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2002 National Semi-Annual Fall Meeting of the International Dark Sky
Association (IDA), co-hosted by the New England Light Pollution Advisory
Group (NELPAG): October 24-26
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The NELPAG will co-host the first national fall meeting of the IDA
outside of Tucson in October 2002 at Cambridge/Boston, MA. The first
full day of invited talks and panel discussions will take place in the Cahners
Theater at the Boston Museum of Science (on the Boston/Cambridge
line in east Cambridge straddling the Charles River), on Friday, 2002
Oct. 25. This will be open to the public and news media and is slated
to include speakers from the lighting industry, government agencies,
power-utility companies, environmental fields, education groups, and
those representing medicine (eye effects), law, architecture, and astronomy.
The second day (Saturday, Oct. 26) of meetings will be held at the Phillips
Auditorium of Harvard College Observatory (directions given below) in
Cambridge; the Saturday meeting will be aimed at more technical talks among
the same groups of people actively involved in outdoor-lighting issues, and
it will not be advertised to the public or news media. (A single lecture
by David Crawford to the monthly IESNA New England meeting will occur on
the evening of Oct. 24.)
This promises to be a great meeting, with two days full of invited
speakers and panelists from the northeast, the entire U.S., and Canada
talking about outdoor night-lighting issues. Registration fees will be
minimal, and all are urged to pay pre-registration fees through the IDA
in Tucson (which can be done by credit card).
Planned schedule:
Friday, Boston Museum of Science -- 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. --
advertised widely to the general
public and the news media, but also intended to get lighting-industry
professionals, government officials, etc., involved:
Four 1.5-hr segments with two invited speakers who each give
talks up to 15-20 min long, followed by a panel discussion
of 4-7 members that will include the two invited speakers for
that segment. The four themes will be:
(1) Historical and sociological issues concerning outdoor lighting
(2) Medical issues concerning outdoor lighting
(3) Environmental and ecological issues concerning outdoor lighting
(4) "Government, Industry, and You"
Saturday, Harvard College Observatory (Cambridge) -- 9 a.m. to 5:30
p.m. -- aimed more at lighting-industry professionals, government
officials, power-utility company officials, and light-pollution activists:
Four 1.5-hr segments thought of more as workshops, in which
invited speakers and panelists will lead discussions centered on
the following four themes:
(5) Residential and low-level outdoor-lighting issues
(6) Legal issues involving outdoor lighting
(7) Industry issues involving outdoor lighting
(8) Research and education/outreach issues concerning outdoor lighting
More news will be issued soon, including a list of speakers and panelists,
via the NELPAG and IDA e-mail discussion groups, newsletters, and websites.
Information for visitors is available here.
The latest updates should be at the IDA website.
DIRECTIONS TO HCO: Take MA Route 2 east (from I-95/MA 128, or from
further west) into Cambridge. Upon arrival into Cambridge, the expressway
narrows to two east-bound lanes and the limited-access highway ends as you
approach a set of traffic lights with the Alewife T parking garage on your
right. Continue "straight" (bearing right) at the first set of traffic
lights, keeping the big T parking garage on your right. You'll immediately
come to a second set of lights. Continue straight, going immediately over
a bridge (which horrible unshielded lights!) and on the other side of this
bridge are two shopping centers (one on your left, one on your right) with
another set of pedestrian traffic lights. Continue straight another 50-80
yards beyond these pedestrian traffic lights, and you'll come to the first
of two rotaries, as you join Concord Ave. coming in from your right. Go
one-quarter way around the rotary to the left so that you're on Concord
Ave. eastbound, and you'll come almost immediately to a second rotary
(note that the road is all torn up here due to construction, so be careful).
At the second rotary, Route 2 continues to your right, but you'll go a
quarter-way around the rotary so that you continue straight ahead on Concord
Ave. Continue past three sets of traffic lights (the second set of lights
is Walden St. and the third/last set of lights will be Huron Ave.). At
Huron Ave. will be a gas station on your left and a Sages grocery store
kitty-corner across on your right. Continue straight on Concord Ave. to
the next street, a block down: Madison Street only goes to the left, and
it's a one-way street (St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, a large red-brick
structure, is immediately on your right; if you pass the church, you've
gone too far). Turn left onto Madison St., and the city-block-sized
Observatory complex is immediately on your right. Turn right into the
parking lot, go the the upper parking lot (where there's a dome in the
middle of the lot) and park (no parking permit needed on weekends).
Go up the biggest set of outdoors stairs that you see, go into the building,
and Phillips Auditorium is immediately on your right.
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Other Recent NELPAG meetings (brief reports of)
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Various organizing-committee meetings are being held on an on-going basis
between now and the Fall 2002 IDA meeting (discussed above) in the Boston
area. These meetings will generally not be mentioned here.
We held a northeast regional meeting for IDA and NELPAG
on Saturday, 2000 November 11, at Harvard College Observatory,
to discuss northeastern issues and to discuss plans for the big Fall
2002 meeting.
We held a lunch meeting at a local Cambridge restaurant
on the last Tuesday in March 2000, with about a dozen people showing up
to talk about outdoor-lighting issues, particular those here in
Cambridge. We gave out quite a number of "Good Neighbor Outdoor
Lighting" pamphlets at the Astronomy Day tables at the Boston Museum
of Science on the first Saturday in April 2000.
A most successful NELPAG meeting was held (in conjunction with the
monthly meeting of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston) on Thursday,
1999 December 9, at Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, MA.
The auditorium was filled as we had a 7-member panel discussion that lasted
over an hour (panelists were Paul Lutkevich, Bob Wylie, Bob Crelin,
Michael Smith, Mass. Rep. Jim Marzilli, Mario Motta, and Dan Green).
Reporters from local Boston newspapers were invited to (and did) attend.
The questions never ended, and we had to stop the discussion as time was
passing. This was perhaps the best NELPAG meeting ever, in terms of
effectiveness, and it might be a good idea to consider panel discussions
in the future (not only by NELPAG, but by other groups elsewhere).