Course:ECON371/UBCO2009WT1/GROUP3/Article3

Article 3: Darker Side of Light Pollution

Summary

As India's towns and cities continue to grow economically and population-wise, so does their consumption of artificial light. Because “sky glow” reduces the contrast between stars and galaxies in the sky and the sky itself, astronomical institutes have had to relocate far from dense urban areas. The article claims that light pollution poses a serious threat to wildlife and has negative impacts on plant and animal physiology. The articles claims that a variety of adverse health effects may be caused by light pollution or excessive light exposure: Prolonged exposure to artificial light during the night can cause psychosomatic disturbances and breast cancer among women,"(Times of India). The article also notes the use of documentary and a program that includes children as active participants as means of creating an awareness of this problem.

Analysis

Pollution

Light is a non-accumulative pollutant, therefore its effect on the environment is proportional to current emissions. It is a point source pollutant and light pollution is also a local pollutant, it only directly affects the things nearby; although the environment as a whole is affected by the death of the animals, insects, plants, and humans.

How much would you pay for a starry night?

VanGogh A Starry Night.

The night sky is a public good.

In this case, the willingness to pay for the Astronomical Observatory's is much greater than the WTP for the average citizen. A clear night sky for the observatory is worth at least the price of having to relocate to another location.

The documentary mentioned in the article and the program that the Nehru Planetarium has created for the monitoring of light pollution, which uses children as active participants, can be seen as both a method of increasing awareness in hopes of starting a process of change and increasing people's WTP.

Costs and Benefits

Do the benefits of increased consumption of lighting utilities at night exceed the costs of the increased consumption? Some costs for the increase of light pollution include: the disrupted plant growth, the death of many migratory birds and turtles, psychosomatic disturbances, increased rates of breast cancer, heath care bills to assist humans and their related light-pollution diseases, many insects dying, as well as the increased pollution that comes from the development and use of the electricity used to power the lights. Costs can be found by using direct approaches (aka using the market prices to get data), for example:

Changes in productivity via the pollution effect on the natural resources (ie the plants, birds, insects)

Health care costs of pollution

Loss of human capital due to pollution (ie women dying of breast cancer)

Finding out different willingness to pay's can also be used to find costs via the indirect method, for example:

the price paid to prevent visual pollution

Contingent valuation of the environmental quality

Benefits include an increased sense of personal safety as well as increased personal pleasure from having the lights on during the evening. It is up to the citizens of India to decide if the benefits do outweigh the costs, as they are difficult to measure monetarily given our knowledge constraints. However, the benefits appear to only affect those within the nearby area whereas the impacts are seen nation-wide and even globally! Therefore standing, who has the say, becomes an important issue to consider. The increased use of lights during the night has the potential to be socially efficient depending on who is weighting the marginal benefits and the marginal costs. It may have the chance of being a socially efficient program although it is most likely not Pareto Optimal as there are far too many externalities on the country as a whole/the world as well as far too many people affected by the costs of the increased light. In order to fully diagnose the situation of benefits exceeding costs, existence and bequest values must also be taken into consideration.

Potential Solutions

Low-Cost Solutions

There are many practical ways in which light pollution can be reduced. Something as simple as black curtains on a window that can be drawn at night would go a long way to combating the problem. On city streets, lights could be dimmed or the direction of their emissions more controlled.

Liability Law

As India develops economically more people will have enough disposable incomes to spend money on electricity to power their lights therefore perhaps a liability law should be imposed to get would be polluters to make sensible choices as they will now be responsible for their emissions. The implication of a liability law will:

-Provide some (but not too much) space for innovation. Technological innovations lowers the marginal abatement cost curve in the long run so it is cheaper to achieve higher levels of environmental quality in the future

-Be costly (because there are so many households using electricity late at night) and difficult to enforce. The risk of getting caught, could cause citizens to potentially even do something as simple as pulling down the blinds at night, which would aid in the effects of light pollution via blocking the light escaping to the environment. (This is a form of innovation)

If citizens are made liable, society will move towards a more socially efficient equilibrium as total damages become near equal to total abatement costs.

Specifically, a negligence law would be more morally considerate than a strict liability law as the strict liability is unfair and very difficulty to monitor. The burden of proof is also an issue as there are so many different polluters and it is difficult to show the negative externalities caused by a single one specifically.

Standings also need to be considered once again as to where the burden lies and if it should be considered.

Property Rights would not be effective in this case due to the large numbers of people involved.

The documentary and light pollution monitoring program mentioned in the article, and the article itself with its data on damages, represent an attempt at moral suasion, perhaps the best approach, in hopes of changing how the public and government see light pollution.

Conclusion

Who is to say that the majestic city skyline created by city lights is not worth the damage done by light pollution? There are many accusations directed towards areas with a high rate of pollution. The problem is that there is a degree to which a city cannot just turn off its lights without being deemed socially unacceptable. Lights are a part of our everyday, and every night, lives and simply cannot just be shut off. Steps need to be taken to reduce the amount of light pollution, but these steps need to be implemented while maintaining a certain level of social standards that aren't too drastic or they will not be accepted by the general public.

The problem of light pollution might not be India's most pressing problem but this article suggests an effort to increase the awareness. As a developing nation India has an opportunity to go forward and plan future sky scrapers and city streets with the problem, and its effect on wildlife and human populations, in mind.

Prof's Comments

I agree that a dark night sky is a public good. Because it is a public good, it is difficult to get people to provide it. In this case, provision would be by means of turning off lights or installing lighting that has less 'waste' light. You are also right that the pollution itself is largely local, and is non-accumulative.

Developing a policy solution to this problem is difficult. Monitoring may be an issue, as the relationship between a particular level of pollution and a particular impact may be hard to establish. This is the type of case where standards may be better than the alternative. Another way would be to make electricity more expensive.