Epistemic status: low, uncertain if this is useful

Crossposted from my Substack.

As part of EA Bath’s Path to Impact fellowship, we are running a project where we pick a theory we have learnt from the intro fellowship, apply it to a cause area, and list some interventions we have researched that can help that cause area.

Theory

ITN Framework

I think the ITN Framework is super important. For those who do not know what it is, it stands for

• Importance
• Tractability
• Neglectedness

Where Importance is how many beings it affects (the scale of the issue), Tractability is how solvable it is (e.g. how cost effective is it) and Neglectedness is how many people are working on it, and do there need to be more.

Cause Area

I’ve chosen to research flies, as it comes under wild animal suffering which is a vastly neglected area. I also think a lot of flies are affected by this problem, and it seems to be pretty tractable – I will explain why in the interventions section.

My reasoning for choosing this is that I am really interested in animal welfare, and when I was in the Library the other day and I looked up and noticed a lot of flies dead / trapped in the lightbulbs. This lead me to thinking if there was an easy solution to avoiding this. It turns out there are a few things that work well for reducing this: changing the wavelength of the light, changing the brightness of the light, changing the shape of the lightbulb, and ensuring the light is only pointed where it’s needed, which I will go into detail later.

After some reading, it turns out this is (obviously) also a problem for insects outdoors.

According to this article, artificial light has a big impact on their life cycles, as half of the insect species on Earth are nocturnal. And apparently, artificial light covers about 1/4 of Earth’s surface. They are also attracted to headlights of moving cars, and an estimate of 100 billion die on the German highways, according to this study.

Additionally, moths and other insects are attracted to outdoor lights. They fly around them for hours, and it’s estimated 1/3 are killed, either from exhaustion or by being eaten by predators.

What exactly is the issue?

Lots of flies and insects are attracted to specific colours of light. This often leads to death by electrocution/being trapped/ or by the light being so attractive that it disrupts their nocturnal cycle, and they die from exhaustion or by being eaten by predators. These are all major causes of suffering, and given that we use artificial light a lot in our life, we should try use the least harmful type, or look for ways to minimise attraction.

Uncertainties

My goal would be to minimise the attraction of insects, as it appears that light attraction is a big source of suffering for them. However, there are studies like this one, where they are actually trying to increase numbers of flies captured because people don’t like flies indoors! This seems like a fair argument, especially for places serving food / places where good hygiene is needed. And I guess if they are being electrocuted, then perhaps they suffer less? Although the study did state that 30% of the flies showed more than 10% wing damage, around 75-100 fly legs were found in the tray, and wings had been found on the tray floor (the tray was used in the experiment to collect the flies). So either we can make the lights more efficient so there is no suffering, and just instant electrocution, or we minimise what actually attracts them into the room – e.g. colour (change the wavelength of the light).

Interventions

1. Colour

Flies are the most attracted to bright white or bluish lights, insects can typically see light in the 300-650nm range, whereas humans can see in the 400-800nm range. They are the least attracted to warmer, yellow/amber lights, especially red lights. However, red lights are probably not very useful to humans as they provide little light, but I think we could use warmer lights. I also think that outdoor lamps could use warmer lighting, so nocturnal insects, like moths, don’t get attracted as easily.

2. Brightness

The intensity and energy output of the light source also attract insects.

The greater the bulb’s wattage rating, the brighter the light and the greater the drawing distance. Also, the greater the wattage, lights that use glowing filaments (incandescent, halogen, etc.), generate an increasing amount of heat.

— Dodson’s Pest Control

3. LEDs

This could perhaps be one of the best interventions. It turns out as most LED lights don’t emit UV light (which insects tend to like), and generate little heat, they don’t really attract many insects.

Some LED white lights do however contain a colour mix that does attract insects, and some are specifically manufactured to produce UV light for mosquito light traps, or growing plants, or sterilisation.

However, warm white or off white LED spotlights work well, and are good for humans too as there is good visibility. Additionally, most LED lights sold for residential lighting emit almost no UV light.

4. Shape of bulb

If we could avoid the flies getting trapped inside the light in the first place this would also be useful, especially for the big square lights in public buildings. I guess this is probably a design flaw, and there is probably some way to design the lights in a different way so they can’t get inside.

5. Direction of light

I think this applies more for outdoor lights – essentially have covers on them that mean they point in only the direction they are needed. Also having motion sensor lights for outdoors seems useful. This was mentioned in this article.

Conclusion

To summarise, bright lights are bad for flies and seem to be a large cause of suffering, LEDs or warmer lights seem good as they minimise attraction, and it doesn’t seem too hard to use these more, and given that people are moving to replacing old lights with LEDs, this cause area probably doesn’t need much/any attention.