Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

Di Sora (2002) described the substantial energy savings that resulted from the introduction of
light pollution controls in the Province of Frosinone in Italy.
6.1.2 Artificial skyglow
Artificial skyglow, one of many undesirable consequences of wasteful, ignorant and selfish
lighting practices, degrades the aesthetic beauty of the night sky and renders invisible many of
the objects in deep space (Berry 1976, Moore 2001, Mizon 2002, IDA 2002a, CPRE 2003).
Typically, only a few percent of the naturally visible stars can be seen at present from the
urban regions where most of the population, including most amateur astronomers, live in
developed countries. Education is adversely affected by wasteful, inefficient, unnecessary
and selfish lighting practices as increasing numbers of children grow up without ever seeing
anything like the natural night sky (Cinzano, Fachi and Elvidge 2001a). City children seeing
the rural sky at night for the first time have been terrified (eg Smith 1998). In the blackout
after the Northridge earthquake of 1994 in California, adults as well as children were actually
frightened by the unfamiliar spectacle of the moonless starry sky and the Milky Way (eg Haas
in Section 3.2.4, Magee 2001).
Amateur astronomers outnumber professionals by several thousand to one. Amateurs
contribute the bulk of observations and analysis in several areas of astronomical research. It
is often impracticable for amateurs to take heavy telescopes needing precise alignment out
into the countryside to observe, so many amateurs are constrained to do their observing from
suburban backyards. In any case, skyglow from even a single large city is now readily
detectable, even by amateur equipment, hundreds of kilometres away. Astronomical research
is increasingly being hampered, even at remote professional observatories.
Genuine improvements in the quality of outdoor lighting can include social, economic,
scientific and environmental advantages (eg Hunter and Crawford 1991, Harrington 1995,
Fleming 2002) while reducing energy waste as well as lighting waste. Increasing numbers of
non-astronomers are clamoring for an end to the creeping march of light pollution into rural
areas (eg CPRE 2003).
6.1.3 Effects on plants and animals
Careless installation and overuse of outdoor lighting adversely affects many species of plants
and animals (eg UWG 2002) including marine and freshwater species at the beginning of the
food chain (eg Moore, Pierce, Walsh, Kvalvik and Lim (2000); Pierce and Moore (1998)).
Especially when the effects of light pollution are intensified by cloud, the consequences are
already sufficiently serious and widespread enough to be considered as a biodiversity issue
(Harder 2002). The adverse effects may extend well beyond urban boundaries to become
state, national and even international problems (eg adverse effects on migrating birds, Ogden
(1996) and Fornasari (2002)).
6.1.4 Effects on health, sleep and safety
Wasteful outdoor lighting practices have been encouraged by more than a century of
sometimes-questionable propaganda from the lighting and power industries, beginning with
Edison himself in the 1880s. Excessive exposure to artificial light-at-night can disrupt daily
and annual natural photoperiods and thereby affect sleep and health (eg Dement and Vaughan
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