By Judy Shore Rosenthal
Let’s be clear about what the Great Neck Record story “Rosenthal Continues Fight Against LEDs, Part 2” in the Oct. 18 issue, is telling you.
1. The consultants hired by the Village of Great Neck (VGN) are deceiving the mayor about the necessity for installing excessively glaring, excessively bright LED bulbs.
2. The lighting manufacturers providing the bulbs agreed that with respect to both cost savings and visibility, the 4000K bulbs offer no advantage to VGN compared to the 3000K bulbs. In fact, the 3000K bulbs illuminate by providing a softer, warmer light. The 3000K bulbs, or the preferred 2700K, should be the mayor’s choice throughout the village.
3. The mayor and Board of Trustees have authorized an untested wireless system that makes all VGN residents unwitting guinea pigs.
4. This system (according to tangible documents) indicates the capability for camera surveillance and sound sensors.
5. Do not assume camera surveillance means traffic surveillance. There is much secrecy and denial with respect to this project. VGN residents have had no opportunity to learn about this information first hand or give it their approval.
6. The mayor and Board of Trustees are demonstrating a lack of transparency towards VGN residents.
7. At the same time, this author has long suspected a lack of transparency on the part of the hired consultants towards the village government.
8. VGN is getting this wireless system for free or low cost for 10 months so this new technology can be tested.
9. There are no free gifts. What are the consulting company’s intentions and true agenda with this system? What are they getting out of it?
10. VGN residents should consider the serious ethics and privacy issues that this wireless technology presents. The era of Big Brother is about to descend upon us. Not only are we tracked on the Internet, but now we can be tracked on the streets.
11. Scientists have known for 40 years that blue-rich light is harmful to human health. LED streetlamps are blue-rich light.
12. Google “Blue Light Has a Dark Side” from Harvard Health Publications, Sept. 2, 2015.
13. Blue-rich LED lights provide five times the disruption to our sleep cycle (circadian rhythm) compared to our present streetlights.
14. The same Harvard Health Publication reports, “It’s not exactly clear why nighttime light exposure seems so bad for us. Study after study links…exposure to light at night to several types of cancer (breast, prostate), diabetes, heart disease and obesity). Reread #13, above.
15. The mayor continues to demonstrate contempt and closed-mindedness with respect to potential public-health and welfare issues. His consistent reply is, “Everyone is doing it [LEDs].”
16. According to the article “Sleep Deprived? Switch on a Light,” by Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, chief of Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, which appeared in The New York Times on Feb. 10, 2017, “We should all be paying attention to this [LED lighting]. The whole temporal world has turned upside down. Bright, bluish light—like the one from your smartphone, tablet, television [or LED streetlamp] sends a signal to your brain to stop producing melatonin, a powerful hormone that helps you fall asleep.”
17. In the same issue of The New York Times, Dr. Michael J. Breus, clinical psychologist and fellow at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, said, “People are exposing themselves to light and it’s having a cascading effect on their health at multiple levels.”
18. Speak up. Write letters to the local newspaper. Request that Mayor Bral halts this entire project immediately. Save your family’s health and the community you call home. It takes tremendous positive energy and courage to stand up for what is right.
The 2017 Nobel Prize was awarded to American scientist Michael Rosbash for his research on circadian rhythm, which indicates the importance of this system to human health. I look forward to further research that will elucidate the impact of disruptions to our circadian cycle caused by exposure to blue-rich LED lights.
