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Light pollution, a big issue that people often overlook, can have severe consequences on biological activities. Urban lights interfere with the moon phases and disrupt the reproductive cycles of coral reefs. Plants also suffer from light pollution, affecting their growth and ability to reproduce, which in turn impacts pollinators and human food sources. To mitigate the problem, individuals can use dimmers, reduce decorative lighting, and install reflectors instead of excessive outdoor lights. It's crucial to raise awareness about the harmful effects of artificial light and take action to reduce its usage. To delve a little deeper into this topic of light pollution, I brought in a specialist from Earth Law Center. This is Taylor Peery. How are you doing this morning? I'm good. Thank you for bringing me onto this podcast. I love bringing awareness to this topic because it is a big issue that most people do not think about daily. I agree. I'm hoping that today's episode will make people more conscious about the use of artificial light. Could you explain from your perspective on what your research has brought to light? Yes. I have looked into how light pollution interferes with the timing of necessary biological activities. During the night is when everything and everyone is affected the most. In some of my research, I focus in on a lot of plants and corals. I'd love to know more about your research. Is the light pollution contributing to the decline of coral reefs? 130 different species of coral in the Great Barrier Reef are actually spawned by moonlight, but urban lights are masking the moon phases. This is to keep some of the biological time clocks of the corals out of sync. Because of this, corals have been releasing their reproductive cells either late or not at all. Because the moon seems like it couldn't be affected since it's in space, most people don't think it can be affected. But that's not true. Light pollution is much stronger than you might think. Wow. I didn't even think about coral being affected. What about plants on land, though? I heard you had done a study on pollination as well. Yes. What is seen from my study was spiraling chaos. The sun is what helps plants complete photosynthesis. So with the interference of light pollution, we throw plants off. So plants are struggling to grow flowers and reproduce. Which is where the spiraling begins. Since the flowers are necessary for pollinators, their life cycles get affected as well. A fun fact is that a lot of people don't know that one third of human food requires pollinators. I had no clue that that much of food needed pollinators. Yeah. So the spiral went from the sun, to the plants, to the pollinators, to humans. If we keep on the journey of slowly killing things on our planet, Earth will be destroyed by humans in a minute. Geez. So much is affected by the usage of artificial light. In your informed opinion, what can we do to try and lessen the amount of artificial light that we use? That's a great question. People can add dimmers to their light switches, eliminate or reduce late-night decorative lighting, and you can install reflectors on your driveway or walkways instead of having a row of lights to illuminate. I love those ideas. I need to incorporate some of those into my life to reduce my usage. Thank you so much for bringing your insight into my deep dive into the effects of light pollution. Of course. Thank you for having me. I hope I was able to explain the extreme effects that I have seen through my research over the years. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Beyond the Glow. I hope you tune back in for next week's episode where I bring another special guest in to talk about yet another scientific topic.