2024.10.14 Speaker Cards-PC - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Light At Night (ALAN) in general, and electronic billboards specifically, impose on human health and on ecosystems. The Sierra club policy, below, is supported by a comprehensive compilation of resources pointing to the significant impacts of ALAN, please see the recently published “Artificial Light at Night: State of the Science 2022”. The information and scientific studies referenced in this International Dark- Sky Association Report point to the devastating impact of lighting on ecosystems and organisms that comprise our biological resources and our health. We are similarly concerned with the proliferation of ALAN and its pervasive harm to organisms, species, ecological food webs, and human health and safety. In March 2021, Sierra Club National adopted a new light pollution policy: “Sierra Club recognizes that while artificial light provides desirable benefits to society, such as extended hours of social space at night, its excessive, inappropriate and poorly controlled use also leads to significant harm. Sierra Club defines light pollution as artificial light that adversely affects ecosystems and any living organism. Sierra Club includes in this definition anthropogenic light that is wasteful, or misdirected; has negative ecological impacts; is used as a form of aggression; is harmful to health, safety, or other human rights; or disrupts our view of the natural night sky, disconnecting us from our cosmic environment, including the Milky Way Galaxy where we live. Therefore, light pollution imposes natural resources, economic, biological, political, psychological, and cultural burdens.” Driver Safety: Electronic signs are, by design, intended to be viewed from a distance. By design, electronic billboards offend aesthetics and visual character, and produce day and nighttime illumination, light and glare. The public abhors them. A 2021 survey conducted by the City of San Jose revealed that over 90% of over 2200 respondents are opposed to electronic billboards on freeways. The concerns over aesthetics were one of the primary reasons provided by the opposing respondents. Highway 101 in this area is not, by designation, a scenic highway. But the public and the drivers clearly consider electronic advertisement “a form of aggression” which assaults our senses and health, and imperils drivers as it diverts their attention and puts them at an increased risk of collision. Driver safety was a great concern to the responders to the San Jose survey. Migratory Birds: We also note that migrating birds can be affected by human-built structures because of their propensity to migrate at night, their low flight altitudes, and their tendency to be disoriented by artificial light, which makes them vulnerable to collision with obstructions that could potentially lead to injury or mortality. In addition, birds migrating at night can be strongly attracted to sources of artificial light, particularly during periods of inclement weather. In summary, we are greatly concerned with detrimental impacts of electronic billboards and signs to biological resources, the night sky , as well as the health and quality of life of our region’s residents. We are opposed to allowing electronic billboards and encourage Redwood City to tighten regulation and reduce, rather than increase their prevalence and impacts. We believe that electronic billboards anywhere, including at the proposed locations along 101, will cause significant and irreversible harm to the biological and aesthetic environment and safety for drivers. We encourage the Redwood City to be forward-looking and to prohibit highway-facing and major-road facing electronic billboards. If the city persists in moving forward with this project, an EIR must be prepared because the