
Fear of the light: why we need darkness - jonathansizz
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/23/why-we-need-darkness-light-pollution-stars
======
sandworm101
There are so many of these articles these days. The authors speaks of our
obsession with driving back the night via tech. Then they bemoan how people
can no longer see the stars. But what about those of us who _naturally_ cannot
see stars tech or no? I'm in the pacific northwest, where your lucky if you
can see the moon through the clouds during much of the year. I used to live in
the middle east, where natural dust often blocked out or blurred the night
sky. But it did create amazing sunsets unlike anything I've seen in north
america. And if you are in a deep valley or surrounded by trees, both common
in much of the world, you aren't going to see much of anything on even the
clearest night.

If starlight is so important, at what point should we project images of them
onto those evil clouds? True darkness, without seeing the stars, is not an
unnatural state of affairs.

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r4pha
Two years ago I took a trip to the Atacama desert. My luggage was lost in the
flight and the hotel manager was nice enough to let me use their washing
machine. I saw a few of the most beatiful natural landscapes I've ever seen
down there, but nothing so far has compared to the feeling I had looking up to
the sky while picking up my clothes from drying at night. I don't get
emotional very easily, but my eyes filled up with water and I had multiple
shivers at that moment. I woke up my girlfriend and we stood there like two
kids for a long time looking at our galaxy. I'm so glad the company lost my
luggage.

~~~
CommanderData
I think there's a lot to be admired with experiences like these and can't help
but feel a sense of tragedy when I know I'll never have these experiences
because of my modern lifestyle choices or where I live. I often think I may be
missing countless similar experiences because of my rushed city lifestyle.
Interesting and something I'd like to try now.

Recently experienced the green northern lights and nothing I say will describe
a beautiful and almost spiritual experience. I only suggest you try and see
for yourselves.

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tzs
The maps of the US lights at night show that there is a line running down the
middle of the country. East of that line it is essentially solid light, with
little islands here or there of darkness (often large state or national
parks). West of that line, it is opposite. Mostly dark, with islands of light
at major cities.

What is puzzling is the location of the line. As far as I can see comparing
maps, there is no obvious geographical feature that would have halted dense
development at that line.

A good map showing this is the light pollution map at DarkSiteFinder.com:
[http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html](http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html)

The line runs from Winnipeg in Canada, down through Grand Forks and Fargo,
then Sioux Falls and Sioux City, then Omaha and Lincoln, then Wichita, then
Oklahoma City, then down to Dallas and San Antonio.

I wonder if that line was just where westward expansion had reached before the
Gold Rush and the rapid increase in migration to the far west, and afterwards
people who would have otherwise went slightly west were instead going far
west, and so we ended up with a sparse area in between?

~~~
Falcon9
It's simpler than that. Dense population dropoff lines up with dropoff in
average rainfall:
[http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpn/us_precip.gif](http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpn/us_precip.gif)

~~~
eggoa
Adjust rainfall for growing season, and it might straighten out the bend in
the Dakotas & Minnesota.

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srean
[http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.h...](http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.htm)

just in case you haven't, spare your self some time. One of my favorites. No
spoilers please.

~~~
strictnein
Yep. Great stuff. The full book is worth a read as well

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_\(Asimov_short_story_and_novel\))

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Floegipoky
I went on a backpacking trip a few weeks ago with 2 friends in the White
Mountains. We summited Mount Bond at around midnight, 2 days before the new
moon. It was such a beautiful experience, I've never seen the Milky Way like
that before. Despite being exhausted and still over a mile between us and the
campsite we were heading to, without a word we all took off our packs, laid
down on the rocks, and spent almost an hour looking at the sky. There's
something very humbling about being able to see so clearly how minuscule our
place in the universe really is.

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clumsysmurf
"It’s not just darkness we fear, it’s the vastness and loneliness of the
universe"

I wonder if this concept can be expanded beyond darkness and noise pollution,
to a person's relationship with empty spaces and silence from mankind's
activity. Any good books / references would be appreciated.

"Every 2.5 minutes the West loses an area of natural land the size of a
football field to human development."

[https://www.disappearingwest.org/](https://www.disappearingwest.org/)

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sosuke
I made a trip out last year to see the milky way. I'd never experienced
anything like it before and I think we're losing something incredible by not
being able to see it.

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etqwzutewzu
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of
life is when men are afraid of the light." Plato

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Theodores
We also need darkness and the occasional glance to infinity for the health of
our eyes. I believe that kids today are just not getting the 'eye exercise'
needed for healthy eyes. Everyone seems to be wearing glasses or contact
lenses. We are going blind!!!

We have healthcare systems that put kids in glasses at the first available
opportunity to correct things, eyes get lazier and more corrective optics is
needed. We also have sunglasses for when the sun is out, again, eyes get less
exercise. Then, as per this article, we have 24/7 lighting in offices, shops
and selected homes. It is not just the stars we are not seeing any more, the
sun is not seen either!

I was fortunate to grow up in a rural area with very few streetlights. Also,
my childhood bedroom did not have electricity. If I wanted to read late into
the night I had to be by the window. In those days it was apparently bad for
your eyes to do just that, that was the new 'masturb*tion' as far as eye care
was concerned.

I also had to walk or cycle to school. With cycling you do get to exercise
your eyes properly, that glance behind and back again in a split second to see
what car is going to 'hit you' puts those eye muscles through their paces.
Stuck in traffic in the back of an SUV just does not give your eyes the chance
to get good.

Nowadays I am amazed that people have the lights on during mid day during mid
summer. Such an insult to the glowing thing in the sky! I detest that because
I believe that anything short of an unshielded nuclear reactor is just bad for
the eyes. Nobody I know sees it that way. My eyes are far from perfect, if I
drink a dozen pints of beer I can get double vision, not that I have drunk
enough to experience that in decades, uptime of non-blurry sight has been 9
nines for me.

There is also a myth that screens are bad for the eyes. Again I beg to differ.
I have been working with screens as intensively as the next programmer to read
this thread. However, in the office, if someone needs to read the (IMEI?)
serial number on the back of an iphone, I can just read it fine, which is
weird when it is a 19 year old asking the favour. (Actually just remembered
also grew up with a lack of TV due to reception issues in aforementioned rural
area so probably not watched screens as much as most).

Nowadays we have a culture of going to the gym, doing pilates and other such
nonsense to compensate for sedentary lives. I say 'we', I mean us white folk
in 'first world' countries. We could have gone the other route, just using
wheelchairs everywhere, but, some semblance of physical health is an
aspirational thing.

Now, eye health... If we could have dark skies for the sake of the children
rather than a few anorak wearing boffins then that just might work.

As an aside, one benefit of having quality eyesight is that I can use hi-res
screens with text the size that it used to be in books, i.e. small. My
colleagues have to have normal resolution screens with text the size of the
'large type' books that public libraries have for old folk. Yet they can be in
their early twenties. Quality eyesight with no corrective optics is as
important to me as being able to breathe.

