To be honest, I think this is a very unbalanced take. Better illumination stops crime and traffic accidents and I'm not willing to pay with human lives to see the stars obviously. The effect on wildlife and plants is certainly to be considered but this article is from the U.S.A. and I live in a country with far better illumination than that place and I've seen stories multiple times from foreigners who moved here and noticed that immediately, they stopped being afraid at night because the country is so well-lit and crime numbers are low as a consequence.
Human lives are a big price to pay to see some stars.
It is incredibly contentious on whether or not illumination does anything here - perception is not necessarily reality. Lots of studies show zero impact on crime, some show significant.
But even if it is true and we do need light, it does need to be stark white LEDs shining with huge intensity while unshielded.
Shielding prevents light from going directly into useless places for your purpose (e.g. up into the air, when you are trying to secure the parking lot or road or whatever) and polluting things. Not using bright white LEDs helps reduce the spectrum usage and also is just better for human night vision on top of being better for light pollution.
If an area is not basically universally lit, using stark bright lights to light what you can see actually reduces the amount you can see at night in total - those dark spots that under better (not brighter!) lighting would be able for you to look into and see end up becoming too dark because your eyes have had to adjust to expose for much brighter lighting.
So even if the premise is true - and it might not be - there are still huge huge huge improvements to be made on how it is implemented in most of the world.
Blikkentrekker · · focus · HN ↗
Human lives are a big price to pay to see some stars.
cthalupa · · focus · HN ↗
But even if it is true and we do need light, it does need to be stark white LEDs shining with huge intensity while unshielded.
Shielding prevents light from going directly into useless places for your purpose (e.g. up into the air, when you are trying to secure the parking lot or road or whatever) and polluting things. Not using bright white LEDs helps reduce the spectrum usage and also is just better for human night vision on top of being better for light pollution.
If an area is not basically universally lit, using stark bright lights to light what you can see actually reduces the amount you can see at night in total - those dark spots that under better (not brighter!) lighting would be able for you to look into and see end up becoming too dark because your eyes have had to adjust to expose for much brighter lighting.
So even if the premise is true - and it might not be - there are still huge huge huge improvements to be made on how it is implemented in most of the world.