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“Let’s turn off the light, let’s turn on the stars” is the slogan of this major national event called “The day of the night”. For its fourteenth edition, on the night of October 15, the association Agir pour l’environnement proposed more than 700 events, the opportunity to observe the sky, to participate in the extinction of lights in your city or to take part in night entertainment.
For Stephen Kerckhove, Managing Director of Acting for the Environment, the impacts of light pollution on health and biodiversity are significant: “ Light pollution is artificial light that is generally generated by public lighting, and since the 1990s there has been an explosion of light, more than 90% more luminous flux. »
« Todaythis encore Stephen Kerckhove, it’s 11 million lampposts, 3.5 million advertising signs which radiate light at night and which will gradually erase the starry vault. »
« A little reminder: in the city, for example, where we are highly exposed to light pollution, we can only observe about twenty stars, where in the countryside where there is a certain preservation of the starry sky, we can discover and be amazed by looking at several thousand stars. And finally, this is what is positive with, if we can say so, with light pollution, it is that you just have to turn off to obtain reversibility of this pollution “, concludes the director general of Acting for the environment.
►Also listen : What solutions for Earth’s light pollution? (January 6, 2021)