columnist from A&B issue 03 | 2022
The price of a kilowatt is raging, on billboards the government blames the increases on the Union with the Light Bulb of Terror, but let's not worry, there is a way out of this situation. All thanks to the specs that light up our space. They do it in such a way that for many residents a lantern with a form appropriate for a small stadium shines right into the apartment.
Nothing but to benefit. We turn off our own lamps, save on curtains and take public lux. This is some form of historical justice. A couple of years ago it turned out that the power of the streetlights in Krakow's Market Square needed to be increased, because - when the exodus of residents took place - the darkened windows of the market square apartments stopped illuminating the square. Now the photons are flying in the opposite direction.
Of course, we are unlucky if our apartment is flooded from the street by the ghostly orange light of a sodium bulb. But there are times when they will put an LED lamp in front of our house with warm light of a friendly color temperature of three thousand kelvin. This, however, is a lottery. What kind of light floods our street (and, by the way, our apartment) is rarely decided by logic and a well-thought-out plan. But that's a good thing: it makes the world around us consistent. After all, in Poland, as the authorities have again reminded us, order is created through chaos. And vice versa.
So intimate streets can be illuminated with tall lanterns worthy of parking lots. On the other hand, parts of downtown squares are sometimes a blind spot, where the light of none of the surrounding lanterns reaches. They have luminaires constructed in such a way that they shine mostly along the walls of houses or into the sky. Parks and greens often take on surreal colors in the harsh sodium orange, while pedestrians take on nothing: neither colors nor shapes - on the very often unlit zebras. But, overall, it's on the rich side. Poles have a gesture and emit light into space almost as much as the fumes from furnaces and power plants.
"Hurr, durr, light pollution!" - hounds the environmental left and egghead academics in this situation, and they calculate what we are also exposed to when flooded with excess artificial lighting. What is not to be found here! Disturbed sleep, metabolism, obesity, disordered emotions: depression and mania. And in animals: disruption of the biological clock, endocrine disruption and - this is already the case with insects and birds - death from exhaustion after senseless laps around city streetlights. What else? You can't see the stars, or only a few of the brightest pieces.
Of course, they feed us these horrors as part of a pedagogy of shame to depreciate the Polish success. For here we are, after the dark days of the crisis of the 1980s, when every third or fourth street lamp was lit on the streets, we are more than rebounding from the darkness. In this area, we have become almost the second Japan once heralded by Walesa. Where did the conclusion come from? In his work "Japan Lost," Alex Kerr describes how the country entered turbon-modernity: not only with the help of innovations, high-speed trains, cars and pouring concrete, but - precisely - the ubiquitous fluorescent and neon lights with which the Japanese have overexposed their cities. A symbol of the new times.
In Poland, fluorescent lights have caught on less well, and neon lights have been in retreat for years, but even so, roadways, sidewalks and building facades are lit up to a great extent. The latter are not infrequently illuminated in duplicate, with the help of fancy systems for fatter zlotys. Admittedly, elitist theories claim that only exceptional architectural specimens should be highlighted in this way, but - fortunately - the thing has not caught on in the country and there is democracy. Important monuments shine, but so do unimportant ones, the facades of hi-tech office buildings shine, but so do poor office buildings. The seats of government shine, but so do the complexes of tin garages so common in our country. This is beautifully complemented by cheerful illuminated billboards.
I was reminded of how good we have it recently when I was thrown back to Berlin after a covid break. The city is seemingly bright, but where to our momentum. Along residential streets - small lanterns with the power of solid night lights. Some really worthy of alcoves, as Berlin still has several thousand gas lamps - more than half of the world's number of such specimens. Parks and squares - almost without lanterns. Horror. Berlin squirrels, pigeons and insects can't feel safe here. Probably someone is washing them at night on their snouts. On the other hand, on the main routes, the harsh light pours, yes, but mostly on the roadway. And on the sidewalks - intimately. They are illuminated mainly by store windows and signs of stores, pubs, hairdressers and whatever else operates along the streets. After all, in the backward German capital, the first floors are still used for obsolete functions, and not - as in our country - for experiments in physics: generating dark matter.
In short: poverty. And also honey on the heart of environmentalists and scientists, although even in subjectively darker Berlin light pollution is the order of the night. As it is, by the way, in all countries of the very broadly defined West. They have more and more ways to deal with it there, however. For example, precisely designed lamppost fixtures that shine where they need to, without sending light into space. Or systems that dynamically regulate light output depending on the time of night and the number of users of an urban space. Finally, there are lighting masterplans for entire cities, with precise guidelines: where warm light, where cold light, what its intensity should be, how to illuminate important buildings. Plus tips on luminaire forms, light direction and many other details. In Poland, some cities are also moving in this direction, with new lamp fixtures and LED light sources appearing. Finally, Gliwice has had its master plan for years, a similar document has been created in Jaworzno, something is happening in Olsztyn. But - will it catch on nationwide? Sharp light penetrating the entire space is still treated by the average citizen as a guarantee of nighttime safety. In the same way, by the way, as all kinds of walls and fences.
Sharp light and walls. A puzzling predilection.
This seems to be what a prison walkway looks like.
