WIsh I May, Wish I Might

     I’m so happy I can see the stars at night.  There are folks who live in cities that aren’t as lucky as me.  With the full moon we may not be able to see the Orionids but at least we can see the beautiful night sky.

From SpaceWeather: ORIONID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley’s Comet, and this is causing the annual Orionid meteor shower. Bright moonlight is reducing the number of visible meteors; nevertheless, sky watchers are reporting some bright Orionids. The best time to look is during the hours before local dawn on Thursday, Oct. 21st, and again on Friday, Oct. 22nd.

 And from Treehugger.com 

Light pollution is an obvious problem for astronomers and "poses a serious threat to wildlife, having negative impacts on plant and animal physiology. Light pollution can confuse animal navigation, alter competitive interactions, change predator-prey relations, and cause physiological harm." (Wikipedia)

But it is also an incredible waste of energy and producer of CO2. Every photon reaching into space is wasted energy. In Australia, as one example,

Public lighting is the single largest source of local government’s greenhouse gas emissions, typically accounting for 30 to 50% of their emissions. There are 1.94 million public lights–one for every 10 Australians–that annually cost A$210 million, use 1,035 GWh of electricity and are responsible for 1.15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.

This is low hanging fruit, why can’t we fix this?