Investigating whether a crime reduction measure works

There is a tendency for people to be worried by the dark, perhaps with good evolutionary reason and it may well be that the majority feel safer from crime with brighter exterior lighting at night. However, the question is whether people are in reality safer. Lighting may aid and encourage criminal activity more than it reduces it. Of course lighting at night is needed to see where we are doing and avoid hazards.

http://www.radstats.org.uk/no091/Marchant91.pdf

Bright Lights, Big Cancer

A woman's blood provides better sustenance for breast cancer just after she's been exposed to bright light than when she's been in steady darkness, researchers led by David E. Blask of the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, N.Y., report.
"Light at night is now clearly a risk factor for breast cancer," Blask says. "Breast tumors are awake during the day, and melatonin puts them to sleep at night." Add artificial light to the night environment, and "cancer cells become insomniacs," he says.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060107/bob9.asp

Is light pollution killing our birds?

The authors think that the increasing numbers of urban street and security lights must have a measurable impact on the environment, as insects fly around the lights all night and eventually fall to the ground exhausted, no longer having the energy to feed themselves or to procreate. Consequently, with lights often left on all night, 365 nights a year, the number of insects must be significantly reduced.

http://web.arm.ac.uk/darksky/armagh.html

Impact of Outdoor Lighting on Man and Nature

Dear Minister,

I hereby present you with a Health Council advisory report on the risks to man and
nature of the gradual disappearance of darkness in the evening and at night as a result
of urbanization and other contemporary developments in the Netherlands.

www.gr.nl/pdf.php?ID=321