Thank-you to Dr Damian Wojcik, the Clinical Director at the Northland Environmental Health Clinic in Northland, New Zealand who gave a presentation similar to this to the Kaipara District Council in late-Nov, 2019. He highlights that while LED street lights are marketed as being “environmentally friendly,” “energy saving” or “smart” by their proponents, like any new technology, the health and safety aspects of LED lights should be thoroughly investigated prior to spending time and money installing them – it’s not smart to spend money on infrastructure that could negatively affect wildlife or make people sick.
Here is an article regarding Dr Wojcik’s presentation to the Kaipara District Council on Nov 27, 2019: Northland LED streetlight retrofitting moratorium call, https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL191…
References mentioned in presentation:
American Medical Association: “LED street lights may cause road hazards and obesity”, http://www.globalconstructionreview.c…
Effects of LED streetlights on autistic son led Damien McNamara on dark sky campaign, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/1168…
NZ Royal Society’s evidence summary on blue light’s health effects:
https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/asset…
An article which analyses the Gateshead situation is at link: https://www.5g.org.nz/2018/06/16/nose…
Gateshead state-of-art street lights lead to humanitarian crisis, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar…
“Blue light” of LED streetlights linked to breast and prostate cancer, https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/feature…
Evaluating the Association between Artificial Light-at-Night Exposure and Breast and Prostate Cancer Risk in Spain, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…
High Frequency Voltage Transients Associated With Increased Cancer Incidence in Teachers in California School, https://www.emfsolutions.ca/pdf/Milha…
The electronics in fluorescent bulbs and light emitting diodes (LED), rather than ultraviolet radiation, cause increased malignant melanoma incidence in indoor office workers and tanning bed users. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper…
Red zone study look at impact of street lights on insects, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/3…
Quantifying the attractiveness of broad‐spectrum street lights to aerial nocturnal insects, https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wil…
New Zealand’s more than 2000 moth species at odds with some LED street lights, https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/9…
Of course, light bulbs that carry so much risk as streetlights can’t really be safe for use anywhere else either (see 1, 2, 3). Just saying…