Two local LA photographers, Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan, just surpassed their Kickstarter goal to fund a very worthy project: a book, using the duo’s stunning timelapse photography to raise awareness of the problem of light pollution. For us humans, if we can’t see the night sky we lose our sense of wonder. But light pollution also harms many of the earth’s organisms, from migrating birds to insects.
This is one of those problems that would be relatively easy to fix simply by making sure that lighting is not directed upwards and by using bulbs that emit light on a limited portion of the spectrum. And we’ll save energy in the process. Unfortunately, as the Los Angeles Weekly recently reported, the City of Los Angeles has not done a good job with light pollution.
If you’d like to contribute to Mehmedinovic and Heffernan’s project, their website is skyglowproject.com. And check out our post on light pollution, Why Your Garden Should Be Dark at Night.
It’s everywhere.
We live in a rural area of the Northeast. There are no commercial buildings within miles, only houses – and not very close together – but you’d think that our area were suffering a massive crime wave with all the flood lights, porch lights, and security lights people have on their own homes, all night long. It is tremendously disruptive and sad.
I, too, live in a rural location far away from any metropolitan area. The stars are great! You should check out Clark Strand’s book, Waking Up to the Dark – Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age.