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The Atlantic writes:
Insects help to keep the world green, by spreading the pollen of 88 percent of flowering plants. Those species account for 30 percent of crop production, with a total value of $361 billion—so a world full of buzzing insect wings is also one of full human stomachs. But pollinators are in trouble. Despite the recent good news that honeybee populations have bounced back slightly in the last year, the general trend is still a downward one in Europe and North America. A third of bee and butterfly species are in decline, beset by parasitic mites, destructive diseases, toxic pesticides, and changing climate. And recently, scientists have started considering another culprit—light pollution.
[...] "This is a very important study, which clearly demonstrates that artificial light at night is a threat to pollination," says Franz Hölker from the University of Hamburg.
Journal Reference: Eva Knop, Leana Zoller, Remo Ryser, Christopher Gerpe, Maurin Hörler & Colin Fontaine, Artificial light at night as a new threat to pollination, Nature 548, 206–209 (10 August 2017), doi:10.1038/nature23288
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday August 13 2017, @06:33AM (1 child)
Here's an possibility to save energy and pollinators. Install movement detectors that control a string of lights along a street such that when there's no one around the light is shut of. Whenever someone is detected the light stays on for 30 minutes to let people have time to get their business done and to reduce the number of on-off events. The light controller can learn on a weekly basis such that if someone was present at the same time the previous week, then the light is turned on regardless of any current trigger but the motion detection at the present time is of course recorded to learn for the next week and so on.
The long on period is to reduce the chance someone is left in the dark and save the light sources from the on-off wear.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday August 13 2017, @07:50AM
Make the detector sensitive and re-triggerable. That way a shorter on interval is good enough and no need to remember anything. With LED lights, the on/off stress is near nothing.