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Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

Light pollution is an interesting "gateway drug" to broader environmental awareness. With coordinated effort, the effects and benefits can be witnessed immediately. A broad power outage in NYC in 1977 resulted in the Milky Way being visible from the Bronx: https://www.space.com/16577-milky-way-galaxy-nyc-blackout.ht...

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Light pollution seems like the least important from of pollution imo. We currently have cars all over the place spewing out extremely dangerous carcinogens in the air killing a large number of people. I just can't bring myself to care about seeing some stars when we are killing people and animals, poisoning the dirt, and warming the planet irreversibly.

Other forms of pollution are worse, but light pollution does harm animals. When baby turtles hatch they instinctively look for bright lights lower on the horizon and go towards it. Because naturally, that will be the moon reflecting off the ocean. Bright beachfront buildings are even brighter than the reflection of the moon leading them to wander away from the ocean

Moths and frogs are also attracted to lights. Migratory birds rely on seasonal cues such as changes in the amount of light. The OP article also mentions in the intro that it is reducing bat populations in areas.

No doubt there are some benefits to reducing light pollution, but I find it interesting how this topic gets HN in almost universal agreement that we need to ban street lighting and mandate people turn their home and office lights off, while suggesting that maybe we do something to slow the trend of mega SUVs or maybe mandating particulate filters on diesel vehicles is some kind of horrific authoritarian overreach.

My guess is it's someone else's lights vs. my (future) car, that makes the difference.

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