Media Coverage

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Unintentional Media Blitz

As a result of the new atlas of of artificial night sky brightness I ended up doing a lot of interviews for national and international outlets, including Science Magazine, Takepart.com, Christian Science Monitor, Scientific American, and USA Today.

Then the American Medical Association released a statement on LED lighting (for which I had provided some background information) and a few more stories came out in Takepart.com and Christian Science Monitor.

A couple of Los Angeles Times stories also happened to include me:

Rare toads (presumably) love him; off-roaders do not 

The sunset that takes an hour to go from date palms to to redwoods

Optics and Photonics News Covers Environmental Impacts of Lighting
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Optics and Photonics News Covers Environmental Impacts of Lighting

The message that lights can have environmental consequences becomes more and more mainstream. Optics and Photonics News this month has an article by freelance writer Jeff Hecht, with whom I’ve spoked for other stories before. His article is a multi-page spread and emphasizes both spectrum and intensity and their potential impacts, as well as the potential to mitigate those impacts by customizing both. Here’s my pull quote:

Longcore’s ideal would be very low blue to reduce wildlife impact, with only enough blue added to raise color temperature to 2700 K if necessary for good color rendering.

I actually think that most outdoor lighting can do without blue light and might put an “absolutely” before the “necessary” in the quote. Manufacturers are starting to deliver LEDs that cut out nearly all the blue light, have a reasonable color rendering index, and can be dimmed without an efficiency penalty.