Sunday 29 March 2009

Light pollution

Our little, tiny country is situated just above Paris...you can see the spot on Paris pretty well...and then you have this almost completely covered country, beaming into space...the south of the Netherlands can count as well.

In my previous job, I did something completely different. Also creative but much more technical, I used to advise people on light ...
Light ?
...
Well, I did listen to what people really wanted concerning light and I tried to give them an idea on how that would look/feel like in their home, office, garden. Not easy, how do you explain 'light' to someone if you can't see it that instant.
What almost struck me every time, was how much light people wanted in their homes or garden.
As if it was a contest on who had the most, the biggest and largest set of light devices in and around their house.
I've always known that Belgium was a pretty well lighted country but when I saw the images last night on the telly,  looking at a night view flat earth image...I almost started to cry !!
How bad are we ?
I could advice so many people on how to 'comsuminderen' (translated as consuming (less) but with a conscience).
Pretty soon traditional lightbulbs will dissappear but I'm afraid not many people know how to use a energy saving lamp or fluorescents. Even the long lasting sodium or natrium lamps could be a solution but if you turn the switch of that kind of lamp off, you have to wait at least 10 to 15 minutes to even be able to turn it on again...
Same for energy saving/fluorescent lamps : once turned on, keep them on !
The peak it reaches everytime it's turned on again, is the same as 1 hour of lamp consumption.
I'm not going to be a knight on morals here...don't wanna sound to preachy...but it just hit me last night when I saw the image...

2 comments:

Jack Daniel said...

The air in The Netherlands is...I think on #1 as the most filthiest air of THE WORLD.

How odd eh??
And about light: I love dimmed light. I always have not much light in my room because TOO MUCH light will take away the whole 'Lost in translation' atmosphere.

:)

diane said...

Wow, what a great post! I think it's like when we're little and we don't want to sleep because we are afraid we'll miss something. People want to see everything in the best light possible.