11/5/2023 0 Comments Dark streets & darker secrets![]() Between energy savings and reduced maintenance, the city will save more than $11 million annually.Ĭoncerns about safety and crime have prevented the more drastic step of turning off the lights, but this week’s study says it’s at least worth trying. The effort has already cut energy consumption from 190 million kilowatt-hours to 110 kilowatt-hours annually, with bigger savings still to come. The City of Los Angeles is spending $57 million to convert 215,000 streetlights to efficient light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. ![]() City lights also discourage the nesting and disorient the hatchlings of sea turtles, most of which are already endangered.Įnvironmentalists have long pushed for lighting reductions, but usually in the form of efficiency measures. It inhibits foraging by rodents, who are naturally inclined to stay hidden on brightly lit nights. Illuminating the night sky interrupts the natural behaviors of migratory birds, insects, and bats. Streetlights are also major contributors to light pollution. ![]() The annual electricity bill is well in excess of $60 million. That accounts for 752,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, or the yearly greenhouse gas output of 144,000 passenger cars. New York State, for example, has 1.4 million municipal streetlights that consume 990 gigawatt-hours of electricity each year. There’s no official national data, but the city- and state-level numbers are staggering. What if we turned off the streetlights? Would our cities turn into Hobbesian nightmares, lawless urban jungles where honest people are little more than fodder for the shiv-wielding predators crouched behind every trash can? Or would everything be the same-just a little darker?Ī new study, released Tuesday in The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, asks this important question, because streetlights have big financial and environmental costs.
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