The starless night

By: Josh Leach

Where have the stars gone?  Most urbanized countries have practically no visible stars in their night skies.  Light pollution from cities extends into the atmosphere, where the light is diffracted and scattered over hundreds of miles.  The result is that the sky no longer gets dark, but rather takes on a grayish hue.  In fact, in London the full moon is completely invisible, bleached out by urban lights.
Light pollution seems insignificant compared to the destructive power of air or water pollution, but scientists have only just begun to discover its impact on the environment.  According to Globe at Night, a website devoted to promoting light pollution awareness, “Light pollution poses a serious threat in particular to nocturnal wildlife, having negative impacts on plant and animal physiology. It can confuse the migratory patterns of animals, alter competitive interactions of animals, change predator-prey relations, and cause physiological harm.”  Josh Kurosz, a senior at Seckman High School, commented by saying, “Yeah, you don’t expect something like light to have a significant effect on the environment, but apparently it can.”
Since the very beginning, life has experienced the change from day to night.  Organisms have evolved to rely on the transition from light to dark to direct their biological cycles.  Many plants, for example, use photosynthesis during the day, then resort to cellular respiration at night.  Disruptions in this natural process may have a severe effect on these plants.  The US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health reports, “Prolonged exposure to artificial light prevents many trees from adjusting to seasonal variations.  Research on insects, turtles, birds, fish, reptiles, and other wildlife species shows that light pollution can alter behaviors, foraging areas, and breeding cycles, and not just in urban centers but in rural areas as well.  Sea turtle hatchlings normally navigate toward the sea by orienting away from the elevated, dark silhouette of the landward horizon.  When there are artificial bright lights on the beach, newly hatched turtles become disoriented and navigate toward the artificial light source, never finding the sea.”
Scientists are also finding health effects due to light pollution.  Most people are skeptical that there is enough artificial light at night to impact health.  However, Verlyn Klinkenborg, a journalist for National Geographic, writes, “Now most of humanity lives under intersecting domes of reflected, refracted light, of scattering rays from overlit cities and suburbs, from light-flooded highways and factories. Nearly all of nighttime Europe is a nebula of light, as is most of the United States and all of Japan.”  To truly understand how much light pours out of urban areas every night, compare it to the most rural places on the globe.  Klinkenborg goes on to write, “In the south Atlantic the glow from single fishing fleet— squid fishermen luring their prey with metal halide lamps—can be seen from space.”  Believe it or not, there is enough artificial light to impact people’s health.  Globe at Night states, “Many species, especially humans, are dependent on natural body cycles called circadian rhythms and the production of melatonin, which are regulated by light and dark.  If humans are exposed to light while sleeping, melatonin production can be suppressed. This can lead to sleep disorders and other health problems such as increased headaches, worker fatigue, medically defined stress, some forms of obesity due to lack of sleep and increased anxiety. And ties are being found to a couple of types of cancer.”
Perhaps the greatest consequence to light pollution is how a starless sky impacts our humanity.  Humans have always looked up at the stars.  For thousands of years, nomads would hunt during the day, then gather around a fire and look up at the night sky.  They would discuss their place in the cosmos and question the origin of everything.  This was where philosophy was born.   Abby Aldridge, a senior, said, “We have lost our beautiful night sky and we will probably never get it back.”  Artists from throughout history have received their inspiration from the night sky.  The world may owe Van Gogh, Holst, and Shakespeare to the stars.  The last two generations of Americans, however, have grown up with a light polluted sky. According to US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, “When a 1994 earthquake knocked out the power in Los Angeles, many anxious residents called local emergency centers to report seeing a strange “giant, silvery cloud” in the dark sky. What they were really seeing—for the first time—was the Milky Way, long obliterated by the urban sky glow.”