No one supports extinction of magnificent animals. Why should we
permit extinction of our skies? Everyone has a right to the
stars. Light pollution is the earliest and most visible sign of
environmental destruction. The dome of light hanging over most
cities blots out the stars, and electricity is wasted to light
the night sky -- light needs to be on the ground not up in the
sky. The wasted electricity represents needless burning of coal,
oil, and natural gas, whose byproducts show up as acid rain,
smoke, and carbon dioxide emission. Strip mining and underground
mines produce the coal for the wasteful burning, and runoff from
this mining pollutes rivers and streams.
Thus, light pollution is far more than some astronomers being
inconvenienced. It is a most harmful assault on the environment.
It affects us all, and all of us ought to be concerned about it.
JUST GO OUT OF TOWN, AWAY FROM THE LIGHTS
This is equivalent to saying why worry about the loss of trees
and flowers in our cities. Why have urban parks? Just go out of
town to see some grass, flowers, or trees. It shouldn't be
necessary to go out of town to see them. If we can't have enough
sense to plant trees, shrubs, and flowers all around our cities,
we can at least have enough sense to plan for parks and preserve
those green areas left. Why not have the same attitude toward
dark skies? We are not asking people to turn off their lights.
We are asking them to shield their lights, use proper lighting
levels for the lighting task at hand, and turn off unneeded
lights.
In any event, it is no simple task to get away from the lights.
Urban sky glow, the dome of light hanging over all cities of any
substantial size, extends for miles and miles. For example, it
is easy to see the sky glow of Phoenix, Arizona, from more than
100 miles away. The sky glow from Los Angeles, California, is
visible from an airplane 200 hundred miles away. How many dark
spots are left in the urban corridor in the Northeastern part of
the United States? Even in the most remote portions of North
America, there are dusk to dawn lights blaring into the
darkness. The light from one of these causes significant light
trespass a mile or more away. We challenge anyone reading this
essay to find a mountain top or plateau in the continental
United States where there is no trace of light pollution visible
somewhere on the horizon.
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