Light Pollution In Hong Kong

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Introduction Hong Kong enjoys a fame as the Pearl of Orient for its spectacular night scene, which is glittered with umpteen neon lights. Though manifesting the economic prosperity, the excessive illumination has aroused an implicit environmental problem: the light pollution. A recent survey by Chun Shing Jason Pun and Chu Wing So (2012) reveals that the average night-sky brightness of Hong Kong is 160 times brighter than a pristine sky, while in Tsim Sha Tsui this number staggeringly rises to about 1200, ranking the worst on the planet. This serious situation arouses considerable impacts on human health and the astronomy together with the disturbance to the ecology. Despite the severity of this issue, the Hong Kong government has made few efficacious countermeasures to alleviate the worrisome pollution. This…show more content…
To begin with, the unlimited lighting time seems to be a significant cause. Chan Yu Ling (2014) states that his field observations discovered a substantial proportion of shops leaving their advertising light on after business hours, which seems to generally occur in Hong Kong. Considering that in this densely populated city commercial areas often include apartments, the prolonged illumination time could greatly disturb the sleeping of these dwellers. Another factor is the immoderate intensity of lighting. It is reported that a gold shop in Mongkok adopts artificial lighting eight times brighter than a normal office, which can hardly be completely sheltered by curtains (Lin Yuguo, 2007). Meanwhile, the inappropriate lighting pattern exacerbates this environmental challenge. In the Central area, most of the neon signs are installed on the top of skyscrapers, which emit excessive light to a board range. Worse still, during the light show “A Symphony of Lights”, laser lights vertically emit beams into the night sky and consequently intensify the sky

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