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Environmental laws are laws that protect the environment. Environmental law is the collection of laws, regulations, agreements and common law that governs how humans interact with their environment. This includes environmental regulations; laws governing management of natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries; and related topics such as environmental impact assessments. Environmental law is seen as the body of laws concerned with the protection of living things from the harm that human activity may immediately or eventually cause to them or their species, either directly or to the media and the habits on which they depend.
Light pollution is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial lighting. In a descriptive sense, the term light pollution refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the day or night. Light pollution can be understood not only as a phenomenon resulting from a specific source or kind of pollution, but also as a contributor to the wider, collective impact of various sources of pollution.
CPRE, The Countryside Charity, formerly known by names such as the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity in England with over 40,000 members and supporters. Formed in 1926 by Patrick Abercrombie to limit urban sprawl and ribbon development, the CPRE claims to be one of the longest running environmental groups in the UK. CPRE campaigns for a "sustainable future" for the English countryside. They state it is "a vital but undervalued environmental, economic and social asset to the nation." They aim to "highlight threats and promote positive solutions." They campaign using their own research to lobby the public and all levels of government.
The Commission for Dark Skies (CfDS) is the United Kingdom's largest anti-light-pollution campaign group forming part of the international dark-sky movement.
Skyglow is the diffuse luminance of the night sky, apart from discrete light sources such as the Moon and visible individual stars. It is a commonly noticed aspect of light pollution. While usually referring to luminance arising from artificial lighting, skyglow may also involve any scattered light seen at night, including natural ones like starlight, zodiacal light, and airglow.
The night sky is the nighttime appearance of celestial objects like stars, planets, and the Moon, which are visible in a clear sky between sunset and sunrise, when the Sun is below the horizon.
DarkSky International, formerly the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is a United States-based non-profit organization incorporated in 1988 by founders David Crawford, a professional astronomer, and Tim Hunter, a physician and amateur astronomer. The mission of DarkSky is "to preserve and protect the night time environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting."
The dark-sky movement is a campaign to reduce light pollution. The advantages of reducing light pollution include an increased number of stars visible at night, reducing the effects of electric lighting on the environment, improving the well-being, health and safety of people and wildlife, and cutting down on energy usage. Earth Hour and National Dark-Sky Week are two examples of such efforts.
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. Ecologism is more commonly used in continental European languages, while environmentalism is more commonly used in English but the words have slightly different connotations.
Richard Huziak is a Canadian amateur astronomer. The International Astronomical Union named main-belt asteroid 4143 Huziak after him. A former president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Saskatoon Centre for six years and a prominent member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, Huziak has over 181,000 observations of variable stars to his credit. He received the Chant Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 2001, the Service Medal from the same organization in 2009, and Janet Mattei presented Huziak with the AAVSO's Director's Award in 2003.
International Dark Sky Week is held during the week of the new moon in April, when people worldwide may turn off their lights to observe the beauty of the night sky without light pollution. This event was founded in 2003 by high school student Jennifer Barlow of Midlothian, Virginia. It has been endorsed by the International Dark-Sky Association, the American Astronomical Society, the Astronomical League, and Sky & Telescope.
A dark-sky preserve (DSP) is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that restricts or reduces light pollution or maintains and protects naturally dark night skies. Different terms have been used to describe these areas as national organizations and governments have worked independently to create programs. DarkSky International (DarkSky) uses "International Dark Sky Reserve" (IDSR) and "International Dark Sky Park" (IDSP) among others when certifying Dark Sky Places.
The Bortle dark-sky scale is a nine-level numeric scale that measures the night sky's brightness of a particular location. It quantifies the astronomical observability of celestial objects and the interference caused by light pollution. John E. Bortle created the scale and published it in the February 2001 edition of Sky & Telescope magazine to help amateur astronomers evaluate the darkness of an observing site, and secondarily, to compare the darkness of observing sites.
To protect the environment from the adverse effects of pollution, many nations worldwide have enacted legislation to regulate various types of pollution as well as to mitigate the adverse effects of pollution. At the local level, regulation usually is supervised by environmental agencies or the broader public health system. Different jurisdictions often have different levels regulation and policy choices about pollution. Historically, polluters will lobby governments in less economically developed areas or countries to maintain lax regulation in order to protect industrialisation at the cost of human and environmental health.
Globe at Night is an international scientific research program that crowdsources measurements of light pollution in the night sky. At set time periods within each year, the project asks people to count the number of stars that they can see from their location and report it to the project's website. The coordinating researchers compile this information to produce a public, freely available map of global light pollution. By September 2011, almost 70,000 measurements had been made. The use of data collected by the public makes the program an example of citizen science. Globe at Night began as a NASA educational program in the US organized by the NOAO, and was expanded internationally during the 2009 International Year of Astronomy; it is an offshoot of the GLOBE Program, which focuses on school-based science education.
Hong Kong has been named the world's worst city for light pollution. Commercial and residential areas Mong Kok, Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay are found to be the most severe areas of light pollution. Due to the spotlights and LED billboards, Hong Kong’s sky is many times brighter than other cities.
Poloniny Dark-Sky Park is the first dark sky park in Slovakia. It became the 20th dark sky park in the world.
The spectral G-Index is a variable that was developed to quantify the amount of short wavelength light in a visible light source relative to its visible emission. The smaller the G-index, the more blue, violet, or ultraviolet light a lamp emits relative to its total output. It is used in order to select outdoor lamps that minimize skyglow and ecological light pollution. The G-index was originally proposed by David Galadí Enríquez, an astrophysicist at Calar Alto Observatory.
Light pollution is the presence of unwanted artificial light that brightens the night sky. Improperly shielded lights are the source of many of the issues regarding the light pollution in Hawai'i. Urban centers in the cities are often so bathed in light that over a hundred kilometers from the city's edge, the light pollution resulting from the glow is present. Fabio Falchi is quoted as stating that “light pollution is one of the most pervasive forms of environmental alteration” due to its destructive nature in both un- and protected areas such as national parks. Dark night skies are an important natural, cultural, scientific, educational, and economic resource for Hawai‘i.
References
- ↑ "Web page of CieloBuio on the regional law n. 17/2000 of Lombardy".
- ↑ "Slovenia: 2nd country (after Czech Republic) with a national law against light pollution". Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2010-11-21.