A Big Carbon Footprint no one ever really talks about and a way to solve it.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0108/18lightpollute/

What you see in the photographs above is Light going directly up to
the satellite that just took it's picture.

Or as a noted retired astronomer likes to say that we are lighting the bellies of
Birds and Airplanes. Not to mention clouds too!:(

Well, for many years hardly anyone talked about it even though we all pay for it
to the tune of Billions of Dollars per year.

Not to mention how many tons of coal that we burn to produce the wasted electricity to produce wasted light!

And now, finally, folks are starting to think about it and it turns out that not only do we waste electricity, burn coal, but the environment pays by disrupting the natural circadian cycle to cause birds to fly into the night lights, mess with the reproductive cycles of of turtles and indications are that it can even cause cancer in human beings.

Not to mention that 97% of us in the United States can't see the beauty of the Universe such as this very first photo in the link below (minus the red)

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/H_OTHER/SATPOL1.HTM

Remember, we are looking at part of our Milky Way Galaxy that consists of
several hundred billion stars and it Should be visible but isn't because we must light the sky at night!

So, what is the solution?

That's easy:

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/rennerroadfab/cutofflight.htm

Use full cut off light fixtures as in the photo above to direct the light onto the ground where it is needed and not into your eyes or into the sky where it is not needed.

And this is being done as we speak. Problem is though, it's not sexy enough yet.
The process of making folks aware of it is happening at an exceedingly slow rate.

For more information contact The International Dark Sky Association (IDA)

http://www.darksky.org/