University research team experiments with ways to reduce light pollution

ABC NEWS (Australia)

As cities across Australia grow, so does the amount of light they create, making the night sky harder to see. Researchers at the Australian National University have been experimenting with ways to reduce light pollution. In an Australian first, thousands of streetlights have been dimmed at certain times in Canberra.

Transcript

00:00As daylight fades, humans create a kind of man-made daytime using streetlights, which

00:07are usually simply on or off. But modern technology means lighting can be smart, connected and

00:14adjustable on a huge scale.

00:16For about a six-month period, we were able to utilize around 30,000 streetlights around

00:20Canberra.

00:21Researchers can now adjust the capital's lighting from a laptop.

00:24To essentially control its intensity, its schedule, its programming, it's on and off.

00:32Scientists at the ANU turned Canberra's lights down from 100% to 70 and even 50% brightness,

00:38changes imperceptible to the human eye.

00:40We've had engineers and other streetlighting practitioners who've had 30 plus years experience,

00:47they were unable to distinguish between 70% and 100%.

00:50Dimming Canberra's lights for six months saved 1,000 tons of carbon emissions, while

00:55the reduction in light emissions was also measured.

00:58So for every 10% the lights are dimmed, it's about a 5% change in the glow of the sky.

01:04So when we dim all the way to about 50%, that means the sky has been reduced by about 25%

01:10in terms of brightness.

01:11A darker night sky means a brighter celestial glow.

01:15So we'll see more stars, we'll see the fainter stars will be a bit brighter, the brighter

01:20stars will get even brighter and some new stars pop out that were previously lost.

01:25Canberra's streetlight experiment is an Australian first. About a third of the capital's streetlights

01:29now have this technology. Less light, illuminating the skies.

01:34Looking up, trying to see a meteor shower, trying to spot the aurora. If we slowly erode

01:40that part of humanity, we slowly erode part of humanity.

01:46A bright, dark future.

01:50For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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