What happens when the ocean is exposed to too much artificial light?

Kay Brown talks with environmental researcher and lawyer Willow Hogan about the growing problem of marine light pollution—and how artificial light from coastlines, ports, and ships can disrupt sea turtles, plankton, coral, seabirds, and other marine life.

They explore the risks, the push for international regulation, and practical ways smarter lighting could help protect the ocean.

Takeaways:

• We found that artificial light at night disorients leatherback sea turtles and hatchlings, so You can see how lights onshore become a lethal misdirection.
• I learned cargo ships and cruise liners glow like Christmas trees, attracting zooplankton and breaking their vertical migration routines.
• We talked about easy, practical fixes — smart sensors, shielding cones, and warmer-spectrum bulbs — that You or shipping operators could adopt to deliver immediate biodiversity benefits without sci‑fi tech or massive expense.
• I'll be blunt: marine light pollution is a newer, semi-reversible pollutant; if We act now, coral spawning mismatches, squid feeding failures, and plankton declines can be reduced quickly.
• We surfaced that regulation conversations are happening at the IMO, but You should know voluntary ship-side changes are cost-effective and cut energy waste and ecological harm fast.

Mentioned in this episode:

Leigh McGowan UAN Promo Stinger - Short -[2026]

It is such an easy fix.

And because marine light pollution hasn't been around for too terribly long, the impacts of it are semi reversible.

Right.

So if we start to address light pollution now and we start to turn off lights, the impacts will be lessened pretty instantly.

It's kind of an instant gratification for not a lot of buy in here.

Hello, welcome to Democracy on Fire.

The biodiversity of life in our oceans is a growing concern.

Marine creatures are under stress from several causes, including one that many of us may not be familiar with, and that's artificial light at night, which is harming turtles, planktons, seabirds and others that depend on natural light cues for survival.

Today we're going to take a look at this emerging issue, how artificial light affects our oceans and the marine creatures that live in them.

My guest is Willow Hogan, who recently concluded a fellowship with Friends of the Earth US on the Climate, Energy and Ocean team.

As the Arlie Schwartz Memorial Fellow, she's been doing research on how light affects the marine environment and has co written a piece calling it the Silent Unregulated Light Pollution Crisis.

Welcome, Willow.

Hi, Kay.

Thank you.

So great to have you with us.

Tell me, how does artificial light at night affect the marine environment?

Absolutely.

I mean, big question, right?

It affects it in so many different ways.

I'll start with my research, started with turtles, so.

Well, okay, I'll start.

Let me back it up.

I'll start with just a general statement.

So many creatures on this earth rely on light for natural cues, right?

We do when to go to sleep, when to wake up, all sorts of things, migration, reproduction, just about anything across the board, light touches or light effects in some ways for for millions of creatures.

The same is true in the oceans and can be even more exacerbated in the oceans.

So an example of this is leatherback sea turtles, or sea turtles of most kinds have at least some sensitivity to light and can affect them in a couple different ways.

Firstly, leatherback sea turtles that come ashore to nest are extremely sensitive to light and other motion and movement.

It makes them very nervous.

So if there's a really bright light on shore or even anywhere nearby, they can get spooked and fail to nest for a little while.

And on the other end, turtle hatchlings, when they're coming out of the sand, they're very disoriented and they usually use light or some kind of reflection off of the shore to know which way to go.

So if there's a big ball of light for street lighting or a port or something nearby, they may misdirect, start heading in the wrong direction, making an already really dangerous and kind of well known dangerous, dirty, even more deadly for them.

So that's just one example.

Out in the ocean there's so many more.

In the polar night, there's so many more.

I can get into a couple different examples if you'd like to.

Well, where does light pollution come from that affects the oceans?

That affects the oceans everywhere.

Where my research recently has been has been taking a look at some of the international shipping vessels since they're out in really, really dark parts of the world, these beaming lights.

But marine light pollution comes from just about anything that's anywhere near the ocean.

So household lighting, street lighting, tiki bars, restaurants, anything like that along the coast can cause light poll.

Ports at sea, infrastructure like oil tankers, anything out there, and especially these large vessels, cargo ships, stuff like that, they're all lit up like a Christmas tree, right?

And out in the ocean.

And so these areas that are really dark in some of the darkest places in the world have these bright beacons on them.

Is there anything being done now to regulate marine light or light in the marine environment?

There is, there's been a lot of really important steps in the last couple of years.

So in the grand scheme of pollutants in this world, it's considered a newer pollutant.

So there hasn't been a ton of research, but there has been efforts that have been made.

Some countries are starting to take measures to shield lights and turn down lighting or just acknowledging marine light as a form of light pollution.

So there's been a large wave of these kinds of actions all over the world where light is starting to become considered a pollutant at the same level as noise or anything along those levels.

So there has been efforts starting to be taken, but there needs to be even bigger efforts.

So that's kind of where my research has been in the last couple of months here, has been taking a look at what that kind of regulation could look like at the international level and kind of the importance of addressing it at the international level.

At the international level, where would that be?

The International Maritime Organization that regulates the shipping around the world in the oceans, particularly beyond state's jurisdictions, out beyond everybody's eezs.

So has the IMO done anything about light pollution?

Not yet, but it's a discussion there which is really, really exciting.

So yes, it definitely could be addressed at the imo, at the Marine Environmental Protection Committee is my personal opinion as to where could be a really exciting step.

But yes, it has started to be addressed.

It has come up as a form of pollution, which is really exciting and now there's momentum around it.

Right.

So I had the wonderful opportunity to attend MEPC last May with Friends of the Earth, just kind of as a fly on the wall, part of their delegation, which was an incredible opportunity, but it also gave me a chance to kind of spend see what was out there.

And there is a discussion happening which is really, really exciting.

And you know, there's all sorts of processes that have to happen.

But I think the IMO could be a really wonderful place to address marine light pollution from these large ships at the international level.

So what kind of regulation are you promoting or advocating?

What would it look like?

How would ships be affected?

Absolutely, it would have to be a multifold thing, as with most forms of pollutants.

But the exciting part is what I'm asking for or what I'm promoting, I guess, is that nothing new.

There's no new forms of technology.

There's no big problem that we have to solve before we can address this.

Marine light pollution can be addressed in a couple different ways.

So the areas that I've been focusing on are simply not using lights that aren't being needed to be used.

So just kind of being smarter about our lighting systems.

There are automatic smart lighting systems, such as motion sensor systems, timing systems that use light when it's needed and don't lose light when it's not.

Or ships that project light, such as cruise ships, sometimes project light down into the ocean to try to attract creatures to show off.

And that's just.

It's not necessary light.

I want to take a pause and just say I'm not at all advocating for turning off lights on ships.

As a sailor myself, I know how important lights are on ships.

So it's really more about using those lights where they're needed for safety, but also just being conscious about where it's shining, what it's doing, in addition to that kind of shields on light.

So lights that are important, that might be right next to the ocean, using a kind of coning shielding system over them to keep them directed where they need to be directed.

Because light spillage is kind of a big part of light pollution because it could spill down into the sea where it doesn't need to be used and even up into the sky because seabirds and such like that can get disoriented as well.

So a coning system on lighting to keep it help directed.

Again, the safety protocols and then the color of lighting is actually a really important piece.

Now this is a little bit the wavelengths and all that is a bit outside of my range.

But from what I can say is that cooler white lights, so shorter wavelength lights travel a lot further in the ocean than warmer lights.

Which is why, like down in Florida, you'll see a lot of red lights on the beach because those can't be perceived by a lot of sea creatures and don't extend as far out into the ocean.

So kind of using lights that are on that warmer end of the spectrum can also make a huge difference for some of the impacts that the light is having.

So those are kind of my three main points.

Our smart lighting systems and just being smart about what we're doing.

Using shielding systems to help direct light and keep it from spilling over where it doesn't need to be.

And looking at warmer lighting as well to just kind of warm up everything and start to minimize those effects.

Are these things that ships could do voluntarily?

Is there a lot of expense involved in it?

Has that been considered as a strategy rather than trying to get it mandated to just see if they will voluntarily start using those practices?

I can't say for expansive or international regulation.

If there's been huge calls for voluntary movement there.

It's absolutely something that ships could do voluntarily.

It would be a slight upfront expense just to get some of those lighting fixtures changed over, but it wouldn't be anything extreme, especially considering that lighting waste is a really big part of this.

So in that practice of being smarter about where we're shining lights and such like that, the electrical expense of that would likely be huge.

So just being smarter, I think it's something like 30% of all light that we produce globally, not just marine, but globally, is wasted.

So if that's 30% of your electric bill on lighting, that could be a huge step for some of these ships.

So it would be a little bit of an expense, but.

But I don't think it would be a huge one.

And it would have a massive impact on the environment pretty much instantly.

So if ships and big industries would like to take that on voluntarily, that'd be wonderful.

How in making that argument to them and to the potential regulators, how do you describe what's being harmed and what could be changed?

I mean, what's really at risk if we don't do anything and light pollution continues?

Absolutely.

I mean, as you said at the beginning, biodiversity is at risk.

Right.

It's another contributing factor.

It's another rising pollutant in the world of so many different pollutions that we have.

But I think one of the biggest kind of grabs of this is it is such an easy fix.

And because marine light pollution hasn't been around for too terribly long, the impacts of it are semi reversible.

Right.

So if we start to address light pollution now and we start to turn off lights, the impacts will be lessened pretty instantly.

It's kind of an instant gratification for not a lot of buy in here.

I kind of changed my argument depending on who I'm talking to.

I know I did a presentation to you guys at the CAA and we talked kind of more about the Arctic side.

So wherever I'm talking is kind of my talking points.

But especially like out in the deep ocean kind of saying, you know, you see these ships out there, you know what your ship looks like out on the ocean, you are this bright ball of light or attracting these sea creatures.

And each individual ship is having these massive impacts on the zooplankton.

For example, zooplankton do vertical migration throughout the water column and they use.

I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said.

No, it's okay.

It's zooplankton, I believe is the pronunciation of it.

I've only ever written it many, many times.

But zooplankton do vertical migration up and down through the water column and they use light to know when to do that.

So if there's a constant light at the surface, they can't do that.

The same thing with school squid.

They also migrate up and down the water column depending on the time of day to feed and reproduce.

So if there's this constant light, they can't do that, they can't feed.

There's failures to reproduce and there's significant decline in each of these species.

But as I said, I could go on and on about all the different impacts.

I mean, there's coral impacts as well.

Coral spawning is.

A lot of.

Coral spawning is dependent on light.

And if there's a bright light, a coral colony right next door to another coral colony may spawn at mismatched times, leading to decreases.

So this research is all out there.

Like there's, there's tons and tons of research on the impacts of light pollution.

And the work that we need to do now is kind of redirecting it.

So that's where I go to this kind of, you know, it's an easy fix with an easy solution.

And it would be really great to be able to say, you know, like, we are solving this problem.

It's not going to join the ranks of gas and plastic that are these irreversible things that we are going to work for the next however many years to try to slow down.

So, yeah, that's kind of my grab is like it is fixable and we can do this very easily.

Instant gratification altogether.

You mentioned Florida.

Are there other jurisdictions that are regulating onshore light to affect marine creatures?

Absolutely.

There's.

There's quite a few different jurisdictions around the world that are actually starting.

There's a lot of terrestrial light pollution laws.

And so they're starting to expand.

I don't want to call out any particular country, but I will say Dark Sky International has a full list of everybody that everybody in the world, all light pollution laws that there are currently they've got US Laws, federal laws, as well as global international laws and treaties.

So there is movement out there.

Florida, the US Federal, not as much.

Florida does have a bunch of pollution laws, since turtles are quite particular down there.

But yes, there are definitely members out there that have some light pollution laws at home.

Well, it's very fascinating.

Interesting.

So thank you for the work that you've been doing on this, Willow.

And just to summarize, you found that artificial light false indicators are leading to the death and decline of thousands of marine creatures and that as bright infrastructure continues to grow along the coast and at sea, we have an increasing problem that needs attention.

And these factors are interacting.

As we've discussed.

There's so many stressors on the oceans right now from climate change, climate warming, more acidification, and just a lot of increasing traffic, ship traffic, more air and water pollution, water, underwater noise, and also as you've been discussing, the effects of artificial light on these creatures.

So we know that biodiversity is one of the big challenges that we're facing now as we grapple with all these changes to the climate.

They are all interrelated.

And this is just another example of what we need to pay attention to to help protect biodiversity of life in our oceans.

So did you have any closing thoughts that you wanted to share?

I don't know.

I just want.

I mean, thank you so much for having me on and letting me kind of ramble about this.

I'm really excited that marine light pollution is starting to be discussed more and more, and I really Encourage folks to go out and be conscious about what they're lighting out there in the world.

How did you get interested in this?

And.

And they were talking about, they monitor all the leatherbacks that come up and they take notes as to which direction they face, how often they fail to nest, and all of this.

And they noticed that none of the laying mamas were facing north down towards that beach and that there was an increase.

And so they kind of started connecting these dots.

And I, I ran with that.

I wrote my senior college thesis on marine impact or light pollution impacts from the fruit industry, because that was a big port for shipping out fruit.

So it was light pollution impacts from the fruit industry on leatherback sea turtles.

And yeah, I just kind of ran with it.

I had another opportunity to write about marine light pollution laws in law school.

And then with Friends of the Earth, my incredible supervisor, Jace, has let me.

Let me really run free with it.

And it just so happened that it was also being addressed at the IMO at the same time.

So it was really kind of a perfect coincidence.

So you're a lawyer?

I am.

By training, yes.

I went to law school.

I don't practice at NF Art anywhere, but this is kind of where my heart lies, is using the skills that I learned in law school to kind of translate complex things and see where we can help protect the environment even more.

Well, thank you so much.

I really appreciate the work you're doing and hearing your perspective on it and thinking about what we can do to advocate internationally to get some changes.

That would be great.

Thanks again and hope to see you again soon on Democracy on Fire.

Democracy is on fire, unfortunately.

But we're headed to the very important upcoming election where we have a chance to turn things around.

So we, the people, have the power and we're hopefully going to use it and hope to see you again soon on United America Network or wherever you get your podcasts.