I’ll bet a lot of kids in Seward have never really experienced stars at night. A sky full of stars, with the Milky Way glowing luminous, maybe with shooting stars, maybe even with the Northern Lights… that’s a wonderful experience. It’s one of those rare combinations of peace and excitement that nurtures us. For years, students at Seward Montessori have gone up north to Camp Widjiwagan to experience the natural world including the glorious night sky. That trip, to a large dark sky sanctuary, is a step in the right direction. We can help our kids and ourselves by learning to appreciate darkness. When we use light more wisely we can experience environmental, financial, and spiritual benefits.
Just a few generations ago, people endured darkness all night long, and city dwellers couldn’t do much after dark. Everybody was pleased and excited when artificial lighting came along. Since then we’ve succeeded at lighting up the night. We often continue overwhelming our environment with artificial light, past what’s helpful. You can look at a map of light pollution to see how well we’ve lit up the world. Now there’s a company, Reflect Orbital, that wants to put 1,000’s of mirrors in orbit in order to light up the night time on a vast scale.
There are strong reasons for our love of light at night: many people’s attitudes and feelings, religions and culture, equate darkness with bad and light with good. To turn toward the light means to feel hope or take positive action. Of course we need the sun to live, we need light to function, and a sunny day brings joy.
However, our success in banishing darkness comes with a price. We often waste energy and money. Night-time lighting can harm bug and bird populations (bugs are a nuisance, but a world without bugs would not be good for us). Sometimes we reduce our ability to perceive things that matter. I’ve always been impressed, and not in a good way, at how Saint Paul puts its streetlights right near the street signs, making it way more difficult to read the signs.
People feel that light makes them safer, so we light up our streets, yards, buildings, etc. The evidence on crime reduction is mixed, but few of us want complete darkness in our community. There are better ways to do this. Our eyes are pretty good in dim light, if they get a chance to dark-adapt. Bright light in our visual field cancels out any dark adaptation. Bright lights blasting in all directions can blind you to potential muggers or tripping hazards, and they create dark shadows. We can direct appropriate amounts of light toward the things we need to see, especially with new LED lighting technologies.
My impression is that Minneapolis took a big step in the right direction by installing lights that point at the street or alley, rather than in my bedroom window. I like having a dark bedroom while I’m sleeping. I imagine the city is saving money and experiencing benefits. I have lights at my home, but I’ve reduced the amount of lighting and switched to motion-sensitive lights. Much of this is to provide a better ecosystem for bugs, birds and other beasts.
There are many cities around the world that are redesigning their lighting. Paris has long been The City of Lights. In recent years they’ve designed their lighting to enhance the beauty and visibility of the cathedrals, bridges, and ancient buildings, while allowing for some darkness. Other cities are working on responsive and aesthetic lighting to reduce costs and enhance people’s appreciation for their surroundings.
There’s an island in the Azores that turns off much of their night-time lighting for a few days so that baby birds can find their way to the sea, rather than flying toward the city lights and dying.
Another driver of nighttime lighting could be that power company equipment doesn’t like big dips in activity level, but people use electricity mostly during the day. Demand smoothing is a legitimate concern of power companies, but we don’t have to help them by spewing light everywhere. So far there hasn’t been much demand for electricity at night — that may change as more people plug in electric vehicles overnight.
There seem to be human health benefits of regular darkness. It helps us sleep, which helps keep us healthy. People who work night shifts suffer more from health problems. Some researchers believe that exposure to light during sleep hours can cause health problems. It’s established that blue wavelengths from our phones and computers can cause problems with sleep, which we all know is very important for our health.
I’ve had wonderful personal experiences with dark night skies. It can be serene, giving us a respite from all the noise in our society. It can be exciting, like the time I skied across a frozen lake while the Aurora Borealis filled the sky with eerie silent flames and curtains of light. It was so bright I didn’t need a flashlight. A different night, I stood on a dock watching the moon rising exactly at the far end of a narrow long lake — it looked like a beautiful golden giant searchlight. Sometimes the dark is quiet… an increasingly rare combination in our world. I hope that our society can learn to use light more wisely, and help Seward kids experience the good side of darkness.
Many of the thoughts in this essay come from the book “The End of Night”, written by a guy who grew up in Minnesota. I encourage you to read it. You might enjoy the video Northern Nights, Starry Skies, made with people from Hamline University. We don’t have dark skies in the city, but our state parks and natural areas are a within a reasonable drive.
Thanks to our neighbor Dennis Chick for allowing us to use his beautiful photos.