Brisbane City Council LED street lights/light pollution call to action

[kittenshark]

Pasted from http://www.bas.asn.au/index.php/light-pollution/light-pollution follow the link to get the URLs to the links in the page. :thanx:

[that_guy]

I've sent the letter given to us at the combined societies meeting several months ago and received a form letter from the office. Doesnt look too promising. It seems the money flowing in from and to energex outweighs a few dozen worried astronomers :shrug:

[Camelopardalis]

Isn’t Energex (at least part?) owned by QLD government? In which case, it might be worthwhile expressing concern about energy conservation and responsibility for looking after both city and country environments against the effects of blue hued LED lights. These have been proven to be to the detriment of the human biological processes, but wildlife also.

Raising any issues regarding clean energy production will likely fall on deaf ears and earn it a swift passage to the recycle bin...

[kittenshark]

Bump. Also, to add the link to the social media campaign:
www.facebook.com/Brisbane-LED-Street-Lights-2000717086830100

My apartment is right above a street lamp and I don't even want to open the curtains anymore. They're blackout curtains and still gets light streaming in from a regular street lamp. Even my fish get confused as to when bedtime is so the curtains will continue to stay closed. I'd imagine LEDs would be worse.

[casstony]

Being new and broader spectrum makes the LEDs noticeably brighter than previous lamp types. Additionally the lower temperature, more amber colour LEDs make the environment seem so much nicer than the glare of blue/white LEDs.

[skysurfer]

I don't think so.
The existing poorly designed HPS (the ubiquitous orange streetlamps) have the bulbs protruding under the face of the fixture which spreads more light upwards.

Most LED fixtures have a flat face and spread far less light upwards. But many LED streetlamps have the wrong color temperature, too white and too much blue in it. Recent streedLEDpoles however, have 3000K LEDs in it which is not so harsh and scatters less as they have less blue light.

And LED is not completely broadband: the blue counterpart has a spike and the area between 480-500nm is considerably dimmer which is just the Hbeta and OIII area. The Halpha output is also rather low.

Moonlight is far worse as that has a real broadband spectrum and has also more blue light in it as it has a color temperature of 4000-5000K.

This picture shows the spectrum of a 5000K LED compared to sunlight (and moonlight), a 3000K LED is considerably dimmer in the blue.

This all does not say that city councils have to be very aware of the choice of the proper luminaries, and should also consider smart lighting, which means, that much more motion detectors should be installed for security lighting instead of all night on lighting.

And Brisbane is not the worst: Sydney and Melbourne are larger and have more LP, and in the rest of the southern hemisphere, Johannesburg or Sao Paulo are far worse.
Australia is one of the darkest countries in the world with only 40 million people in an area as large as the USA and lets keep in so dark !
Here in the EU is is far worse !

[casstony]

My 4000K LED was a lot worse than the Mercury lamp it replaced, until I got it shielded. The LED was obviously brighter and much harder to filter at the scope.

[Camelopardalis]

My objection to street lamps, besides the astro side, is the height at which they're typically raised...usually to bedroom window height. Are there not regulations to prevent this? In the UK, if you can prove street light ingress into your bedroom they are obliged to modify it as it constitutes a health issue. Sounds crazy in a place with 65 million people in the size of Victoria...

[dpastern]

My thoughts exactly.

[dpastern]

yeah, so this is the view from my front yard:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4463/37534292410_6cd1a8f088_c_d.jpg

filed a complaint with Ipswich council, took them 5 weeks to respond, and the response was basically a big FU tough luck. The so called "engineer" said that everything was within spec. Probably didn't get off his ass to come and actually inspect it at night. Waiting for my lux meter to arrive so that I can prove that the lighting is higher than the 1 lumen per square meter that they're allowed (rough calculations using a EV meter on my iPhone and an online EV/Lux/Lumens calculator) show that it's actually around 3 lumens per square meter - over the legal specs.

I was far from impressed with Ipswich council. Useless as tits on a bull and more interested in business than actually serving their constituents.

Their BS is that they must light the sidewalk and streets sufficiently for cars and pedestrians. Wow. Piss poor argument considering most of the streets in my area are far less lit than my very small cul de sac, which has SFA foot and car traffic too I might add. I find it amusing, since if I drive to Springfield Lakes from Ipswich, the highway has practically NO LIGHTING. Which makes what the engineer told me absolute BS.

Impressed Dave is not.

I knew I should have kept my .22 rifle.

edit: spoke with one of my neighbours 2 nights ago in a general catch up chat, and talked to her about it and she was dismayed. You basically cannot see any but the mag 1 stars in the southern skies from my location, the LP is THAT BAD. She was rather sympathetic to my complaint, so may feel the other neighbours out and see if I can get a group petition going to remove the offending light, or shield it much better. I'm friendly with 2 of the 5 neighbours, on talking terms with a 3rd, the 4th has just sold their place and the 5th I don't really know.

[kittenshark]

You know what's insane? Apparently there are rules against obtrusive lighting, but that only applies to privately owned property. Yep. If *you* had an obtrusive lighting fixture on your property and your neighbour complained, you have to remove or do something about it. The same rules should apply to street lighting, and city council lights right? Well, NO. :screwy:

[dpastern]

preaching to the choir. There's one rule for governments, one rule for the rich *******s, and a "screw you rule" for everyone else. Why do you think I'm so anti-establishment? Governments do not serve we the people, and they do not deserve either our trust, or our respect. Sadly, the vast majority of our population are both stupid, sheep and lazy AF. That's why these *******s keep staying in power and keep doing SFA for the people.

[kittenshark]

Right! I just think the whole "one rule for gov" and "one rule for rich ----" and "screw you rule" is insane.

Just like you, I just find it crazy that these double (triple?) standards exist.

I'm not entirely sure how the whole political process works here (I'm not allowed to vote being non-citizen), but I've lived in worse places where there is little or poor governance and votes don't matter. That said, I've also lived in better.

Will continue helping the local clubs with public outreach and educating the public about light pollution. That's all I can do.

[dpastern]

Yes, triple standards.

I'd rather not have to vote - Australia is one of 3 major Western countries that enforces voting...why vote when there's no one worth voting for? I like my good friend Mr Don Key. Yes, there are worse places to live, but there are better places too. NZ looks mighty fine and nice, and if I had the money, I'd be moving there in a heartbeat. NZ is a nice analogy as to Canada vs the US - both Canada and NZ are "done right". Both Australia and the US are very much done wrong and poor examples of governments!

But, as I said, people are stupid. It's the only sane and logical explanation for Trump getting voted in as POTUS ;-) a redneck hillbilly would have been a better choice lol!

I'm not much of a club, or a people person. As my niece gets older and starts school, I'll try and do a bit of outreach to teach the younger generations about the sky and astronomy in general etc and foster some sort of interest in the sciences. But, that's a few years down the track!

[casstony]

Voting isn't compulsory. Attending a polling booth (or posting a letter) is compulsory, but you can write "no dams" or "I love coal" or draw genitals on the ballot paper if you wish. On balance I think it's better to compel people to be involved in the democratic process.

Australia and the US are worlds apart; life is so much easier here.

[dpastern]

Yes, that is correct. I draw the same lines between being forced to vote, and being forced to attend the voting booth. What I said in my prior post still stands - Australia is one of the few Western countries in the world that forces people to attend a voting booth. Is that better? One would call us almost uncivilised and bullied by our government. I'll draw an example of how bad our government is:

the same sex marriage vote.

Said current LNP pushed it via an ABS survey, rather than a referendum, which I personally believe is actually illegal. The marriage act is defined in our constitution, and any constitutional changes require a public referendum. An ABS survey is NOT a referendum - there is no compulsion for people to even fill out the vote form! In fact, probably 40% of the eligible voting population hasn't done so. When it's convenient for the government, they don't want us voting. They need to make up their minds *wink wink*. We don't have a real democracy anyway. It would be perfectly "legal" (well, not really) for the politicians to still vote no on a conscious vote, even if the majority of Australia's public voted yes. I say not really, because every MP takes an oath to serve their electorate that voted them in. If a particular electorate overwhelmingly votes yes for SSM, and said MP votes no in a conscious vote, how are they serving their electorate? More importantly, why isn't the GG sacking them? Oh wait, cos the GG is nothing but a dressed up lamb that does what the PM says (Fraser made sure that that was changed after he ousted Whitlam).

So many things broken in our political arena and it's a total joke. If only the average Australian was bright enough to realise how borked it is.

Why should I vote when there's no real democracy?

Why should I vote when at the last election, more people voted for the ALP party, but our system denotes electorates, not total votes as the winning method? Why should a singular independent hold an entire government to sway? That's just blackmail, plain and simple. I mean, the majority of Australia didn't vote for said independent *wink wink* - only that independent's electorate did.

What about these buggers with dual or foreign citizenship under clause 44(1) of our constitution? It is THEIR responsibility PRIOR to sitting for parliament to ensure that they are not a citizen of a foreign power or eligible for dual citizenship. None of these buggers did their job right. What's worse, these buggers have voted on bills in parliament, and those votes are ILLEGAL. None of their votes should count, and any legislation passed with their aid, should be immediately rescinded and re-voted on. You don't hear the media making that point, do you? Oh wait, cos they're the lackeys of our crappy government(s), that's why.

As I said earlier, one law for the rich, one law for the powerful, one law for business, and a screw you law for the rest of us ordinary folk. That's how I feel, and that's how a growing number of people who have a brain actually feel.

No, I am not happy with our current political system.

[casstony]

There's plenty wrong with the system. My pet hate is how much damage the bankers have done to our economy/financial system. But I choose not to get too stressed about things I can't fix and enjoy the worthwhile things in life. There are some decent people in politics and the best I can do is vote for them at election time.

[Boozlefoot]

At the risk of being obtuse, the electoral system in Australia is now simply tailored to benefit those who wish to enter the political arena and reserve/preserve their place at the trough. Compulsory voting fails to mirror the wishes of those who truly care about the nations direction, by the inclusion of so many donkey votes.

But to get back on the topic, there are no street lights for about 43kms here. Just thought I'd mention it.:lol:

[dpastern]

I disagree about the decent people. :P



Oh I wish that lighting was decent. But, I live in suburbia, so I'm stuck with some LP. If I can get rid of that bloody light, it'd be a semi win. If I slept with my blinds open, it'd keep me awake.

[jenchris]

I'll bet that rhe lenses have sufficient stiction to allow some wet clay to adhere to them if it was ejected with the right trajectory from a suitable orifice.

[dpastern]

not sure how I missed your reply Jen, sounds like a great idea! I might try and train bats to sh*t on it!