Green Space Dark Skies project......

[laser_jock99]

.....seems a bit whacky- 'celebrate' dark sky locations by filling them with lights!!!

Green Space Dark Skies | About Green Space Dark Skies

What will they think of next........

[Carbon Brush]

Almost speechless.

Well, they are keeping the locations secret.
If I had travelled miles to set up a scope to take advantage of the darkness, then hundreds of torch bearers turned up.......

Sorry I can't say what would happen next. Forum rules about potentially criminal acts and all that.

I suppose at least they are doing it April to September.

I have already emailed the site link to tell them what I think.
I suggest the odd thousand responses from SGL members might make them think twice.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Yay let's get hundreds of people at a time trodding already well worn footpaths and lighting up the area with illuminated globes - taking masses of artificial light to reconnect with nature. None if it makes sense. Whacky.

 

[wulfrun]

Words fail me, which doesn't happen very often! Stupidity, stupidity, stupidity.

[Roy Cropper]

The whole thing looks like a L.O.B to me. Many folk do that every time we take a torch to walk the dog at night and we don't create a website and get all excited over it.  

At best its a waste of time, at worst there are genuine negative consequences.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Roy Cropper
Typiieng

[Astroscot2]

Nutters...

[SteveWolves]

Utter madness and I have told them so.

[tomato]

Here is their response in the FAQ section regarding creating light pollution:

Green Space Dark Skies will present temporary, low-impact lighting interventions (the lights will be used for a short period of time at dusk) creating magical, memorable moments in the landscape.

They will most likely get a memorable moment if they wave the lights about after dark in front of a bunch of astronomers who have travelled to the dark site.

[Roy Cropper]

Lighting interventions? Didn't we used to call them "torches"?

[Carbon Brush]

Well I sent them an email, telling them what I thought, and they replied.
Here is their response....

Thank you for your email regarding your concerns about Green Space Dark Skies. 

From the outset, we have worked with National Parks UK to help devise and plan a series of events that would celebrate our protected landscapes and dark skies in the most responsible and sustainable manner possible, including seeking advice from Duncan Wise - Visitor Development & Tourism Officer and Dark Sky lead for Northumberland National Park Au🤣thority to advise us on dark sky matters.

The main point is that the specially designed hand-held low impact lights are being used to identify and illuminate the volunteer Lumenators, and not for the purpose of illuminating the landscape or for ‘light painting’, which of course is discouraged in designated dark sky places.

Siemens engineers are working with partners Core Lighting to build a set of innovative, remote-controlled, geolocating hand-held lights. The lighting technology uses existing wireless programmable lights and incorporates something that’s never been done before: the ability for these lights to be animated through geo-positioning where the position of each light can be known in relationship to the others.

Using the guidelines for the IDA dark sky places programme, Core Lighting has designed the torches to be powerful enough to create the effect desired, but to emit no more light than is necessary for the event.

Each torch will use 4 bulbs (red, white, green and blue). Each bulb has a maximum output of 300 lumens. The combined lumen output of the torch, when and only if all 4 bulbs are switched to full output at the same time will be 1200 lumens. The bulb array will be computer-controlled to emit differing hues of light remotely.

We have taken heed of concerns about the impact of torchlight on the sense of darkness and have brought the event forward to take place at dusk. The low impact lights have been specially developed by Siemens to be sensitive to the night-time environment. Therefore, the hand-held lights will only be used during the filming of the event taking place for a short period of time at dusk, via drone camerawork. 

Green Space Dark Skies will take place during the spring and summer months (April-September), when, as you know our skies are not as dark as they would be during the autumn and winter months.

Green Space Dark Skies places environmental and social sustainability at the heart of its design and delivery; highlighting the value of the natural environment as a core purpose and delivering significant measurable positive impact. We will only be using existing footpaths and pathways.

The viability of locations and the plans at each site are being developed by the Green Space Dark Skies team in consultation with the expert advice of its partners at National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Green Space Dark Skies team is also working closely with landowners and local stakeholders, including the National Trust on the creative planning and delivery of each event. Therefore, each event will depend on the confirmation of landowner permissions, approval of event plans and local stakeholder engagement and so event locations and dates may be subject to change.

Make of it what you will. My thoughts are still centred around 'bonkers'. Adding 'waste of time and resources' to my list.
All this trouble to build computer controlled geolocating and wireless programmable lighting.
Don't these folks have anything better to do?
I still don't know who is going to be picking up the bill. But if I hear the word 'grant' mentioned I will follow it up with 'from who'.
If I hear of any proposals anywhere that I might have some say or influence, I will act, in a legal manner of course.

Unless of course the company where I work gets approached for design and build. Then I will loudly proclaim it as an innovative scheme combining nature, technology and art🤣

Anyway. Enough of a rant. I'm off to continue working on my new recipe for choc ice on toast, and the design for the self propelled teapot so I don't have to leave my chair to get a drink.🥴

[Zermelo]

What a strange to-do, but a very entertaining read.  I hope they haven't spent all their funds on that snazzy website.

 

"Green Space Dark Skies will enable people from all walks of life to forge new connections with the countryside by supporting those who experience cultural and physical barriers to experiencing our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty to access events."

That reads just like the convoluted output from a Mission Statement workshop. I've seen a few.

 

"To protect these amazing places, the exact locations will only be revealed to the people who have registered to take part."

Sounds like they're organizing a rave to me.

 

"... event locations and dates may be subject to change"

Yep. Definitely a rave.

 

"Green Space Dark Skies will present temporary, low-impact lighting interventions (the lights will be used for a short period of time at dusk) creating magical, memorable moments in the landscape."

It sounds a bit like like that Lloyds Bank advert, where they all set off with lights and then meet up with the horses running down the beach.

 

"The low-impact lights have been specially designed by Core Lighting and developed by Siemens to be sensitive to the night-time environment."

But presumably not as good as forgetting about the lights altogether and just getting people to look up at the stars.

 

"The team also acknowledges its Scope 3 emissions and the complexity associated with calculating these, and is working hard to rise to the challenge with its stakeholders."

Some serious consultancy effort went into that sentence.

 

"In the face of the climate emergency, thousands of Lumenators will become caretakers of nature for the future."

Some more stuff that didn't make it into the Mission Statement, but will be considered for a strapline.
Lumenators??

 

So if I've got this right, we're going to highlight the importance of dark skies by organizing a (short, tasteful) light show in dark site areas.
Instead, how about getting on board with Earth Day and switching everything off for an hour to look at the skies? And perhaps get Siemens to spend their time replacing some of the horribly bright LED streetlights with some softer ones?

 

 

[Pixies]

This is part of "Unboxed". I.e. the rebranded festival of Brexit 

[tomato]

Lumenators…

Didn’t a certain Albus Dumbledore invent a device to sort them out?

[Daf]

2 hours ago, Zermelo said:

 

Instead, how about getting on board with Earth Day and switching everything off for an hour to look at the skies? And perhaps get Siemens to spend their time replacing some of the horribly bright LED streetlights with some softer ones?

 

 

^^THIS! But.... then they'd be missing out on the the grant monies, back handers and general smoke being blown up their arses.

"Each bulb is 300 lumen so all 4 gives each lamp a maximum of 1200 lumen..." yea, that makes all the difference! My 300 lumen torch looks like it could have been used to identify incoming bombers, during the blitz!

.... but I'm sure they all mean well 😇

[Roy Cropper]

Jeez, with those top flight skills in spouting meaningless drivel they have a career in politics or maybe the civil service ahead of them.

[Carbon Brush]

12 hours ago, Zermelo said:

I hope they haven't spent all their funds on that snazzy website.

I disagree. I really hope they have spent everything on the site and have nothing left for torch building, travel to sites, etc.🤣

On a more serious note. The time involved in putting this package together, to put people on hillsides in April, means they must have been spending on planning and building kit last year.
Unless of course it is all being bought in from overseas. In which case even more of our money is being thrown away to other countries.

Has anyone else written to these people and had a response? Maybe the reply I received is a standard letter?

[Tomatobro]

Everybody will probably pay £20 for a cheap LED torch and given a Quality Street and told to wrap the sweet wrapper round the torch and  to wave it about.

Now there's a thought! I could make some money from this. Should not have shared this Idea on SGL

I also took a paragraph from one of the events and just edited out some words so it made more sense. I did not change anything round just erased some words.

 Plank’s  is dominated by rubbish, with the management, focused on rubbish. We invited our neighbours to come over and take part in a rubbish procession, and help by eating all the food!

Edited February 9, 2022 by Tomatobro

[Neill]

I think the Green Space Dark Skies project is a fantastic idea. It will help and encourage people who have not experienced dark skies before to get out of the towns and cities and see what they are missing - for me there's no better way to educate people on the affects of light pollution.  The project leaders have sought the advice of the International Dark Sky Association UK representative Duncan Wise (who was responsible for Northumberland's Dark Sky Park status). Having spoken to them myself at length, this project is well meaning and will have a positive influence on people.  As such, I will be supporting this project through my Go Stargazing website.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Neill
Removed website address that's not complete

[Carbon Brush]

After reading the one supporting post, I wondered if I had been harsh and narrow minded.
So I took another, more in depth look at the web site.
There was was nothing there to make me make substantial changes to my initial views.

However, I did see something that encouraged me.
This series of events runs until October 2022.
It is not planned to be an annual or (even worse) all year event.

Hopefully in 2023 the Plank team will be back in the cities doing their more usual 'shows'.

In terms of people going to dark skies and seeing what they are missing. I don't think it works when they are all busy doing something else.
An example if I may?

I was speaking recently with a group of people who had just run around Clumber Park on a Saturday morning Parkrun event.
They talked about a headtorch run they had done in the same place by night.
I was interested because Clumber Park is well away from the reach of Nottinghamshire County Councils pollution generators.
Might it be a good place to take a scope, subject to horizon limited by trees?
Frightening and unnerving were the runners most common descriptive words. Not just because of tripping over tree roots - it was the dark!
This was a group of adult runners, all using the same paths and doing the same thing. Not somone lost and walking alone.
Not one said 'I turned off my torch and looked up'.
Not one said ' At the end, in the car park, I looked up'.