Is Light Pollution One of Our Greatest Sins?
It’s an accepted fact that most of humanity gravitates toward urban environments. Approximately 55% of people live in cities and it is expected to rise to 68% over the next few decades. This is by no means itself a bad thing in that it concentrates the detrimental environmental impact of civilization into more compact areas. But we may be unwittingly missing out on one of life’s greatest treasures and thus cutting into our enjoyment and sense of wonder.
Anyone who lives in or near a large urban area knows the glow that permeates the night sky, all but obliterating the stars above, save for maybe the very brightest ones or a few of the planets. This glow is often referred to as light pollution and it is the bane of astronomers and stargazers. But are they the only ones who suffer from this loss of access to the Cosmos ? What effect does this dulling of our sensory experience of the Universe we inhabit have on the average person? I believe that the impact is profound and creates a sort of arrogance of spirit and a type of ignorance that does much greater harm to society and individuals than is understood. It also robs people of majestic inspiration and dreams beyond this world, beyond ourselves.
For eons, people and animals looked up into pristine, crystal-clear skies where not only millions of stars twinkled, but the Milky Way itself streaked the sky with unimaginable scale and beauty. These stars are our most ancient of all constants in the world, that predate the Earth itself. Therefore, we have them built into every night of our very evolution too. To those earlier people the stars were alive. So much so to the point they gave them names and also gave god-like names to the groupings of stars as constellations. Taking it further, shamans and astrologers gleaned important patterns in the stars and their movements and made predictions about life and personalities based on which stars were visible at which times of year. The stars were the Firmament, the Heavens, the residence of the Divine.
The stars were 100% reliable guideposts to myriad seamen and travelers who used their accurate positioning to orient themselves and find their way around the world. Devices were invented to take advantage of this metric perfection such as astrolabes and sextants. Our relationship with the stars was an unavoidable given for they would appear every cloudless night with perfect regularity like good friends that could be fully depended on from generation to generation. The stars created a common unspoken bond between all peoples from all times. We can see the same basic stars and Milky Way the ancient Egyptians gazed in awe upon!
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.“– Vincent Van Gogh
Stars inspired us. Many songs have been written in homage to stars and even our most famous nursery rhyme is Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. We like stars so much that we even call our luminaries of society stars and give them stars on the walk of fame on Hollywood Boulevard. We say they have star power. Piano teachers give gold stars to reward their students and even apps are rated in the App Store using stars. We adore our stars so much yet we have shunned the originals, the real McCoy’s, the true shining stars of the night sky. Few speak for the silent stars of the night and few know what they are missing behind the gray haze of the city.
When you are among the stars in a remote area, far away from the city lights, you are in church or temple. This is the original and biggest cathedral of all. One can’t help but be in awe and feel a sense of humility in this setting, even if on a subconscious level. When you are there with the stars, you are on spaceship Earth and are pretty much of an astronaut at that moment. That’s a terrible feeling to not have! Three major pillars of mental well-being that most of humanity is being deprived of a prime source of: awe, humility and inspiration. The stars inspire us to great dreams and give a place for our minds to wander, unfettered by worldly concerns, to think outside the literal box. The stars teach us of grandeur and the infinite possibilities of space.
How I wonder what you are. Stars inspired scientists for centuries to explain their mysterious existence, their composition and their movements thus causing us to better understand our place in the world and how it came to be. From this centuries long quest we came to understand that indeed our very Sun is one of literally countless stars and that it is composed of a great bit of Hydrogen and uses nuclear fusion to power itself and our lives. That’s right, our very life and all life on Earth is completely dependent on a our beloved star. Each point of light in the sky is a possible Sun for countless other worlds and this is an inescapable thought once you see them and know what they are.
Our star, the Sun, is the reigning daytime champion of light pollution, pushing all other stars, many of them geometrically larger than the Sun, such as Antares or Rigel, out of view until the Earth itself eclipses the Sun every night.
But in modern life, the Sun has competition at night—city lights. We have so many lights in our cities that shine in all directions that it produces the infamous “glow” and turns the night sky from dark to light gray or pale yellow even. One can clearly see this upward leakage of light in the space photo of Europe at night above. This leakage has a dark side though. It creates a great disconnect from the Firmament for the inhabitants of the urban regions. Many kids grow up in the city with no real expectation of seeing stars and are maybe told they even exist at all so they truly don’t know what they are missing.
We may be losing an important ancient and simple tool of mental health by obscuring these gems of the night. Why is there so much depression and anxiety in modern life? Of course it’s not as simple as looking up and seeing stars instead of gray skies but it may be contributing to a sense of meaninglessness and mundane existence. I think it is. Plenty of rural folks struggle with the same problems but at least in their case there is more of a connection to the one and only Firmament, the Universe.
But even our rural folks suffer from light pollution. Recently I revisited Monument Valley, deep in Navaho country, having been there 20 years before. New tourist attractions and road lighting had been developed in the mean time and it was not as purely satisfying as before. The stars had lost their intensity even with a modest amount of light pollution. Farmers also have lights on at night as do many small towns with street lights, parking lot lights, porch lights, etc. These all take their toll.
This is a known problem and I’m by no means the first person to note this problem, nor to coin the term of light pollution. Ideally, we can find a way to light our world at night and keep our stars too. For that we will need to manage lights better—turn them off when not needed and shield the tops of lights so they shine down where we need the light and not up, where we don’t need it. Perhaps smarter lights that turn on when needed via motion detection and then return to the natural state when not needed. There are many things we can and should do to reclaim the connection to our Cosmic Legacy.
Indeed, the modern stargazer should be able to enjoy the stars even more since we know what they are, how far away they are and how many have planets around them (most of them). So it’s even worse to deprive us of this majestic nightly show that informs the mind and feeds the soul and connects us to something far greater than ourselves. I predict that if we got back in touch with the stars, we would experience more well-being and would become a better society in general. It should be a requirement, not an option! So even if you can’t see them tonight, make sure you know a place you can go to for quality communing with the Firmament and regularly go there!
