Is artificial light poisoning the planet?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/darkness-manifesto-book-johan-eklof

by fortran77 • 3 years ago

204 163 3 years ago

a1pulley7• 3 years ago

HOAs have their downsides, but I do really appreciate one of my CC&Rs: in my ~4 square mile city, we are not allowed to have exterior lights apart from ones to illuminate driveways and patios. Moreover, there are no street lights in the entire city.

It's an oasis of uncorrupted night in the unlikeliest of places: Los Angeles. You can see city lights from certain vantage points, but in most places it is pitch black. Living here feels like perpetual camping. It is wonderful, and it would be stressful for me to return to living in a place with perpetual illumination.

Zak3• 3 years ago

I have a family member in Sedona, AZ. There are no street lights there except for a single state highway, and private always-on outdoor lighting is legally restricted to being low, dim, and shaded.

It's pleasant, and I find driving at night there easier because headlights provide more contrast when not everything is illuminated.

vkou2• 3 years ago

Whereas I find nothing pleasant about my night-time drives through the suburbs of Bellevue. I spend the entire drive paranoid that someone's going to cross the street, and that I won't even see them until they are right in front of me.

Rain, darkness, tree cover, incredibly bright oncoming headlights, poor street lighting, and enough-of-a-walking-culture-that-people-might-be-walking-at-night is a great combination.

wcarron• 3 years ago

I'm just up the road in Flagstaff and the dark skies are absolutely one of my favorite parts of living here. Darkness is an underrated addition to quality of life.

hammock• 3 years ago

What part of LA is this?

a1pulley7• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Hills,_California

ClumsyPilot2• 3 years ago

there are no street lights in the entire city.

Doesn't this cause issues?

Sounds like it would turn 20 minute walk into a dangerous excercise. Do people walking on foot carry torches?

This sounds really crazy from road safety perspective

I don't mean crime, i mean getting lost and collisions.

hnlmorg• 3 years ago

Cars are usually equipped with headlights. ;)

On a more serious note, it’s pretty common for UK roads to lack street lights. Particularly in more rural areas. The majority of my drive home from work is unlit.

cld84834• 3 years ago

Do people walking on foot carry torches?

At night, if there is insufficient moonlight? Yes of course. Street lights only exist in urban areas, if you're walking anywhere else in the world at night, a flashlight seems like a logical choice.

a1pulley7• 3 years ago

Do people walking on foot carry torches?

It depends. If there's a full moon out, I often walk without a light. It's wonderful. Otherwise, I use a headlamp.

Doesn't this cause issues?

No. I think the main effect is that people finish their walks, bike rides, and so forth before dark. Obviously that's impossible for much of the year for people who work 9 to 5, but given the demographics of this community—small business owners with flexible schedules and retirees—it works for most. In particular, there is one woman from a nearby street who walks past my office window every afternoon: in the winter she walks by at 3, and in the summers she walks by around 6 with her husband.

getting lost

I don't think this is a realistic concern for those with smart phones. Moreover, the hilly topography and lack of cycles in the road network (barring one) make it very easy to remain oriented.

nanomonkey• 3 years ago

Do people walking on foot carry torches?

I find a flashlight and a small pocket knife are essential every day carry. It's a quality of life issue for me, I want to be able to examine something at any time of day, plus street lights are intermittent and I walk a lot. I live in Oakland, a major city, but still insist on turning on a flashlight when I cross the street. People don't pay enough attention.

gnicholas• 3 years ago

I walk through my neighborhood at night, and some houses have streetside lights, but most do not. I always bring a flashlight but typically don't use it. I do teach my kids they have to be very careful of cars, because they are too short to be seen.

xjay2• 3 years ago

A safety reflector or other high-visibility clothing is a passive method for sending light back at the driver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_reflector

jakeogh• 3 years ago

Fortunately, no[1]. I live in Tucson AZ, and it's wonderful. We are the home of https://www.darksky.org/

You excluded crime from your comment, but I want to say that anecdotally, places where there are street lights are where the street crime happens.

[1] https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/lighting-innovation...

Losing the Dark - Flat Screen Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd82jaztFIo

aeharding• 3 years ago

there are no street lights in the entire city.

Yikes. Street lighting is one of the most important safety improvements, especially for people walking, as most pedestrian deaths due to drivers occur at night.

https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/provencountermeasures/lighting.c...

Of course, if we weren't so dependent on cars to do literally everything this wouldn't be the case, and we could safely get rid of a lot of street lighting.

eastbound2• 3 years ago

Similarly, the installation of public lightening by Colbert in the XVIIIth in Paris, lowered criminality by an order of magnitude.

It also enabled women rights, since, with the ability to somewhat walk securely at night or in the early morning, comes the ability to go to the factory and work somewhere else than in the house.

RobotToaster• 3 years ago

I appreciate how important it was in the past, but in the era of inexpensive and powerful LED flashlights, streetlights do seem rather redundant and wasteful.

xjay2• 3 years ago

These days we'd tap into the cell phone network/radio waves to track pedestrians. It's the modern safety reflector or high-visibility clothing.

Are you not carrying your phone with you? Well, "it would be a shame if something happened to you."

op00to• 3 years ago

It’s LA, no one walks.

__MatrixMan__3• 3 years ago

Another approach is to have personal lighting. I regularly attend an event in one of the darker parts of Colorado where it's considered common courtesy to have a glowy something or other attached to you. There can be collisions even between pedestrians. Nobody gets hurt but it's awkward when it happens so you start to appreciate the extra cues.

_hcuq2• 3 years ago

Flashlights? Reflectors? We don't need streetlights illuminating empty roads all night.

culi4• 3 years ago

Street lights can also aggravate the problem of safety. Unfortunately most cities seem to believe that more lumens = more safety. But often times this creates more stark dark spots and makes it harder for our eyes to adjust to them

What would really improve safety the most is having more, warmer, weaker lights. One city in the UK ended up taking down their streetlights after some attacks and replacing them with christmas lights strewn across some city trees.

Not only did it look nicer, end up costing less, and was less damaging to the local ecosystem, but it also likely made the area much safer

cryptonector2• 3 years ago

Yellow street lighting is not as polluting as LED street lighting. Bring back yellow lighting!

a1pulley7• 3 years ago

I'm fond of warm, yellow hues for indoor spaces. If I were forced to choose a color for outdoor lighting, I would go for the same. However, white vs. yellow has already played out in some areas: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-30-mn-40657-...

adgjlsfhk1• 3 years ago

This is only half true. bluer LED lights only need half as much light to get the same visibility.

nick__m• 3 years ago

why completly ban the exterior lights when restricting the type, direction and power of the lights is enought to qualify for a region to be designated as a IDSR by the International Dark sky Association. For pratical exterior lighting tips approuved by the IDA this page is a good resource : https://en.cieletoilemontmegantic.org/citoyens

cvccvroomvroom3• 3 years ago

It's still LA, where driving is war between the insane, the jerk, and the insane jerk.

And earthquakes, forest fires, fresh water insecurity, neglect of the unhoused, and people who wouldn't get the South Park episode about the pretense of a personal brand.

(Don't forget absurd housing costs.)

opportune2• 3 years ago

I think the LA area’s low street light density is partially because things are so spread out that it wouldn’t be worth it. You probably still have too much light to see things like the Milky Way.

And I gotta say anecdotally, one of my top-10 most stressful driving experiences was trying to navigate Gardena at night, because they not only have few streetlights, but seem to use ineffective reflective strips as well.

dkarl2• 3 years ago

Within the last five years, my street got much brighter, from one relatively dim streetlight in the middle of the block to multiple much brighter poles. I don't think we had a safety issue before, but many people prefer it this way, saying they feel safer. (Safer than what?)

I think we have to accept that we poison everywhere we live, and strive to concentrate ourselves in a small enough area that the planet can tolerate us. Of course, there's a chance we're poising ourselves as well, and the lack of outside darkness has some effect on us, but certainly on my block that's a minority concern.

Forge36• 3 years ago

The "feels safer" is an interesting argument. From what studies I could find the more light has the opposite impact on safety. IE: The more light at night the less safe you actually are/more crimes occur.

iamdbtoo2• 3 years ago

The owner of my building has installed flood lights that are on all night and effectively remove any darkness from the outside. The main reason given was for safety, despite there never being a safety issue, and trying to convince them that the opposite is true has been difficult, to say the least.

unshavedyak• 3 years ago

Could you link them? That's an interesting conclusion. Is there any correlation drawn, or even speculation as to the cause for this? Perhaps criminals need some light as flashlights draw too much attention?

syntaxing• 3 years ago

Genuinely curious to see the source of this statement. I was always under the impression that more light is safer.

Arrath• 3 years ago

Motion sensing lights outside my house certainly did nothing to improve safety for me, for the barest extra convenience of not having to remember to turn the porch light on before leaving when expecting to come back after dark.

They were likely detrimental, especially when considering the extra paranoia when I'm sitting there stoned trying to watch a movie and the light keeps ticking on outside. I got fed up with it and unscrewed the bulbs enough to not turn on, and so far my landlord hasn't complained about me doing so.

parenthesis• 3 years ago

Criminals like to be able to see what they are doing as much as anyone else.

bratbag• 3 years ago

We experimented with cutting streetlight power at night where I live.

After six months of higher crime rates, we switched them back on.

So I suspect its a variable thing, based on location and existence of other lighting.

aidenn0• 3 years ago

They definitely switched from sodium-vapor lights to LEDs in my neighborhood and it's almost painfully bright (particularly when the streets are wet).

OkayPhysicist• 3 years ago

I miss the sodium lamps.

They were being transitioned out during my university years. First year all the lights on campus were that cool, single frequency yellow, by senior year there was just one, stuck in a lonely corner of campus, buzzing it's familiar call. I think the single emission spectra was a big part of the appeal. The complete lack of color left things somewhat eerie, but in a distinctly nonthreatening way. Just an alien peace.

kaushikc• 3 years ago

We also have to acknowledge that human population is highest it's ever been and there needs thus increasing reasons and motivations to damage and poison this planet and harm the lives of every other specie just trying to survive.

elihu• 3 years ago

"I think we have to accept that we poison everywhere we live, and strive to concentrate ourselves in a small enough area that the planet can tolerate us."

That may be true in a broader sense, but I think when it comes to outdoor lighting, it's a matter of changing the current prevailing policies that a lot of people don't like even if they're acting purely from selfish motives. I think the problem is that whenever you get a disagreement between someone who wants it dark so they can sleep and see the stars and someone who wants more light because they're afraid of crime or getting run over by a car at night, the latter almost always win.

There's some logic to that -- if someone's house gets robbed or you have a car accident the consequences are immediate and verifiable. If it happens a lot there'll be clear statistical trends. Whereas if someone can't sleep as well it's kind of a vague complaint that can be ignored, because the impact is spread out over the whole population and you can't really measure it. Everyone's lives are just a little bit worse and most people wouldn't even realize it or be able to recognize or articulate why. If you're a risk-averse mayor or president of the local HOA, of course you'd approve more lights, unless there's an organized effort to prioritize reducing light pollution.

opportune2• 3 years ago

I agree, and I think society is beginning to wake up to this as suburbanism falls out of fashion. We structurally cannot all live in idyllic rural settings and conveniently be near urban centers.

dustractor• 3 years ago

I grew up in a rural area where most people opted out of the light that the electric company installed for every customer who got service. Whenever I visited a city it infuriated me to see tens of thousands of lights and my parents would explain the 'safety' issue and that it prevented thefts. Nine year old me could only think, "well if people are gonna steal, why not spend the money you use on that electricity to buy them homes and maybe they won't want to steal..."

thefaux• 3 years ago

Sadly we all too often collectively choose to hurt ourselves rather than raise others up.

xnx• 3 years ago

Light pollution is an interesting "gateway drug" to broader environmental awareness. With coordinated effort, the effects and benefits can be witnessed immediately. A broad power outage in NYC in 1977 resulted in the Milky Way being visible from the Bronx: https://www.space.com/16577-milky-way-galaxy-nyc-blackout.ht...

Gigachad3• 3 years ago

Light pollution seems like the least important from of pollution imo. We currently have cars all over the place spewing out extremely dangerous carcinogens in the air killing a large number of people. I just can't bring myself to care about seeing some stars when we are killing people and animals, poisoning the dirt, and warming the planet irreversibly.

squeaky-clean• 3 years ago

Other forms of pollution are worse, but light pollution does harm animals. When baby turtles hatch they instinctively look for bright lights lower on the horizon and go towards it. Because naturally, that will be the moon reflecting off the ocean. Bright beachfront buildings are even brighter than the reflection of the moon leading them to wander away from the ocean

Moths and frogs are also attracted to lights. Migratory birds rely on seasonal cues such as changes in the amount of light. The OP article also mentions in the intro that it is reducing bat populations in areas.

stuaxo• 3 years ago

This is good - when I was arguing for this about 5-10 years ago, people seemed in favour of eradicating darkness entirely.

dorchadas3• 3 years ago

Sadly, they still are and it's super depressing.

nosianu• 3 years ago

And just a few minutes after reading this submission I see this article about "The Dark Sky [Scottish] Town":

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dark-sky-moffat-scotla...

This Scottish Dark Sky Town Decided To Go Even DarkerÜ
Moffat’s annual experiment in switching off artificial lighting has had unexpected results.

Below the article there are links to some other articles about similar places, for example "Fredericksburg is one of Texas’ newest Dark Sky Communities, which makes stargazing here out of this world." -- https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-to-find-dark-ski...

They also have an.. unusual "Courses" section for online courses.

DarkNova6• 3 years ago

Are there any hard facts and clear causations why this is a bad thing? I've been hearing about it for years, but have yet to see evidence why it would be.

And no, I'm not interested in correlations.

giraffe_lady• 3 years ago

Correlation comes much much earlier in understanding effects, especially complex large scale long term ones like this. If we always wait for concrete undeniable proof, we will never avoid harmful choices, but only understand them after the fact.

And correlations are not orthogonal to causations. They can be spurious, but often they are not. Categorically dismissing correlations is as naive as categorically accepting them. The distinction you're making is more a type I error vs type II error. Which is a valid orientation but doesn't put you on the higher intellectual plane the tone of your comment is trying to claim.

vlunkr• 3 years ago

So is artificial light poisoning the planet? I think they made some interesting points but they didn't even really quantify what that means.

mistrial92• 3 years ago

the implied topic is the effect on insect populations, and on human psychology due to lack of rest time and other potential side-effects.

auntienomen• 3 years ago

It's poisoning us. Most of us live in cities now or in densely populated suburbs, and have no clue what we've lost in the night sky.

Gigachad3• 3 years ago

How is this poisoning us? What health affects are associated with not seeing the stars?

adolph2• 3 years ago

". . . as their rhodopsin becomes superfluous, they may well create descendants who, in even middling darkness, are as blind as, it turns out, bats are not . . ."

To say that there is a link between continued usage and inheritance of a genetic characteristic is Lamarckism.

Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism

nemomarx• 3 years ago

It doesn't have to be - couldn't descendants who are less adapted to the darkness by mutations survive if there's more light, and so on?

adolph2• 3 years ago

I gave that some thought too. However, if “rhodopsin becomes superfluous” then it won’t be a survival/reproduction factor.

pard684• 3 years ago

I live in one of the darkest locations in the USA. We are nearly tied with some places out west in the desert. Still have not gotten over the night sky. You spend enough years out here seeing it every night, expecting it to eventually be something you take for granted, and then realize why so many ancient peoples were fascinated and in love with the stars.

dorchadas3• 3 years ago

Can I ask where you're at? I'm a certified teacher, and since it's math/physics I can easily transfer it to any other state. Really debating moving somewhere dark if I move back to America, just so I can have the sky.

steve_adams_862• 3 years ago

I recently got into astronomy with my kids and it has been particularly eye-opening how severe light pollution is.

It's very strange to be in a relatively dim city (Victoria, BC) and not being able to see things it seems like I should be able to see. I know their apparent size in the sky and that my scope can magnify them enough to physically see them, but not enough light is coming through to out-shine the atmosphere above me.

It's a bit unsettling to imagine how bad it is in large cities. There must be so many things in the sky that people can't see with the naked eye that I take for granted. And yet, there are so many things I can't see either.

The more I learn to appreciate the night sky, the more it saddens me. I'm both eager and a bit anxious to see a truly dark night sky; I'll both become more aware of how bad the pollution really is, yet I'll get to see space even better than before.

I had the same experience with the ocean. Visiting places rich with life, such as protected area which have had plenty of time to recover, reveals just how barren and burdened the ocean is right outside my home. Fewer plants and animals, less diversity, more sediments from industry/runoff/sewage treatment, etc. What a crazy thing to do to such crucial and beautiful things we depend on.

depereo• 3 years ago

I moved near to a dark sky reserve and we now experience an amazing night sky. We have to be a bit more careful with our own lights but it's been very worth the effort.

hackernewds3• 3 years ago

Besides not being able to see stars in the night sky, what other loss is there? Artificial light seems a worthy tradeoff for being able to function for 8 additional hours a day.

steve_adams_862• 3 years ago

I don't agree that these are the only possible states. I think we can still have artificial light for an extra 8 hours, but we can be more responsible with with how we use it. At the moment it seems typical in many places to install lighting without much thought about how it effects others, or how that light finds its way into the sky.

At the micro scale, why does my neighbour have two flood lights in their back yard? They actually have the narrowest lot in the city; it's something like 21 feet across. In effect it's similar to having these lights in _my_ back yard. The neighbour past them also has a large, bright light installed and facing directly at my yard perhaps 30 feet away. Other neighbours nearby have similar lights which don't interfere with my yard so obviously, but certainly inhibit seeing the night sky. The result is that there's one corner of my yard where a telescope isn't flooded with light (even with a shroud), and I'm limited to looking into the sky past trees and buildings. I still enjoy it, but I could have so much more clarity and visible sky without those lights shining in my yard.

At the macro scale, the highways and urban areas around me make little effort to direct light down; it's extremely diffuse in all directions, illuminating the sky directly rather than indirectly. There are thousands of bright signs, street lights, and other sources of light which no one has made an effort to reflect their light downward. Studies show that doing so makes a substantial impact on light pollution, and it should by all means be the law to reduce this pollution like any other, but where I live it appears to be on no one's minds.

I'd also make the case that seeing the night sky is an important activity for human beings, similar to "touching grass" or going on a walk in the woods. It's a primordial thing, part of countless cultures' stories, a source of deep and long-lived questions about our origins (religious or otherwise), and practically an engine of human discovery via sheer inspiration. Do we really want to live without a connection to that? Is it good for our kids to grow up rarely if ever seeing the arms of the Milky Way, Pleiades' glowing gas and dust, or the same of the Orion Nebula?

These asterisms and other cosmic formations are stunning spectacles we're constantly deprived of. They reveal the wonder of the universe and spur our minds. If you live in a polluted city and rarely get to leave though, you're out of luck. How many young bright minds are never hooked by this sense of awe and wonder, and thus, never reach for the sciences? How many people of lower socioeconomic status will literally never witness something as fundamental as the clear night sky?

Similar to being on a mountain in winter at 7am as the sun rises, seeing the sun shine and glow along the ice and snow, seeing an expanse of glaciers, mountains, forest, and a huge open sky – these things are becoming privileges, but they were once integral experiences and part of our connection to the universe and the earth from which we're all made. If you have no religion, at least you could have that.

I don't think everyone needs to have these things to be whole or that they're subhuman for having missed out. I just think so many people would benefit greatly from it, both tangibly and intangibly. The more we disconnect from nature, the more it seems to harm us. The clear night sky is akin to looking into our past, the stellar nursery of where we were all created.

That may not be as practical or useful as 8 hours of artificial light, but I don't care much about more light when it only means another 8 hours of grinding at things I don't feel enriched by or connected with. There needs to be a balance in there somewhere.

fleddr• 3 years ago

I'm from the Netherlands, one of the most light-polluted areas on the planet and had my first proper dark night only in my 30s.

It was in South Africa. We were driving with a roofed jeep on some plains in search of nocturnal wildlife. Then, the driver stopped and told us to get out. It was freezing and he prepared hot chocolate from the back of the car.

He killed his search light and it got so dark that we could not see our own hands. And then we looked up.

Holy shit. I'm not a melodramatic person but this was the first time in my life that I experienced living on a planet, connected to something far greater. I mean, I knew this to be the case, but I never experienced it. Because I normally live under the clouds and a yellow haze.

I experienced it once more in Colombia where I could see the Milky Way with the naked eye.

It's sad that an experience that should be a given has become so rare. I'm especially frustrated with all the lights that have no purpose. Nobody goes to admire the architecture of your church at 3AM at night. Nor do you have to decorate your backyard so excessively with obnoxious lights whilst you are sleeping.

maegul3• 3 years ago

For me this is an argument in support of higher density living and against suburban sprawl. If the distance between the urban artificial environment and an undeveloped “natural” environment beyond the city can be minimised, then there’ll be more opportunities for people to experience things like the above.

Maybe suburbs provide enough clarity of the night sky for most, I’m not sure. Still, the suburbs will never be the natural environment that undeveloped forests or parks could be.

kupopuffs2• 3 years ago

If you want a low-light suburb, check out Irvine, CA on the eastside. Sometimes it's so dark at night, it's scary.

aikinai3• 3 years ago

I don’t remember the name but I read a book years ago that was set in a future where humans live in dense cities with everything in between returned to wilderness. I always thought it was a really compelling idea if it were possible.

giantg24• 3 years ago

You'd still have to drive quite a way out of the cities in most places, suburbs or not. The sky glow is noticeable for miles in places with any humidity.

citrin_ru• 3 years ago

Dense cities tends to be much brighter than suburbs. I’ve lived on a street with bright LED streetlights and even with blinds down bedrooms was uncomfortably bright at night affecting quality of sleep. Now I live in a place resembling American suburbs and enjoy relatively darkness at night.

cvccvroomvroom3• 3 years ago

That's why they call it "sleeping out under the stars."

You can see the structure of the Milky Way sometimes.

Even satellites and planes look like absurd neon signs out in the country.

culi4• 3 years ago

Every now and then someone posts a photograph of the milkyway galaxy with all its colors and glories during a new moon. It's really frustrating to see most of the top comments calling out that it only looks so pretty because of exposure.

In reality if you manage to get to one of the few places left on earth that are truly dark sky places and you catch it during a new moon, the spectacular lights are really not that far off

Unfortunately the vast majority of internet denizens today have never truly experienced a dark sky during a new moon. An experience that just 200 years ago almost every human has had

similarmemoryz• 3 years ago

I had a similar experience while in the Withsunday Islands for a 3 day sail of the coast of Australia. It was awesome.

michaelteter3• 3 years ago

I had this same experience when I moved from metropolitan Texas to a high altitude location in the mountains of Colorado. I would take my dog for a walk at 2am and just get stuck staring upward.

The first couple of nights, I was amazed at what I could see, but then I was a bit annoyed about this one strip of clouds that was blocking part of my view across the entire sky. The next night I realized it wasn't a cloud :). "My God, it's full of stars."

Portugal is relatively close to NL, and it has some spectacular sky viewing which isn't too remote from villages or places to stay.

giantg24• 3 years ago

Motion sensors are cheap these days, but for some reason they're still so uncommon. To me, this would be one of the easiest wins. Even if 25% of the lights were tripped at any given time, that would still be a 75% reduction from those residential outdoor lights.

TacticalCoder• 3 years ago

Someone posted here the other day that he lived in an area ranking high on the:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale

Must be quite something.

I live in a civilized country but 45 minutes from the closest highway and far from any city, so I get to enjoy beautiful night skies. But satellites are already polluting it : (

Also, dumb question but: can't satellites be made to not emit any light and to not reflect it?

YourDadVPN2• 3 years ago

I remember that when the Starlink satellites first went up and people complained they were too visible, Starlink agreed to make future ones less so. I don't know why they didn't do that to begin with, maybe the metal is shiny by default and it's an extra cost to make it matte? Maybe it's about heat, since a matte object will absorb more from light? At any rate we're in dire need of some regulation around satellite visibility before we lose more of our night sky... oh, and flying drone billboards need to be banned before they catch on.

ChatGTP• 3 years ago

"Nothing to see here, please go back to looking at your Instagram explore feed" \s

I know what you mean, I once spent a week in the Australian outback, in a desert which is considered one of the darkest place on earth.

The sky looked luminescent, I can't describe how insane it looked, it was almost totally purple and I could actually see things moving around, satellites, the space station, meteors, I could clearly make out planets, it was absolutely unbelievable.

I was sleeping in a "swag" and I could just lie there watching it for hours.

elevaet• 3 years ago

It's so ironic to have such incredible technology to peer deep into the cosmos, yet on a day-to-day basis we've never been more disconnected from the heavens.

xerxesaa• 3 years ago

I had a similar experience in Wadi Rum in Jordan. I'd recommend it to anyone.

cvccvroomvroom3• 3 years ago

Define "poison." "Alter" yes, "kill with a foreign substance" not really.

Light and sound pollution are mostly city things.

Light pollution is mostly an issue for nearby optical observatories.

RoadieRoller• 3 years ago

I currently live in the US. Back in India where I am originally from, we have house roof tops which are flat. Most of us would spend an hour or more on the roof top, after dinner, staring at the sky and talking. Sometimes we wave and talk to the neighbor from the roof top. This I would say is a routine thing in most households after dinner. I miss that dearly in the US.

davidkuennen• 3 years ago

That sounds lovely. Coming from the countryside in Germany we did something similar as children. The night sky sure is awesome.

tommywg7• 3 years ago

The International Dark-Sky Association is a really great resource if you're interested in taking more action, like using dark-sky friendly lighting in your home/business/hoa

https://www.darksky.org/get-involved/

tpmx• 3 years ago

No.

c_o_n_v_e_x• 3 years ago

Part me wonders whether this (LED lighting being bad for us) explains the feeling that society is collectively losing its marbles.

jononomo• 3 years ago

Although I'm a white American, I attended high school in the Himalayan foothills of India. One time, when I was 17, we went on a camping trip and slept out under the stars, miles from the middle of nowhere, at an elevation of probably 9,000 feet. It was 1992. I remember lying in my sleeping bag on some hillside, looking up at the Milky Way, and then a meteor shower happened and I saw a dozen shooting stars. I only vaguely understood then what a mystical experience I was having.

amriksohata• 3 years ago

I feel stuff like this makes us less and less aware of our journey and existence and curiosity, modern life with the electrification of light, whether our tablets or TVs, and our skies, we are being put more and more into a bubble where we just do rather than question. Covered by maya (illusion), imagine our ancestors sky gazing and being able to daily see the cosmos.

Is artificial light poisoning the planet?

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