Nostalgia has never had much appeal for me. The old posters have frames around them now; they're historical artefacts, at least until prices rise a little on ebay. But music is different somehow. The ones that resonated have their own special set of shelves. Shuffling through the archives today, I ran across an oldie,
Blows Against the Empire, and put it on the phonograph machine.
The throwaway lyrics of Have You Seen the Stars Tonight? reminded me of nights spent flat on our backs watching meteor showers, and the rare nights when the Northern Lights appeared.
Jump, before the guardian demons start barking about too much text.
When was the last time you really saw the Milky Way? For most in the developed world and increasingly for everyone, the pageant that inspired humans' first attempts at mathematics, science, literature, and metaphysics is no longer there.
The Fading Milky WayThe Milky Way is dimming, not because the end of the Universe is near, but rather as a result of light pollution: the inadvertent illumination of the atmosphere from street lights, outdoor advertising, homes, schools, airports and other sources. Every night billions of bulbs send their energy skyward where microscopic bits of matter -- air molecules, airborne dust, and water vapor droplets -- reflect much of the wasted light back to Earth.
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It's a big loss. Young sky watchers grow up to be philosophers, scientists, poets, explorers, and school teachers. But kids aren't likely to watch -- or be inspired by -- a blank sky.
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Timothy Ferris, author of 10 best-selling books on astronomy and the cosmos, and featured scientist in the PBS special "The Creation of the Universe" agrees, "The loss of the night sky is most troubling for children. Whole generations of kids in cities and suburbs are growing up seldom if ever having seen the Milky Way and what a sky full of thousands of stars might look like."
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"People often describe to me in glowing terms their experience in viewing the night time sky as if they'd seen something extraordinarily exotic... something akin to observing Victoria Falls or the south pole. And I'm afraid that's the case for many people...that they can count on the fingers of one hand the times they've seen a good night's sky."
Documentation of the ill effects of light pollution can be found all over.
A recent article from St. George UT runs through part of the list: a
billion birds a year smashed into high rises, turtles heading inland to the motels instead of out to sea, and the equivalent of
45 million barrels of oil per year in wasted energy from lights that illuminate not just their targets, but everything, in all directions. That waste estimate, by the way, is for the US alone. Never mind the
Japanese shrimp trawlers clearly visible from high orbit. high intensity lights of the squid fleet in the sea of Japan, clearly visible in satellite photos. (
Update: Correction of last sentence. As FishGuyDave points out in a comment below, what I was thinking of here was the fleets of squid boats in the Sea of Japan I saw in a photo. Not shrimpers of course, nor are they only Japanese,
nor are they restricted to the Sea of Japan. Thanks, Dave, for pointing this out. Shrimp apparently on the brain! That's what I get for writing in rant mode. Something I usually don't do. And yet, it shoots to the top of the list. Go figure.)
My personal favorite:
So many people fear the dark and think light protects them. But an Australian study found that outdoor lighting does not deter crime. Instead, it points to doors, lights the way and creates deep shadows for hiding. Naturally dark places can actually be safer.
(Much better documented
here and especially
here.) This is something that people absolutely refuse to entertain, I can tell you from personal experience. I tried to float the notion of reducing street lighting and redirecting remaining lighting towards the ground at Town Council. The security issue trumps everything. Eventually, if it is demonstrated that illuminated ATM's and entrances, unnaturally deep shadows nearby, and "guard" lights aimed squarely into the faces of passersby on the street all add up to better opportunities for crime, the response will be "Yes, all that is true. But the lights make people
feel more secure." This logic somewhat resembles that of keeping gays out of the military not because they will cause any problems, but because other people
think they might.
Here and there, we're making a stab at it. From the same St George article:
A few cities have begun dimming lights on high-rises during fall bird migration - Toronto, New York and Chicago, where a Field Museum study showed bird mortality was reduced by 80 percent. That's one step, for one part of the problem.
In southern Michigan, Lake Hudson Recreation Area was declared the nation's first Dark Sky Preserve in 1993. All park lights are fully shielded and run on motion sensors. But a small preserve can't protect the night sky's full arc. A glow from nearby towns spreads like bright jam along the horizon. A gas station down the road uses banks of unshielded mercury vapor lights. They send a blistering white cone into the sky all night.
In 2001, Flagstaff, Ariz. - with its Lowell Observatory and eight telescopes - became the first "Dark-Sky City," with fully shielded municipal lighting. Other towns have followed with lighting ordinances to protect dark skies.
The first group I ever ran across working on reclaiming the night was one run largely by British astronomers. The Campaign for Dark Skies is still the best organized and most informative of several organizations working on the issue. The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is also very active. They have an interesting newsletter.
One other little problem
Even if we got the lighting under control, there's one more thing: Telescopes 'worthless' by 2050
Ground-based astronomy could be impossible in 40 years because of pollution from aircraft exhaust trails and climate change, an expert says.
Global warming will bring more cloud cover, and combined with increased air travel will leave contrails that never dissipate before others are formed to take their place. Hmmm. Until prices become high enough.
Reclaim the Night Sky
For those really into stats: The night sky in the World
Ecological Light Pollution