500 signatures reached
To: The UK Government
Halt Blue-Rich White Light Pollution
Please reinstate the All Parliamentary Lighting Group and urgently create a National Light Policy which properly addresses the harmful effects of modern lighting technology on humans, wildlife, road safety and sky glow.
Why is this important?
Blue-Rich White street lights are being installed across the UK without proper Health or Environmental Impact assessments. The light emitted mimics daylight at night and is harmful to humans and wildlife (due to circadian disruption), sky glow (due to glare, caused by the so-called "Rayleigh Scattering Effect", where short wave-length light scatters more easily in the atmosphere) and road safety caused by excessive glare from streets and vehicle lighting, which can be blinding, in particular for older drivers (the ageing eye finds it harder to cope with Blue-Rich White Light) and which causes the so-called "Zebra Effect" where dark patches are interspersed with excessively bright light. Kindly see http://www.lightmare.org
A Proper National Light Policy is urgently needed as Blue-Rich White Light pollution is spreading across the country like wildfire, with harmful consequences for humans, wildlife as well sky glow. Street lights and vehicle lights with a far too high CCT (Correlated Colour Temperature) are being installed, well above the maximum 3000 Kelvin recommended by AMA (American Medical Association) and IDA (International Dark Sky Association).
PHE (Public Health England) and CPRE (Campaign for Rural England) are also recommending warmer colour temperatures, the former to prevent glare and discomfort, the latter to protect wildlife from undue circadian disruption.
Finally, due to a combination of high colour temperature and so-called "LED flicker", modern lighting technology is making a significant minority of people ill, causing symptoms ranging from eye pain, headaches, severe migraines, dizziness and nausea to epileptic episodes.These people are confined to their homes after dark and during daytime they cannot use Public Transport or enter buildings that have installed LED lighting, which are often kept on day and night. This is unacceptable and needs to be poperly researched, before more LED lighting is installed in public places. Kindly see: http://www.lightaware.org
