Illinois Coalition for Responsible Outdoor Lighting

 
Website Directory of www.illinoislighting.org

 

  • Home Page: A brief introduction to outdoor lighting as an environmental issue.
     
  • About Us pages:

  • Our Goals: Our "mission statement", and the projects we have banded together to strive for.
  • Our Team: A little bit about our coalition and the group's founding members.
  • Current News: The place to keep informed about our activities, and other news from the world of responsible outdoor lighting.
  • March, 2010 Symposium: Information on "Manmade Light at Night: Perils & Promises", our public symposium on artificial light and the environment, held March 11, 2010.
  • Contact Us: How to reach us, and an invitation to get involved.
     
  • Key Issues pages:

  • Energy Waste: A discussion of how inefficient outdoor lighting wastes billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity annually in Illinois.
  • Environment: An overview of some of the ways which manmade light is disrupting the natural world around us.
  • Health Concerns: A discussion of how lighting up our nighttime environment may be effecting our health for the worse.
  • Loss Of The Night: A look at how taking away the star-filled night sky effects our society.
  • Light, Safety & Crime: Real-world studies show that lighting up the night doesn't always make it safer; sometimes quite the opposite.
     
  • Lighting Practices pages:

  • Theory: Basic concepts of nighttime illumination.
  • Fixtures: How common light fixtures work, and how their design determines efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Style & Fashion: Discussing practical lighting principles, including how designing and selecting light fixtures only by daytime appearance is a mistake.
  • Photo Gallery: Side by side photos of real-world lighting installations, graphically demonstrating some of the differences between well-engineered and poorly-engineered lighting.
     
  • Articles & Studies pages:

  • Bright as The Full Moon: How Much to Light Up The Night?: Editorial using the level of illumination provided by the full moon as a starting point in the analysis of how much light we need to see well outdoors at night; August, 2011.
  • The Challenges of Finding Good Outdoor Light Fixtures: Editorial on a number of myths commonly cited as arguments against using efficient luminaires; December, 2009.
  • Chicago: A Lighting Case Study: A quantitative look at the state of streetlighting in the City of Chicago; May 2008.
  • The Color of Lights: More Than Meets the Eye: An analysis of how the spectral qualities of a light source affect its impact on vision, the environment, the sky, and human health; January, 2011.
  • Digital Billboards: New Regulations for New Technology: A study of electronic billboard technology from a lighting and environmental perspective; May, 2010.
  • Fireflies and Lightbulbs: Does Manmade Light Impact Ecosystems?: A description of how the effects of manmade light on organisms and ecosystems can be studied; October, 2011.
  • The Half of the Environment Which Conservation has Overlooked: Editorial on the failure of the modern environmental conservation movement to recognize the unique importance of the nocturnal environment; May, 2012.
  • How Bright the Night? Light and Human Health: An exploration of how light affects human health, and the growing evidence that exposure to light at night is a health risk; February 2012.
  • Municipalities Nationwide Reduce Streetlighting to Cut Expense; October, 2009.
  • Outdoor Lighting and Crime Prevention: A discussion of the extent which light and darkness effect the likelihood of crime; February, 2010.
  • Parceling Out Nature: Editorial on the principle of applying varying lighting ordinances by a complex zone system; November, 2009.
  • Phantom Load vs. Monstrous Waste: Editorial comparing the amount of electricity wasted by "phantom loads" -- electronic devices on standby -- to the amount of waste created by lighting unoccupied streets and by inefficient streetlights; October 2010.
     
  • Our Proposals pages:

  • A Summary: Our coalition's rationale for taking action to promote better lighting practices.
  • Why Legislate?: A discussion of the arguments for pursuing uniform outdoor lighting regulations across our state.
  • Regulations: Defining some aspects of outdoor lighting which can be effectively addressed in outdoor lighting codes.
  • Model Ordinances: Compares and contrasts some outdoor lighting regulation frameworks, including the Pattern Outdoor Lighting Code and the IDA/IES Model Lighting Ordinance.
     
  • What You Can Do pages:

  • In Your Yard: Practical tips for the homeowner who wants to be part of the lighting solution, rather than part of the problem.
  • At Your Business: Guidelines for installing and operating responsible lighting in commercial establishments (and saving money along the way).
  • For Your State: Suggestions for how each Illinois citizen can help in the effort to reduce the bad effects of poorly designed lighting across our state.
     
  • Resources pages:

  • Encyclopedia of Terms: Our definitions of many of the numerous terms particular to lighting engineering, vision, and the study of light and the environment.
  • Links: Some of the many resources available on the Internet which we have found useful in our studies.
  • Our Materials: Publications and presentations from our group.
     
     
     
  • Manual Site Directory: This page.

light pollution Illinois Chicago Cook County DuPage County Will County Springfield energy environment global warming anti light pollution legislation lighting ordinances