CEL FOSC ASSOCIATION AGAINST LIGHT POLLUTION (Registration No. 585 161 National Associations) is an independent, nonprofit and state level, founded in 2004. It represents more than 5,000 people and is the association of reference in Spain for the fight against light pollution. Its aims are:
• study the phenomenon of light pollution and its effects,
• promote awareness and dissemination of the problems involved in light pollution,
• promote awareness and dissemination of solutions to pollution Light,
• actions aimed at minimizing light pollution, and
• ensure that compliance with the legislation regulating the lighting at night to avoid light pollution.
Cel Fosc Association (Dark Sky) held Saturday, February 12, its Annual General Meeting in the facilities of the Science Museum of Valladolid. There we met, around 12 am, 16 people from throughout the English territory (Galicia, Basque Country, Navarra, Andalusia, Catalonia, Castilla y León). It should be noted that several of the assembly members spent part of the night journey to reach on time. My partner Amelia Gomez and I attended as representatives of the Astronomical Society Syrma of Valladolid, and my colleague, who did Fernando Cabrerizo as Coordinator of Castile and Leon Cel Fosc. After welcoming remarks by Inés Rodríguez Hidalgo, director of the Museum of Science, the meeting began at 12:30 hours as scheduled in the program. The morning session was extended until 2 in the afternoon, when we made a break for lunch in the restaurant of the museum. After coffee began the afternoon session, perhaps the most feared by the usual soporific effects of the previous intake. However, in my opinion, the evening went so lively and dynamic that led to yawn.
A moment of the Assembly. In the background the Board miempros Cel Fosc coordinating the meeting. Image Credit: Fernando Cabrerizo.
were diverse topics covered in the meeting, assessing the activities carried out last year and debate new proposals for this work in 2011. Not go into details of the findings and agreements determined by the assembly, but generally addressed all agenda items, which are exposed in the press release that the board offered to the media . I leave here a summary of the text of that note:
"Dark Sky Association, Pollution Light will hold its 2011 General Assembly on Saturday February 12 at the Science Museum of Valladolid. The meeting will discuss the current situation of light pollution in Spain as regulations in force or pending, based largely on the system, obsolete zoning of the territory with different rates of emission of light allowed into heaven.
Dark Sky opposes this trend, because the effectiveness of these regulations for the prevention of light pollution has been refuted by scientific studies latest in this field. These results, published in journals and international conferences are being inexplicably ignored by the majority of parliaments and regional governments, including the recent law enacted in Castilla and León in 2010 which came into force on January 10 (*) - as well as by major municipalities, with the exception of Andalusia, which currently holds the pioneering application of rules in Spain that does not allow the emission of light into the sky (where there is nothing to illuminate).
Meanwhile, in a crisis government budget, light pollution implies a huge waste of energy for lighting every night, with a per capita consumption in Spain than three times that of Germany. The abrupt replacement of lighting on a massive new white light lighting based on LED technology that promotes lighting industry sector (despite being still under development and industrial standardization) is far from being considered at the same level as other technologies existing, proven and contributes to worsen the problem by their serious implications for health, conservation of biodiversity and degradation of the night sky as an educational, scientific and tourism.
The assembly of the Dark Sky Association this year is a continuation in the celebration of these annual meetings at the headquarters of prestigious flagship for the dissemination of scientific knowledge and astronomy in Spain, as they have been in the past the Planetarium of Pamplona (Navarra), the European Space Astronomy Centre at Villafranca del Castillo (Madrid) and now the Science Museum of Valladolid.
(*) Law 15/2010, of December 10 of Light Pollution Prevention and Promotion of Saving and Energy Efficiency Lighting Installations Derivados de Castilla y León
assembly was closed around 18:15 pm. It was the moment for the typical family photo, that of the goodbyes and handshakes and wanting a good travel companions. On a personal level was a pleasure to meet in person to the vast majority of the attendees, people extremely active and involved in the issue of light pollution. And, of course, back to greet Ángel Gómez Roldán (Director of Astronomy magazine) and astrophysicists Fernando Jauregui (Pamplona Planetarium) and David Galadi-Enríquez (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, CSIC). Here.
assembly participants posing with Professor Einstein. Image Credit: Fernando Cabrerizo.
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