Light Pollution Dims View Of Comet, Shrinks Our Horizons

 

 STEREO's Heliospheric Imager shows Comet ISON, Mercury, Comet Encke and Earth over a five-day period from Nov. 20 to Nov. 25, 2013. The sun sits right of the field of view of the camera. Credit: NASA/STEREO

This is a reprint of my article that originally appeared in the Hartford Courant.

Comet ISON is barreling toward the center of our solar system, where on Thanksgiving it will slingshot around the sun and head back past Earth.

It's already putting on one of the best shows we've had in a while. Astronomers announced Nov. 14 that the comet had shot up on the brightness scale, becoming barely visible to the naked eye. It may become much brighter.

But you probably won't see it from New Haven, Hartford or Bridgeport. Even if it exceeds current expectations, you'll have to go far afield to catch an unaided glimpse of one of the most dazzling recent astronomical events.

The reason? Light pollution. Lights from Connecticut's dense population, coupled with the state's position wedged between major metropolitan areas, drown out the natural splendor of our skies.

Streetlights, after-hours business signs, outdoor house lights: All these sources of illumination bounce off surfaces on the ground and particles in the air. The light can travel outside of city centers for miles, dimming the sky in rural areas.

Looking at images of Connecticut at night from NASA's Earth Observatory shows the extent of the problem. Everything from Fairfield County up the I-91 corridor into Massachusetts is a big blotch of yellow light. Less prominent blotches cover most of the outlying areas. It's as if someone spilled fluorescent paint all over the map.

Connecticut is actually one of the more light-conscious states, according to Leo Smith, northeastern regional director for the International Dark Sky Association. Over the years, he and his organization have persuaded Connecticut's General Assembly to pass laws requiring municipalities and utilities to adopt shielded lighting that prevents most illumination from escaping upward. As recently as 2009, they worked with Connecticut Light and Power to provide lower rates to towns that shut lights off after midnight.

"When you look at other states in the area, especially in New England, you can't really match Connecticut," Smith said in a phone interview.

There are a few patches of darkness in Connecticut, particularly in the hilly northwest corner of the state. Viewing conditions at the site of the Mattatuck Astronomical Society Observatory in Litchfield, for instance, are relatively clear, except facing south toward the glow of cities located far beyond the horizon.

Smith acknowledged that the state still has a long way to go. Private businesses and homes, which produce plenty of their own light, are largely unaffected by the state laws. And given Connecticut's emphasis on local control, many of the efforts to reduce light pollution must be addressed at the municipal level.

That was what writer and astronomer Bob Crelin did in his hometown of Branford. In a 2002 Sky & Telescope Magazine article, he described his successful campaign to get the town to adopt local zoning ordinances that mandated outdoor lighting standards for everyone.

"I saw no justification for all that light being cast into the sky and couldn't accept it as an inevitable side effect of progress," he wrote.

During his campaign, Crelin found out that a lot of light pollution is "unnecessary and preventable, much of it merely careless waste from outdoor lighting that's poorly designed, overly bright or improperly aimed."

Light pollution is not just a bane for astronomers. We're increasingly living without something the ancients took for granted — a sense of our place in the universe. Crelin noted in a phone conversation that people growing up in light-polluted areas live in a smaller world.

"And when you lose your depth of vision," he said, "you lose your depth of imagination."

Smith's and Crelin's efforts prove that the scourge of light pollution is not inevitable. Every one of us must be mindful of the lighting on our streets, at our businesses and outside our homes. There are simple, practical solutions we can take to restore our skies. If we do, we'll be able to enjoy not only once-in-a-lifetime astronomical events like ISON, but the brilliant displays that play out above us every night.

The Blindness of Science

Left: Sir John Kendrew assembles a molecular model of myoglobin. Right: A computer-rendered 3-D model of myoglobin. Kendrew photo courtesy of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Used under a CC BY 2.5 license. Myoglobin image by Aza Toth. Public domain image.

What we do not see determines what we know at least as much as what we do see. Science is no exception to this rule. It is as subject to the vagaries of social, political and other contingent forces as any other subject.

One of the classic examples of how expectations shape outcomes is the “invisible gorilla” experiment, in which subjects are asked to count basketball passes between two players. During the passes, a person in a gorilla suit walks onscreen, looks at the camera, and pounds her chest before exiting the scene.[i] Only about half the people who watch the video see the gorilla. The demonstration gave rise to the term “inattentional blindness” – that is, people see what they expect to see, often at the cost of noticing more compelling information.[ii]

The study of science’s history and institutions is replete with examples of a given viewpoint resulting in a particular set of practices or interpretations. Both material and social factors play a role in shaping these viewpoints.

Materiality has a profound effect on science. Christoph Meinel points out that three-dimensional stick-and-ball models, which were ubiquitous in molecular research before the advent of sophisticated computer programs, were a translation of the chemist's vision as a “builder of a new world out of man-made materials.” Eventually, the models took on a greater sense of the “reality” of molecular structure for these researchers than the actual chemicals.[iii]

The predominance of physical molecular models had a major impact on the graphics programs that replaced them. X-ray crystallographers demanded the ability to manipulate the structures they were working with in real time, and computer developers took pains to build this sense of physical manipulation into their programs. Now, as then, crystallographers incorporate a strong sense of embodied ownership into the work they do on molecular structures. No one, they feel, can know their molecules the way they do. The tacit knowledge they gain from their projects is something to which other scientists, who eventually come to work with these same molecules, are blind.[iv]

Blindness finds its way into the scientific process through social structures in many forms. Any student working in a lab toward a Ph.D. soon discovers that, throughout her undergraduate years, she has been presented with experiments that reinforce the notion that science is straightforward work with a high success rate. These impressions are dashed when she begins doing independent work and finds out that the majority of day-to-day science fails.[v]

Science historian Robert E. Kohler argues that the cultural spaces of science laboratories themselves actively shape what goes on inside them, and can be broken down broadly into distinct early modern, modern, and postmodern styles that broadly reflect the elite social sensibilities of the times in which they are built and used.[vi]

Language and the social milieu very much inform the impressions people have about seemingly scientific phenomena. Definitions have practical implications. The term “child abuse,” for instance, was not invented until the early 1960s. It eventually won out over the term “battered child syndrome.” The latter term did not include actions commonly recognized as abuse today, such as sexual touching or neglect. The meaning of “child abuse” has therefore been able to expand to encompass many more types of activity than previously used terms, and has shifted significantly since its inception the moral, judicial, and medical reactions used to deal with it.[vii]

Material and social characteristics often shape the practice of science simultaneously. As in the transition from moveable molecular models to manipulable computer graphics programs, social judgments about how a procedure “should feel” can introduce path dependency into new technologies.

Early music synthesizer technology demonstrated this phenomenon particularly well. Two rival inventors, Robert Moog and Don Buchla, created machines to reproduce musical sound. Buchla did not standardize his synthesizers, seeing them as a means for an exploration of the avant-garde. Moog made his inventions easy-to-use, and even built them so they could play using the familiar piano keyboard. Moog's more recognizable device succeeded, whereas Buchla's faded.[viii] Moog's success had nothing to do with technical superiority; he simply paid more attention to what other people wanted and allowed those social forces to modify his instrument.

Even historical judgments about the practice of science change depending on which aspects one pays attention to. The “distortionist” camp of science historians, for instance, tends to portray the militarized science of the Cold War period as fundamentally perverting the scientific process. Yet this was not the case for seismology, as science policy expert Kai-Henrik Barth points out. While military programs invested heavily in the field, the research agenda for seismology remained largely unchanged before, during and after this influx. As Barth notes, the distortionist view assumes a normative position based on unknowable speculation about how science would have progressed without military patronage.[ix]

With the myriad opportunities for science to be blinded, should we therefore lament that we cannot be absolutely sure of anything we know? No. The foundation of science is provisional truth; its success rests on the constant reevaluation of seemingly resolved questions. This is where new vistas open, where discoveries challenge former dogmas. In those moments, the gorilla suddenly becomes visible.

---

[i]           Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us (New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2009), http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/, 8-23-13; http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html, 10-5-13;

[ii]

          Manohla Dargis, “What You See Is What You Get,” The New York Times (July 10, 2011), AR13, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/movies/why-difficult-movies-are-more-um-difficult.html?pagewanted=all, 10-5-13;

[iii]

         Anna Maerker, "Review: Why Do They Look Like That? Three-dimensional Models in Science," Social Studies of Science 37 (2007), 961-965, http://sss.sagepub.com/content/37/6/961.full.pdf+html, 10-23-13;

[iv]

         Natasha Myers, "Molecular Embodiments and the Body-work of Modeling in Protein Crystallography," Social Studies of Science 38 (2008), 163-199, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474573, 10-23-13;

[v]

          Sara Delamont and Paul Atkinson, "Doctoring Uncertainty: Mastering Craft Knowledge," Social Studies of Science 31 (2001): 87-107, http://www.jstor.org/stable/285819, 10-24-13;

[vi]

           Robert E. Kohler, “”Lab History: Reflections,” Isis 99 (2008), 761-768, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/595769, 10-5-13;

[vii]

        Ian Hacking, “The Making and Molding of Child Abuse,” Critical Inquiry 17 (1991), 253-288, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1343837.pdf, 10-18-13;

[viii]

       Trevor Pinch, "Technology and Institutions: Living in a Material World," Theory and Society 37 (2008), 461-483, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40345597. 10-18-13;

[ix]

         Kai-Henrik Barth, “The Politics of Seismology: Nuclear Testing, Arms Control, and the Transformation of a Discipline,” Social Studies of Science, 33, 5 (Oct. 2003), 743-781, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3183067, 10-11-13.           

Students deserve representation on New Haven Board of Education

Photo courtesy of Ruby Sinreich. Used under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

This article was written in collaboration with Margo Meteyer, Dave Puglisi, Yufan Xie, Nikki Sansone and Melissa Scott. It originally appeared in the New Haven Register.

High school students are constantly striving to have their voices heard. Many cities and towns in Connecticut have already helped by giving them a position on their local school boards. One of the few remaining areas to jump on the bandwagon, however, is the New Haven School District.

This is a year of change for New Haven; every 10 years the city’s charter is revised. The Citywide Youth Coalition is promoting a revision that would put two non-voting student representatives on the Board of Education. Students would be able to express their opinions on the decisions that affect them in the classroom. Having students on the board will provide a level of direct interaction that can’t be achieved without the passing of this revision on Nov. 5.

The coalition circulated a petition asking people to support the revision. Coalition members believe mandating student representatives will improve the quality of the board’s decisions, expand civic engagement of young people, and engage the entire student body as partners in education.

There’s reason to believe they’re right. Hamden Board of Education Chairman John Keegan said the students on his town’s board contribute a perspective other members can’t provide.

“The board has changed its approach for the better on certain issues thanks to the contribution of student members,” Keegan said.

Adult board members are not the ones sitting in the classroom every day. A partnership would enable the board to get a more accurate student view on issues in education.

Too often students’ voices are silenced by authority figures. Keegan said that in his town, having student representation “has opened up an opportunity for the young people of this town to gain insight plus a valuable experience...and to have made a real impact on the school district.” Hamden’s changes have given students more ability to steer the direction their education is going.

Students will benefit if New Haven follows in Hamden’s footsteps. Citywide Youth Coalition Executive Director Rachel Heerema explained that strong student representatives can work to make sure the voices of all students are heard. “They can be a conduit for the students from all schools to the board and the board to the students,” she said. “It has proved to be successful in other towns since the 60-70s.” Hamden is just one example of this success.

It would be better if even more students could sit on the board. Hamden has only one high school; New Haven has nine. Two students is a good start, but not enough to represent nine high schools. After all, how is a student from Wilbur Cross going to know what’s going on at Hill Regional?

Heerema has considered this problem. “All the research indicates that if you want to provide an adequate number for disadvantaged groups you need at least one third of the board to be students, but this was not politically attainable,” she said.

Other large school systems in Connecticut have handled this issue differently. Bridgeport’s charter allows for a student representative from each school to sit in on board meetings. If New Haven were to do it this way, there would be nine student representatives on the board.

Two students, not enough? Nine students, too many? Boston and Hartford have the perfect solution.

In each of these cities, students have their own district-wide councils composed of members elected by their individual schools. Two of these members serve as Board of Education representatives. The representatives then report back to their student councils, which make decisions and come up with ideas as a group. That way, students from all schools have some say in the process, and all the students work together.

In the future, this is the model New Haven should take. If New Haven’s charter revision does pass and students become part of the board, it may pave the way for a more elaborate, inclusive system like Boston’s or Hartford’s.

For now, New Haven needs to take action and get two students on the Board of Education. If passed, this revision will empower disadvantaged groups and keep school boards more accountable to the students – the people they’re supposed to be there to serve.