Light pollution, as defined by the Dark Sky Organization, is inappropriate and excessive use of outdoor lighting. The four components of light pollution include glare, skyglow, light trespass, and clutter. Glare is excessive brightness; skyglow is the brightening of the night sky; light trespass is light going to unintended or unneeded places; and clutter is the excessive grouping of light sources.

Light pollution causes a litany of problems for humans, wildlife, and the environment. Light trespass and glare can affect people’s circadian rhythms, their sleep patterns. Glare and clutter also decrease visibility as brighter brights mean darker darks, making it harder to see darker areas. This means that more lights could actually make streets more dangerous. Light at night also adversely affects wildlife. The Audubon Society found that light pollution distracts migrating birds, many of which fly at night, and leads to up to a billion bird deaths annually. California is also an important case as it is one of the states that is part of the Pacific Flyway, meaning that many migrating birds cross California. Not only is light pollution unhealthy, it is also wasteful. A lot of extra light is wasted, along with all the energy that was put into powering it.

AB38 seeks to reduce light pollution by mandating certain government agencies to optimize their outdoor lighting fixtures with shielding, automatic shut-offs, and more. In doing so, many harmful effects of light pollution will be mitigated, including the effects on human sleep and bird migration and the waste of energy.

For the full bill text, use this link: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB38