From The University of California-Los Angeles
2.20.24
Anna Novoselov
Media Contact:
David Colgan
818-203-2858
dcolgan@ioes.ucla.edu
Artificial light, which is increasing by approximately 10% per year, has serious consequences for the health of humans, animals and plants. Credit: Bryce David/Flickr.
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Key takeaways
-Global light pollution has increased sharply over the past three decades and rises about 10% more each year.
-Light pollution disturbs human and animal health and behavior. Artificial light can disrupt humans’ biological clocks and cultural traditions and increases hazards when driving and walking. Too much light at the wrong time can confuse animals and interfere with natural life cycles and patterns.
-A new report outlines measures that can preserve natural darkness and combat light impacts.
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Our ancestors could look up and see the Milky Way — our galaxy — as a large band of white light stretching across the sky.
Milky Way. ESO.
Because of light pollution, that’s no longer the case. One study [Science Advances] estimated that 60% of Europeans and 80% of Americans have never seen it at all.
Light pollution comes from artificial lights that shine upward and create skyglow, a brightening of the night sky that obscures stars and other celestial objects. This excess light is increasing by approximately 10% per year.
Light pollution comes from artificial lights that shine upward and reflect off atmospheric particles, creating skyglow, a brightening of the night sky that obscures stars and other celestial objects. This excess light is increasing by approximately 10% per year.
The threats of artificial light — and recommendations to minimize it — are the subject of The World at Night, a 160-page report published by the Dark Sky Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, produced by UCLA ecologist Travis Longcore and nine other researchers.
The report is a one-stop reference for anyone concerned about light pollution, said Longcore, an adjunct professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. It details the harms of light pollution, highlights the importance of dark sky reserves, presents case studies and provides guidelines to minimize the use of artificial light.
Technological innovations and the rise of cities led to a rapid surge in artificial light. In the 25 years from 1992 to 2017, satellite-based research [Remote Sensing] led by the University of Exeter found that global light pollution increased by at least 49%, but the number could be much higher — up to 270%.
The United States at night, as seen from orbit. Credit: NASA/Unsplash.
Artificial light is changing from dim, warm tones to full-spectrum LEDs, amplifying its negative effects, Longcore said. LEDs produce more blue and green light compared to older high-pressure sodium lights. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station can see the difference from space.
All of this artificial light has serious consequences for human health.
It disrupts internal biological clocks that evolved to a 24-hour night/day cycle, impairing sleep and the body’s ability to produce hormones that are governed by daylight. The sleep hormone melatonin, for example, is produced during daylight and released when it’s dark. This release triggers other hormones that help the body rejuvenate and cope with diseases.
Light pollution also disturbs wildlife and ecosystems. It can even be considered a form of habitat loss, as animals often avoid brightly lit areas.
“It’s an additional stressor and can be the direct cause of mortality,” Longcore said.
Animal behaviors, life stages and predator/prey interactions are adapted to the 24-hour day/night cycle and the 12-month seasonal cycle, according to the report. Too much light at the wrong time confuses them and interferes with mating, reproduction and migration, among other ecological impacts.
Sea turtles, for example, use light as their guide, laying and burying their eggs on beaches at night. When too much artificial light is present, hatchlings, who are meant to find their way to the sea, become disoriented and move in the wrong direction. Lights also confuse insects, which gather around streetlamps and become easy prey. And birds that migrate at night frequently crash into communications towers or brightly lit windows.
Light pollution affects plants, too, disrupting key life cycle stages governed by the presence of light. That can have cascading effects on animals that depend on them, Longcore said.
Dark skies are also significant for cultural reasons.
Storytelling, religious traditions and calendars have depended on the night sky throughout human history. The Maori, Indigenous people of New Zealand, rely on constellations for navigation and predict the success of the coming harvest based on Matariki, a star cluster also known as the Pleiades, that rises in mid-winter. Other cultures honor Matariki, too. In northern Java, Indonesia, it marks the start of the rice planting season. In Southern Africa, the Basotho people associate it with abundance, calling it “the female planter.”
The Declaration in Defense of the Night Sky and the Right to Starlight, adopted at the Starlight Conference held in La Palma, Spain, in 2007, considers it a human right to see an unpolluted night sky. The conference included astronomers, conservation biologists and experts in tourism and cultural preservation.
Prior to the 17th century, human civilizations burned oil or fat for light and had no streetlights, so light pollution was nonexistent. With the rise of electrification in the 1870s, outdoor light spread at an accelerating pace.
Astronomers recognized the light pollution problem in the 1970s. Skyglow was impairing research, obstructing constellations and worsening the quality of telescope observations.
A truly dark sky is still visible in remote research stations and some outdoor locations, but even those places are threatened. In the average American suburb, only a few hundred stars out of about 2,500 expected stars can be seen.
While some light is necessary to maintain the safety and productivity of modern cities, increases in efficiency and reductions in cost have led to its misuse, Longcore said.
Perhaps surprisingly, there is also no conclusive evidence that brightly lit streets increase nighttime safety for drivers and pedestrians. Excessive glare blocks hazards on the road, distracts drivers and reduces night vision, which lowers overall awareness.
Light pollution may seem like a secondary issue compared to other climate change impacts, but it’s easy to reduce. Simply dimming outdoor lighting or directing it only where necessary would make a big difference, said David Welch, lead author of the report and chair of the Dark Skies Advisory Group.
Other solutions include changing the color temperature of outdoor lightning. Light in the blue part of the spectrum — the kind often emitted by LEDs — is especially harmful. It scatters the most and causes the greatest disruptions to people and animals. Warm tones such as amber-colored light are the least harmful and would aid night vision for animals, including people. Timers and motion sensors that turn off lights when they’re not needed would also help.
Over the past few years, Longcore has sent teams of UCLA students to the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve — the first sky dark reserve in the United States and the third largest in the world. (The nonprofit DarkSky certifies eligible dark sky areas to help safeguard them from artificial light.)
“Dark sky places are established to recognize that there is value to the natural condition that has now become rare,” Longcore said. Students were blown away by experiencing the Milky Way in a place that is truly dark, he added.
In addition to Longcore and Welch, the report’s authors include Robert Dick of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada; Karen Treviño of the National Park Service; UCLA alumna Catherine Rich, co-founder and executive officer of the Urban Wildlands Group; John Hearnshaw, professor emeritus at the University of Canterbury; Clive Ruggles, professor emeritus at the University of Leicester; Adam Dalton, formerly of the International Dark-Sky Association, or IDA; IDA Director of Public Policy John Barentine; and István Gyarmath of the Magnitúdó Astronomical Society.
See the full article here .
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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.
For nearly 100 years, The University of California-Los Angeles has been a pioneer, persevering through impossibility, turning the futile into the attainable.
We doubt the critics, reject the status quo and see opportunity in dissatisfaction. Our campus, faculty and students are driven by optimism. It is not naïve; it is essential. And it has fueled every accomplishment, allowing us to redefine what’s possible, time after time.
This can-do perspective has brought us Nobel Prizes, Rhodes Scholarships, NCAA titles and Olympic medals. Our faculty and alumni helped create the Internet and pioneered reverse osmosis. And more than 100 companies have been created based on technology developed at UCLA.
The University of California-Los Angeles is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. The University of California-Los Angeles traces its early origins back to 1882 as the southern branch of the California State Normal School (now San Jose State University). It became the Southern Branch of The University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest (after University of California-Berkeley ) of the 10-campus University of California system.
The University of California-Los Angeles offers over 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines, enrolling about 32,000 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students.
The university is organized into six undergraduate colleges; seven professional schools; and four professional health science schools. The undergraduate colleges are the College of Letters and Science; Samueli School of Engineering; School of the Arts and Architecture; Herb Alpert School of Music; School of Theater, Film and Television; and School of Nursing.
The University of California-Los Angeles is called a “Public Ivy”, and is ranked among the best public universities in the United States by major college and university rankings. Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, Turing Award winners, and Chief Scientists of the U.S. Air Force have been affiliated with The University of California-Los Angeles as faculty, researchers or alumni. Among the current faculty members, many have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering , the Institute of Medicine; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
The university was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1974.
The University of California-Los Angeles student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Pac-12 Conference. The Bruins have won many national championships and NCAA team championships. The University of California-Los Angeles students, coaches, and staff have won a great many Olympic medals: gold, silver and bronze. The University of California-Los Angeles student-athletes have competed in every Olympics since 1920 with one exception (1924).
In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue (now the site of Los Angeles City College) in East Hollywood. In 1917, UC Regent Edward Augustus Dickson, the only regent representing the Southland at the time and Ernest Carroll Moore- Director of the Normal School, began to lobby the State Legislature to enable the school to become the second University of California campus, after University of California-Berkeley. They met resistance from University of California-Berkeley alumni, Northern California members of the state legislature, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler- President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919 who were all vigorously opposed to the idea of a southern campus. However, David Prescott Barrows the new President of the University of California did not share Wheeler’s objections.
On May 23, 1919, the Southern Californians’ efforts were rewarded when Governor William D. Stephens signed Assembly Bill 626 into law which acquired the land and buildings and transformed the Los Angeles Normal School into the Southern Branch of the University of California. The same legislation added its general undergraduate program- the Junior College. The Southern Branch campus opened on September 15 of that year offering two-year undergraduate programs to 250 Junior College students and 1,250 students in the Teachers College under Moore’s continued direction. Southern Californians were furious that their so-called “branch” provided only an inferior junior college program (mocked at the time by The University of Southern California students as “the twig”) and continued to fight Northern Californians (specifically, Berkeley) for the right to three and then four years of instruction culminating in bachelor’s degrees. On December 11, 1923 the Board of Regents authorized a fourth year of instruction and transformed the Junior College into the College of Letters and Science which awarded its first bachelor’s degrees on June 12, 1925.
Under University of California President William Wallace Campbell, enrollment at the Southern Branch expanded so rapidly that by the mid-1920s the institution was outgrowing the 25-acre Vermont Avenue location. The Regents searched for a new location and announced their selection of the so-called “Beverly Site”—just west of Beverly Hills—on March 21, 1925 edging out the panoramic hills of the still-empty Palos Verdes Peninsula. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926 the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname “Bruins”, a name offered by the student council at The University of California-Berkeley. In 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles (the word “at” was officially replaced by a comma in 1958 in line with other UC campuses). In the same year the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million- less than one-third its value- by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss for whom the Janss Steps are named. The campus in Westwood opened to students in 1929.
The original four buildings were the College Library (now Powell Library); Royce Hall; the Physics-Biology Building (which became the Humanities Building and is now the Renee and David Kaplan Hall); and the Chemistry Building (now Haines Hall) arrayed around a quadrangular courtyard on the 400-acre (1.6 km^2) campus. The first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. After lobbying by alumni; faculty; administration and community leaders University of California-Los Angeles was permitted to award the master’s degree in 1933 and the doctorate in 1936 against continued resistance from The University of California-Berkeley.
Maturity as a university
During its first 32 years University of California-Los Angeles was treated as an off-site department of The University of California. As such its presiding officer was called a “provost” and reported to the main campus in Berkeley. In 1951 University of California-Los Angeles was formally elevated to co-equal status with The University of California-Berkeley, and its presiding officer Raymond B. Allen was the first chief executive to be granted the title of chancellor. The appointment of Franklin David Murphy to the position of Chancellor in 1960 helped spark an era of tremendous growth of facilities and faculty honors. By the end of the decade The University of California-Los Angeles had achieved distinction in a wide range of subjects. This era also secured University of California-Los Angeles’s position as a proper university and not simply a branch of the University of California system. This change is exemplified by an incident involving Chancellor Murphy, which was described by him:
“I picked up the telephone and called in from somewhere and the phone operator said, “University of California.” And I said, “Is this Berkeley?” She said, “No.” I said, “Well who have I gotten to?” ” University of California-Los Angeles.” I said, “Why didn’t you say University of California-Los Angeles?” “Oh”, she said, “we’re instructed to say University of California.” So, the next morning I went to the office and wrote a memo; I said, “Will you please instruct the operators, as of noon today, when they answer the phone to say, ‘ University of California-Los Angeles.'” And they said, “You know they won’t like it at Berkeley.” And I said, “Well, let’s just see. There are a few things maybe we can do around here without getting their permission.”
Recent history
On June 1, 2016 two men were killed in a murder-suicide at an engineering building in the university. School officials put the campus on lockdown as Los Angeles Police Department officers including SWAT cleared the campus.
In 2018, a student-led community coalition known as “Westwood Forward” successfully led an effort to break The University of California-Los Angeles and Westwood Village away from the existing Westwood Neighborhood Council and form a new North Westwood Neighborhood Council with over 2,000 out of 3,521 stakeholders voting in favor of the split. Westwood Forward’s campaign focused on making housing more affordable and encouraging nightlife in Westwood by opposing many of the restrictions on housing developments and restaurants the Westwood Neighborhood Council had promoted.
Academics
Divisions
Undergraduate
College of Letters and Science
Social Sciences Division
Humanities Division
Physical Sciences Division
Life Sciences Division
School of the Arts and Architecture
Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science (HSSEAS)
Herb Alpert School of Music
School of Theater, Film and Television
School of Nursing
Luskin School of Public Affairs
Graduate
Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSEIS)
School of Law
Anderson School of Management
Luskin School of Public Affairs
David Geffen School of Medicine
School of Dentistry
Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
School of Nursing
Research
The University of California-Los Angeles is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and has well over $2 billion in research expenditures.
Rankings
National
The U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges report ranks UCLA very high among public universities. The Washington Monthly ranks UCLA very highly among national universities, with criteria based on research, community service, and social mobility. The Money Magazine Best Colleges ranks UCLA very high in the United States, based on educational quality, affordability and alumni earnings. The Daily Beast’s Best Colleges report ranks UCLA very highly in the country. The Kiplinger Best College Values ranks UCLA very high for value among American public universities.
The Wall Street Journal and The Times Higher Education rank UCLA very high among national universities. The Top American Research Universities report by the Center for Measuring University Performance ranks UCLA very high in power, resources, faculty, and education. The Princeton Review College Hopes & Worries Survey ranked UCLA as a “Dream College” among students and among parents. The National Science Foundation ranked UCLA very high among American universities for research and development expenditures. The New York Times ranks UCLA very high for economic upward-mobility among 65 “elite” colleges in the United States.
Global
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks UCLA very high in the world for academics, for US Public University for academics, and high in the world for reputation. UCLA is ranked very high among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. UCLA is ranked very high in The QS World University Rankings in the world and very high in North America by The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranks the university very high in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, citations, broad impact, and patents. The U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Rankings report ranks UCLA very high in the world. The CWTS Leiden ranking of universities based on scientific impact ranks UCLA very high in the world. The University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) conducted by the Middle East Technical University ranks UCLA very high in the world based on the quantity, quality and impact of research articles and citations. The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities ranks UCLA very high in the world based on the presence, impact, openness and excellence of its research publications.
sciencesprings 