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The Collective's reserach indicates:
- streetlights account for 38 percent of the electricity used for lighting in the United States—that’s close to 300 million tons of carbon emissions a year.
- They’re also the top source of light pollution, preventing two-thirds of Americans from seeing stars at night.
- in the 1930s, with the spread of electrification and the consolidation of utilities, streetlights became a convenient way to off-load excess energy from the grid at night, when power demands dropped significantly. This intentionally inefficient system determined the norm for nighttime outdoor lighting levels, a standard that has not been revised since, even though the need for off-loading ended in the 1970s. What we now assume is a safety measure is in fact the forgotten remnant of an obsolete energy practice.