Lighting is still in the Dark Age

This is where you can read up the answers to some FAQs on astronomy and star-gazing in Singapore. Members' contributions are welcomed.
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hlyf
Posts: 168
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2003 2:04 pm
Location: Jurong

Lighting is still in the Dark Age

Post by hlyf »

"Light pollution is not just a waste of money, argues astronomer Darren Baskill in this week's Green Room. He says badly designed lighting is also having an impact on the environment and our health, as well as denying millions of people the right to enjoy the beauty of the night sky."

Quite an interesting article here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4794249.stm
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soulfrost
Posts: 167
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:58 am
Location: cookieland, dreamworld, North east Singapore .

Post by soulfrost »

interesting..
light pollution affects us in almost every single possible ways..

cept, there are some singaporeans that go:

.`, Chunlong says (10:43 PM):
doesn't affect me
.`, Chunlong says (10:43 PM):
i dun see sky

so.. how do we tell em everyones affected, even if you dont enjoy skies?
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ALPiNe
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Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2003 1:02 am
Location: In the Ladies. *Censored*

Post by ALPiNe »

soulfrost wrote:so.. how do we tell em everyones affected, even if you dont enjoy skies?
Pay more government tax.

http://www.darksky.org/resources/inform ... is026.html

http://www.darksky.org/resources/inform ... is004.html


Cheers,
- ALPiNe
.- .-.. .--. .. -. .
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soulfrost
Posts: 167
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:58 am
Location: cookieland, dreamworld, North east Singapore .

Post by soulfrost »

cool... pay more tax for?
"want more lights? pay 100 per mth to maintain lighting"
wa...
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ALPiNe
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Location: In the Ladies. *Censored*

Post by ALPiNe »

$100 per month may not be a lot to you, but if we total this up and account for every Singaporean for 1 year,

$100 x 12 x 4,425,720 = $5,310,864,000

We will be wasting an alarming sum of ~5 billion dollars every year!


But that is only theoretical. Last year in 2005, Singapore consumed some 6,750.3 GWh (6,750,300,000,000 watts) of electricity for domestics. To take the least of 5% to account for the streetlights, the total cost will snowball to:

[(6,750.3 GWh x 0.05) / 841 000] x 67.28 x 1.5739 = S$42,497,188.68


This $42 million used to pay for all our streetlights comes from taxpayers' money. In other words, we are paying for all the light we waste in the form of higher taxes, and that is certainly not a good thing. It's sad that we are throwing away millions of dollars in wastage, but yeah, that's what we end up doing unless the problem of light pollution can be resolved. Think of how much we can do with the ~$42 million we save each year. We can install better light fixtures in Singapore and save even more money, or build and develop better healthcare facilities, schools or houses which are more useful to us. 42 million dollars is a huge amount, and it shouldn’t be ignored.


Cheers,
- ALPiNe
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