Churches And Showrooms Should Switch Off Their Lights Late At Night, Maltese Professor Urges
Lights on church facades and showrooms, as well as billboards and ornamental monuments, should be switched off late at night, a leading astrophysics professor has proposed.
“Churches often use flood-lighting, which is excessive, and leave the lights on through the night,” Prof Joseph Caruana told TVM.
“No one usually goes out to appreciate the architecture at 1am or 2am. The same applies for showrooms, billboards and ornamental lights at roundabouts – should they be left on all night? No one goes window shopping at 3am and yet showrooms leave their lights on.”
Caruana has long been studying the effects of light pollution, and in 2020 he published a study that included the first ever map of night-sky brightness for the Maltese Archipelago.
A map of night-sky brightness in Malta published in a recent study led by Prof. Joseph Caruana
The study found that the vast majority of Malta is heavily light polluted, that the Milky Way is only visible on 12.8% of the land, and that this brightness has increased over time.
“Light pollution is increasingly becoming a major focus of studies worldwide,” the study said.
“Beside signifying energy wastage and the erosion of the cultural appreciation of the night sky, it carries several other repercussions.”
“A number of studies have linked light pollution to problems of psychological well-being as well as various types of cancer, specifically via the suppression of the hormone melatonin. It is also becoming ever clearer that light pollution has a serious impact upon ecology, with various species being affected.”
Then Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia launching light pollution guidelines in 2020
In 2020, the Environment Ministry published guidelines on light pollution, which state that illuminated billboards and signs along the roads, save for those that give traffic-related information, must be switched off at 11pm.
However, Caruana has urged the authorities to go a step further and legislate against light pollution.
The government recently started switching off decorative lighting on pubic buildings and monuments as a means of electricity conservation in the wake of the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine.
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