Editorial - Sensory overload

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Let's be honest: when was the last time you lost yourself in the starry sky on a quiet night? Or listened to the birds or the rustling of leaves in peace in the forest? Undisturbed by a bright advertising poster a few streets down the road or the roar of a car or motorbike speeding along a country road?

It's probably been quite a while, as doing both is not easy in Luxembourg. Depending on where you live, it might be almost impossible. The Grand Duchy is, on average, loud and bright. This is not just some kind of achy-breaky-heart problem for romantics and amateur astronomers, but a real health hazard for hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of our small country. Humans are not made for deafening sound and nonstop daylight, no matter how much we think we have become accustomed to it.

It is well known that this constant sensory overload caused by light and noise is a problem. Just as it is no coincidence that there are a whole series of initiatives to improve (i.e. reduce) lighting and lower the volume of human activity (i.e. cars in particular) by valuable decibels. Both have not only made it into the coalition agreement of the black-blue government, but are also more or less enshrined in law and regulated by European guidelines.

This raises the question: Why is it getting louder and brighter non-stop despite all the initiatives? Because, as with so many issues where "everyone knows something should happen", at the moment we seem to be lightly kissing the brakes with one toe while the other foot is pushing the pedal to the metal. Now, at the Journal, we aim to provide solution-orientated journalism: That means pointing out which answers work in other places and – critically – which are the limitations. After all, we don't want to tell fairy tales.

But it is frustratingly difficult to find limitations when it comes to light pollution. Because it's … really straightforward? "Light where, when and how you need to, " explains lighting consultant Daniel Gliedner. It's healthier, more environmentally friendly, more beautiful and – killer argument – so much cheaper than the massive waste of energy and money we're currently running. That sounds almost too good, so as a conscientious journalist you look for the catch. But in this case, there simply isn't one. Nothing. Nada. More light as a reaction to crime or accidents is, at best, a band-aid solution and, at worst, borders on dangerous superstition. Like the inhabitants of some Bizzaro-NIMBY dimension, people are clamouring for their backyard to no be prettier, no be healthier, not be more relaxing, all while saving no money. It is, quite frankly, baffling.

Noise pollution is admittedly more complicated to tackle without kicking the wasps' nest that is the omnipresence of the car. But there are good approaches that work here too – if only they are implemented. 30 km/h zones (the benefits of which go far beyond this), trafic reduction measures, quiet asphalt… none of these are new ideas. But noise maps and plans drawn up with the greatest attention to detail are of little use if they are meekly presented to decision-makers who are clearly not particularly interested in implementing them. This is probably partly because their electorate has become so accustomed to the problem over the years that they don't realise that they can and should ask for a solution.

So as a – once more – solutions-orientated journalist, you suddenly come to the conclusion that it is not enough to point out solutions that have been proven to work and ask why they are not being implemented here. Instead, you have to explain to people that an objective problem is a subjective one as well, only that they have forgotten how to recognise it. Noise and light pollution are imminently solvable problems – we just have to recognise them as such.