[Draft] Light Pollution Act

[Teretstein]

No. I appreciate what you're trying to do here but just no. This is not the appropriate body to handle this issue. Deal with the light pollution in your own nation and then talk to your neighbors and see if they'll reduce theirs' for people on the border.

[The COT Corporation]

Concerning the negative effects of Light Pollution on the health and productivity of citizens.

Recognizing the; sleep deprivation caused by sky glow, disruption of circadian rhyme, and harm sky glow causes to the internal clock of flora and fauna through; the loss of seasonal habits, breeding cycles, hunting periods, loss of navigational skills, disorientation, and collisions with buildings (specifically by birds). Light pollution is also recognized to; increase the risk for serious health issues such as cancer and diabetes, disrupt brain wave patterns, hormone production, cell regulation etc., impair the development of circadian rhyme in premature babies, lower natural melatonin levels. Lastly, recognizing that Light pollution makes astronomical research much more difficult and lowers the attractiveness of affected areas.

Placing forth, believing in and in response to a Government's duty to protect the health and security of all of their law-abiding citizens, a law that hereby:

1. Requires all outdoor lighting fixtures, other than freestanding spotlights, to have a hood that keeps the light from illuminating the sky
   
2. Prohibits the use of outdoor spotlights used to illuminate the front of a building, tree, et cetera, where the light is directed towards the sky.
   
   1. Bulbs smaller than 300-400 lm* are exempt.
      
   2. No more than 2-5* spotlights are allowed per 0.5 acres (0.2 ha)
3. Requires blinds, or some other shielding device, over windows that are connected to both the outside of a building and a room wherein:
   
   1. 30-40 lm/ft² (100-130 lm/m²) are used in commercial or industrial settings*⁺.
      
   2. 10-20 lm/ft² (30-60 lm/m²) are used in residential settings*⁺.
4. Requires that all outdoor lighting fixtures be aimed away from houses so as to not illuminate the interior of the house.
   
5. Requires all fixtures that do not comply with the previous provisions be turned off at a time that is within 2 hours of dusk* and are allowed to be turned back on at a time that is within 2 hours of dawn*.

Appendix
*the specific number is set by the local government from within this range
⁺This is based on the general recommended values for lighting. The commercial value is based on the high activity non-focused (not task-specific) value. The residential value is based on the low activity value.

"No no no no no no no no no and one last no. Far too specific, literally breaks every rule in the GA rulebook, makes no sense, and can be manipulated far too easily. Hell, what is this:

[*] Requires all fixtures that do not comply with the previous provisions be turned off at a time that is within 2 hours of dusk* and are allowed to be turned back on at a time that is within 2 hours of dawn*.

Dawn could be any time, and given that the GA applies not only to earth, this could potentially do nothing or be a blanket ban on all lighting fixtures. Opposed, strongly."

[The COT Corporation]

OOC: How, exactly, is this an international issue?

OOC: Light pollution is a common occurrence everywhere and affects all industrialized nations that don't have lighting regulations

OOC: Except it doesn't. "All industrialised nations" is a generalisation, and if people are actually worried about it they will have probably dealt with it themselves. Not an international issue.

[Imperium Anglorum]

This isn't an international issue.