Complete each of the following statements with words taken
from the passage. Write ONE WORD for each answer.

1. According to a recent study, well-lit streets do not


________ crime or make neighbourhoods safer to live in.

2.Inefficient lighting increases ________ pollution because most


electricity is produced from coal, gas or oil.

3.Efficient lights ________ light from going into areas where


it is not needed.
Decide if the statements below are True, False or Not Given
4.In dealing with light pollution, ________ is at least as important
as passing new laws.
5. One group of scientists find their observations are made more
difficult by bright lights.
6. It is expensive to reduce light pollution.
7. Many countries are now making light pollution illegal.
8. Old types of light often cause more pollution than more modern ones.

You might also like