NOT GOOD TO TAKE LIGHT POLLUTION LIGHTLY

World’s nights are increasingly getting brighter, thanks to the growing popularity of LED lights, but that should not be considered heartening news. The global increase in light pollution brings with it dire consequences for human and animal health. Nighttime lights disrupt our body clocks and are said to even raise the risks of cancer, diabetes and depression.

As per THE indings MADE By GFZ German RESEARCH Center for Geosciences (GRCG) using data from a NASA satellite, and PUBLISHED In THE Journal of SCIENCE ADVANCES, From 2012 to 2016, THE SURFACE AREA of THE planet that Is Artificially lit At NIGHT time grew by more than 2 per cent each year.

Scientists say that people’s sleep could be impaired as a result, which would be detrimental to our health and wellbeing.

The ecosystem is also at risk, with the changes impacting the migration AND reproduction patterns of BIRDS, ish, AMPHIBIANS, insects and bats.

The rate of growth observed in developing countries was much faster than in already brightly lit rich countries. Asia, Africa and South AMERICA, For THE most part, saw A surge In ARTIFICIAL NIGHT lighting.

Physicist Christopher Kyba of the GFZ GRCG, who led the research, rightly insists that the issue isn’t just the LED lights themselves, WHICH ARE more EFFICIENT BECAUSE they NEED FAR less electricity to provide the same amount of light. Rather, it’s that people keep installing more and more lights.

Kyba and his colleagues have come out with some valuable suggestions. They recommend avoiding glaring lamps whenever possible — choosing amber over so-called white LEDS — and using more EFFICIENT ways to Illuminate places like parking lots or city streets.

For example, dim, closely spaced lights tend to provide better visibility than bright lights that are more spread out.

Ecologist Franz Hölker of Germany’s Leibniz-institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries has also cautioned that in addition to threatening 30 per cent of vertebrates that are nocturnal AND over 60 per Cent of Invertebrates that ARE nocturnal, ARTIFICIAL LIGHT Also AFFECTS plants AND microorganisms.

Besides other challenges, light pollution competes with starlight in the night sky for urban residents and intensely interferes with astronomical observatories.

The world needs to wake up to the truth that unchecked use of ARTIFICIAL lights At NIGHT HAS Its own serious Consequences.

Brighter lives with dimmer nights are anytime better than the other way around.