IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mes/jeciss/v44y2010i1p71-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On Light Pollution, Passive Pleasures, and the Instrumental Value of Beauty

Author

Listed:
  • Terrel Gallaway

Abstract

The night sky is a unique and exquisitely valuable cultural asset that is being lost to humanity. Light pollution obscures the heavens, interferes with wildlife, and wastes billions of dollars in energy annually. Light pollution can be easily mitigated, but unfortunately, it has gone largely unnoticed as a preventable environmental problem. This paper examines light pollution as well as the value of the night sky. The paper focuses on society's disregard for the loss of a cultural asset that has been a part of art, science, and culture for as long as these things have existed. It argues that the blame lies largely in an inability to articulate adequately the value of natural beauty. It is further argued that such beauty has instrumental value, and the explicit recognition of this value is an important step toward preserving the night sky and other objects of natural beauty.

Suggested Citation

  • Terrel Gallaway, 2010. "On Light Pollution, Passive Pleasures, and the Instrumental Value of Beauty," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 71-88.
    • Handle: RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:44:y:2010:i:1:p:71-88
    DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624440104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2753/JEI0021-3624440104
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2753/JEI0021-3624440104?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Casper Laing Ebbensgaard, 2020. "Standardised difference: Challenging uniform lighting through standards and regulation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(9), pages 1957-1976, July.
    2. Reed N. Olsen & Terrel Gallaway & David Mitchell, 2014. "Modelling US light pollution," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(6), pages 883-903, June.
    3. Dong Cao & Lin Wang & Shouyang Wang, 2017. "Complex Dynamics Induced by Nonlinear Pollution Absorption, Pollution Emission Rate and Effectiveness of Abatement Technology in an OLG Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-11, May.
    4. Broome, James David & Cook, David & Davíðsdóttir, Brynhildur, 2024. "Heavenly lights: An exploratory review of auroral ecosystem services and disservices," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Karolina M. Zielińska-Dabkowska & Kyra Xavia & Katarzyna Bobkowska, 2020. "Assessment of Citizens’ Actions against Light Pollution with Guidelines for Future Initiatives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-32, June.
    6. Xueting Jin & Yu Li & Jinzhou Zhang & Ji Zheng & Huiping Liu, 2017. "An Approach to Evaluating Light Pollution in Residential Zones: A Case Study of Beijing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-12, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:44:y:2010:i:1:p:71-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/MJEI20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.