More awakened opinions from the MSM? What is the world coming to! NZ Herald reports on the dangers of blue LED lighting.
By: Juha Saarinen
Tech writer for NZ Herald.
COMMENT:
Let me to introduce you to ALAN. The acronym stands for Artificial Light At Night, and there is growing concern that ALAN is bad for us especially when it’s a glary blue shine.
ALAN is in our houses and outside as city street and highway lighting. It is light pollution and can have some very negative effects on people and wildlife.
Unfortunately, we could be making the ALAN problem worse through using the wrong type of light bulbs with light emitting diodes (LEDs).
While LEDs use less energy than most incandescent lamp types, cool white ones emit large amounts of blue light. (Paradoxically, cool light has a high colour temperature as measured in degrees Kelvin.)
Research points to blue light interfering with people’s sleep patterns and that it can damage retinas above certain levels.
Blue light is enough of a worry that computer and smartphone vendors such as Apple have introduced a special mode, Night Shift, that shifts the LED displays on devices to warmer colour temperatures.
Astronomers who can no longer see the stars because in many parts of the world night never falls are also up in arms over increased blue light glare interference.
Don’t go overboard with lighting up the globe at night and think about the technology used to illuminate places is the common sense message from the International Dark-Sky Association.
Sadly, that message is falling on deaf ears…
