Several weeks ago at evening’s end on the island of Crete, I had my key in the door of my room at the inn when a fellow kayaker yelled from across the way, “Don’t forget to look at those stars before you go to sleep! They are fabulous.”
I yelled back. “I see great stars from my home in Pensacola, FL.”
“Yeah?” he replied. “That’s nice Barbara, but remember these are different stars.”
He had a point. Turns out seeing stars, ANY stars is becoming extraordinarily difficult. Around the world, the night sky is vanishing in a fog of artificial light, which a coalition of naturalists, astronomers and medical researchers consider one of the fastest growing forms of pollution, with consequences for wildlife, people’s health and – the human spirit. So you see – the situation gets personal.
About two-thirds of the world’s population, including almost everyone in the continental U.S. and Europe, no longer see a starry sky where they live. A natural nightscape has become as rare as ice trays. In fact, in the brightly lit cities that half of humanity now calls home, a half dozen stars may be visible on a clear night. In the darkest rural areas, about 2,000 stars typically may be visible – half the number seen in centuries past.
Every where you look, there’s a glow. Chad Moore, U.S. National Park Service night-sky manager reports that the glare of city lights 200 miles away alters a park’s night lightscape. The amount of artificial light world-wide (including at my house where I just now am reminded of my neighbor’s blaring unnecessary light atop his empty dock so maybe my Pensacola stars ain’t so great after all) has tripled since 1970.
So what if you aren’t seeing stars? For starters, it can make you sick. In the bigger scheme of things, those starry nights soothe a tormented spirit – well, maybe not tormented – stressed spirit. How’s that?
In January, researchers reported that the incidence of breast cancer among women living in brightly lit neighborhoods was as much as 73% higher than among women where night time darkness was the norm. Many researchers believe exposure to artificial light disrupts our nighttime production of the hormone melatonin that suppresses tumor development.
Last month, Harvard Medical School epidemiologist Eva Schernhammer and her colleagues reported that nurses who regularly worked the night shift had a higher incidence of colorectal cancer than women who only worked daylight house. (See NY Times, Science Journal, It’s All About the Lighting by Robert Lee Hotz, July 25, 2008.)
The research isn’t sufficient proof that darkness keeps us healthy but the findings are persuasive enough that the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization last December added the nigh shirt to its formal list of probably human carcinogens. That’s enough to keep me working in daylight hours.
Communities are responding. Residents of Borrego Springs, CA are making sure the town’s 25 street lights are properly shield so that light doesn’t spill into the sky, (this is called skyglow) and urging neighbors to adopt more efficient, low-wattage lights. They hope to become the second Dark Sky Community designated by the International Dark Sky Association later this year (Flagstaff, Arizona is first.)
Why look up at a starry sky at all? Well, it allows us to pause and do nothing since most of us don’t try holding our blackberries over our heads to text. Sometimes we even take a deep breath rather than those shallow ones that keep us jittered up all day.
The best observation about why looking up in the night sky might be worthwhile is made by Chad, our night-sky manager. “The night sky wraps each culture on Earth with a celestial blanket rich with meaning. The starry sky is a compass through time and creation, and there we have always found meaning in out struggles, our dreams, events in society, and our own lives. It is the codex of our hearts.”
I know where there’s a sky of bright stars off the coast of Crete. I bet you know where one is too. You should use part of your sabbatical time looking up at it. You might find a part of your heart.
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