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[–] demi_god_dylan 1 point 12 points (+13|-1) ago 

Same reason people drop cigarette butts on the sidewalk instead of the trash, the "not my problem" or "It's not me who is the problem" mentality.

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[–] PenguinsTapDancing ago 

I would say it is more a matter of awareness, culture, and knowledge, than it is a "not my problem" issue.

Go out and ask people about light pollution and what they are doin to prevent it. For most people, it is likely that they have never even considered it or understood it was a problem. No one ever brought it to their attention or educated them about it being a problem.

I never thought about it until a friend mentioned it to me a number of years ago. He was into astronomy and wished he didn't have to travel as far to get good images.

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[–] Macdaddy5000 0 points 8 points (+8|-0) ago 

Laziness and apathy.

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[–] profanion [S] 1 point 1 point (+2|-1) ago 

Ummm...isn't laziness and apathy supposed to cause people using less lights?

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[–] Macdaddy5000 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago 

I just moved into an apartment where the residents are too lazy to close the breezeway door, probably wasting $10-$20 per month on each unit's electric bill, and they park with 6-8 feet between cars and then wonder why there isn't enough room to park all their cars. It's affecting my worldview.

[–] [deleted] 0 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago 

[Deleted]

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[–] dalek_caan 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

Fear of the daaaark, fear of the daaaark! I have a phobia that someone's always there!

Sorry, I can't stop. Maiden fan here :)

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[–] Scapevvoat 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago 

If you want to know why light pollution is such an issue nowadays, the answer is the need to accommodate cars/automobiles/traffic. Safe driving requires good visibility, and when cars go beyond rural roads begin to mix into high density areas, such as cities - where they will mix with pedestrians and other things, there is the need to keep the streets brightly lit at all times. And of course, as urban areas built around cars (destinations built around convenient driving distance) are scaled much larger than ones built around people/pedestrians (destinations built around convenient walking distance), the cheapest and brightest method of lighting the street will be chosen to cover the much larger area affordably (which is currently the harsh light of High-intensity discharge lamps). Venice, which due to its unique situation has remained a car free/pedestrian only city has no need to keep its streets so brightly light, and indeed uses tinted glass to dim its streetlights and imitate the more pleasant orange-red glow of gas&oil lamps and candle light of bygone eras.

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[–] dirething 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

not disagreeing that it can be an issue, but I am not sure what part of it you are referring to being "nowdays". If you just mean how obvious it is that is going to depend a lot on where you live.

As far as why not to use weaker lights, much of that comes down to practicality.

If I am putting street lights up for an expressway I want to use as few poles as possible.

If I am putting up street lights for the safety and security of people on foot I want to minimize the number of poles a bit, but I am probably more limited by being high enough to clear obstructions and keep the lights themselves out of range for junkies the metal for scrap and forward thinking criminals that would disable the lights before getting to business.

In either of those cases I am shooting to stay above a minimum amount of illumination for the target area.

If I am installing lights for property security the bigger factor is going to be where I already have electricity vs where I need to throw light.

The better question in the first two cases is why aren't more of the lights built with better reflectors to direct the light toward the intended target rather than up into the sky.

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[–] PenguinsTapDancing ago 

I heard a great argument that the solution to most light pollution is not reduced illumination, it is properly designed lighting that uses directed illumination. This allows for ground level lighting without creating significant light pollution above that point. This also reduces the amount of power necessary to power the lights in question. The way we do most lighting is very wasteful. Thankfully some cities are changing how they do public lighting.

I found a link to one of the studies for you.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546378/