tim's experiment

A strange change has taken place in the meaning of a previously well-understood phrase, “light pollution”. Light is not a pollutant in the normal sense because it is, in most circumstances, entirely harmless. Astronomers, though, complained that the quantities of light leaking into the sky from modern cities made it impossible for them to pick out small, distant features of the night skyscape. Nobody has ever suggested that a practical sollution to this would involve curbing the use of artificial light to restore the opportunities for city-centre astronomy. Serious astronomers now site their telescopes on mountain-tops as far from built-up areas as possible. Astronomy continues, though no doubt with less contributed than before from eager amateurs with telescopes in their suburban back gardens.

However that is not the kind of light pollution which has been making headlines in Hong Kong. This started, at least in the English-language press, with a lady who had bought as investments some flats in the Masterpiece, a new and hideous high-rise in Kowloon. She complained that these flats were illuminated in the evenings by the bright lights on a nearby shopping centre. She might, as a result, have to lower the rent she was demanding from tenants. I confess that I am a landlord in a small way myself. All the same I found it difficult to sympathise. The Masterpiece is in a commercial area. It was always likely to be surrounded by shopping malls. Also the tenants can console themselves with a compensating feature of their view: from inside the building they enjoy views unblemished by the Masterpiece itself. One must also reflect that this form of pollution is not only harmless in its effects – I mean flashing lights on your ceiling may be irritating but hardly a health threat on the scale of noise or dirty air – but also an eminently solvable problem. If the air is polluted we all have no choice but to breathe it. If your neighbour is remodelling his bathroom you can try earplugs or hi-tech earphones, but basically you are defenceless against the thundering of his jackhammers. However if some nearby retailer is shining nocturnal lights on your window there is a well established low-tech solution. It is called the curtain.

Actually I thought the complaining landlady had a nerve. A fact of life in Hong Kong that we all have to live with is that your rights as a property owner end abruptly at the edge of your property. The owner of the adjacent plot may obstruct you seaview, or indeed access to daylight, with whatever monstrous edifice he chooses to erect. The government may run fly-overs within feet of your windows. Faced with ventilation shafts, rubbish collection points or incinerators you may solicit the help of your disctrict board but your own legal rights are non-existent. Among the beneficiaries of this system, or lack of one, are the owners of the Masterpiece itself, which would never have been built in its present form in a city where land use was controlled properly in the public interest.

I concede the point that very bright lights are probably wasting electricity, but somehow I do not think this was the thought which had landlords and landladies up in arms. And shops are businesses after all. Presumably they know what works for them and if bright lights attract customers they are a legitimate ploy. I feel less confident about the light show which the government puts on every evening in the harbour for the amusement of mainland tourists. Several eager environmentalists complained about this as another form of light pollution. But we have to consider Hong Kong’s credibility as a mainland city. One of the nice things about the mainland is that every city offers an evening boat ride with some sort of light show on the riverbank buildings. Hong Kong was lacking in this important piece of civic infrastructure before the Handover but I noticed it appeared soon after. Just as all serious English cities have a cathedral (and some have two) so all serious mainland cities must have a boat ride and a light show. I suppose the light shows are a bit of a waste. So are the cathedrals.