Beginning Friday morning at 10 am, we had an outage here. These fallas are not common but also not unusual here. They usually occur due to weather or brief work by CFE. This one was caused by neither and lasted 36 hours, with a brief respite for a few hours the first evening, during which we all raced to charge phones, having had no warning at all. (When we know storms are coming, we make sure everything is charged, food is inhand, etc.)
Saturday morning, at about 1 am, I took this photo to post to our neighborhood message group, where we were comparing notes, as some neighbors also lacked water.
To tell the truth, it was peaceful. The evening breezes were refreshing and the only sounds were insects and the iguanitos (and neighborhood dogs). I felt like I was in the campo and I was tempted to sleep out-of-doors.
This experience made me acutely aware of just how much light pollution there is where I live to see the contrast shown by the complete absence of it. I am going to try to take a similar photo at a similar hour one night soon (last night was extremely foggy and also I fell into a deep sleep).
In looking around the Forum for topics re: light pollution I found this one (and Moderators please feel free to roll this into that only I think it might be off topic?) and today I plan to watch that video (if the power stays on, there was an earthquake yesterday).
Has anyone else had a total neighborhood or city outage and realized just how much light pollution their area has? If so how has it affected you? I feel profoundly moved.
Oh yes indeed. This is far more than just an inconvenience, it’s a real and serious problem (see here for example). I’m very lucky as I live in rural Italy where the light pollution is at a minimum, which also means that I note it far more when I find myself in an urban or semi-urban setting. I had first hand experience of the problems this summer when working as a volunteer monitoring turtle nests on the coast. It was a real battle trying to reduce light pollution along the seafront to avoid disorientation of the hatching turtles.
We have had a long break from loadshedding.
Last Saturday we were hit again. I look out the front door and have a moment of - have I gone blind, pitch dark out there!
But wonderful to see the stars. Our first house was pre streetlights. Which was well timed for Halley’s Comet!
Yup, I lived for a year in a place with no electricity. The next four years had 0-12 hours per day, depending on the condition of the generator and the supply of fuel.
During the pandemic, when our movement was restricted so traffic dropped considerably and nearly all the businesses in Centro were closed by mandate, I think light pollution there was dropped by at least 50%. Streetlights were still on but they are dim and were not repaired if out, there being a lawsuit pending with those.
Then when the mandate was lifted and the lights came back on at all businesses, and traffic surged anew, I would only see one rarely. Never again like when it was darkened.
I cannot say for sure if it is all due to the light. It could also be the diminished noise pollution. Or pollution pollution.
I moved from an always bright city trailer park to a rural area. Now the across the road “neighbor” is 1/2 mile away and the yard security light seems intrusive, it’s the only light unless something trips my front step light. It is dark dark. I use no curtains.
Then comes winter. The light reflection with snow on the ground is blinding during the day and disorientingly bright at night.
The parks north of me do hold Dark Nights.
The stars seem brighter and closer here.
The moon can easily light the trails on clear nights all year long. Less so when the trees are in full leaf.
To be clear, I am no longer in Centro. I now live in a different fraccionamiento.
The lit up area in the photo is an IMSS* which as a health provider obviously has backup generators, but since electricity here is nationalized, non-governmental entities and individuals must have a permit for a generator. (You can have solar panels but they also must be connected to CFE’s grid so even then you are not spared during an outage; your energy costs are just defrayed.)
Because our costs are percentage to income higher than many parts of the world (and many places in MX), many people here use more energy efficient lights, which is good, but does anyone know if there are lights that are more nature-friendly? I would be willing to use a (little) more energy if I thought the type (or color) of lighting I was using was less problematic for the creatures around me.
We do have blackout roll blinds so that when we have light(s) on in the interior, we can mitigate our exterior light pollution fairly well.
We mostly used Aladdin kerosene lamps. They attracted a lot of insects. To me, the biggest drawback is that they produce a lot of heat. They are hellish in a hot climate, but better than 12 straight hours of total darkness.
We have different types of LEDs throughout. I see people suggest lights for attracting moths sometimes and I think I want the opposite, something that is the least disruptive.
(We use candles and small LEDs with batteries during fallas, and try to go to sleep early.)
Yes! I secretly loved load-shedding, if you lived far enough from neighbours that you couldn’t hear their generator, it was very very peaceful and I enjoyed it a lot. I also slept much better, you realise how many security lights people have when they are suddenly without power.
Perhaps someone from Germany can chip in, as they had a law change for public lighting to reduce their demands for resources from Russia.
I’m not sure what this photo shows. Is that a firefly in the top right? What is a “falla”? Who is “CFE”? I’m in a remote part of North America so I’m not familiar with your terminology or your location.
Sorry. I was fairly certain the way I worded it made it somewhat clear that falla is just the local word for outage here. In the upper right is the moon. CFE stands for ComisiĂłn Federal de Electricidad and it is the federal electricity commission.
I am also in North America. I am on the Yucatán Peninsula of MX, so almost at the other end from you! :)
Thank you so much for the clarification. My husband and I visited the Yucatan back in the late 90s – such a beautiful and vibrant place! And we were lucky enough to see it when it was still a tourism backwater (we were the only Norteamericanos in Celestun)!
Thank you for your kind words. It is a special place.
You might still be the only one some days! CelestĂşn is part of a protected reserve because of the many species that live there (not just flamingos) as well as the unique terrain, and has been for decades. Here is an official MX government site with information in English. There is a lovely video in the upper right hand corner.
(I have a friend who helped transport baby flamingos during the pandemic, but I am unsure if that was there or Laguna Rosa en Las Coloradas. Regardless I am wildly jealous.)
Is where you live very dark or is there a lot of light pollution?
I was in NYC the night of the 1977 black out. Actually, we had just crossed from NYC to NJ when the radio stations went off air. We stopped at a good view point and looked across the river. Amazing! NYC was gone!
When we went out to view the flamingos (just a local guy and his panga) the tide was out so we couldn’t get close at all. But he took us into the mangroves to a little spring where he pointed out a green kingfisher, which was VERY special.
I’m about 6 miles from the city of Fairbanks. It’s still very dark at night but that’s changing. I do a lot of aurora photography. If my camera’s pointing south, in the direction of Fairbanks, that portion of the images will have a soft but definite glow from light pollution, sadly. We are now gaining 7-8 minutes of daylight every day, leading up to 24 hours of light on Summer Solstice. One thing we can never experience here is a warm, dark night although there are some pretty tough little moths and flies that can fly when it’s just a few degrees above freezing.
