Last Update: December 23, 2010
Other Voices
Excerpts from statements sent to us from other individuals and organizations with concerns about the IDA's potential approval of the IDA/IES Model Lighting Ordinance:
The MLO is even worse than the "Position Statement" politely says. It endangers our efforts in Europe tremendously, including the existing world-best legislation in Slovenia and in Italian regions.
- Jan Hollan, IDA Czech Section leader
In the past we (CieloBuio and IDA-Italian Section) sent our criticisms of the document that appears to be insufficient to control the phenomenon of light pollution. The fear of all is that once the MLO is approved, it will be virtually impossible to obtain laws which are more effective. There could also be negative repercussions outside the USA. The IDA is in fact regarded as the authority on light pollution, and then it will be easy for our opponents use the MLO to attack our technical parameters.
- Fabio Falchi, President, CieloBuio (Italy)
...The Light Pollution Abatement Policy of the RASC recommends the minimum light necessary for a purpose, for only the time required and without direct up-light, glare and light trespass. Merely quantifying these contributors to light pollution in the MLO through the BUG initiative does not address this goal. Instead, the RASC prefers concrete steps towards guiding the reduction in light pollution... Due to our significant concerns regarding the goals and methods in the IDA/IES-MLO, the RASC does not support nor encourage the use of the MLO in Canada. Furthermore, we will actively dispute attempts to adopt it in any form into municipal codes...
- from the Position Statement of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
Dark-Sky Slovenia opinion is that MLO could be a legalization of unlimited lighting and unlimited light pollution increase.
This is why MLO is a great success for lighting industry. MLO allows using globe luminaires (unshielded lights) in cities in almost unlimited amount. But just in case that globe luminaires have 33W (or less) compact bulbs (60lm/W) inside globes with 50 %transparency. (500 lumens above horizontal is allowed in MLO.)
MLO is in full conflict with:
- All 14 best Italian Light Pollution Laws,
- Slovene Light Pollution legislation,
- Starlight declaration and its additional documents.
- Dark-Sky Slovenia
...Unfortunately, with the release of the second draft of the MLO in June of this year, it appears that the joint task force has largely ignored the input of IDA grassroots members and only listened to lighting industry input... Unless the general IDA membership challenges the draft MLO and IDA leadership, I fear that the true fight for light pollution abatement may suffer a severe setback - one that we amateur astronomers may never recover from.
- From an editorial by Mark Coady, Light Pollution Abatement Consultant, for newsletter of Kingston Centre of Royal Astronomical Society of Canada