While almost any visitor to Hong Kong is familiar with the all-too-common grey skies of the city, partly due to air pollutants floating over from Mainland China, lately, residents have become more concerned about light pollution.
Walking down by the harbour front on a usual night you cannot help but notice something that Hong Kong is rightly famous for – its skyline, which is filled with glittering skyscrapers that can match almost any other city in the world in terms of visual impact. Add on to that an abundance of neon advertising signage, plus a laser light show off the tops of its highest buildings, and Hong Kong Island becomes easily the brightest thing in the world after dusk.
Yet, there is still no clear consensus so far about how to deal with this issue. It may seem obvious to those who find it necessary to wear sunglasses at night, but to others, the lights are part of the attraction of Hong Kong
Other forms of pollution here like sound and water are nothing to overlook, but the reason that light pollution in particular is at the forefront of people’s attention right now is due to the findings of a recently released study by Hong Kong University which can be quite staggering: at times, parts of the city were found to be generating up to 1200 times the internationally accepted standard for light use. The area of Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon has been singled out as probably the worst place to live if you like to sleep in the dark.
On 23 March 2013, places around the world including Hong Kong turned many of their lights off for ‘Earth Hour’, a yearly event that hopes to raise awareness about the problems of excessive energy usage. Yet, there is still no clear consensus so far about how to deal with this issue. It may seem obvious to those who find it necessary to wear sunglasses at night, but to others, the lights are part of the attraction of Hong Kong, and without the lights, Hong Kong simply would not be the same.
By Tim Holm
