Community Corner
April 19 - May 7, 2021 “Lights Out Nights” in Houston for Birds
While encouraging the community to turn off outside lighting for migrating birds is a great move, exterior lighting in general needs help.
Mayor Turner of the City of Houston is encouraging business to turn out exterior lights for migrating birds. Not only does this reduce the number of birds colliding with buildings & dying, the effort has other benefits that I'd like to highlight, financial and spiritual.
Migrating Birds
Mayor Sylvester Turner has proclaimed April 19 - May 7, 2021 “Lights Out Nights” in Houston, encouraging all businesses, residents, and building managers to turn off non-essential exterior lighting from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. during the period of peak migration for birds through Texas.
Read more in the press release here!
https://mailchi.mp/houstontx/l...
Find out what's happening in Houstonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Star Gazing
Find out what's happening in Houstonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
There is more than one reason to turn off or significantly adjust exterior lighting. When was the last time you saw the Milky Way galaxy with your own eyes? Exterior lighting, poorly set up, is also called "light pollution" by star-gazers. For many of us, being able to see the night sky is a spiritual connection as well as scientific. There is a wider universe out there beyond our squabbles here.
More discussion on this topic is available through the General Land Office:
https://www.glo.texas.gov/ener...
Safety
Generally, the selection of exterior lighting is intended for security (except for that automobile sales facility along I-45 in Spring with the near-UV lighting solely for advertising purposes that is a danger to drivers because it is blinding at night). However, the installations of exterior lighting are often ineffective or even useful to criminals. DarkSky.org has information to assist with this issue:
https://www.darksky.org/wp-con...
Summary
Take a moment to inspect your exterior lighting as well as the available street lighting. If a lot of it is pointing upward, it's bad for migrating birds and disconnects you from the universe beyond our planet. On top of that a lot of power (that means $money$) isn't pointed in the direction you want it to go.
For those lights managed by local special districts, we at Referee PAC can help you with making contact with them.
Elizabeth Jensen, PhD, PE, CSP
Referee PAC, Treasurer
https://refpac.org