I'll check out those papers, but I know one thing they'll say, we get our
power from the atomic power plants and also from the wind farms on the hill
sides over looking Mojave ( there's over 1,000 wind turbines on the
hillsides.).


--

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"canopus56" wrote in message
ups.com...

The International Darksky Society has an extensive research and
publication section that can provide you with specific facts in aid of
your local community advocacy.
http://www.darksky.org/

The IDS has a number of mini-info papers specifically on city lighting
-
http://www.darksky.org/infoshts/istopic.html#2.04
- and on street lighting -
http://www.darksky.org/infoshts/istopic.html#2.05

For municipal or county advocacy, IMHO the most effective argument is
the economic cost of wasting of energy from light that is dispersed on
areas other than the target of illumination. One IDS mini-paper -
http://www.darksky.org/infoshts/pdf/is026.pdf
- estimates the national economic loss at 1 Billion dollars annually -
or the equivalent of 23 million barrels of oil or six million tons of
coal.

For a positive spin story - see the City of Calgary mini-paper -
city saving $2 million per year by retrofitting 11,000 of its 70,000
street lights.
http://www.darksky.org/infoshts/pdf/is191.pdf

In an environmental conscious culture like California, acid-rain and
CO2 production is probably the second best advocacy hook. Of the 3.9
Billion kwH consumed in the U.S. in 2004, 1.9 Billion kwH was generated
from coal. Only 0.1 B kwH was generated from petroluem. Table 904,
2006 U.S. Statistical Abstract.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/06statab/energy.pdf

The appeal to environmental protection argument would be "Is it ethical
for Californians to ruin the natural vistas in the Grand Canyon by
flooding the canyon with power plant smog just to project light into
outer space?"

Considering the current situation in Iraq, I also feel an appeal to
populist patriotism might also effective even though only a relatively
small percentage of U.S. electric power generation comes from oil.
Although I believe most electric power in California is nuclear,
gas-fired and Utah and Nevada based coal-fired plants - from a national
perspective a moral argument could be made that asking young men to die
in Iraq so that we can project light into outer space is inherently
unethical.

Hope this info helps.

- Canopus56