The Earth’s nighttime environment is changing at a rapid rate due to the constant increase in artificial lighting. Artificial light emits an increasing proportion of blue light. Images taken by astronauts from the International Space Station between 2012 and 2020 show a gradual increase in blue (instead of orange) lighting on European streets as one city after another increasingly switches to LED lamps, which provide greater energy savings.

But this positive side also has another, more negative side, since the blue light emitted by LEDs, which is also emitted by mobile phones, TVs and other electronic devices and artificial sources, can cause sleep disturbances (due to the suppression of the hormone melatonin) and other chronic problems. with health, according to a new British scientific study.

Researchers from the University of Exeter, led by Kevin Gaston of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability, published in the journal Science Advances, and reported that boosting blue light from LEDs also reduced the visibility of stars in the night sky, and overall this has a negative effect on the sense of nature. which people now have. Blue light also negatively affects the behavior of various animals, with more general environmental implications.

Scientists believe that the countries with the biggest blue light problem are the UK, Italy, Romania, Spain and Ireland, while Austria and Germany have the least problem, which still light most of their streets with old style lamps (not LEDs). .

Source: RES-IPE