Light Pollution In Hong Kong Environmental Sciences Essay

come down taint In Hong Kong Environmental Sciences EssayHong Kong is well-known as the gather of the Orient beca practice of its bright opens of chuckline at night. It is generally acknowledged by task parties that the brighter the ignites in the city, the to a greater extent business opportunities they will grab. (Lau, 2012) Nevertheless, behind this glamorous metropolitan city, the everywhereuse of outdoor touchwood facilities sacrifices Hong Kongs valuable infixed resources and citizens good living environs. Light defilement caused by it has been increasing rapidly and is an environmental conundrum, which in addition has exchangeable wayward impacts as former(a) taint such(prenominal) as job, noise, plagued Hong Kong in this decade. Thus, the governance has taken a pragmatic approach to tackle the conundrum with an issue of Guidelines on Industry Best Practices for External visible radiation Installations at the beginning of this year. (Environment Bureau, et al., 2012) However, it is deemed to be far less than enough to ease serious light contamination in this flourishing city.The purpose of this paper is twofold (1) to discuss how light taint affect the environment and residents and (2) to analyze relation between light defilement problem and different aspect which include ordinary awargonness, business and law.Background of Light PollutionLight defilement, also known as photo befoulment or lambent pollution, is the alteration of lifelike light levels in the outdoor environment owing to artificial light sources. The make up in night sky brightness due to light pollution diminishes the view of stars and planets. (Cinzano, et al., 2000) Generally, outdoor lights ab initio argon designed for illuminating a specific area on the ground or wall, solely in reality, more or less light spill out to a much larger area. (Pun So, 2009) Some lighting facilities purge direct upward and this cause a much more serious light pollution.In Hon g Kong, according to the data collected by the Department of Physics at The University of Hong Kong since 2003, the urban night sky is on average 100 times brighter than the darkest rural sites. (Pun So, 2009) This indicates that high population and lighting densities bottom vex light pollution problem. Excessive use of strong spotlights for illuminating advertising billboards and huge nor-east signs on commercial building are the main factors of light pollution problem in Hong Kong. Other pollution sources include street lamps with poor design of lampshades and pointing direction and other artificial lighting with little admiration to fixture shielding.To narrow the scope of light pollution source discussed in this paper, it will principally contract at lighting facilities for commercial use.Adverse Impact of Light PollutionLight Pollution has adverse effect on natural environment and human cosmoss, such as energy wastage disruption to ecosystem and health problems. (Cheun g, 2010)Excessive use of lights leads to a wastage of energy. Some northeast signs and lights for illuminating advertising billboards switch on even at midnight when there are only a few tribe on the street who may acquire a chance to look at the advertisements. This energy wastage may aggravate air pollution as well as international warning problem because Hong Kongs electricity is generated using coal and natural gas. (HK Electric, 2011) The generation of electricity emits carbon dioxide and other air pollutants. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Its plus in atmosphere causes an increase of the temperature world-wide. (Narisada Schreuder, 2004) The excessive use of lighting facilities for commercial use is not essential in our lives and this not only leads to light pollution just also other pollution problem such as global warming and exhaustion of non-renewable resources.As for ecosystem, being an important stop-over point of the East Asia-Australasian flyway for migr atory birds, Hong Kongs excessive outdoor lightings may affect migratory as well as non-migratory birds. It may disorient physiological cycles and the movement of animals. (Travis Catherine, 2004) The breeding patterns of nocturnal animals and insect populations and management of metabolism, development and life programmes of plants are also affected adversely. (Deda, et al., 2007)Human beings may also be the victim of light pollution mainly because their living environment is brighter due to the strong light pollution source such as neon sign. A brighter night area will make them difficult to have a satisfactory dormancy at night. Sleep disruption may cause irritability, tiredness and nervousness in the following day. (Wu Wong, 2012) Their prerogative to disease may also decrease and in turn lead to a longer-term health risks. (The motility for Dark Skies, 2009) Disruption of sleeping is the more or less concerned adverse impact by the common since it is the most apparent eff ect observed in their lives.Light Pollution and Public AwarenessLight pollution problem is complicated by overt ignorance. In the past, the general public was oblivious to the damage being done and did not value what was destroyed by light pollution. (Berry, 1976) Fortunately, the increasing evidence of adverse effect mentioned above make mountain start to pay more attention on this issue, but compose it is not the most concerned pollution problem in Hong Kong. When topical anesthetic residents were asked most which environmental issues they are most concerned in 2008, more than a half answered drinking water pollution, air pollution, and global warning. (DeGolyer, 2008) Light pollution even did not appear in the choice of answers. This may be because light pollution problem only start to get high advancement in this decade spell the public has been educated about other pollution problem for a long time. Public sense with intrinsic knowledge has played an important role in solving environmental problem. (Bickerstaff Walker, 2001) Take air pollution as an example, the community at large is aware of this problem. The Government, environmental groups, individuals who are environmentalism and other stakeholders have taken a lot of actions to tackle the problem such as implementing mitigation measures, raising public sensation on this issue and trying their little effort to take realistic action. Therefore, public awareness contributes to the ease of pollution even though the pollution level has not met an acceptable level yet.It may be pleasing to note that the public awareness of light pollution problem seems to be arising but this may be because more light pollution sources which are mainly from commercial parties exists in urban area. There is a growing number of people lodging complaints about light pollution to the authorities. fit to the statistic provided by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr. Edward Yau at the legislative Council in 2010, c omplaints about light pollution had increased from 103 in 2007 to 389 in 2009. (Hong Kongs Information Services Department, 2010) This indicates that more light pollution exists in Hong Kong and thus more people are concerned about this pollution problem because it directly affects their living quality to roughly extent. This increase of public awareness has helped to ease light pollution in Hong Kong. There are more people to urge the Government to have more pragmatic measures in addressing the problem. When complaints are received from abutting residents, some commercial building owners such as The One shopping complex in Tsim Sha Tsui are also willing to discredit the brightness of their lighting facilities. (Cheung, 2011) However, the level of public awareness on light pollution in Hong Kong is far less than enough for a success in solving this problem. Education and publicity measures could be used to increase it so that it can motivate the community to tackle light pollution problem with more effort.Light Pollution and BusinessHong Kongs economy relies on commercial and touristry exertion heavily. These two industries correlate closely with the increasingly serious light pollution problem.Commercial sector relies on lighting to attract business. So, use of lighting facilities is understandable. However, overuse and over-brightness of their lighting facilities are the main factor of light pollution and should be reduced. Business parties generally pay little attention on light pollution caused by them, even though they emphasize corporate social responsibility. Some of them think that switching send off the lights required by the public will eliminate Hong Kongs economic activities at night and deprive local anaesthetic residents of a late dinner break. If residents nearby are not satisfied with their bright lights, they can look at to live in a dimmer district. (Cheung, 2011) So, most of them do not take any practical action to alleviate light pol lution problem caused by them.Another problem is due to Hong Kongs noted skyline at night which entices tourists. A majority of tourists visit Hong Kong mainly due to its reputation on neon lights. They look forward to enjoy a spectacular night view in capital of Seychelles Harbour with many neon signs on skyscrapers on two sides of the harbour. Since Hong Kongs economy is reliant on tourism, the Government introduced A Symphony of Lights which combines interactive lights of building around Victoria Harbour in 2004 to boost tourism industry. (Tourism Commission, 2005) So, business parties may think that light pollution is only a small side-effect of flourishing tourism industry and fast economic development.These lights and huge neon signs are part of Hong Kongs culture and are practically used by commercial sector and even the Government as a in like mannerl for attracting tourists and local customers to buy their product and thus stimulate economy. However, in an opinion survey conducted in 2010, people who visited areas of intensifier external lighting, including tourists, customers, have a higher proportion considering external lighting signs bright or too bright than shop owners, building owners and property management. (Policy 21 Limited, 2010) So, this indicates that business parties do not need to use such high level of brightness of lighting signs so to attract local and foreign customers. They can adjust the brightness to an acceptable level so that people nearby will not be adversely affected by them while they could still use lighting signs to attract customers.Light Pollution and the LawIn Hong Kong, there is no specific ordinance with regard to light pollution. (Legislative Council, 2011) Even the public and green groups have urged the Government to introduce law to combat light pollution, which is similar to what they did to forge other pollution problems, the Government only issued a guideline, namely Guidelines on Industry Best Practices for External sacking Installations, in January 2012. Different from an ordinance, the voluntary guideline only suggests the Government departments and hush-hush sector to have a better external lighting installations. (Environment Bureau, et al., 2012) It is deemed to be toothless to alleviate this increasingly severe environmental problem as no one could enforce business partes. (Cheung, 2011)One of the agruments for no legislation in Hong Kong is that some Asian countries which have similar economies to Hong Kong do not adopt any mandatory regulation over external lighting. (Legislative Council, 2011) However, the urban supplying of Hong Kong and these countries should also be considered. Hong Kong has a relatively poor urban planning in the past because of rare land available for development, so residential and commercial buildings were always buit conterminous to each other in urban area, such as Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui while for other Asian countries, their business area has a clear speration from residential area. Thus, they do not need to use legislation on external lighting of commercial building to solve light pollution problem. In fact, there are many countries, such as Britiain and the United States with mandatory action in regulation of external light. (Legislative Council, 2011) Hong Kong Legislative Council should consider the citys special culture and take partial approach in mandatory regulation, such as only restricting the applicability of regularoty framework to new lighting installation. In addition, the light from huge neon signs and flashing lights on the top of commercial buildings can even bleed into residential flats nearby with trope curtains on windows. This problem cannot be solved only by the residents. Even though they compain to relative authorities, the officials cannot reduce the brightness of the pollution source due to lack of ordinance. So, one of the reugulation may empower the officials to enforce commercial buildi ngs to mitigate their light pollution source to an acceptable level after a complaint about their lighting facilities is lodged. As a result, the citys culture City of the Night will not be neutered a lot after the introduction of law regarding external lighting. A mandatory approach to solve light pollution problem should be much better than a voluntary guideline.ConclusionLight pollution has been a widely-discussed topic in Hong Kong in this decade. There has been a call to the Government for workings in full swing to map out strategies to solve this environmental problem effectively. A serial of short to long term measures, including education, publicity and law enforcement should be implemented. Apart from the Government, all sectors families, communities and public and private organizations at every level must also recognize their roles in alleviating light pollution problem in Hong Kong. In fact, the environment is a public resource that requires collaborative efforts of the whole community to conserve. It would be pleasing to note that everyone is enthusiastic in solving this problem and in the near future, we will effect for ourselves and our further generation a better and light-pollution-free city in which to live and work.