What YOU can do!

Remember, the simple rules for preventing light pollution are...

  • No light should be allowed to shine into the sky. As well as causing so many problems, it is also wasteful and pointless.
  • Ensure that lighting shines where you want it to shine and, more importantly, it does NOT shine where you do not need it to shine
  • 'Over-lighting' must be avoided. Using only the correct amount of light for the task in hand.
  • Unnecessary night-time lighting, particularly flood-lighting, advertising lighting and sports flood-lighting, should be switched off at 11pm or midnight to reduce over-night pollution.
  • We are not asking for people to turn off light - just to use the right amount and only where it is needed. Such intelligent lighting design will make an area safer and more secure.

You can help ensure these simple guidelines are followed by...

  • Campaigning! Lots! Write to your MP! Politicians will only consider the problems of light pollution if enough people voice their concerns. If a politician gets one letter, it’s and oddity. If a politician gets a dozen letters, it will be at the back of their mind. If more than a dozen people voice their concern, it becomes of vote winning importance.
  • Press for planning policies to reduce light pollution. Ensure that planning permission is only granted to non-light-polluting lighting.
  • Ensure all your lighting is non-polluting. Advise your neighbours to follow suit, and show them why you enjoy the night sky at a telescope if possible.
  • Inform local media. They often welcome "green" issues. But insist on some editorial control to avoid headlines such as "Star-gazers Call for Big Switch-Off".
  • Offer to speak to schools and groups. Any discussion of the Earth in Space and the stars can include light pollution.
  • Approach those with obtrusive lights. Many individuals and organisations will not even know that there is a problem.
  • Write to local councillors, council lighting/highway engineers, MPs, MEPs, sports clubs etc. to ask about their views and lighting policies. Use CfDS literature.
  • Write to Central Government environment officials, asking why the UK has subscribed to international energy initiatives (Agenda 21, Kyoto protocols etc.) yet continues to waste millions of pounds on light-energy waste every year.
  • If you or any group you belong to has a website, please link it to the Campaign for Dark Skies.
  • Investigate the views of your local police and Watch organisations on "security" lighting. Dazzling, "over-the-top" lamps can be the burglars' friend
  • Try to forestall poor lighting schemes by studying planning applications and making sure your council has lighting clauses in its planning and environmental strategies.
  • Help the CfDS directly by subscribing to its newsletter, donating to its fighting fund, becoming a local officer or distributing its literature.
  • Ask your MEP why the European Environment Commissioners continue to insist that light pollution is not a problem which the European Union should address.

For more...

Please also see the Campaign to Protect Rural England's action plan.

Return to CfDS homepage