January 28th, 2008
Together with a group of friends, he lobbied the city of Tucson for an ordinance setting lighting standards. It was an easy sell — there are several observatories in the Tucson area — and by the 1970s the city had a rigorous lighting code. Within a year, says Crawford, the county had followed. “Around the 1980s we went after the rest of the state.
Now, every Arizona county and most large communities have lighting ordinances, to the point where cities are coming to us to see what they can do.”
But the problem is much bigger than astronomy. Studies show that inappropriate light
disturbs the entire ecosystem, disrupting bird migrations, confusing night-flying insects, and sending newly hatched sea turtles scrambling away from the ocean. There is evidence that too much light at the wrong time interferes with our own circadian rhythms and may contribute to certain kinds of cancer. And too-bright city streets and parking lots may actually boost urban crime by creating harsh contrasts of light and dark that make it impossible for police and potential victims to spot criminal activity.
In 1988, Crawford and a colleague, Dr. Tim Hunter, founded the International Dark-Sky Association, in the words of the association’s mission statement, “to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies.” (IDA will celebrate its 20th anniversary this June.)
In 2001 the association designated Flagstaff, another Arizona city with a rich astronomical heritage, as the World’s First World’s First International Dark Sky City. And last March IDA named Utah’s Natural Bridges National Monument as the country’s first International Dark-Sky Park.
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