Abstract
This paper examines the ethical dimensions of a critical urban infrastructure: streetlights. The development and proliferation of nighttime lighting has been fundamental and formative for urban nights, and streetlights constitute the primary source of illumination. Recent developments to lighting technologies, namely LEDs and ‘smart’ systems, are spurring a new generation of streetlights, with retrofits being rapidly undertaken around the world. While they may offer substantial energy savings, their long-term environmental effects are still under debate. Concurrent to these technological developments, the adverse costs and impacts of nighttime lighting—known as light pollution—have emerged as an ecological, economic, and ethical issue. This confluence of technological innovations and moral evaluations creates new challenges, but also an opportunity to envision and enact new strategies. For this, designing for darkness is presented as a value-sensitive framework for responsible lighting strategies that strives to incorporate and foster both substantive environmental values and meaningful nighttime experiences into the next generation of streetlights. First steps are taken to explore how this framework can be operationalized, and three design concepts are put forward as a means to create darker urban nights.
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Notes
- 1.
Here, “streetlights” should be understood as synonymous with “outdoor lighting” or “outdoor stationary lighting.” It refers to lighting used for roadways, parking lots, pedestrian walkways, etc., and typically lighting infrastructure that is publically owned and operated. Because of the level of analysis in this paper, there is no need to make a more fine-grained distinction between the functions and locations of streetlights.
- 2.
The case of nighttime lighting arguably stretches the theory of technological mediation, focused primarily on individual artefacts. The moral implications of lighting can be traced back centuries and across multiple technological leaps (i.e., oil lamps, gaslight, and electric light). Furthermore, these moralizing effects are a product of the totality of lighting infrastructure, not individual lights. The paradigmatic examples of mediation show the moralizing effects of specific devices on individual experiences, such as the obstetric ultrasound. Such devices, argues Verbeek (2011, p. 39), expand the “moral community” to include nonhuman artefacts. However, here I am less interested in any individual artefact (or the agency thereof), but rather the infrastructure in which they operate. What can be said about the larger system of nighttime lighting in which individual devices (i.e., a single streetlight on a lamppost) operate? The moralizing effects of nighttime lighting have a far greater temporal and spatial resonance than any single lamppost, or any one technological development. Thus, it would be untenable to analyze LED streetlights as a completely novel technology, or assert that they should be assessed as isolated artefacts. Nevertheless, the relationship between technologies and morality presented in mediation theory provides useful insights into the evolving morality of darkness, and the central role of lighting technologies.
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Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology at the University of Maryland in May 2018, and the Philosophy of the City Colloquium at the University of Twente in June 2018. In addition to thanking the audiences for their feedback, I wish to thank Pieter Vermaas and the anonymous reviewer for their written comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Appendix: Lighting Terminology Quick Reference Guide
Appendix: Lighting Terminology Quick Reference Guide
CCT
Correlated colour temperature; a description of the colour of (white) light sources as perceived by humans, measured in Kelvins (K).
Warm = white light with a yellow or reddish tint (≤ 3000 K)
Neutral = warm white (3–4000 K)
Cool = white light with a blush tint (4500–6500 K)
Daylight = ~6500 K
HPS
High-pressure sodium, a commonly used lamp type for outdoor lighting.
Light Pollution
Any adverse impact caused by artificial light at night. It is typically sub-categorized into skyglow (light sent upward and scattered in the atmosphere, causing artificial ambient brightness and the orange-ish haze above cities), glare (excessive brightness that reduces visibility, such as bright floodlights at eye level), light trespass (unwanted or unintended light, such as a streetlight shining into your bedroom), and clutter (over-illuminated clusters of light sources, often found in downtown areas). The effects of light pollution are typically also sub-categorized into energy usage, ecological impacts, (human) health, safety, and it’s obscuring the visibility of the night sky.
Lumens
Measure of the quantity of light (luminous flux) emitted by a source.
(Luminous) Efficacy
Measurement of how effective a light source is at converting energy into lumens of visible light; measured in lumens-per-watt (lm/W).
Lux (lx)
The unit of light (illuminance) falling onto a surface; 1 lux = 1 lumen per square meter.
LED
Light-emitting diodes, a semiconductor light source used in solid-state lighting (SSL) devices.
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Stone, T. (2021). Towards a Darker Future? Designing Environmental Values into the Next Generation of Streetlights. In: Nagenborg, M., Stone, T., González Woge, M., Vermaas, P.E. (eds) Technology and the City. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52313-8_11
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