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Home > Terms > Spanish, Latin American (XL) > contaminación lumínica
contaminación lumínica
The emission of stray light or glare from lighting fixtures in manners that counter the purpose of the light (which is to light what is below); also known as the waste of money and energy in the form of electric light, usually meant in the form of outdoor night lighting. Such light trespass causes severe safety problems for motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists at night from lighting that shines onto streets and highways and sidewalks from poorly-designed or poorly-mounted lighting. Such glare also imposes on privacy, by shining brightly into bedroom windows at night and into backyards where adults and children are trying to observe the night sky. While most people have accepted such bad, glare lighting without question and assumed that nothing could be done about it, dedicated groups of volunteers around the world are now showing that effective laws and guidelines can be instated at the local and regional levels of government (and in planning and engineering offices), which mean that proper outdoor night lighting can be a norm so that everybody benefits --- auto drivers, sleeping residents, government budgets, and skygazers alike. Laws mandating full-cutoff light fixtures are already in place in states such as Maine and Connecticut and are pending elsewhere.
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