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Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

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Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#391

Post by natmaka »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #386
reportingsjr wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans are absolutely having a calamitous effect on insect life in a variety of dimensions This is incredibly obvious to be in my neighborhood. My landlord (very regretfully) has a company spray insecticide in our yard. There are no bugs, not a single bug sound. The area I live in has many nature conscious people so about 1/10th of the yards are gardens, wildflowers, etc rather than grass. Just walking by them you…

We moved into a home last year with a ‘nice’ boomer lawn maintained with all the chemicals (there were almost 10 types of insect killer sprays in the basement, each for a different genus). When digging for some conduit, my toddlers kept wanting to find worms in the dirt and waited in excitement as I dug about a yard of dirt. No bugs, no worms. whoa!

... and all those wonderful chemicals were rinsed up into groundwater, or a river...

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#392

Post by zdragnar »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #360
zdragnar wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property rights are more "first class" than privacy rights; in the US, the idea that a company is not allowed to monitor the use of company equipment by employees is absurd- to the extent that many institutions are regulated to require it (i.e. monitoring for data exfiltration, etc). Of course, most companies' monitoring is pretty shallow and reasonable, but there are exceptions, and I certainly wouldn't choose to wo…

That makes sense. Property ownership seems to be one of the most important values in the US. Which leads to property owners having the freedom to restrict the freedoms of other people. You can see that in companies where employees are assumed to basically have no rights while working. Same in the west here where property owners fence off large areas of land and nobody can pass through. In Germany there usually is som…

Though there are historical reasons for allowing land owners to restrict unauthorized access, realize too that property extends to anything that can be owned, not just land.

If a company has a commercial kitchen, it seems reasonable to be to prohibit employees from running their own food delivery startup out of the kitchen... If you get access to a company car (I.e. travelling salesman), the company should reasonably expect to be able to take action against you if you use ot to go drag racing, or for a personal vacation.

Likewise, the notion that an employee should expect to have free reign over a company computer and company internet access is just strange to me.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#393

Post by tksb »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #150

Wow. I have to say that I have never considered the case where insects needed to be saved. It seems to me that as lifeforms go, they have been the most durable form of multi-cellular life on the planet. That said, that there are negative systemic effects on the planet's ecosystems that are directly related to the massive production and use of herbicides and pesticides is not as surprising. Light though? Even after re…

Even if the light doesn't have a quantifiable effect on insects, would it not be wise to reconsider the extended use in absolute "off-hours"?

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#394

Post by ChuckMcM »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #150

Wow. I have to say that I have never considered the case where insects needed to be saved. It seems to me that as lifeforms go, they have been the most durable form of multi-cellular life on the planet. That said, that there are negative systemic effects on the planet's ecosystems that are directly related to the massive production and use of herbicides and pesticides is not as surprising. Light though? Even after re…

Just to be clear, I'm a fan of cutting down light pollution for legitimate reasons (energy conservation, astronomical observation, and wildlife protection) but I twitch at reasons that are either exaggerated or misleading. I felt that throwing in lights along with the pesticide limitations was not a well motivated argument.

My experience has shown that when people are skeptical of your argument they are less likely to comply voluntarily and so the good that you hoped to do is lost and you have damaged your credibility with the people you need to support these ideas.

A small example of this in action was back in 2010 when Google decided they were going to stop stocking bottled water in the fridges around campus because the "energy waste and plastic disposal problem." The only problem was that Google regularly achieved over 95% capture of recyclable trash out of their bins and the energy saved was on the order of maybe half a dozen employees not commuting from San Francisco.

The real reason they wanted to do this was of course cost. They could replace bottled water with filtered dispensers and that would save them a few pennies per employee per month. I had a good conversation with some folks in charge that they could have said, "We're giving every employee an insulated water bottle in your choice of size and color (12, 20, 32, or 40 oz) that you can keep at the office and use to get water from our fancy new dispensers. This will save us money, AND its better for the environment." That would have been honest and gotten a good reception I believe with the rank and file. But dressing up the reason in a cover story that everyone easily poking holes in simply lowered morale and confidence in management.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#395

Post by ip26 »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #366
ip26 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cold means high blue content. Blue light is the one that most disrupts insects, nocturnal animals, your night vision, your own sleep cycle, and contributes the most to obscuring the stars.

> and contributes the most to obscuring the stars That part is not actually true. Any light will obscure the stars; if you want to compare different colors, it's the middle of the spectrum that contributes most, but the difference is small. As an amateur astronomer, the LED lights are a big problem because their light pollution is hard to filter out. Sodium is easy, it's nearly monochromatic, so a simple filter will…

Take it up with IDA, I guess. My understanding is blue light scatters more in the atmosphere.

https://www.darksky.org/why-is-blue-light-at-night-bad/

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#396

Post by nemo44x »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #16

I actually was sitting outside a few nights ago and realized that there was no more fireflies, and I couldn't remember the last time I had seen one. I used to go out all the time during summer as a kid to catch them, they would light up whole fields. That was just like 15 years ago. Pretty sobering realization

Unless there is actual data it’s probably best to not trust your memory. Every time you remember something the reality of it changes. Memory is lossy. Bias and selection are favored over improvement or precision of recall. Every recollection is inferior to the previous one.

I have a few memories of extensive fire fly experiences back in the day. But when I really think about it, I don’t remember all the days and years without a dramatic memory. And the ones I have may be distorted.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#397

Post by hairytrog »

The machine never slows down to protect weaker species. Such plan may be an attempt to lower power demand at night and make the demand curve more closely match Germany's wind/solar supply curve. It's an effort to lower costs and lower demand for power they'd have to buy from coal/natural gas.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#398

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

BlueDingo wrote: post #291
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using these [1] https://www.osram.com/ecat/PARATHOM%20Retrofit%20CLASSIC%20B...

I'm not versed much in these filaments but from what I know, and your link, these are just phosphor-covered LEDs, right? What is it about your current bulbs or the filament design that makes you not classify them as LEDs? The power use looks the same and the listed CRI of >=80 doesn't inspire confidence.

I didn't say that, or did I? Anyways, indeed they are chains of tiny LEDs in series, and the substrate they are embedded in is treated somehow. As I understand it, that gives the embedded LEDs a "Nachleuchtzeit"/ after glow like in the CRTs of old TVs and computer screns, which can vary, as it did with that old screen stuff too. Then there is the spatial thing, as they are spread out in the filament, you can actually look at them without being "blinded". It's more like the light radiates from a volume, softer, not from one sharp point. Not that it would matter that much, who has naked bulbs? As a result of all that there is no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics), no perceivable flickering at my power frequency of 50Hz. I think I'm sensitive to that, because the line/destination signs on public transportion do flicker for me when I and they both stand, not only when in motion.

Ah yes, the CRI. What can I say? I now have them everywhere, except the cellar. I prefer warm white, which they are. I can't see 'wrong' colors with them. Crosschecked that with a cassette of about 40 Faber-Castell color pencils right now, during my local morning twilight. Full spectrum.

Because "retro-fit" they fit in my old sockets. They just hit a sweet spot for me. I dim, or 'tune' them by using one to three circuits, the switches and my rooms are wired to allow for that.

Old, but not obsolete ;-)

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#399

Post by jungletime »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #16

I actually was sitting outside a few nights ago and realized that there was no more fireflies, and I couldn't remember the last time I had seen one. I used to go out all the time during summer as a kid to catch them, they would light up whole fields. That was just like 15 years ago. Pretty sobering realization

Lots of fireflies in my backyard every night, probably because it is partially flooded due to the record high water levels in the Great lakes. Have been trying to film them. But subpar results so far. I have a vintage 70-200 lens adopted to m4/3. It says macro on the lens, but I can't focus on anything close at all.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#400

Post by ndespres »

nemo44x wrote: post #396
thatguy0900 wrote: post #16

I actually was sitting outside a few nights ago and realized that there was no more fireflies, and I couldn't remember the last time I had seen one. I used to go out all the time during summer as a kid to catch them, they would light up whole fields. That was just like 15 years ago. Pretty sobering realization

Unless there is actual data it’s probably best to not trust your memory. Every time you remember something the reality of it changes. Memory is lossy. Bias and selection are favored over improvement or precision of recall. Every recollection is inferior to the previous one. I have a few memories of extensive fire fly experiences back in the day. But when I really think about it, I don’t remember all the days and year…

What? He says he remembers fields full of fireflies. Why imply that it's memory distortion? I'm surrounded by fields and in the high point or July there are breathtaking displays of fireflies at night, and it's not my imagination. Why tell someone that they misremembered that?
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