DarkSky Victoria is a not-for-profit organisation.
DSV has been formed from a group of like minded Victorians who want to see the quality of the night sky retained for future generations.
Australian night skies are still some of the darkest on the planet. DSV aims to provide information, and support to any person, organisation or business that shares our aims.
Robert Wagner Vice- President
Committee
Robert Wagner
Coula Panagis
Andrew Hayes
Founding President 2015 – Tony Wolfe
“I worked at a coal power station for 44 years.
If you can picture Homer Simpson, sitting behind a horseshoe of dials, eating donuts and pushing buttons, that was my job.
I was a unit controller in a coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley. I started as an electrician at 15 and finished forty-odd years later at the Loy Yang B coal power station.
My light bulb moment (pardon the pun) came during a 3am shift.
I was watching us pump out maximum load and started wondering why. Industry was shut, streets were empty, and I couldn’t work out where all that power was going. So I did some digging.
Back in the early days of the grid, generator outputs were inflexible, so they had to produce maximum load all the time. The industry invented “base load” demand to soak it up, like off-peak hot water and street lighting. Nobody had ever revisited it.
I got curious and won a fellowship to travel overseas and study street lighting reduction. I came back, presented what I’d learned about LEDs, and was laughed out of the room.
People said LEDs would never work here. Have a look around now – all of Australia runs on them.
I worked out that we had better ways to produce electricity, ways that were cleaner, cheaper and safer. So I started advocating for renewables. And that made me a square peg in a round hole.
The advocacy hurt my career. It cost me friends. And for a long time, I couldn’t work out why the pushback was so strong. Eventually I realised it had nothing to do with the science and everything to do with identity.
When I was starting out, you got a job in a heavy industry and you were set for life. Your family probably worked in it, and you’d want your kids to work in it eventually too.
So when the conversation starts around shutting coal down, people don’t hear “opportunity”. They hear “you want to take something from me“.
Once I understood that, I changed how I talked. I stopped mentioning the shutdown of coal. I only ever talked about the opportunities renewables were bringing, the new workforce, the new technology, the new jobs.
And something has shifted.
People around here used to think we’d burn coal forever. We had 800 years of it, the thinking went, so we may as well use it. Now they’re watching the closure dates creep closer, with Yallourn coming offline soon and Loy Yang to follow.
They’re grappling with what that means for their families, and that’s when the conversations get real.
Polling now shows only 17% of regional Australians are hard against renewables. Around 60% are curious, asking questions, sitting on the fence.1
That’s the shift I’m seeing on the ground. People aren’t always polite about it, but they’re listening. And that’s new.
I keep showing up because I’ve got six grandkids with one more on the way. They’re the ones who’ll have to live with the worst of what climate pollution brings, and to repair what we’ve built. I helped create this mess, so I’m responsible to help fix it.
If anyone had told me 20 years ago that I’d be out there spruiking renewables to coal communities, I’d have laughed them out of the room. But here we are, and the conversations are changing.
With appreciation,
Tony Wolfe
Coal worker
Climate Media Centre spokesperson
Latrobe Valley, Victoria”
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The mission of DarkSky Victoria is to preserve and protect the nighttime environment
and our heritage of dark skies through environmentally responsible outdoor lighting.
The DarkSky Victoria, through its policies and efforts, seeks to:
1. Improve the nighttime environment by reducing light pollution through better lighting practices that provide:
• Energy savings resulting in economic benefits
• Superb nighttime ambience and quality of life
• Conservation of nocturnal wildlife and ecosystems
• Safeguarding of scientific and educational opportunities, such as astronomy
• Preservation of cultural heritage and inspiration for the arts
• Increased visibility, safety, and security at night by reducing glare
• Protection of human health;
2. Raise awareness about curtailing light pollution, the beneficial effects of doing so, and its solutions;
3. Educate about the values of environmentally responsible outdoor ighting while collaborating with other like-minded organizations;
4. Promote responsible legislation, public policy, research, and standards in a professional and scientifically sound manner; and
5. Seek specific solutions that mitigate light pollution, including:
• Reduce total light in the nocturnal environment (total lumens in use) through;- Densities (i.e. lux)- Warranting- Controls (e.g. on/off capabilities, time-of-night sensors)- Energy Codes• Shielding and directionality.
• Consideration of spectral distribution.