About the Campaign
Our aim is to persuade local councils and city authorities to make a public commitment to phasing out blue-white streetlights as they reach the end of their natural life and replacing them with lighting more sympathetic to the environment, the wildlife, the night-sky and human beings.
The high cost of installing the current lights means that they must stay in place until councils have fully or partially recouped these costs through projected energy savings. This means that we may have to endure them for a decade or more. The campaign aims to ensure that they will remain in place for not a moment longer than is economically necessary.
If we do not make our voices heard our children and grandchildren will grow up under ugly surveillance lighting in neighbourhoods robbed of all friendliness, charm and romance, and will be deprived of any appreciation of the nighttime environment and any experience of the glory and beauty of the night sky.
If you would like to see your council or city authority make such a promise for the future then please add your name to the petition. You will join a growing list of objectors, creating pressure for change. Every registration is a vote against these lights and will count when the time comes to start actively approaching national and local government.
Commonly local authorities are ignoring complaints because at a local level they are piecemeal and may be shrugged off one at a time. Public opinion will force a change in street-lighting policy only when it is demonstrable, organised and significant. We aim to make it so.
It is possible that by the time these bright white lights reach the end of their life even the people who installed them will be fed up with them, in which case the campaign will find itself knocking on an open door.
However, it is also possible that by that time most people will have forgotten how much more pleasant our life and environment was before their installation, and young people will have no idea, and the replacement lights may be even brighter and whiter! The campaign aims to prevent this potential catastrophe by asking those responsible to commit themselves publicly, well ahead of time, to the phasing out of blue-rich LED Street-lighting in favour of a more popular and natural alternative.
About the Website
The website is being developed to bring together the various issues, documenting research into the effects of blue-white lighting on human physical and mental health, quality of life, society and culture, and its impact on the health and quality of life of nocturnal wildlife and plants.
The petition will quantify public opposition to blue-white street lighting, thereby weaponizing public opinion for the sake of persuading our councils and city authorities to phase them out.
The website will help to link together and publicise various initiatives fighting for change, in particular the International Dark Skies Association and the (UK) All Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies.