Recent research in the UK shows that half its population cannot see more than a handful of stars, if any, at night largely because of heavy street lighting in towns and cities and even villages, and the same problem applies in any developed country, affecting wildlife and our sleep as well destroying the nature of the countryside itself.
The good news is that there is, now, general recognition by government and some local authorities that excessive or unnecessary lighting is damaging and needs to be curbed, but it is not easy to implement change. In my local town of Rhayader a few miles away from where I live, the Council was one of the first to trial reducing the number of street lights in order to save money (did you know that in 2010 local authorities spent more than £500m on street lighting which accounted for up to 10% of each council’s carbon emissions?) but it was forced to retract due to local opposition. The lights were out for only a few hours, from midnight, when few people were abroad, but the strangeness of dark streets and massive night skies provoked a big backlash of opposition even in this rural and sparsely populated part of Britain.
I found this reaction odd, but then my perspective often is at variance with the majority! I remembered, as I thought about it, how my parents’ generation had no outside lighting at all during the blackout war years and managed well, and how the desire for artificial light at the times which are our only opportunity to feel lunar and stellar energies and the magical world of nightlife is an indication of how deep our separation from nature and spirit has gone. It is our loss, but I am thankful that the dimming of our stars through light pollution may, like the wartime blackouts, become a memory of the past as a more enlightened approach prevails.
More information about light pollution in the UK is here]]>
