Have you ever seen a skyful of stars swept through by a milky way so thick it could have been painted on, stars so numerous they could be grains of sand, all moving in relatives of 186,000 miles per second from light years away in patterns as vivid and crazy as van Gogh?
I haven't.
You haven't either. Not the way van Gogh saw it. Few people alive today have experienced a true night sky, not since the proliferation of the electric light began erasing the stars layer by layer until all that's left is the occasional airplane. Not the same.
I live in a small town 60 miles out of Chicago. We have no night sky. The country is two minutes away. There is no sky there either. I have driven up and down the long, wide state of Illinois and found nothing but the pale yellow glow of civilization that has slowly replaced our only clear evidence of God.
What have we done?
I want my stars back, dammit, and I need your help. I want a federal end to light pollution. I want illegal light spill to be a fineable offense that carries a penalty. I want open lights illegal; every existing light retrofit with a cowl that conceals the light source, thereby reducing glare to zero for those on the ground and preventing a significant portion of the light from spilling into the sky.
This action would quickly restore a huge portion of our night sky, particularly in outlying areas.
Tonight, this isn't happening. No one thinks there's anything wrong with an uncowled light. They're wrong. We're all responsible, but the fix isn't terribly complicated; it should be about as difficult as changing a bulb. It would create a new industry.
Companies like Best Buy and Wal-Mart could take the lead or simply have it taken from them. Light can and does invade privacy and property.
The sky belongs to all of us. We'd have it back if we just put a lid on it.
Online petitions are the next new thing, but I don't know how to word a petition. Do you?
Article comments
1 - Ms. Tek
I know what you are talking about. I live in Chicago.
I'm lucky. I've been to the far northwest coast of Scotland in a small fishing village. Hardly any light at all when we walked away from the village.
What we saw in the sky was amazing. My friend brought his telescope with him so that was even better.
The only part that was kind of freaky is the strange noise that sheep seem to make in the middle of the night. They don't sound like sheep at all but like snot monsters.
2 - duane
"Few people alive today have experienced a true night sky."
Really? I have. It's not all that frequent that one can see this, since we pretty much live in a city. You need to go up high -- like over 10,000 feet, as in mountains. Or out on the ocean. If you stare at the sky long enough, straight up, you can begin to dispense with the illusion that it's up. It's only up because of our local view of things -- the horizon, the force of Earth's gravity. It's really out, if you're looking at the Milky Way. You start to appreciate the third dimension of the Galaxy, as opposed to the more obvious sense that the night sky is a black (or dark blue) bowl with tiny pinprick holes in it. It's hard to explain, but it's scary. Like you're going to be drawn into it. It's lonely in a way.
3 - Dan
That's really cool. I'm going to try that. thanks d