Light Pollution Ruins The Sky

By Author: Amy Whittingham
Total Articles: 33
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For those sky-watchers who worry about the environment, having the world go green is not enough. The preferred color is a dark green. Although light pollution doesn't generally cause as much alarm as other issues such as the changing climate, there is an outspoken community of stargazers that feel this is an important problem that must be worked on and eventually solved.

Our Milky Way is home to hundreds of millions of stars, fewer and fewer of which are observable due to increasing light pollution; not only does light pollution interfere with our experiencing the wonder of our own galaxy, but it also wastes energy. Only one-third of the cities in the United States are dark enough at night for people to see the Milky Way while standing in their backyards.

The Milky Way is commonly used to determine how dark the night sky is. If you consult an atlas and look at the eastern portion of the US, you will find areas the size of a small country with dark unpolluted skies. It is difficult to find locations to observe the dark in the West.

Security lighting is not only necessary at night, since the majority of property ...
... crimes are happening during the daylight hours. (in home and industrial settings) may not be as important as people think. With Light pollution becoming as serious a threat to us as any other pollution emission, there really needs to be more action taken than just the twenty-seven States that currently have laws on the books about energy lights or lights that are pointing towards our night time sky.

It is necessary for homeowners to reduce their pollution levels (from turning down security lighting to accurately putting window coverings into place)