Petition to regulate light pollution

[psamathe]

49 minutes ago, Physopto said:

No accounting for taste of wasted money I suppose!

It is weird when we are being told to unplug charging devices not in use as they still take trickle currents that all mount-up over time and we need to save the planet whilst at the same time waste vast amounts of electricity/energy/greenhouse gasses lighting streets that nobody is using.

World is facing a climate crisis and yet we still seem to need to light unsued streets for the occasional person who might make brief use of each streetlight.

Ian

[Gareth88]

I've managed to share it onto a Facebook group, with 600 members, and also making my way onto sharing it onto uk weather forecast Facebook group hopefully! * fingers crossed * its got over 650k members! so hopefully lots of people sign it!

 

Gareth

[Stub Mandrel]

As someone with short sight, yes the main cause is that the eyes are naturally long sighted. They respond to unfocused, blurry images by growing longer and that tends to make them grow towards being in focus. If a significant part of the time is spent with an unfocused image (i.e. at night with eyes closed, or lots of close work) the eyes will grow too long.

To be honest, I love the way nature has such a simple yet effective way of fine tuning the eye and hate how we humans have screwed it up.

[astronymonkey]

2988 now, been a slow day with not many new signatures but plenty of time yet ! Im sure more will sign up as social media gets its act together .... so keep tweeting and sharing folks and post the link :

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/119428

 

Cheers

[Dave In Vermont]

And if you have a similar issue, but you're not in the UK, don't forget to seek information on reasons and good ways to approach your local government to dissuade them from from flooding your skies with un-warranted light-pollution, and persuade them to work to halt this sort of activity:

http://darksky.org/

Light-pollution doesn't only effect us crazy astronomy people - it can seriously damage the developing brain of young kids, and kill off entire species of life once and for all!

All the best -

Dave

[Pig]

I hope the moths don't get to hear about this.....they may start a counter petition  and there are billions of them in my street alone.

[baggywrinkle]

Signed. No spam mails either.......

[Physopto]

3013 this morning.

 

[mapstar]

Still a fair way to go but steadily creeping up 

Just looked back to the start of the thread and by the end pf today more than 3000 signatures have been added in a week. 

This is now a steady trickle with approx 70 days left it needs at least 100 a day to reach the 10k target.

It needs more promotion 

[baggywrinkle]

I posted the link as a share on my Facebook page..

[Physopto]

I emailed Bob Mizon of the CfDS yesterday about the progress. He said that he had been on The Isle of Wight yesterday promoting the petition.

I have also bombarded friends and family with emails or Facebook messages. Sorry if I bothered them unduly, but safe than unsure. Christine the secretary of South Shields Astro  was contacted and she sent out emails to all members. I also know that Sunderland are active as well. I have also emailed a friend over in the lakes he has other contacts on the train enthusiasts side so there may be some more coverage there.

3030 signatures as we speak!

Derek

[sheeprug]

I've just had a reply from the RSPB.    

"Thank you for alerting us to this petition, we cannot put our name to or promote every single petition that occurs in the UK but I will pass this on to various teams to look into".

So that might help a little.....

SR

[Dave In Vermont]

There is a rather new organization over here in the Untied Snakes which might be worth taking a look at. It is called 'Change.org' and it helps people with social issues circulate petitions for people to sign onto to get popular support for a great many social injustices on a broad spectrum of interests. I've been watching this and have noted the incredible progress being made on things that normaly vanish from public sight. Maybe something like this could be instituted in the UK and beyond. Have a link:

https://www.change.org/

"The Internet - it's not just for Facebook anymore." -

Dave

 

[astrotyke]

that would also be another good place to post a petition to. The uk government site though gets either a responce from the government or if you can get 100K signatures then it gets discussed in Parliament 

[bejay1957]

Why assume this petition will make any difference in overturning popular opinion - trying to recall exactly when the CfDS began its efforts?

[Physopto]

I do not understand how the CfDS works or can work?

I emailed Bob Mizon when the CfDS suggested it about the petition.

I was also told I could join the CfDS and to get in contact with them, by Bob.

So I sent an enquiry.

So far so good.

Today I get an email back apologising for the late reply and suggest that I contact Bob Mizon.........?

Is it just me or is there a complete lack of the right hand talking to the left hand here?

Talk about going in circles....................................... Maybe this is why the CfDS is getting almost no where!

Derek

[psamathe]

2 hours ago, Dave In Vermont said:

There is a rather new organization over here in the Untied Snakes which might be worth taking a look at. It is called 'Change.org' and it helps people with social issues circulate petitions for people to sign onto to get popular support for a great many social injustices on a broad spectrum of interests. I've been watching this and have noted the incredible progress being made on things that normaly vanish from public sight. Maybe something like this could be instituted in the UK and beyond. Have a link:

https://www.change.org/

"The Internet - it's not just for Facebook anymore." -

Dave

 

I wont sign anything on change.org.  I have a couple of times in the past but they want a lot of information and then I seemed to get loads of emails from them afterwards. So they have had to be blacklisted by myself because they are ... just a nuisance.  When you "sign" one of their petitions they open an account on the site for you (if you want people to sign things they don't want accounts opened on sites, etc.).  You lose a lot of signatures because of things like that.

change.org is so bad I would not even sign a Light Pollution Petition on it.

Same with 38degrees.

That is one of the good things about the government petitions site in that you are safe from ongoing troublesome mails.

Ian

[Physopto]

21 hours ago, psamathe said:

It is weird when we are being told to unplug charging devices not in use as they still take trickle currents that all mount-up over time and we need to save the planet whilst at the same time waste vast amounts of electricity/energy/greenhouse gasses lighting streets that nobody is using.

World is facing a climate crisis and yet we still seem to need to light unsued streets for the occasional person who might make brief use of each streetlight.

Ian

If you think that is bad you should se the amount of gas burned off every day at the rigs in the North Sea. Their flairs are burning night and day and easily could power a small town for months. The last time I was out there anyway! The light can be seen for many miles long and before they come over the horizon.  The excuse was that it was not cost effective to collect that gas and use it. But that is off topic a bit, as that light pollution is way off the land.

[Davey-T]

I remember the "Fawley Flame " near Southampton many years ago, may still be going ? don't remember it being particularly bright and a lot less light pollution in those days.

I thought it was some sort of safety device.

Dave

[Physopto]

1 hour ago, Davey-T said:

I remember the "Fawley Flame " near Southampton many years ago, may still be going ? don't remember it being particularly bright and a lot less light pollution in those days.

I thought it was some sort of safety device.

Dave

It is I believe, never was a rig engineer but they use it to get rid of excess gas pressure. I was under the flares many times and when the pressure rose the noise sounded like a jet engine. The heat was tremendous. We often had to resort to fire fighting mode and discharge the drenching systems over the ships superstructure  to keep the heat under control. Had a rescue boat explode once as the pressure burst the inflatable bags.

Derek

 

[mapstar]

All interesting stuff

 And so back on topic  i have contacted several societies on the map where there are no signatures via their web pages and had no response?

Most don't give an actual contact email but a web service to bot check you. 

Had contact from Norwich astro via our twitter and email account which I have replied to just to confirm to them at least that the message is getting out there.

[Galactic Wanderer]

Created qr code for this. Possibly could publicize it .

qr_code.zip

[Physopto]

I know of qr codes but what does it actually say?

 

[Galactic Wanderer]

In a way it's like a link. You can use your phone to scan it and it will automatically take you the website that the QR code says.

This can be used for posters and leaflets. Light pollution is particularly bad in my area and there are a surprising number of streetlights. I could possibly hand out leaflets but that might be a bit too much.

Seb

[Physopto]

Thanks Seb,

Nice simple idea, so it is basically a direction to the petition.