Light Aware - the dangers of LED lighting

[TonyGosling]

Don’t let the EU turn out the show lights
Bryan Raven adds his voice to the worry over a ban on much entertainment lighting, while Stephane Arditi says the directive can be amended. Plus letters from John Lincoln and Eleanor Levin, and Chris Newall
Letters
Fri 4 May 2018 16.41 BST Last modified on Mon 2 Jul 2018 14.48 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/may/04/dont-let-the-eu-turn-out -the-show-lights

As a supplier to the entertainment industry, we’ve obviously been rallying behind the Association of Lighting Directors’ Save Stage Lighting campaign. Both Tim Routledge and Richard Pilbrow (Letters, 30 April and 1 May) have articulated excellently how disastrous the proposed EU lighting regulations would be for lighting designers in theatre and concert touring. However, this goes far beyond the entertainment industry.

Alongside theatres, we supply the same (endangered) lighting technology to a range of events and installations. These include fashion shows, car launches, corporate events, exhibitions and visitor attractions such as the recent Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A and the Harry Potter Experience at Leavsden. All these events use equipment that could potentially be banned from 2020, with no viable alternative available. Imagine what these will look like when illuminated by industrial-style lighting.


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There are also the ramifications on the people whose livelihoods this will directly impact. The diverse nature of the industry makes it hard to put a number to the jobs at risk, but it is several thousand in the UK alone.

So while this is about the lights going out on stages, in stadiums and on catwalks across the world, it’s also about the impact it has at the grassroots level – which is why we cannot allow these EU regulations to go through. There are thousands of schools halls, community centres, village halls and small theatres that have small lighting rigs that cost a few hundred pounds per year to maintain – these venues will need to find tens of thousands of pounds to replace their equipment (while scrapping the perfectly working kit).Most of these venues will therefore have to stop holding live events.

I would encourage readers to help #SaveStageLighting by contacting their MEPs and by signing the petition at change.org.
Bryan Raven
Managing director, White Light Ltd

• Are the EU environmental proposals for stage lighting the beginning of the end for live music? Legitimate concerns don’t always justify rushed conclusions, and some of the industry’s arguments need clarifying. The rules in question are part of the Ecodesign directive, which gradually removes from the market the most damaging products for the environment and the people.

While similar rules already apply to some energy-related products, the European commission is conducting a study to assess their feasibility for all lighting sources. If the study concludes that the impact of the proposed rules may undermine the industry, EU officials can amend the proposal. An exemption for stage lighting, which is what the industry is demanding, could then be a viable option. But an evidence-based assessment is needed in order to identify solutions that are in the interest of both citizens and the industry. For example, allowing the entertainment industry to continue using current stage lighting would make sense. But rules are needed to prevent similar energy-guzzling lights from being used improperly to, say, light your garden at night. Depending on the outcome of the assessment, a compromise could be to have energy labels on all stage lighting instead. A label would pull consumers towards the best products by giving them an impartial A-G ranking.

All in all, energy efficiency requirements are the kind of plain, commonsense tool that the EU can be proud of. If we are to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, we need both political willingness and common sense. To all music fans – don’t worry, the show will go on.
Stephane Arditi
European Environmental Bureau

• As trustees of the charity LightAware, we read with interest the letter from Richard Pilbrow. We wholeheartedly support the Save Stage Lighting campaign. We would also like to alert readers to the fact that this “mistaken legislation” goes far beyond theatre, and constitutes a crisis not just in the arts but also in health and social justice.

Legislation banning incandescent lighting has created a severe situation of social exclusion for those who cannot tolerate new forms of lighting, including LED and fluorescent lighting – and this tightening of the legislation means even fewer alternatives. We hear from light-sensitive people throughout the UK and around the world, who are struggling to work, participate in leisure activities, travel, study or even access the streets at night because of the recent changes in lighting.

We believe that it is immoral to ban a form of lighting with no provision for those who cannot tolerate the alternatives to light their homes and live their lives.
John Lincoln and Eleanor Levin
LightAware Trustees

I fully endorse Richard Pilbrow’s comments. If the proposed EU regulation is not amended to exempt theatres from these strictures, the only viable indoor theatre in the country would probably be the candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
Chris Newall
The Questors Theatre, London

[TonyGosling]

How Light Affects Your Health
Could some of your health problems be down to artificial lighting?
https://www.naturalhealthmagazine.co.uk/beauty/how-light-affects-your- health

We may sense the upbeat of sudden sunshine, or feel a preference for a café with inviting lighting, but in general we don’t pay much attention to light. Yet the quality and quantity of light we’re exposed to has a profound effect on our bodies and minds. All living beings – ourselves included – have evolved to a fundamental rhythm of dark nights and light days and are finely tuned to adjust to subtle cues as light dawns or fades. Light tells plants which way to grow and birds when to sing. It affects our mood, skin, nervous system, eyesight, sex drive and circadian rhythm.
We spend more and more of our lives exposed to artificial light, and now the nature of that light is changing dramatically, in ways we may not understand but which our bodies perceive. The EU ban on incandescent lighting has forced the move to new forms of ‘low-energy’ lighting, which contains more of the blue end of the light spectrum. While the legislation seemed well intentioned, many people began to report pain and ill health when exposed to new forms of light, especially LED and modern fluorescent, with symptoms including searing eye pain, migraine and debilitating headaches, skin rashes, dizziness, agitation and anxiety.
It is not yet fully understood why certain forms of light seem to be causing such diverse health problems. Senior medical professionals are expressing concern about the effect of new forms of light on our eyes, skin, nervous system and sleep. It may be that different aspects, such as the amount of blue light, glare, electro-magnetic radiation and flicker are responsible for different symptoms.
Professor Arnold Wilkins, an expert in visual perception from Essex University, says flicker is the most likely explanation for headaches, nausea and dizziness in office workers.
“Our research shows that the incidence of headache increases when fluorescent lighting flickers,” he says, “and we have long known that at low frequencies, flicker can cause seizures.”
Professor Wilkins explains that our brains can be affected by flicker, with disrupted communication between the eye and brain, even if we are not visually aware of it: “Sometimes it’s too rapid to see, but it can still be a problem. Flicker causes the neurons in the brain to react at the same time, making it difficult for the brain to work out what is going on.”
The extent of flicker in LED lighting is determined by of the electronic circuits that drive the lights, says Professor Wilkins. “Some people are more sensitive to flicker than others,” he explains. “There is an obligation to light public places in ways that are not flickering.”
But until this is better understood and acknowledged, new lighting is causing extreme social exclusion as those who cannot tolerate it find themselves unable to access public spaces, including schools and colleges, health centres and hospitals, places of worship, sports and recreation, and even the streets at night.
Elaine, 38, from Ireland, had to leave her job and then her home because of severe sensitivity to LED lighting. “When new streetlights were erected outside my house, I couldn’t even step into the front garden without severe eye pain, migraine, dizziness and nausea. It hits me immediately,” she explains. ‘‘At the very same time as the streetlights, our monitors at work were changed to LED back-lit monitors. I was already struggling and extremely sick at work with the overhead LED lighting. I was living on painkillers and anti sickness tablets just to get through the day. I couldn’t tolerate the monitors even for a few seconds so I had no choice but to leave my job.”
Elaine is not alone. The charity LightAware, which raises awareness of the impact of artificial light on health and wellbeing, hears from people all over the world who are now struggling to light their homes and live their lives. LightAware believes it is unjust to ban a safe form of lighting with no provision for those who cannot tolerate the alternatives.
Elaine moved to the country but is now plagued by LED lights from nearby farms.
“I don’t know where else to go,” she says. “I hope and pray that this gets resolved in our lifetime. I am in my 30s, but living the life of an isolated 85-year-old.”
Visit lightaware.org for more information.

[TonyGosling]

How does artificial lighting affect human health and wellbeing?
https://www.lightaware.org

Lighting technology has changed dramatically in recent years with the development of modern fluorescent and LED lights, and the ban on incandescent light bulbs.
Lighting technology has changed dramatically in recent years with the development of modern fluorescent and LED lights, and the ban on incandescent light bulbs.
But many people experience pain and ill health when exposed to these newer forms of lighting, with symptoms including eye pain, headaches and migraines, skin rashes, burning, dizziness and nausea. The spread of new lighting has resulted in the social exclusion of light-sensitive people, who are unable to access many places of employment, recreation, education and health. The problem is exacerbated by a lack of awareness and information.

Like many accessibility issues, attitude and understanding make a big difference. We want to enable access to civic life by encouraging service providers and businesses to become ‘LightAware’.

LightAware believes no-one should have to experience pain and suffering just to light their homes and live their lives.


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Individual Stories

LightAware receives stories from people all over the world who are shut out of their lives by new forms of lighting – people who can’t get to work without blinding headaches, or visit a library without a severe skin rash. We hear from people having to leave their jobs, their studies and even their homes. Each person adversely affected by new lighting has to go through the same process of trying to understand what is happening to them and to communicate that to others. It is a difficult and often isolating process. There is very little guidance or understanding, from the general public or from policy-makers or health professionals.

Many find their symptoms dismissed as ‘anecdotal’ and are told there is no evidence for the health problems they are experiencing. LightAware feels that technology is progressing faster than medical science is addressing the issue, and questions whether the testing of new products is sufficiently thorough.

LightAware believes we need much more research, and much more dialogue and joining the dots between different fields of medicine and technology. In the meantime, we are gathering the ‘anecdotes’ individual stories of personal experience of how lives and health are affected by new forms of light.

(Some names have been changed to protect anonymity where requested)
9 LightAware Case Studies - LED Street Lighting
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Adam – Czech Republic - Migraines from computer screens
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Gemma – East Midlands - Migraines triggered by fluorescent lighting
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Jason Stehn – Austria - Light Sensitivity Causes Social Isolation
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Mary Coales – Chichester and London - Electrosensitive reaction to LED
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Tania – South of England - Lost career due to migraine
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Martin – Wales - LED headlights and street lights have too much glare.
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Rebecca – London - Crippling migraine from fluorescent lighting
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Wendy – South of England - Electrosensitivity made much worse by LED street lighting
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Helen – London - Migraine from high-frequency sound in lightbulbs
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Charlie – North of England - LED street lights a step too far
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Anna – Central Scotland - "CFLs feel like the dementors in Harry Potter"
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Katie – North of England - CFL-sensitive student
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Peter – Wales - "Fluorescent lighting made my life hell"
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Sarah – North of England - Joint pains and rash from CFLs
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Kevin – South of England - South of England. Light sensitivity and disability access to work
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Elizabeth – Aberdeen - LED sensitivity - "I couldn't even step into my own front garden"
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