Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light

by Jane Brox

  [>] "We are in much worse": "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment," The New Yorker, August 15, 1977, p. 15.

  "The end came": Russell Baker, quoted in Bernard Weinraub, "Bewitched and Bewildered," in The Night the Lights Went Out, pp. 124–25.

  CHAPTER 18: IMAGINING THE NEXT GRID

  [>] "Regard the light": Dan Flavin, "'...in Daylight or Cool White': An Autobiographical Sketch," Artforum, December 1965, p. 24.

  251 "Permanence just defies": "Dan Flavin Interviewed by Tiffany Bell, July 13, 1982," in Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights, 1961–1996, ed. Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell (New Haven, CT: Dia Art Foundation / Yale University Press, 2004), p. 199.

  "Oil had become": Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 588.

  [>] "It's very sad": Quoted in "The Talk of the Town: Other Lights," The New Yorker, December 10, 1973, p. 40.

  [>] "This winter as the nation": Jonathan Schell, "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment," The New Yorker, December 10, 1973, p. 37.

  "Night's coming was": Baron Wormser, The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet's Memoir of Living Off the Grid (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2006), p. 9.

  "A few guests": Ibid., p. 11.

  [>] "Light did not materialize": Ibid., p. 10.

  "We simply must balance": Jimmy Carter, speech, April 18, 1977, "Primary Sources: The President's Proposed Energy Policy," American Experience, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html (accessed May 2, 2008).

  [>] "We're working to create": Jeffrey Skilling, quoted in Steven Johnson, "New New Power Business: Inside 'Energy Alley,'" Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/blackout/traders/inside.html (accessed December 2, 2008).

  [>] "You probably couldn't": Jeffrey Skilling, quoted in Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 281.

  "You know what": Ibid.

  "They should just": Quoted in "Enron Trader Conversations: 'Pow-erex and Bonneville...,'" Ex. SNO—224, pp. 5–6, Seattle Times, February 4, 2005, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001945474_webenronaudio02.html (accessed September 27, 2009).

  [>] "I used contemporary": Steven Watt, conversation with the author, October 2008.

  "the most significant": U.S. Department of Energy, The Smart Grid: An Introduction (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, n.d.), p. 5.

  261 "Imagine all the south-facing": Bill McKibben, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (New York: Times Books, 2007), p. 145.

  [>] "Energy is at the core": Richard E. Smalley, testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Hearing on Sustainable, Low Emission, Electricity Generation, April 27, 2004, http://www.energybulletin.net/note/249 (accessed October 18, 2008).

  [>] "From about 1990": Brian Bowers, Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 190.

  [>] "It took me almost": Gavin Hudson, "Korea Shines for Compact Fluorescent Use," EcoWorldly, January 9, 2008, http://ecoworldly.com/2008/01/09/brilliant-asia-cfls-are-turning-korea-on (accessed March 11, 2009).

  "You wake up": Quoted in "Making the Switch (or Not)," New York Times, January 10, 2008, p. D6.

  "No, the light quality": Ibid.

  [>] "Do not use": "What If I Accidentally Break a Fluorescent Lamp in My House?" Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management, http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflbreakcleanup.htm (accessed April 11, 2009).

  [>] "The candle does not": Gaston Bachelard, The Flame of a Candle, trans. Joni Caldwell (Dallas: Dallas Institute Publications, 1988), p. 37.

  [>] "The candle will burn out": Ibid.

  "the unique combination": "Reproduction Light Bulbs," Rejuvenation: Classic American Lighting & House Parts, http://www.rejuvenation.com/templates/collection.phtml?accessories=Reproduction%20Bulbs (accessed May 3, 2009).

  CHAPTER 19: AT THE MERCY OF LIGHT

  [>] "I wanted to investigate": Michel Siffre, Beyond Time: The Heroic Adventure of a Scientist's 63 Days Spent in Darkness and Solitude in a Cave 375 Feet Underground, ed. and trans. Herma Briffault (London: Chatto & Windus, 1965), p. 25.

  "This morning I was": Ibid., pp. 154–55.

  271 "I emerged": Michel Siffre, "Six Months Alone in a Cave," National Geographic, March 1975, p. 428.

  "Forty-second awakening": Siffre, Beyond Time, pp. 166, 181–82. "I underestimated": Ibid., pp. 222, 225.

  [>] "meaning that most": Warren E. Leary, "Feeling Tired and Run Down? It Could Be the Lights," New York Times, February 8, 1996, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed August 9, 2007).

  "Every time we turn on": Dr. Charles Czeisler, quoted ibid.

  [>] Divided sleep: See A. Roger Ekirch, "Sleep We Have Lost: Preindustrial Slumber in the British Isles," American Historical Review 106, no. 2 (April 2001), http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.2/ahooo343.html (accessed July 4, 2007).

  [>] "There is one stirring": Robert Louis Stevenson, "A Night Among the Pines," in "Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes" and "The Amateur Emigrant" (London: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 56–57.

  "slept only about an hour": Natalie Angier, "Modern Life Suppresses an Ancient Body Rhythm," New York Times, March 14, 1995, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed August 9, 2007).

  [>] "We think Thomas Edison": Czeisler, quoted in Leary, "Feeling Tired and Run Down?"

  "Everything which decreases": "Edison's Prophesy: A Duplex, Sleepless, Dinnerless World," Literary Digest, November 14, 1914, p. 966.

  [>] "Offshore hydrocarbon platforms": William A. Montevecchi, "Influences of Artificial Light on Marine Birds," in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, ed. Catherine Rich and Travis Longcore (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006), p. 100.

  "Many nocturnal species": Paul Beier, "Effects of Artificial Night Lighting on Terrestrial Mammals," in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, pp. 32–33.

  [>] "exploring new habitat": Ibid., p. 34.

  [>] "on misty and foggy": Sidney A. Gauthreaux Jr. and Carroll G. Belser, "Effects of Artificial Night Lighting on Migrating Birds," in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, p. 77.

  "The habit of feeding": Jens Rydell, "Bats and Their Insect Prey at Streetlights," in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, p. 43.

  [>] "humans are changing": Bryant W. Buchanan, "Observed and Potential Effects of Artificial Lighting on Anuran Amphibians," in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, p. 215. "as they have fallen": David Ehrenfeld, "Night, Tortuguero," in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, p. 138.

  281 "A light break": Winslow R. Briggs, "Physiology of Plant Responses to Artificial Lighting," in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, p. 401.

  "the thousands of little": Michael Pollak, "'Towers of Light' Awe," New York Times, October 10, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed October 13, 2008).

  "Some people thought": Ibid.

  CHAPTER 20: MORE IS LESS

  [>] "At the second match": Robert Louis Stevenson, "Upper Gévaudan," in "Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes" and "The Amateur Emigrant" (London: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 30.

  "One night I went": Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, letter 499, in The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, vol. 2 (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1959), p. 589.

  [>] "has overpopulated": Charles Whitney, "The Skies of Vincent van Gogh," Art History 9, no. 3 (September 1986): 353.

  "I should be desperate": Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, letter 418, in The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, vol. 2, p. 401.

  [>] "brilliant with its own": Ovid, Metamorphoses, quoted in Bart J. Bok and Priscilla F. Bok, The Milky Way (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 1.

  "emergency organizations": Terence Dickinson, N
ightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe (Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books, 1998), p. 47.

  [>] "About one-tenth": P. Cinzano, F. Falchi, and C. D. Elvidge, The First World Atlas of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness, abstract, p. 1, http://www.inquinamentoluminoso.it/cinzano/download/0108052.pdf (accessed June 8, 2009).

  "Surely it is": Galileo Galilei, The Starry Messenger, p. 1, http://www.bard.edu/admission/forms/pdfs/galileo.pdf (accessed June 8, 2009).

  "Here we have": Ibid., p. 14.

  "is not robed": Ibid., p. 1.

  286 "With the aid": Ibid., p. 10.

  "Many astronomers thought": Ronald Florence, The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), p. 106.

  [>] "The 200-inch": Edwin Hubble, quoted ibid., p. 395.

  "Astronomy is an incremental": Florence, The Perfect Machine, p. 404.

  "It's like I'm looking": Quoted in Mari N. Jensen, "Light Pollution in Tucson," Tucson Citizen, August 21, 2001, http://www-kpno.kpno.noao.edu/pics/lighting/tucsoncitizen_8_21_01light.html (accessed October 14, 2008).

  [>] "When you take": Dave Kornreich, "How Does Light Pollution Affect Astronomers?" Curious About Astronomy?—Ask an Astronomer, April 1999, p. 1, http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=194 (accessed September 18, 2007).

  [>] "Light traversing a path": Bob Mizon, Light Pollution: Responses and Remedies (London: Springer-Verlag, 2002), p. 34.

  "the city lights": Kornreich, "How Does Light Pollution Affect Astronomers?" p. 2.

  [>] "is equivalent to": Richard Preston, First Light: The Search for the Edge of the Universe (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987), p. 24.

  [>] "Then Humankind was born": Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. A. S. Kline, 1.68–88, http://etext.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/trans/Metamorph.htm (accessed June 29, 2009).

  CHAPTER 21: THE ONCE AND FUTURE LIGHT

  [>] "The spiritual instant": Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art, trans. Charles Beecher Hogan and George Kubler (New York: Zone Books, 1992), p. 152.

  [>] "The Home Office": Bob Mizon, Light Pollution: Responses and Remedies (London: Springer-Verlag, 2002), p. 61.

  "a car storage area": Ibid.

  How complex the relation: For information on the study of Chicago's alleyways, see The Chicago Alley Lighting Project: Final Evaluation Report, April 2000, http://www.icjia.state.il.us/public/pdf/ResearchReports (accessed June 8, 2009).

  295 "Yes, my tent became": Michel Siffre, Beyond Time: The Heroic Adventure of a Scientist's 63 Days Spent in Darkness and Solitude in a Cave 375 Feet Underground, ed. and trans. Herma Briffault (London: Chatto & Windus, 1965), pp. 99–100.

  [>] "A growing number": "Sustainability, Urban Planning, and What They Mean to Dark Skies," Newsletter of the International Dark-Sky Association, http://www.darksky.org/news/newsletters/60-69/nl66_fea.html (accessed May 23, 2007).

  [>] "a new city of light": Hollister Noble, "New York's Crown of Light," New York Times, February 8, 1925, p. SM2.

  [>] "The tall tower": Ken Belson, "Efficiency's Mark: City Glitters a Little Less," New York Times, November 2, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed March 11, 2009).

  [>] "Unfortunately most of today's": John E. Bortle, "Introducing the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale," Sky & Telescope, February 2001, p. 126.

  [>] "There's a good part": Quoted in Dave Caldwell, "Dark Sky, Bright Lights," New York Times, September 14, 2007, p. F10.

  [>] "When my mother": Alhassan Sillah, "Fuel for Thought in Guinea," BBC News, http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/h (accessed March 14, 2009).

  "I hardly ever": Ibid.

  "I used to study": Rukmini Callimachi, "Kids in Guinea Study Under Airport Lamps," Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19 (accessed March 14, 2009).

  [>] "Working in the so-called": Sheila Kennedy, quoted in "Light unto the Developing World," Miller-McCune Magazine, http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/light-unto-the-developing-world (accessed December 13, 2008).

  "Instead of a centralized": Kennedy, quoted in "Energizing the Household Curtain," JumpIntoTomorrow.com, http://www.jumpintotomorrow.com/template/index/php?tech=82 (accessed December 14, 2008).

  EPILOGUE

  [>] For further information on ways to reduce light pollution, see International Dark-Sky Association, http://www.darksky.org, and Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), http://www.flap.org.

  Index