By Janet Raloff
This is part one of a two-part series on lighting’s environmental and human impacts. Part II: “Light Impacts,” is available here.
In a remote mountain community of Mexico’s Sierra Madre, people are tending fields, cooking meals over open fires, and field-testing light-emitting electronics woven into colorful swaths of fabric. Depending on how a person folds or hangs one of the hand-towel-size pieces of cloth, it serves as a cordfree wall light, table top reading lamp, or hanging lantern.