Since Thomas Edison first invented the lightbulb in 1879, the pressurized filaments have become ubiquitous (only recently replaced by compact fluorescents). Electric lighting enlivens our streets, our homes, and our bedside tables. It provides safe sight lines for our dark city intersections; it brings great novels to life late into the night, and has extended our waking hours in meaningful and productive ways never thought possible. For a civilization who had seen innumerable cities destroyed by errant candles and sent Nantucketers to the farthest reaches of our oceans in search of sperm whale oil, a safer, brighter, and exponentially more convenient light source was a great advance. But as happens with great technological advances, the sociocultural, environmental, and human health impacts are not as immediately apparent or easily understood.
A question which the patent office officials didn’t ask Mr. Edison, or themselves, is: to what extent does the human animal require darkness? I (and I’m by no means alone in this) would argue that the human body-mind needs darkness. And further, that our collective willingness to blot out the self-same nightscape which has graced the heavens for our entire human heritage, is an echo of the modern world’s devaluation of repose, reflection, contemplation, and restoration.
This correlation occurred to me while out for a late night run. I was on the South-East slope of Mont Royal two nights after a full moon with sporadic cloud cover. With these conditions, there was not a single star to be seen. I was astounded. Having grown up across the river from a First Nation’s reserve about 40kms South-west of an urban center, I was blessed with a childhood nightscape shared by my ancestors in Northern Europe, and the indigenous cultures now pushed into a corner. While I’ve been aware of the lack of stars in the city for some time, this was the first star-free nightscape I had seen. I realized that the light pollution causing this absence communicated a lot about the culture I was immersed in.
Every great culture has stared at the night sky and given imbued the stars’ flight across the inky darkness with some otherworldly meaning (which is fitting as science would show them to be other worlds).This immense weight of human mythology, literature and endeavour is now greatly devalued, and encroached upon by meaningless, useless, and wasteful light pollution. Here is the latest compiled image of the world at night. Communication and transport networks are visible just based on their upward light pollution (the Nile river in Egypt, the Ganges in India, Russia’s Transsiberian railway, and the Quebec-Windsor corridor).
Unfortunately, the light of our desire for progress, for activity, and for personal gain has also impinged on the restful, dark, star-filled recesses of the human mind and spirit.
In his wonderfully illuminating* National Geographic piece “Our Vanishing Night” Verlyn Klinkenborg lays out our biological need for darkness in very clear terms:
“[L]ike most creatures we do need darkness. Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself. The regular oscillation of waking and sleep in our lives––one of our circadian rhythms––is nothing less than a biological expression of the regular oscillation of light on Earth. So fundamental are these rhythms to our being that altering them is like altering gravity.”
And yet our day-night gravity has been altered, incredibly so. Beyond merely lighting further discussion, communication, and reading (if you’re reading this at night!), our electric lights have enabled 24 hour factories for unending production coupled with 24 hour retail for uninterrupted consumption. A scary-fast development for a world whose waking hours, and hence worldview + cultural notions of time and relationships were based on the temporal organization of the sun, moon and distant stars.
This change, and its effects are very difficult to quantify; which in turn helps some way in explaining why cultural, spiritual, and environmental change on a generational time scale are not measured or valued or easily communicated and understood. Of course, outside of anecdotal evidence passed down in multi-generational families, we (humanity’s techno-scientific community) have only recently developed the computing power and analytical frameworks to understand such change (ex: here, and several here).
Klinkenborg’s article explains our integration of electric light into the framework our lives as “an open-ended experiment”. I would include in this human experiment several other related variables which have been adopted uncritically as unqualified goods: constant activity, loosely defined (normally quantitative) growth or development; and/or progress (also known as profit, market capitalization, etc).
Is this the culture that I will pass down to my daughters and sons? An objective look at the artifacts and learning tools we are currently provided with for the maintenance and transmission of culture shows a serious disconnect between the long-term strategic, health, and wellness goals we aspire to, and the actions taken in their name.
Many of our nights are clearer and darker thanks to the work of The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). This NGO recognizes parks, preserves and communities who strive to preserve unique nightscapes from the encroachment of night-time light pollution. The first International Dark Sky Park recognized was the Mont Mégantic Observatory in Quebec (7 of the first 10 inaugurated are in Canada). Their website is quite comprehensive and offers some good examples of model lighting ordinances.
Of course, one NGO does not a cultural make. And our night sky will never fit within the boundaries of a protected area, or heritage zone. Despite the likelihood that our readers feel they have don’t have the time: pause and reflect after you’ve read an article, a book, or had a good discussion; stretch after exercise; sleep long, and deeply.Turn of unnecessary lights. Shade the ones that need to be on.
The culmination of small, individual and community actions can once again darken our sky and brighten our stars. Enjoy the dark, you’re great-grandparents left it to you.
Much love and solidarity to my fellow night joggers on Mont-Royal.
Alex
November, 2010
*puns are sustainable, spread the word
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