2009 is the international year of astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observations of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter published in Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger).
Unlike numerous other scientific initiatives to educate the populace, I think this global effort may actually have some impact. Not only are there educational materials, but practical tips, movie clips, and a myriad of projects to draw in amateurs and experts alike. The initiative is also harnessing the power of the Internet, much like Obama did in his campaign, to spread the word.
The IYA was initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to "help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery." I stumbled upon it thanks to a Slashdot post.
The IAU/UNESCO site seems to be the catchall for IYA2009 - news and global events, mostly, and a list of global Web sites, nodes, projects and groups. What drew me in more, however, were the multiple sites for users to join in the fun.
James Cann has a Flickr site with gorgeous photos of light pollution. I realize that's a bit 
counter-productive, as the beautiful photos don't necessarily encourage us to turn our lights off. But anyway, Cann created the "red sky at night" site as part of the Illuminati Project "for the pictorial preservation and documentation of non-natural illumination of urban and suburban environs." The name of the site comes from the startling photo of the red night sky in the desert.
People are invited to post their own photos and then turn off the lights. As of this blog posting, 65 photos from all over the world are on the Illuminati site. Check it out.
One of the IYA2009 cornerstone projects is Dark Skies Awareness, whose goal is "to raise the level of public knowledge about adverse impacts of excess artificial lighting on local environments and help more people appreciate the ongoing loss of a dark night sky for much of the world’s population." This site emphasizes local solutions to the global problem.
I like Dark Skies Awareness for its use of social networking and media - there's a Facebook link, MySpace page, podcasts, a photo contest, streaming video and more. It also has easily accessible frequently asked questions - for example, what the heck is light 
pollution? One of my favorite parts of the site is the citizen science project that invites anyone around the world to measure sky brightness and contribute to an online worldwide map of light pollution. The brief front page outlines the project and includes a ticker of observations reported, and then the instruction page goes through how you can help. Better yet, the instruction page includes constellation maps, printable star charts so you can take them outside and observe the stars, and an interactive star chart. Awesome.
Another great resource is the International Dark-Sky Association site. This is a great place to find local news (print, radio and TV) coverage, policy coverage (including letters from Congress), all sorts of goodies for the kids (educational materials for teachers and students), FAQs about light pollution, and my personal favorite, practical homeowner guides to outdoor lighting - they have manufacturers and products that are "fixture seal of approval" certified, meaning the products are dark-sky friendly. Kind of like Energy Star for energy-efficient products. Check out best choice lighting products.
You can also brush up on light pollution on the National Geographic site, which has a collection of posts; references for further reading are included.
Comments
So astronomy in AZ will still be around for a while but the future is bleak. Activists need to remember that most scientists, and certainly astronomers, are huge allies, not the enemy.
Hank Campbell | 01/08/09 | 18:06 PM
It's like when NYC and LA banned smoking in bars. Last time I checked, those cities still functioned and people still patronized bars. If they can survive after the smoking ban took effect, other cities can too. And if places like those mentioned above can manage light pollution, others can too.
Becky Jungbauer | 01/08/09 | 21:39 PM
I agree about billboards. At some point a quaint idea becomes blight. No one complained about Burma-Shave signs, for example, and not just because of the terrific lingo:
'If hugging while driving ...
Is your sport ...
Trade in your car ....
For a davenport ...
Burma Shave'
That's friggin' brilliant and not just because it might be the only thing you saw for 75 miles. But, like Austin Powers sequels, people in charge thought the wrong things were clever so some marketing genius believed it was the signs.
Hank Campbell | 01/08/09 | 21:55 PM
Becky Jungbauer | 01/08/09 | 22:15 PM
Gerhard Adam | 01/09/09 | 00:12 AM
They got to blame the government for telling bars cigarette smoke was a safety violation, thus no way to implement your local solution of tossing non-smokers into the rain.
In a democracy you create a ventilation standard and bars can either agree to it or go non-smoking. I am not a smoker but in Pennsylvania I used to enjoy going to Morton's for a steak and then having a cigar. Since I can't do that in California, Morton's loses because I grill a steak at home and have a cigar.
In California they seem to think nothing they do matters in the way of raising taxes, fines, fees and penalties on people matters, but we have a $30 billion debt.
No snowflake in an avalanche gets the blame.
Hank Campbell | 01/09/09 | 00:37 AM
Becky Jungbauer | 01/09/09 | 09:50 AM
But since the particulates in question are harmful, those who choose to expose themselves to harm should not have the right to expose others who choose otherwise.
Obviously this makes complete sense but it's a logical, and therefore legal, rabbit hole. Religious people may feel harmed by various things you don't find objectionable. If a religious person goes to a dance club, for example, and feels harmed by young people undulating around each other in odd ways, your obvious response is "don't go to dance clubs."
A more difficult position is "let's ban all dance clubs" - that's right, it's the "Footloose" scenario all over again, and we don't need more Kevin Bacon movies - but if we as a society start allowing politicians and courts to ban things about people we happen not to like, there is every chance that if politicians and courts come into power who are the opposite, really bad laws can happen. So the obvious position of you and I should instead be "I won't go to bars that have smoke because it bugs me."
If so many people hate smoking, like politicians claim, then the free market solves the problem. A choice between a smoking and non-smoking bar is obvious and 7/10 bars would be smoke-free immediately. It would go higher if you implement a ventilation standard some bars may not want to buy.
Hank Campbell | 01/09/09 | 10:50 AM
And I don't go to bars that allow smoking - I get really sick after just a few minutes and have to leave, so it's just not worth it. And I totally agree with you that we can't just go around passing laws because we don't like something. (And yes, I do find dance clubs objectionable, partly because I am a terrible dancer and partly because I am turning into my mother and can't believe girls leave the house dressed like that!)
I think smoking is on a different plane than religion, though, because evidence backs up the health effects of smoking. I don't like mushrooms, but they aren't bad for me, so I just don't order dishes that contain mushrooms. I'll happily be inconvenienced for something like that - just because I don't like mushrooms doesn't mean other people don't. But smoking IS bad for me, so I don't see how passing bans to protect people's health can be a bad thing.
This is a slippery slope, though, because smoking has both social and medical implications. Other actions - like dancing, as you suggest - skew toward one or the other, so it is more difficult to make a judgment call, and of course you don't want one group (i.e. Ariel's dad in Footloose) making the decisions based on their personal preferences.
Becky Jungbauer | 01/09/09 | 12:04 PM
Gerhard Adam | 01/09/09 | 15:11 PM
Yet does an overweight person harm you directly if he/she sits next to you at a bar? Exhaling smoke does, but corpulence does not. But you make an excellent point. So I'll refine my argument: direct harm to your person without your consent, backed by solid scientific evidence, can be legislated in the interest of public health.
Becky Jungbauer | 01/09/09 | 15:52 PM
After all the point isn't that smoking should be allowed indiscriminately but rather that establishments that allow it should continue to do so, so that anyone entering such an establishment makes their own choice about whether to expose themselves to it or not. Legislation removes that choice and simply presumes to inconvenience the smokers for no better reason than because they can (note that even if the majority of customers are smokers, they effectively have no say in the matter).
To extend the point ... if you know I smoke in my home and you come over, should you have the right to let your preferences determine what I'm allowed to do?
Gerhard Adam | 01/09/09 | 16:36 PM
This is what I mean by a slippery slope. NYC banned trans fat,
Was it the trans fat that was making the slope slippery? (My excuse: the sun went down over four hours ago at this latitude and longitude.)
Robert H Olley | 01/09/09 | 16:18 PM
Gerhard, excellent point. I am continually refining and recasting my thoughts on this because I don't think a hard line can be drawn in the sand. Sometimes I feel one way, sometimes another. To respond to your post, however: if a bar allows smoking, I won't go. No problem. That doesn't bother me. If the bar fulfills whatever requirements a law sets out that exempts it from the smoking ban, then it should be allowed to allow smoking. I shouldn't have used the example of bar in the first place, because you are correct, I had a choice to go there. The problem becomes when people are in places they can't avoid. But really, we choose to leave our houses every morning, so you could argue that anywhere in the world you go, you've chosen to go there. I could say buses shouldn't allow smoking because it's public transportation, but you could say people chose to take the bus. (But then we get into the question of "choice" - what if they can't afford a car? What if they would walk but are handicapped? What about the kids on the bus with their parents?)
Clearly this is not a black and white issue and I have no idea what the best answer is.
Becky Jungbauer | 01/09/09 | 17:32 PM
In my case, if we want to get heavy handed, why allow drinking in bars? I don't drink but there is an assumption that if I go to a bar there will be drinking. Likewise an assumption that there will be smoking doesn't seem too far a stretch. There's nothing more annoying to people who don't drink than drunk people - and drunk people in bars are even worse. But it would be crazy to start advocating that bars stop serving alcohol.
I was at a physics conference in Boston some years back and there was a cigar bar in the hotel. It has cigar in the name but it was basically a bar where they had a better humidor than most places. Two ladies came in and asked if there was a non-smoking section and then huffed out when there wasn't.
I picture those kind of people as the ones who pushed for outlawing smoking. If a non-smoker and non-drinker like me can put up with either, it doesn't seem to difficult to ask for tolerance about what kind of business people want to run and who wants to frequent it.
Hank Campbell | 01/09/09 | 17:44 PM
It seems perfectly reasonable that when one is essentially "captive" (such as when flying on a plane), that the company establishes a standard of behavior that they expect from their customers whether it be smoking or drinking. It seems unreasonable that a customer can use legislation to commandeer an owner's will when there are no illegal activities taking place.
Part of the problem is that the "inconvenience" extends for far more reasons that consideration for other people's health. I was just at a company where there was no smoking allowed in the front of the building because they didn't like how it looked (which is similar to many companies that don't allow smoking anywhere on the property, including in the parking lot in your own car).
Whatever the original intent, this clearly borders on abuse of an individual's choice.
Gerhard Adam | 01/09/09 | 18:57 PM
Near the observatory, signage is low and low-key; in fact, it's actually rather elegant. Rather than shrill overlit displays bellowing for attention, there are discreet but easily readable signs outside of businesses, which makes for a much more pleasant street appearance.
Also, there are no billboards in the city.
There's something to be said for light-pollution laws, particularly if they add to the aesthetics of a region.