Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumOur nights are getting brighter, and Earth is paying the price
On a clear night in 1994, an earthquake rumbled beneath Los Angeles and caused a city-wide power outage just before dawn. Startled awake, some residents who had stumbled outside called various emergency centers and a local observatory to report a mysterious cloud overhead.
That weird object turned out to be the band of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, which had long been obscured from view by the citys lights.
Arguably, the light bulb is the most transformative invention humans have introduced to this planet. By flicking a switch or pushing a button, we can push back the veil that would naturally shroud our lives each night. Now, we work long after the sun sinks below the horizon. We play games outside until the hours stretch into double digits. We more safely roam city streets after dark.
But if light bulbs have a dark side, its that they have stolen the night. The excess light we dump into our environments is endangering ecosystems by harming animals whose life cycles depend on dark. Were endangering ourselves by altering the biochemical rhythms that normally ebb and flow with natural light levels. And in a primal sense, weve lost our connection to nighttime skies, the tapestries into which our ancestors wove their star-studded stories, timed the planting and harvesting of crops, and deduced the physical laws governing the cosmos.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/our-nights-are-getting-brighter-and-earth-is-paying-the-price/ar-BBVAa4G?li=BBnb7Kz
FirstLight
(13,362 posts)One thing I notice upon visiting (the city) is that there are birds awake at all times of night. It is disturbing on many levels...not only that but the loss of basic constellations I am used to seeing nightly.
Light pollution is real for sure. We have city-folk stay in the rentals next door and across the street...and I constantly have to tell them to turn off the lights outside so we can see the night. They have no clue, they are desensitized....
Delphinus
(11,840 posts)and I were out in the country today (our city is about 250K), and talked about what it would be like to have dark at night, to see the stars ...