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Understanding Light Pollution Effects

Light pollution, primarily caused by human inventions like electric light, negatively impacts human health, wildlife behavior, and stargazing. Major sources include LED lighting, decorative light strings, and traditional tubelights, which contribute to excessive artificial light at night. This pollution disrupts natural body rhythms, reduces melatonin production, and is linked to various health issues, including sleep deprivation and potential cancer risks.

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28 views3 pages

Understanding Light Pollution Effects

Light pollution, primarily caused by human inventions like electric light, negatively impacts human health, wildlife behavior, and stargazing. Major sources include LED lighting, decorative light strings, and traditional tubelights, which contribute to excessive artificial light at night. This pollution disrupts natural body rhythms, reduces melatonin production, and is linked to various health issues, including sleep deprivation and potential cancer risks.

Uploaded by

trushu1983
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Most environmental pollution on Earth comes from humans and their inventions.

But what about the


electric lightbulb, thought to be one of the greatest human inventions of all time? Electric light can
be a beautiful thing, guiding us home when the sun goes down, keeping us safe and making our
homes cozy and bright. Light pollution, the excessive or inappropriate use of outdoor artificial light, is
affecting human health, wildlife behaviour, and our ability to observe stars and other celestial
objects. Light pollution is a global issue. Sky glow is the brightening of the night sky, mostly over
urban areas, due to the electric lights of cars, streetlamps, offices, factories, outdoor advertising, and
buildings, turning night into day for people who work and play long after sunset. Artificial light can
wreak havoc on natural body rhythms in both humans and animals. An increased amount of light at
night lowers melatonin production, which results in sleep deprivation, fatigue, headaches, stress,
anxiety, and other health problems. Recent studies also show a connection between reduced
melatonin levels and cancer.

Some major sources of Light pollution at home are:

1. LED lighting - LED lighting makes it very cheap to have more light – and brighter light – than
ever before. While the energy savings and long-term reliability of LED lights are positive
attributes, there is less public awareness of limiting the luminance and spectrum of whatever
lighting system is used, and to use shielding to reduce glare and light trespass onto
neighbouring properties.
2. Decorative Light strings - holiday decorative lighting, especially when used excessively, can
contribute significantly to light pollution, as it adds a large amount of artificial light to the
night sky, impacting the visibility of stars and potentially disrupting nocturnal wildlife
behavior. It can also harm humans' and animals' sleep schedules. Decorative lighting
consumes three billion kilowatt-hours of electricity over the 30-day holiday period.
3. Traditional tubelights - traditional tubelights (fluorescent lights) can contribute to light
pollution because they often emit a significant amount of light upwards into the sky, causing
sky glow, which is a primary component of light pollution. Older tubelights are not designed
to direct light downwards effectively, leading to light escaping upwards and illuminating the
night sky. traditional tubelights use more energy to produce the same amount of light,
further exacerbating the issue.

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