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CNN Live Today

Light Pollution Becomes Newest Environmental Phenomenon

Aired March 29, 2002 - 14:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: On to science news. Most of us know the effect of pollution, even noise pollution. But now there is another kind of phenomenon out there, light pollution. Our Natalie Pawelski takes a look at how artificial night-lighting can affect the environment, and even the human psyche.

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NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Driving through Arizona's Kitt Peak observatory at night, you have to brave the winding mountain road with parking lights only. The darkness makes for a grainy video, but it's important for astronomers. Because even the finest telescopes can be blinded by the light.

RICHARD GREENE, DIRECTOR, KITT PEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY: They become more limited in their view, and it takes very much longer to get to the same faint light levels to detect the most distant objects in the universe.

PAWELSKI: Shimmering below is Tucson, which is ringed by major observatories. The city imposed light control rules back in the '70s, in large part to keep the sky dark for the sake of astronomy.

GREENE: Even though the population of the metro area has grown 40 percent in the last decade, the artificial light that is scattered above the observatory has grown less than 20 percent. So, that's a sign that these controls are beginning to work.

PAWELSKI: But while the lights are staying relatively low in Tucson, it's a different story in the rest of the world.

(on camera): The most comprehensive study of light pollution found that it affects 99 percent of Americans. It also found that 2/3 of the people living in the U.S. live in places where it's no longer possible to see our own galaxy, the Milky Way, with the naked eye.

DAVID CRAWFORD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NTL. DARK SKY ASSN.: Mankind, and everything else, grew up with the cycle of day and night. And that tends to be disappearing.

PAWELSKI (voice-over): Leading the charge to reverse that trend: the International Dark Sky Association, led, not surprisingly, by a retired astronomer.

CRAWFORD: Now, if I have it right here, are you blinded by glare?

PAWELSKI (on camera): Just a little bit. I can't see you.

CRAWFORD: I can barely see you. Now, if I did this, I see you perfectly. Because the light is going to you, but it's not coming to me. And now for the sky glow issue, I should do this, shouldn't I?

PAWELSKI: Shielding the tops of outdoor lights, so light doesn't spill into the sky, a key verse in the gospel of dark sky maintenance.

CRAWFORD: You can save billions of dollars in energy worldwide every year by using light instead of wasting it.

PAWELSKI: Several cities and towns have passed light pollution ordinances. But it is a fact of modern civilization, as seen on these satellite images, that for most people, the sky never gets truly dark. And a starry, starry night has already become a thing of the past.

Natalie Pawelski, CNN, Tucson, Arizona.

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