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CNN Live Saturday

Tuscon Cuts Down Light Pollution

Aired March 30, 2002 - 22:54   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It is something most of us have grown accustomed to, a night sky that never really gets completely dark with all that artificial light, all those sources that cause the sky glow and keep us from seeing the stars.

But Tucson, Arizona, which is a center of world-class astronomy had made cutting down on light pollution a priority.

CNN's Natalie Pawelski has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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, KITT PEAK NAT'L 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: Simmering 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 artificially scattered light 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 it affects 99 percent of Americans. It also found two-thirds 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: Mankind and everything else grew up for the cycle of day and night. And that tends to be disappearing.

PAWELSKI: 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: Just a little bit.

CRAWFORD: And I can barely see you. Now if I did this, I see you perfectly because the light's 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 light, so light doesn't spill into the sky, a key verse and a 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 that's seen in 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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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