EP 13 | Reclaiming the Dark: One Man's Mission to Save the Night

Bruce McMath paints a vivid picture of what we've lost as artificial lighting has erased our view of the stars, and why it matters more than you might think.

When was the last time you truly saw the night sky? Not the dim scattering of stars visible from suburbs, but the breathtaking cosmic vista our ancestors considered as fundamental to human experience as sunrise and sunset. For most Americans today—especially the 90% of young people who've never witnessed the Milky Way—this connection has been severed by the steady creep of light pollution.

As chair of the Arkansas Natural Sky Association, McMath explains how this environmental issue extends far beyond astronomy. The Earth has experienced the rhythm of day and night for 4.5 billion years, and every living thing has evolved within this cycle. Artificial light disrupts these patterns at a fundamental level, suppressing melatonin production in humans (increasing risks of diabetes, cancer, and depression), disorienting migratory birds (killing hundreds of millions annually), confusing nocturnal pollinators, and even altering plant growth patterns. The conversation reveals surprising facts about how "security" lights often make properties less secure by illuminating potential targets for criminals, while wasting energy and creating harmful glare.

The good news? Unlike many environmental challenges, addressing light pollution actually saves money and improves visibility. Communities like Flagstaff, Arizona have implemented lighting ordinances that allow residents to see the Milky Way from within city limits while maintaining safe, functional lighting. Simple solutions include using motion sensors, warmer light colors (3000K or lower), properly shielded fixtures, and turning off unnecessary illumination. McMath shares practical steps everyone can take—from enabling night mode on electronic devices to certifying homes as night-sky friendly.

Ready to reconnect with the night sky? Join us for this illuminating conversation about slowing down and rewilding our relationship with darkness. As McMath beautifully expresses, there's nothing quite like "letting your soul wander among the stars with nature's chorus" of whippoorwills and tree frogs—an experience that's "soul-cleansing and heart-refreshing" in our increasingly artificial world.

Arkansas Natural Sky Association:

https://darkskyarkansas.org/

Dark Sky International: https://darksky.org/

Dark Sky approved lighting fixtures and retailers: https://darksky.org/what-we-do/d

_______________________

What is the Natural Obsession Podcast all about?

Growing up, we all had those moments in nature that stuck with us—whether it was a quiet walk in the woods or a grand adventure. On Natural Obsession, it’s our desire to bring those moments to life. As we talk to people from all walks of life we will learn how they fell in love with the outdoors, the different ways they enjoy it today, and explore how we can work together to ensure these spaces are around for years to come. It’s all about sharing memories from the outdoors and ensuring future generations can make their own.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Get out of yourself into the environment around you.
As you say, you slow down.
There is no way to do that.
That's more powerful than goingout under a naturally dark sky.
Get you a blanket or a reclinerand lay out there and let your
soul wander among the stars withnature's chorus, whippoorwills,

(00:24):
tree frogs, and it's like anorchestra.
Just soak it in.
It's soul-cleansing andheart-refreshing.
I just like nothing else.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to season two of Natural Obsession.
This season we're leaning intosomething that feels more urgent
and more hopeful than ever Liveslow, rewild.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
It's about restoring what's been lost, not just in
the land, but in ourselves.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
We'll talk with people who are living
differently building organicsoil and growing food with care,
protecting dark skies,stewarding homesteads and living
in rhythm with bees, herbs andnatural remedies.
And those are just a few.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
These aren't perfect stories.
They're real ones Because toomuch is being lost wild places,
native species and ourconnection to the land.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
If you've been feeling that too, come with us.
Let's live slow.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Rewild.
Hello and welcome to theNatural Obsession Podcast.
Today we're joined by BruceMcMath from Arkansas Natural Sky
Association.
How are you doing today, Bruce?
I'm doing pretty good.
Tj, it's good to meet with youtoday.
We appreciate you driving in.
I appreciate you having me.
It's good to be here.
We're excited to talk about alittle light pollution today.

(01:32):
Let's see what you got to tellus about that.
That's on my agenda these days.
Is that the main focus?
Are you retired?
Oh yeah, I've been retired fora number of years.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Are you enjoying that ?
I am, but I stay awfully busy,Just not getting paid.
That's the only difference.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Well, they say that keeps you out of trouble, so
hopefully that's working for you.
So I noticed that you werechair of the Sierra Club for a
bit of time.
Yeah, the Arkansas chapter,that's right.
Okay, that's cool.
I don't know much about theSierra Club.
I've done a little research onthat.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, back in the day it was sort of the
environmental organization, totell you the truth.
In Arkansas it's a little lessso because it's somewhat
eclipsed by the Ozark Society,which is a similar niche.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, they were part of like getting Yellowstone and
protecting it with TeddyRoosevelt.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Absolutely yeah.
It was probably the firstenvironmental group that was
politically active.
It's a C4 organization, not aC3 organization, so it's always
been about activism, includingin the political arena, and
that's what sort of sets itapart.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, that's really cool.
I'll have to do some moreresearch on that.
For sure, it says that you'vealso co-chaired efforts to
reform the state's pollutioncontrol and ecology commissions.
Yeah, tell us about that alittle bit.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, back in the day , Bill Clinton was governor, so
you can figure out how far backthat was.
But at that time the ArkansasPollution Control and Ecology
Commission was almost entirelyfilled with industrial interests
.
So we had a movement to changethat put conservationist

(03:06):
environmental sensibilities onthe commission.
And we were successful.
We didn't get everything wewanted, but we were able to
change the compositionsignificantly.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Well, hey, everybody helps these days.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe how you
grew up little bit aboutyourself and maybe how you grew
up.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Well, where I got my environmental interest or
conservation interest probablycomes from my childhood.
In a perfect world, everyyoungster would grow up on a
farm, and from the age of fourto about eight or nine I had
that experience.
Okay, and either of you grew upon a farm.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
It depends on what you mean by a farm.
I've done gardening, we'veplanted fruit trees, cows, all
that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Right.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I wouldn't call it a farm, but something like that.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
We grew up on a real farm.
In that environment you have anintimate connection with
wildlife and the domesticatedanimals and their husbandry and
care and so forth and so on thestock pond with the snakes and
the turtles and fishing theponds, and I even got to go on

(04:15):
some hunts.
You're just connected withnature in a way.
You're not in the city.
We moved there for a number ofyears and that was a rich
experience.
And then when I got older, whenwe moved to the city, it was
still a little bit of a natureenvironment for me because we
lived on either side of AllsopPark and us boys in the

(04:37):
neighborhood made that ourterritory.
We owned Allsop Park.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Okay, there you go.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Right.
So when I got into adulthood Ihad a natural interest in hiking
and camping and that sort ofstuff.
But I married an indoor woman.
Yeah, I bought her a pair ofhiking boots for our first
wedding anniversary.
I prevailed upon her to go on alittle trip, a little overnight
camping trip, into Caney CreekWilderness Area.

(05:04):
That was a beautiful hike inand a beautiful spot we found by
the creek and it's wonderfulexperience all the way around
until the next morning I hadgiven her a pack that was a
metal frame pack and it did notfit her right yeah and she had a
bruise in a spot.
She put that pack on and didn'tstop.

(05:26):
I had a hard time keeping upwith her.
She marched out of there and Inever got her behind a pack
again so yep, but you knowbuffalo river and taking the
boys, my sons, that's a rite ofpassage for any arkansan, I
think so.
So we did those things.
But my outdoors experience, uh,in later life became astronomy.

(05:46):
I tell people I'm a space racebaby.
Okay, I was born in 49, spacerace gets underway in 57, just
about the time I'm reaching somekind of consciousness.
Right, that really grabbed me,that that intrigued me.
I can remember one of the firstnews broadcasts I have any
memory of was in those days theNavy and the Army were both

(06:10):
trying to build rockets.
The Army had the Redstone andthe Navy had the Vanguard.
I remember watching the eveningnews and that Vanguard rocket
lit off and it went up about 30or 40 feet and then came back
down in a big ball of flame.
In fact, if you Google Vanguardtoday, you will see that

(06:32):
picture of that thing blowing up.
Anyway, years passed and myoldest son I was trying to think
of something we could dotogether that might inspire him
academically and I thought, yeah, I'll get a telescope.
I had a friend that was into it.
I bought a telescope, I gothooked.
He could care less.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
That's how I got into astronomy.
Yeah, I think that's most ofour endeavors to get children
into things that we think theyought to be into.
We talk about all the time howwe feel like the outdoors is
kind of our middle break, thatplace where we get away, slow
down, get to contemplate life alittle bit.
Do you feel like astronomy,watching the stars, is that kind

(07:12):
of thing for you, man?

Speaker 1 (07:15):
look, it is a well-established fact that if
you let yourself enter anysetting of nature a vista stream
, hiking, canoeing, whatever andrelease yourself and get out of
yourself into the environmentaround you or the community

(07:36):
around you, as the case may beand take in nature as you say,
you slow down.
There is nothing, there is noway to do that.
That's more powerful than goingout under a naturally dark sky,
get you a blanket or a reclinerand lay out there and let your

(07:59):
soul wander among the stars witha nature's chorus,
whippoorwills, tree frogs and soforth going.
It's like an orchestra, anatural orchestra, just soak it
in.
It's soul-cleansing andheart-refreshing.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
I just like nothing else.
I was telling Daniel a coupleweeks ago Dad and I we get to go
spend time at my land and wesit out until about 1030 one
night just watching starstogether and having a good
conversation.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
So I feel that it's a good time, the richest social
time you've ever had I've everhad and I can imagine is sitting
around a campfire.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, there's something about sitting around a
campfire.
That's always my thing.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
When we go hiking, I'm really going hiking to get
at the campfire at some point.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Friends and family, yeah, around the campfire the
richest social experience aperson can have.
So would you say that there'ssomething primal about that.
Maybe the campfire and thewatching the stars, oh, that
rewilds us absolutely, I've gotthis theory.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Anthropologists have been trying to figure out what
separates humans from ourhominid cousins.
At first they thought it waslanguage, and then we realized
that we're not the only oneswith language, and then probably
our hominid ancestors andcousins had language going way
back.
And so then they thought it wastools.

(09:25):
But then we figured out a lotof animals make and use tools.
Right, my theory is humans camealong when the first mind
developed to the point that themystery and the power of the
night sky was comprehended.
Our ancestors were intimatelyconnected with the night sky was
comprehended.
Our ancestors were intimatelyconnected with the night sky,

(09:47):
going way back.
It didn't take our ancestorslong to figure out the import
and the mystery of the night sky, because that clockwork motion
was so connected with nature.
It could tell you the time ofday, the time of night, it could

(10:07):
tell you the season, tell youwhen to harvest, when to migrate
.
It was clockwork.
So it was clock, compass,calendar and Netflix.
I say Netflix because everyhuman civilization we know of
hung the stories of their gods,their heroes and the villains in

(10:30):
the stars.
All humanity that we know ofhave viewed the heavens as the
realm of the gods.
That's how much power they sawin it.
They built all these monumentsand stone observatories and so
forth.
Cave drawings go back 30 000years in europe.
Constellations, not justanimals and people.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
So yeah, it's primal, yeah, it's basic to humanity to
understand and appreciate thenight sky looking at the image
here now you want to point outanything specific about it while
we get it out they've justillustrated here how the
Pleiades and what we call.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Taurus the bull interestingly, is over a bull in
this picture and the OrionNebula.
These are all part of thewinter Milky.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Way, I don't know my constellations that well.
I'm going to be honest.
I should especially since Ihave kids and they're always
asking me which one's which?

Speaker 2 (11:25):
yeah, I got the big dipper down yeah, they do.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
They do have the app now where you can come.
Yeah, I don't know if you'veseen that.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Oh yeah, absolutely yeah you come to the dark sky
festival this september and wehave a constellation tour and
I'll guide you through how tolearn the constellations you're
going to find your way aroundthe night sky and where's that
festival at?
Just north of marshall on um1200 acres owned by bear creek
log cabins yeah, by the creekand stuff down, 65 there yeah,

(11:53):
down 65 towards collar bend.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
There you go.
So we see why that mattered toour ancestors so much.
Why do dark skies matter now,you think?

Speaker 1 (12:01):
well, there's a whole lot of ways to look at that.
There are a whole lot offeatures of it.
Some of it is biological.
We'll talk about it a littlebit later.
The main thing is, with lightpollution, we've lost the dark
skies A lot of times.
You don't appreciate somethinguntil you've lost it.
We're beginning to wake up, Ithink, as a culture, to what
we've lost.
We've lost that connection withour place in the universe.

(12:22):
We've lost that connection withour place in the universe.
You don't have to go back but acouple of generations.
People would sit on their backporch on a summer evening and
ponder the stars, like I wastalking about a while ago, have
that rich experience Any day ofthe week if the sky was clear.
90% of young people today growup never having seen the Milky
Way.
You've got to spend time andmoney to go and witness the

(12:45):
galaxy you live in.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
And to witness and experience nature at night.
That picture I painted for youa while ago, with the orchestra
of nature, the birds and insectsand the stars, it's gone and
we've traded that for a socialworld that's captured in a cell
phone.
It's a poor trade.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
It is.
We had Joe Lample on the otherday for organic farming and
stuff and he talked about thatwith the monarch butterflies.
You didn't notice it was goingaway until you don't see any
monarch butterflies anymore andit's kind of like the dark sky,
like when we were kids I livedin the country on a farm and you
would look up and see Milky Way, see the stars, no problem.
But now, like even when I'vewent back to the air, probably

(13:30):
more light pollution and stuffyou probably won't even see it.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, that's the way to lose the lightning bug.
There's a list of things we'relosing, but this is part of a
pattern.
We've been making this mistakeover and over and over.
We have our brains create thesetechnologies and it looks like
on the front end that it's allplus and there's no negative,
there's no minus, and we have toget into trouble before we

(13:54):
begin to realize.
Wait a minute.
Altering nature often comes withconsequences, and we need to
think in front rather thanbehind when we start altering
things, and light pollution isjust the latest way we've done
that.
But this goes all the way backto the agricultural revolution.
I'm sure that seemed like theway to go, but there were a lot

(14:16):
of consequences to that thatwere not positive.
And then we decided we weregoing to start living together
in concentrated areas.
And what did that do?
That brought on diseaseperiodically.
In the Middle Ages in Europe, athird of the population would
die to a plague.
They thought that was somethingGod was doing to them or

(14:37):
something like that.
They brought it on themselvesbecause of the lifestyle they
were living.
It was a consequence of livingclose together.
Then we had diseases likedysentery, living in cities and
poisoning our water.
We came along withindustrialization and it was
polluted the water.
The Cuyahoga River in Ohiocaught on fire three times

(14:58):
before we passed the Clean WaterAct Wow.
Then, with automobiles and allthat, we polluted the air and
people literally dying ofrespiratory diseases.
We finally passed the Clean AirAct.
Then you remember the ozoneconcern.
We had to deal with that.
Pesticides.
We were headed towards a silentspring with DDT and so forth

(15:20):
and so on.
We had to address that.
Light pollution is just thelatest version of this process.
Yeah, yeah, it's what it is.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
We're good at just making problems for ourselves.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, and it's not that you shouldn't do those
things, but you have to be aware, you have to be conscious about
the consequences and try tomitigate them, you can have your
cake and eat it too, as we'vedemonstrated with all those
things I just mentioned.
We have solved them, or atleast mitigated them, where the
benefit outweighs the harmsubstantially got clean air, we

(15:53):
got clean water, we solved theozone problem, we've improved
the pesticide problem, we'veconquered disease.
So it can be done, and we willdo it with light pollution yeah,
that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
So how bleak is the condition of current condition
of our skies?

Speaker 1 (16:07):
well, it's awful and going in the wrong direction at
a fairly rapid rate yeah, Ithink you had a slide on that
for us.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Yes, I do we'll upload it.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
It shows a light pollution.
This is a computed starts inthe 50s and it goes through
today and slightly into thefuture and it continues to
spread at about a 2% rate peryear.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
No signs of slowing at this point.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, no sign of it slowing at this point.
At this point, like here inArkansas, there is no naturally
dark sky left anywhere in thestate, even in the national
forest.
It's close.
You can go to the Dark SkyFestival, where we hold the Dark
Sky Festival, and you can getpretty close to a naturally dark
sky there.
It's not totally so.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
Are there any remnants of that in the US?

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah, you can go out west and you can find naturally
dark skies.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
So how is this light pollution affecting us and
plants and animals, and do youhave any statistics or anything
on that?

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Oh, yeah, oh yeah.
This movement was started byastronomers, amateur and
professional, worried aboutlosing what I talked about
earlier, losing our connectionwith the night sky and
interfering with scientificresearch and so forth and so on.
But it became apparent alongthe way that perhaps a more
significant issue are thebiological impacts.

(17:23):
You'd say light pollution.
People say what kind ofpollution?
How can light be a pollutant?
Well, think about it a minute.
The earth has known night andday for four and a half billion
years.
Everything that lives on thesurface of the planet has
evolved in that diurnal cycle oflight and dark.
All biology runs on one sourceof energy on the surface of the

(17:46):
planet anyway, and that'ssunlight.
The whole process of living andthriving and reproducing is
competition for that limitedsource of energy.
What nature has done is stackedmore complex organisms on
simpler organisms.
It's like a high-rise.
You can put more biology in thesame spot.
You have plants and then youhave herbivores and you have

(18:09):
predators and scavengers.
You can fit more life that way.
But every life form has got tofigure out how to maximize its
efficiency to compete andsurvive, and that is keyed into
this cycle.
So the cycle of night and dayis so fundamental to how any
creature thrives and survivesand reaches that efficiency and

(18:32):
that balance that is keyed in atthe metabolic level.
So take us humans.
We have sensors in our eyesthat are there not for seeing
but just to tell us whether it'sday or night.
And that shifts a metabolicprocess, a hormonal process,
principally in the form ofmelatonin, which you can go to

(18:53):
the drugstore and buy to helpyou fall asleep.
But that melatonin is triggeredby the setting sun in a natural
setting.
Artificial light can diminishor retard that.
Maybe one reason we have to goto the drugstore and buy
melatonin and that messes withyour sleep and that messes with

(19:14):
everything.
This diurnal cycle is theconductor for your biological
orchestra and things fall out oftune when it's interfered with.
And things fall out of tunewhen it's interfered with.
The American Medical Associationtells us that exposure to
artificial light at nightincreased our risk for diabetes,

(19:35):
obesity, depression, breast andprostate cancer.
Now, what are the moderndiseases?
Yeah, obesity, depression,diabetes, test and prostate
cancer all growing diseases inthe modern world.
But this goes all the way downto the simplest of creatures.

(19:59):
Little spiders, for example,have these sensors on the top of
their head, tell them whetherit's night or day and that's
what tells them when the birdswhen to wake up and start
singing.
It tells insects when to becomeactive summer at night, summer
in the day to do their breedingand feeding, and so forth and so
on.
It's fundamental and it'sdisrupting to nature.

(20:21):
It's another way that we areshrinking natural habitat.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
That makes sense.
I haven't thought about it thatway.
You don't really think aboutsky glow or light trespasses.
I think you call it producinghabitat.
But it makes sense.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
I can get it.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
You ask about some specifics.
The Audubon Society tells usthat somewhere between 365
million and a billion birds dieeach year during migration due
to light pollution, or in partdue to light pollution, or in
part due to light pollution.
It contributes to lightpollution.
Birds are phototoxic.

(20:58):
They're drawn to light.
Most of them migrate at night.
They do that to avoid predation.
Okay, so this is deeplyingrained and they migrate at
night by the stars, and lightpollution confuses that.
Then they're drawn to thecities where they run into
buildings.
They fly in circles tillthey're exhausted.

(21:19):
They can't find food becausethat's not where the food is or
they're subject to predation.
So these are the ways thatdrawn birds unnaturally to
cities creates fatalities.
You might look this up.
You can see the process andwork with birds with the
ceremony they have every year9-11 in New York.

(21:41):
Remember the Twin Tower event?
They put up these spotlights asa symbol of the towers.
Well, when they first starteddoing that, they noticed that
birds were getting in and getcaught in that and flying
themselves to death.
Now what they do is Audubonvolunteers get on them and watch
and when it builds up so manybirds, they turn the lights out

(22:03):
for a while, let the birdsescape, but they are just as
phototoxic as a moth is.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
Well.
I didn't know that either, yeah, Now, it affects plant growth
and plant life as well.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Oh yeah, Plants try to grow towards the sun.
This goes back to the seasons.
This diurnal cycle is not justabout when to wake up and so
forth and so on.
It tells us all about what theseason is, particularly animals,
because the length of the daychanges, right, right.
So male birds develop theirtestes based upon the length of
the day, the season, it's timeto breed and, of course, same

(22:38):
thing with when it's time tomigrate.
That impacts migrating insectsas well.
The phototaxic process impactsthe insect population and birds.
That's one of their main foodsources, and our insect
populations are dropping, inpart due to light pollution.
Obviously, pesticides too.
I've got a picture of aso-called security light.

(23:00):
It looks like it's snowing init, but it's insects captured
just flying around in circlesand they're ground littered with
the carcasses of the littleinsects.
And they'll ground litteredwith the carcasses of the little
insects.
Germany is the first country topass lighting regulations,
specifically concerned about thechronic decline in the biomass

(23:21):
in the country.
So it's a serious issue.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, it sounds like it.
I've read too that it can evenaffect pollination when
artificial light is coming ontolike a field of flowers or
something.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Well, yeah, it affects the insects I mean to
take the fireflies.
Yeah, but not all pollinationdoes in the daytime.
See, many people have a problemwith appreciating the
seriousness of light pollutionas a true environmental threat,
in part because they view theirlives in a daytime setting.
We're a diurnal species, we'reout and about in the day and

(23:54):
that's how we see theenvironment, but half of nature
is at night.
Pollination occurs at night aswell as in the day, such as with
fireflies.
They're pollinators and thereare a lot of pollinators and
they don't breed well in thepresence of light pollution.
That's what's happening to themAll.
That flashing light thing istheir reproductive process.
They're hanging out at the bar.
You know they're meeting up,yeah, and if you've got

(24:18):
artificial light everywhere,that's less effective.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, see, I never thought about the fact that
there's things like pollinationgoing on.
I was just dumb and thought,like you're saying, that happens
during the day and that's it.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Oh, and plants detect the season as well.
Based upon the length of theday, I've got pictures of trees
that should be going into theirwinter state.
They're next to a street lightand half the tree hasn't lost
its leaves yet.
This just shows you how deep,even in the simplest of
organisms, this cycle of lightand day is.
Yeah, it's a big problem.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, you go to a big city like New York or something
.
Birds are thinking it's daytime, 24 hours a day.
I don't know how they don't getexhausted from just doing that.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
I don't know if you've ever been in Times Square
.
You walk through there and thebirds and everything are active,
just like it's daylight.
Like it's daylight, right.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Those birds are going to be pigeons mostly.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Right, those birds are going to be pigeons mostly.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
You're not going to find any Orioles or bluebirds in
that setting.
The bird population in NorthAmerica has declined by almost a
third since the 70s.
There are like 70 species thatare in some level of concern for
becoming critical.
Those are the ones that areless acclimated to the urban

(25:34):
setting, to start with, and areaffected by light pollution.
The most.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
So what are the contributing vectors?
What's the main reason thatwe're seeing this light
pollution now, more than we didin the 50s?
Well, lighting.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Technology number one , number two the price of energy
just keeps getting cheaper andcheaper and cheaper.
We may not think that, but itdoes.
Technology number one, numbertwo the price of energy.
It just keeps getting cheaperand cheaper and cheaper.
We may not think that, but itdoes.
It's just gotten to the pointwhere you can turn light on any
impulse and leave it there andhardly notice it on your
electric bill.
But the main thing is people.

(26:09):
They're still in this frame ofmind that light is all good.
We haven't been able to quiteget everybody to understand that
it's not all good, that thereare consequences.
People use it impulsively andexcessively and inappropriately.
You don't have to take my wordfor it or the dark sky movement
for it.

(26:29):
You can go to the IlluminationEngineering Society.
The dark sky movement for it,you can go to the Illumination
Engineering Society.
The Illumination EngineeringSociety is full-throated about
the problem with the abuse ofartificial light at night.
Entities such as the FederalHighway Administration they have
10 pages in their new roadwaylighting handbook dedicated to
the problems of light pollution,complete with charts about how

(26:53):
sensitive various species are tolight at night, artificial
light at night.
All of these entities aretelling us that we need to begin
to use light responsibly andcome to grips with the fact that
it is not a cost-freeproposition.
The Illumination EngineeringSociety has postulated five

(27:15):
basic rules for the responsibleuse of artificial light outdoors
at night.
Basically, what it boils downto is don't use it unless
there's a real reason for it.
Number one that is grosslyabused.
There's all kinds of illusionsabout what light can do at night
.
Utility companies have workedhard to sell for decades and

(27:35):
decades.
They're the one entity thatbenefits from light pollution.
Put the light where you actuallyneed it.
That's another big sin.
Just go out in the countrysidewhere people have the dust-on
lights.
We call those barnyard lights.
They're just a real cheapfixture with an aluminum cap and
then a plastic lens around itand a bulb inside it.

(27:56):
About 35% of the light thatcomes out of that fixture
actually goes to the ground inan area where it could be useful
, assuming there is an actualuse for it.
Right.
65% of it goes out, where itcreates trespass and impacts the
environment, or up, where itcreates sky glow and hides the

(28:17):
stars.
It's just grotesque wastethrough an inefficient fixture.
Then only use it when you needit.
So not just where you need it,but when you need it.
So you put lights on motionsensors, timers we have all
kinds of technology now tocontrol lights.
There's an outpatient hospitalover in the Mommel, across the

(28:40):
river recent construction wheretheir parking lot lights are dim
unless you pull in, and thenthe lights come up.
The Illumination EngineeringSociety tells us, in spite of
what the utility companies havetold us, that always-on lights
are not the ideal way to dealwith a security using artificial
light.
What is more likely to beeffective and environmentally

(29:03):
friendly and economical ismotion sensor light.
Now you just think about that aminute.
If you light your place up Nowyou just think about that a
minute.
If you light your place up,you're just making it easy to
case, right, yeah, if there'ssomething to take, it becomes
obvious to take.
Dastardly Dan, I call him,doesn't need a flashlight
because you've lit your propertyup for him and you're asleep,

(29:25):
and so are your neighbors.
When that light going all night, it's just an asset, and that's
what the Justice Department hastold Congress.
It is not clear that lightingprevents crime and it may in
fact facilitate crime.
So put it on a motion sensorand you don't call attention to
yourself, you don't facilitatethe casing and if there is an

(29:47):
approach to your property,there's the sense that you've
been discovered, which is a muchbetter deterrent.
The color of light is anotherone of the principles of
responsible lighting.
That has become a bigger issuesince the development of the LED
.
Led lighting has a tendency tohave a blue spike, a lot of blue

(30:08):
light.
It's the blue light that messeswith your melatonin.
It's the blue light thatcreates the worst glare,
blinding glare, which, by theway, that's another issue.
Poor lighting is bad lighting.
It doesn't give you maximumvisibility.
Responsible lighting gives youmaximum visibility.
If you use the right color andyou don't over-illuminate, then

(30:29):
you don't have glare, so you getlighting.
So those are the principles.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
It's really just a matter of being thoughtful yeah,
yeah, I think a lot of peoplejust don't even think of it
being so bad for the environment.
You just think?
You know, I have these prettylights around my house.
They go off all night.
They'll turn off aroundmidnight, but why did I need
them from eight to midnightanyways?
Yeah, you know right, it'smessing things up up and, like
you said, if somebody's going tocase your house, it's lit up,

(30:56):
so might as well use motionsensors and then you know
something's moving out there.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
I saw a heated exchange on social media once,
somebody complaining aboutsomebody's light, and the person
said what's the big deal?
It's just light, and that'sexactly what we're talking about
.
Well, it's just light, andthat's exactly what we're
talking about.
Well, it is just light.
But light is as fundamental analteration of the natural
environment as anything we'redoing.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah, it sounds like an education problem more than
anything else, honestly.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, because I think if people know, then you know
turn the light off, put aspotlight on.
That's good to go.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, that's what ANSA Arkansas Natural Sky
Association yeah, that's whatANSA Arkansas Natural Sky
Association my organization andthe Dark Sky International.
We're the state's chapter Right, dark Sky International.
That's what we're all about.
That's our modus operandi iseducation, but it's a challenge.
It's getting better.
When I first started doing this10 years ago probably, I'd
start that out and I'd get thesequeer looks on people's faces

(31:49):
about light pollution, you know.
Now they've heard of it.
My theory is you've got to hearit three times before you begin
to say well, there's somethingabout this.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
You maybe have some kind of personal connection to
it too.
I think that's.
What helps me is we're here inthe city where we don't see it,
and then we go out to the middleof nowhere in Arkansas and I
can see the stars at night.
So when I come back I'm likeman, I can't even see the Milky
Way Right.
Yeah.
So how else, besides education,does DSI ANSA help with light

(32:20):
pollution?

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, you're only going to be able to get so far
with education.
Ultimately, you've got to havepolicy and you've got to have
ordinances.
Anything that goes into thesedays that involves outdoor
lighting that involves aprofessional in the design.
Increasingly you can see thatthey're doing it right, but
there's so many people that justthrow lights up or they just

(32:42):
hire an electrician or whatever.
You've got to have ordinances.
In Arkansas we have a fewcities now that have ordinances.
Hot Springs just passed alighting ordinance.
Really, yeah, one of ouradvocates was deeply involved in
getting that done.
It took several years.
There are four or fivecommunities in northwest
Arkansas that either have themor are talking about improving

(33:03):
their.
Fayetteville, rogers, goshen,for sure are looking at
upgrading their fixtures Okay,and we have several others
looking at making their firststab at an ordinance.
I have people ask me howbeneficial is that?
What can you expect to achieve?
Flagstaff, arizona, is themother of outdoor lighting

(33:27):
ordinances.
They passed the first and havethe most advanced lighting
ordinance in the country.
You sent us a slide on thatright, I sent you a slide From
Conway to.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, it was massively different.
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
I sent you a couple of slides on it.
One is comparing a scene of acity street in Flagstaff with a
common kind of site you'd see inLittle Rock, where we have no
ordinance, and it's thedifference of, excuse me to say,
night and day.
You can see that street isbeautifully illuminated.

(34:00):
There are all kinds of lightsappropriate, effective,
necessary responsible lighting,the right color, the right
intensity, properly shielded anddirected, and so forth and so
on, Whereas the Little Rock, see, it's got this vape shop in it,
two vape shops in it actually,with these huge LEDs that are
shining out blinding light andyou can't see it.

(34:22):
Shadows everywhere glare, andthe other thing I sent you was
light pollution comparisonbetween Flagstaff and Conway
which is almost the samepopulation within 100 people, or
200 people.
Conway's sky has got six timesmore energy than Flagstaff's.
You can see the Milky Way frominside the city limits of

(34:45):
Flagstaff, arizona.
Wow, that's cool.
Yeah, that's cool.
And they've got all the lightyou need, and yet you can find
nature at night.
You can find where you are inthe universe from Blackstaff.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, so you mentioned Hot Springs.
Are there any other currentprojects going on in the state
to try to get those ordinancesput in place?
We've got several.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Ansa has our own little model ordinance.
The Illumination EngineeringSociety has had two model
ordinances for some time.
One is the full-blown ordinance, another one they call a light
version.
But even the light version ispretty intimidating.
Dark Sky International DSI hascreated its own model ordinance.
That's a little simpler andeven before that ANSA we had

(35:31):
created our little modelordinance and that's what we
sort of pushed on Hot Springs.
The problems municipalitieshave when you approach them is
their concern about staff andtime.
It turns out it's not a verybig problem, but they don't know
that.
They think enforcing this isgoing to be a time-consuming,
expensive process.
But the reality is you pass anordinance and even the

(35:54):
electricians that otherwisearen't well-versed will learn
what they've got to do.
Yeah, over time yeah and so ittakes care of itself.
So, yeah, we are working with,as I say, several communities in
northwest Arkansas and I've gotit on my agenda.
To get back around to LittleRock, yeah, we got the
Sustainability Commission someyears back to sign on to the

(36:16):
idea of an ordinance for LittleRock and the chairman of the
Planning Commission put thekibosh on it.
I think he thinks it's going tobe a burden to builders and
contractors and he views himselfas their guardian.
He's now moved on and, thetruth of the matter, it is not a
particular burden for buildersand contractors.

(36:36):
In fact, we've recently gottena builder to incorporate
responsible lighting practicesin the bill of assurance in his
residential development.
That's the beauty of dealingwith light pollution.
Dealing with light pollution,all these other things I talked
to you about a while ago theyall took energy and time and
money to implement clean air,clean water, pesticide and so

(36:59):
forth.
With light pollution, all yougot to do is do what we already
know how to do turn them off andit saves you money yeah, and
provides better lighting.
It's a win-win-win for everybody, except, like I say, the
utility companies, who don'tseem to like it.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
I didn't realize when you sent those pictures.
That photo fit into followingthe ordinances.
It looks really good.
You see all the differentcolors.
It's not blown out Like itactually gives that more
character in that street.
Yeah, if you could go into likeneighborhoods, like they have
HOAs, people hate HOAs, but youcould enforce some of these kind
of things pretty easily in thenicer neighborhoods or smaller

(37:34):
neighborhoods and make a bigdifference.
I think.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, we gave a star party to that community where
that bill of assurance was done.
It's Lakeview West is what itis.
They've got a pretty sky.
I knew the developer and I saidyou've got an asset, you ought
to do this, and they did it.
The residents are so excitedabout it.
They wanted to do this and theydid it.
The residents are so excitedabout it.
They wanted to do more and totalk them out of it.
He still got some more sell andthey.

(37:56):
He was worried that they weregetting carried away, but we did
a star party for them and theyreally got into it.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
That's cool.
So, like with hot springs orother cities that have accepted
or passed these ordinances, howlong do you think it normally
takes before those come in?
I don't know some percentage ofcompliance with those
ordinances.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Well, of course, all these ordinances are
grandfathered in what's outthere, so it's a going forward
thing.
Anything that would require youto go and get a building permit
is going to automaticallycomply, because you're going to
have to specify in your buildingpermit outdoor lighting and
what you're doing with it, andit either complies or it doesn't

(38:35):
.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
So if I'm building a new building and putting outdoor
lighting or signage or whatever, I'm going to make sure that
light's compliant to the linesyou're going to have to comply.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
So it starts immediately that's good.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
I mean, it takes a while for that to make a
difference, but I can see howthey can happen pretty quick
yeah you've kind of touched onthis earlier, but the ordinance
is it certain lumens that theytry to eliminate certain colors
or certain types of lights.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
I mentioned to you that you have simpler and more
complicated ordinances.
All right, so a simplerordinance would deal with basic
things like shielding so thelight is confined to where you
need it the color motion sensors, maybe even so forth.
But a simple ordinance won'tget into the amount of light

(39:19):
that starts to get complicated.
In our model ordinance we keepthe trespass in there, even for
grandfathered fixtures, becausewe think that trespass is really
already an inappropriateconduct.
So you're not really changinganything.
A legal concept already existsin the common law called
nuisance.
Legal concept already existsthat in the common law called
nuisance.
You're just putting that in thecity ordinance where it's

(39:40):
easier to enforce.
The Illumination EngineeringSociety actually the roadway
subcommittee did a study to tryto figure out how much stray
light is objectionable to theordinary sensibilities of a
person.
So you can take a light meterand you can go to the property
edge and you can take a readingoff the neighboring light and
determine whether it violatesthe recommended lighting level

(40:04):
that an ordinary person wouldfind offenses, which is the
legal requirement to provesomething's a nuisance.
Wow, that's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
We have a case on appeal right now.
A fellow Carol Electric, put alight in on a pole on his
property, paid for by theneighbor.
That shines in his bedroom andon his property it's grossly
over, way too much light.
They refused to remove it, soI'm hoping that we can get a
proper verdict in that case.

(40:32):
So I'm hoping that we can get aproper verdict in that case and
that will begin to change howthe utility companies look at
this problem.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah.
Because they're a terriblesource of trespass.
It's neat that that's going on.
What does it take to get anarea designated as a dark sky
park?
As far as I know, the Buffalowilderness area is like the only
one that we've got in the stateof Arkansas.
Are there more?

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Well, it's the whole Buffalo River Park.
Okay, that was about atwo-and-a-half-year project and
one of the first things we didat Anson.
When I got involved, I couldsee that a dark sky park would
get a lot of attention and itwould be a huge educational tool
.
We first went to the ForestService and struck out out there

(41:16):
.
They just didn't feel like theyhad the resources to take care
of it.
And somebody said, well, howabout the buffalo river?
Well, that's a park, right,their business is interpretation
, education and so forth.
The park services all endedpreserving nature and so forth.
In fact I didn't know it then,but the National Park Service

(41:37):
has been a big supporter of thewhole dark sky movement for a
long time.
So I contacted up there andthey said, yeah, come on up.
Like I say, it took us two anda half years.
You have to document your sky.
You've got to inventory allyour lights.
You've got to establish alightscape management plan.
Then you have to develop a planto comply.
Establish a lightscapemanagement plan, then you have
to develop a plan to comply withyour lightscape management plan

(42:00):
.
Some of that can be done overtime, but some of it has to be
done when you apply.
You have to get letters ofsupport, you have to have a
public education program aboutthe importance of the dark sky
element.
I had great pleasure workingwith the staff, one young lady
in particular, she really gotinto it and ramrodded it.

(42:21):
That was a big step for usbecause it did get a lot of
attention.
But the state parks are workingon dark sky designations.
I actually got a priority list.
The first on it is MountMagazine.
They have several other parkswhen they can get to them.
They've developed a lightmanagement plan which, like all

(42:43):
these, is prospective, to becomplied with over time as
fixtures are changed out and soforth and so on.
That apply to all their parks.
We're talking to the local parkmanagement.
At Pinnacle and Lake SylviaAstronomy Club I'm in we do star
parties and we've worked withthat Pinnacle for many years and
they've changed their situationthere so we can't have the star

(43:06):
parties there anymore.
But now they have an agreementwith the Forest Service to pull
Lake Sylvia into theirmanagement.
Pull Lake Sylvia into theirmanagement.
So Lake Sylvia is now managedby the state parks and it's
about 40 minutes west of LittleRock and it's got a Bortlescale
3 dark sky.
So we're starting to have starparties there and they're

(43:28):
interested in having an urbansky designation for that park.
It's not dark enough to be adark sky park.
You have to chin a pretty steepbar for that.
But it would make a great urbansky park and hopefully that'll
be the first one in the stateit's a nice area.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Have you ever been to Flat Side Pinnacle?

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Oh yeah, that's a really cool spot.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
If it was really dark out there it'd be real nice.
Little Rock pretty easy fromthere, and Maumelle yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Well, you get high enough, go to Mount Magazine and
you can look out and you cansee all kinds of light pollution
.
Yeah, all these little townsand everything are throwing
light up in the sky.
But if you take a reading atthe zenith it's dark.
Yeah, sometimes you feel likeit's darker if you can get in a
valley where there are hillsaround you, where you don't see

(44:15):
those light domes.
Right, it's darker if you canget in a valley where there are
hills around you, where youdon't see those light domes.
But the zenith would be thesame regardless.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah, so do these things give you hope, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
We're making progress .
I mean, like I said, theprofessional lighting industry
pretty much fallen in lineArchitects and lighting
engineers, they do it rightthese days, unless the customer
insists some other deal.
The public is learning slowly.
Some municipalities arelearning about the importance of

(44:45):
it.
We're making a little bit ofprogress there, so it's slow.
We've got a long way to go.
But I'm thoroughly convincedthat in a generation North
America will be a darker place.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah, it is cool, I think it will be.
I think people will understandit and they will ascribe to it
and they will enjoy theconsequences of it and
appreciate the greater healthand friendlier environmental
aspect of it, the aesthetics ofit, the better lighting.
As I say, there's no downside.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, I think people are moving more health conscious
anyways, and this goes alongwith that.
I put all new hue lights in mymain areas of my house, so as
the day goes, the lights change,so my melatonin is not getting
messed up.
It gets darker and darker andmore red light instead of blue
light.
So I think more people arelooking into those kind of
things.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Well, you know I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that
your cell phone, your iPad,your computer all have a night
setting on them.
People need to enable that andwhat that does is take blue
light out.
Now they're doing that.
Why they're doing that?
Because they know that messeswith your health and they could

(45:58):
leave themselves open tolawsuits.
Uh, if they didn't, yeah, whenit messes with your melatonin,
they will just take the obesitything.
What happens is you don't sleepwell and you can document this.
This is not made up.
Stuff they've done, do studiesand they expose people to
artificial light and monitortheir sleep.

(46:19):
You don't sleep well.
When you don't sleep well, thenyou're hungry.
That's just an establishedmedical fact.
It messes with your metabolismand you end up eating more than
you would if you got a goodnight's sleep.
From the standpoint of cancer,melatonin is part of your cancer
defense.
From the standpoint of cancer,melatonin is part of your cancer
defense.
So you need to turn thosefeatures on on your iPads

(46:40):
because we're all getting a doseof unhealthy blue light.
Otherwise, Put warmer colorlights in your house.
The American MedicalAssociation suggests 3,000
degrees Kelvin or warmer, whichmeans a lower temperature.
Use dimmers inside.
Just get away from that iPhonea while before you go to bed.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
In every little device you've got these blue
lights.
They put it on everything.
You can go up there and blockit out.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Another thing you can do is you can get these little
amber-colored lights that areself-actuating.
You plug in the socket so atnight they come on.
You can stick one of those inthe hallway and one in the
bathroom so at night they comeon.
You can stick one of those inthe hallway and one in the
bathroom so you don't have toturn on your overhead light when
you get up at night forwhatever reason, and that helps
you go back to sleep too.

(47:25):
Yeah, you avoid turning thoselights on.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
All that stuff sounds good.
I'm definitely trying topractice those things more and
more as I get a chance.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, I think more people will when they know that
it's an issue.
Like we said, most people don'teven think it's an issue.
It's causing all kinds ofissues.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Right, and it's not really doing them any good.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah, don't even see it, it's outside.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
What you can do besides turning your devices off
, enabling those features anddoing what I indicated about
dimmers in your house and thecolor of your lights and so
forth, is from an environmentalstandpoint.
You can go online to the DarkSky International and find a
link there for self-certifyingyour homes.

(48:08):
Self-certifying your home isnight sky friendly and it's a
little checklist and those fiveprinciples I told you about are
laid out there.
And, like the Buffalo River did, did you inventory your outdoor
lighting and you go down thatchecklist.
Does it comply with each ofthese items?
And if it does, then you'regreat, you're good to go and you
can print out yourself-certification certificate

(48:30):
online.
And if it's not, you can get itfixed, go to the hardware store
and fix it and then you're inthe winning team.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
That's pretty cool.
How do I?

Speaker 2 (48:38):
get this street light out of my house, like right in
my front yard.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Well, you complain.
That's another thing you've gotto do.
Bb gun.
Well, that's an old-fashionedremedy that I hear about from
time to time but I do notcondone.
But you can complain.
It's sort of funny.
Little Rock, where I live andtherefore I can survey they get
complaints about that and almostall those lights are owned by

(49:05):
Entergy.
They're not city lights I meanthe city does have some, but
most street lights they rentthem from Entergy, which does a
poor job maintaining them.
By the way, they will refer youto Entergy if you complain and
Entergy will come out.
In the past it has.
I don't know if they're stilldoing it, but they would come
out and do one of several things.
One is they would paint thatplastic with black paint, that

(49:29):
plastic lens.
Of course that means all you'regetting is a little tube of
light going down on the street,but they're getting their money
for that.
They're still getting theirmoney and the city can claim
they're lighting the street eventhough it's just a little
circle, or they'll put a pieceof aluminum flashing inside that
deal to block the light.
Same kind of deal, same kind ofprocess.

(49:51):
So they just render the lightcompletely useless, and that's
what they do.
The irony is almost no one evercomplains.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
I'm going to try to get it done.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
I'll let you know those lights are of questionable
utility.
I do not advocate getting ridof street lights as a general
rule okay, but the British havebeen turning off street lights
or dimming them.
They have curfews and so after10 or 11 o'clock they'll dim all
the public lighting or turn itoff.

(50:21):
They've been doing that foryears.
They started doing it to reducethe carbon footprint.
Light pollution is a fullspectrum and environmental
problem.
It's not only biological,aesthetic, health and losing the
stars, but it's also a hugesource of carbon emissions that
is wasted energy About 6% of ourelectric consumption in this

(50:46):
country is for lighting.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
So anyway, I got off on a tangent.
No, you're good.
How much carbon does one lightbulb produce?
I heard that statistic.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, a coal-fired 100-watt light bulb left on all
night for a year that'scoal-fired generates almost a
half a ton of carbon.
Wow, and think of all thelights out there that are on all
night for a year.
That's coal-fired generatesalmost a half a ton of carbon.
Wow, and think, all the lightsout there that are on all night.
That's crazy.
The british agency they'reequivalent to our.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Um, um, what's our agency called center disease?

Speaker 1 (51:07):
yeah, the center, disease controlled center uh,
their equivalent of that is dida study of this phenomenon and
whether it was impacting safetyor security crime.
And nah, not at all.
In fact, violent crime.
The only statisticallysignificant finding was that

(51:28):
violent crime actually decreaseda little bit in areas where
they turn the lights out.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Turns out, criminals are afraid of the dark.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
It turns out criminals are afraid of the dark
.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
Exactly Makes sense.
You can't see where you'regoing.
You've got to have a flashlightNow dastardly.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Dan is human.
Humans are phototaxic.
They're drawn to light.
I talked to a colleague who hasmy job in Texas and they had
done a crime study in Dallas orFort Worth.
The location in the whole citywith the highest crime rate was

(52:02):
what's that outdoor outfittersthing?
We've got one out here, vazpro,yeah, vazpro.
It was a Vazpro lot.
People breaking into cars leftand right.
Of course it's all lit up In.
You know, they've got a crimeproblem in a lot of
neighborhoods, a serious crimeproblem, and so there was a move
afoot to start lighting some ofthe alleys that weren't

(52:24):
illuminated, on the theory thatthat was going to reduce crime.
Well, somebody was smart andsaid, okay, well, let's, let's
do that, but let's not lightsome of them too.
It'll have some controls.
We'll light some alleys and wewon't light other alleys, and
then we'll see what happens andwe'll compare the crime rates in
the lit to the unlit, but alsoto both, before we change the

(52:50):
lighting.
And crime went up.
All categories of crime went upin the alleys that were
illuminated over what it hadbeen and over the lights that
were not illuminated.
There are a lot of studies outthere about this.
The only study I know of thatever even hinted at a connection
between security and streetlighting was done, I think, in

(53:14):
the late 70s or early 80s.
It was a meta-analysis of anumber of different studies and
they found that in a little lessthan half the studies that had
been done that there was somedecline in crime.
But the problem with it was isthe crime went down in the
daytime too.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
The obvious conclusion was that it wasn went
down in the daytime tooInteresting.
The obvious conclusion was isthat it wasn't because of the
lighting per se doing anythingat night to prevent crime.
It was the community beinginvested in.
You were investing money in thecommunity and that was changing
the character of the communityand that was what's causing the
crime drama.
There is no scientific evidencethat shows lighting in and of
itself reduces crime.

(53:59):
That's not to say that you don'twant to light places where
people are out and about,because when people are out and
about you've got eyeballs I'mjust talking about.
We go out here in our countryand we see every little rural
home has got one of those lightsgoing all night.
Nobody's watching that light'snot doing anything.
Motion sensor is what you need.
When you drive up to your house, your driveway lights up and

(54:21):
that's what you need I like it.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
I'm going to try to do some of these things.
If I build a new home in thefuture, I'll be putting these
standards in it's real cheap infixtures about 35 dollars for a
motion sensor light yeah, I knowlike dsi has a list of fixtures
on their website and we'll putthat link in, as well as some of
the other ones we've talkedabout.
How do those prices compare?
They're pretty reasonable, yeah, well they're not any different

(54:46):
.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
A quality light fixture is probably going to
cost you more than a barnyardlight, right, but no more than
other quality light fixturesyeah yeah and uh.
One thing I've neglected topoint out when you go to the
store to get a new fixture,you're probably going to get an
LED.
There are a lot of good thingsabout LED, but I already alluded
to this thing about the color.
You need to make sure you'vegot a warm color 3,000 or less.

(55:09):
If you go to the store and yousee soft white and warm white,
it's warm white, what you reallywant, soft white, it's in the
right direction.
But no reason not to go with2700.
If you want color rendition,you can get that beautifully
with 2700.
There's really no reason to goany colder than that.
But you need to be aware thatnot only do you need less watts

(55:30):
they're way more efficient butyou need less lumens.
People do not understand thatif you're replacing a fixture or
bulb at home, you want to cutthe lumens by at least half.
Cut your lumens 50 to 60percent and and get the warm
color and you'll be moving inthe right direction.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
Put it on a motion sensor and you're really there,
yeah, so how can our listenersparticipate in DSI and ANSA?

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Well, both organizations are membership
organizations.
Okay, frankly, they're not awhole lot of benefits.
The benefit is supporting theeffort.
We give discounts to ourmembers at the festival and you
get notice of the festival andother things earlier than
anybody else does.
There's some benefits like that, but you're really doing that
to support the organization.
You can self-certify your homeIf you really get into it.

(56:21):
You can participate as acitizen scientist in the Globe
at Night project.
I've showed you these lightpollution maps and where that
comes from is these scientistsuse satellite data that's made
for a different purpose thanthis.
But they can extract that dataand build these light pollution
maps, but they needed groundtruth and when the lighting

(56:41):
technology changed with LED,they need to reproof it.
You learn the constellations.
You go online to Globe at Nightand they tell you the time
frames each month when youshould go out and they give you
the constellation to use and youyou the constellation to use
and you have these constellationcharts and you see how many
stars can I see in this chart ofthis constellation.

(57:04):
The more stars you can see, thedarker your sky and it'll tell
you what magnitude style you'vegot and you enter that in the
data and that becomes part ofthe database and you can see
your work.
It's permanently recorded, sothat's a lot of fun.
And then of part of thedatabase and you can see your
work.
It's permanently recorded, sothat's a lot of fun.
And then, of course, you canget out and enjoy it.
You can come to the festival orone of these star parties, or
the Sugar Creek Club innorthwest Arkansas has star

(57:27):
parties.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
And where can we find all that information?
Is that on Facebook website?

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Our website, darkskyarkansascom, Okay, and of
course, Dark Sky International,as you said.
You can go there to look for acertified lighting fixture, dark
sky compatible.
And you can learn about on bothsites, about light pollution,
impacts to wildlife, how to help, how to participate, how to be
involved.
Both of these websites havethat information.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Was there a particular viewing area that you
recommend?
Anybody go to around the state.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
I'm glad you asked that I was about to forget, and
this is something that needsmore attention than we've been
able to give it.
On our website.
We have a dark sky host map,okay, and these cabins and

(58:19):
campgrounds and so forth canapply to us to be listed on that
map if they are in a sky of agiven darkness or level of
darkness.
If they can achieve that andcommit to responsible lighting,
we'll list them on our map.
We have another map that'ssupposed to show places where
you can go, but the truth of thematter is that we don't have a
lot of spots on there forseveral reasons, but probably
the main one is that in Arkansas, if you've got a place that's

(58:43):
public and has a dark sky, it'sprobably also got a lot of trees
.
It's hard to find an open darksky on public ground in Arkansas
.
There are places Lake Sylvia,for example, on the Buffalo
River, any campground on theBuffalo River, some places in
the Forest Service, richlandCreek.

(59:04):
There are places, but if youwant something not too far away,
drive out in the country andfind you a rural church with a
graveyard and set up there.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
If they don't have a night watcher, you can probably
enjoy a fairly dark sky.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
That's good advice.
And how can we follow your workand see what you're actually
doing?

Speaker 1 (59:26):
with all your advocacy You're asking all these
good questions that I'm goingto overlook.
Otherwise, you go to ourwebsite and you hang out there
for just a few seconds itdoesn't take long.
A pop-up will come up askingyou if you want to subscribe to
our event news, and you cansubscribe to that.
It doesn't generate a lot ofemail.

(59:48):
You're not going to get anemail a day kind of thing.
As the festival approachesthere will be a few more, but
maybe one a month, but we try tokeep people abreast of what the
organization is doing.
There.
Of course, members get evenmore information.
You can join that and you'llknow about star parties and what
we're doing with the parkservice and things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Okay, one last thing here.
I think If we do have listenersout of the state that listen,
if they're in a state thatdoesn't have something like we
do with ANSA or Dark Sky achapter, how can they look into
starting one or finding it?

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Well, you can go to Dark Sky International and talk
to them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
They'll be happy to help you set up.
There's several states aroundus.
I think you said that don'thave them.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
That do not have them .
We've got more Dark Sky thanmost any other state does near
the mississippi.
You've got to go west of us.
If you go north or east it justgenerally gets worse right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Do you think that slowing down and taking time to
observe our universe, as ourancestors did, improves quality
of life?

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
oh lord I think I told you about that.
There is no better way to loseyourself, energize your soul and
to get out under a naturallydark sky, particularly in the
spring or summer or fall.
I love the fall, when you'vegot the tree frogs going and the

(01:01:17):
birds going, insects humming,it's just the way to lift all
your burdens.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
Yeah, we're right there with you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Yeah, when I was thinking about this episode I
got to thinking do you think thenight sky was made for humans?
We've kind of talked about this.
We have pollinators at nightand all these things.
But you know, like as the daygoes on, our melatonin builds up
, we get sleepy, so we go tosleep.
So is that just for us to likelook at the universe and have
big thoughts about?

(01:01:47):
Or you think it's mainly forthe animals?

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
No, humans have made the night sky for them.
Whether you want to say it wasintended for us or not, I don't
know, but our ancestors tappedonto the night sky as a
practical resource.
Like I said, clock, calendar,compass, when to plant, when to
harvest, when to migrate, whento hunt it was fundamental to

(01:02:11):
our ancestors' lives and Iguarantee you they hung the
stories of their gods or heroesand their villains on the stars.
It was their Netflix and Iguarantee you that they enjoyed
what you and I have very rarelyget to enjoy, and that is time
around the campfire.
I mean, think of that, goingback to our hunter-gatherer

(01:02:34):
ancestors.
How important that was at time,at night, from a social
standpoint, and what we've givenup in that regard, changing it
for the cell phone, social media.
Our kids live in those.
That's their lives.
They don't have thoseexperiences.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Yeah, Our theme is this slow down, rewild, find
those places, find those ways.
Look at the sky, be out and dosome forest bathing or whatever
it is that you've got to do, butfind those ways to immerse
yourself in nature.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
I like that term forest bathing.
Get it somewhere and take inthe Milky Way, which is a river
in the sky.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
There you go, that's cool.
Well, do you have anything elsefor us?

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
I do not.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
I enjoyed the visit.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
I hope you can salvage something out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
Oh, I think we got a lot of good content here.
I'm excited about it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
All right good yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Well, we appreciate you, sir.
All right, that's a wrap.
Thanks for listening to NaturalObsession.
If you want to keep up with usand what we're doing, check us
out at natobco, follow us onInstagram at natobpodcast, or
look us up on Facebook atNatural Obsession.
And hey, if you like this one,send it to a friend who loves
the outdoors too.
© transcript Emily Beynon.