SIJ 10 - the greenhouse effect
bartjeej

SIJ 10 - the greenhouse effect

My hometown of Rotterdam is in one of the most light-polluted regions of the world, so it never gets properly dark at night.
However, that absolutely pales in comparison to the light emitted by the greenhouses in the countryside just outside the city, where growth lamps burn to make sure the plants keep growing 24/7, as if it were high noon all day long. This shot shows the sky in the direction of these greenhouses at midnight, it looks like there's a forest fire going on. It's like that every cloudy night, and this is just a relatively small field of greenhouses.

On the plus side, the greenhouses do enable the 135th largest country in the world, to be the largest exporter of vegetables in the world (although not the largest producer). But as a nature lover, it does bug me to see the pollution!
That is a lot of light from the greenhouses. Now I understand why you can't get a good shot of the stars at night. Very nice capture though. Almost hard to tell what time of day this was shot, but the street seems so quiet, is everyone in bed sleeping already?

-Thomas
 
bartjeej,
You're right that is a lot of stray light.
You've got me wondering about what the greenhouses look like?
JH
 
I had no idea that the greenhouses had these special growth lamps, nor that there could be so much light pollution from such things. Of course it makes sense...but seeing is believing!

It must be very disconcerting to the birds, and certainly to your fellow citizens.

I'm with Bill about there being an ominous feel, yet I do really like your photo. It has a scifi feel to me, as though the extra terrestrials are about to land.
 
Amazing story and a great shot to back it up. The biggest exporter of vegetables? Amazing!
 
Very ominous light. But goes to show the extent we must go to for our civilisation to feed itself...not to mention feed all the cars that stretch as far as the eye can see here....
 
Luke, many countries produce more veggies but consume the bulk of it internally. I think the vast majority of our veggies end up in processed foods, since this turbo-growth process might lead to a lot of bulk very quickly, but it doesn't produce the best tasting vegetables, in my opinion - they tend to be a bit watery and low on flavour.
Also, according to my father at least, the fact that they grow on some kind of material that's designed to be cheap and give them just enough nutrients to grow, means their nutritious values aren't as high as most crops which have been put in healthy soil and left to grow for themselves.

Jhawker, here's a photo of a greenhouse just before dusk:
nationalebeeldbank_2010-5-488733-2_verlichte-kas.jpeg


here's the inside, you can see the lamps (turned off here) and the automatic watering system:
4468768255_def1a9f90b_z.jpg


and here you can see how the greenhouses dominate the landscape in some places, with some of them already having their lights turned on - luckily this is slightly further away from my home
5425819541_f19841b6a9_z.jpg
 
Incredible colour in that sky, puts a new meaning into the greenhouse effect!
 

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Single in January 2012
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