Most people are familiar with the pollution of our air, water and soil. But there’ s another, less obvious kind that humanity is pumping into nature: light pollution. Our cities are growing and as they do, they’ re wiping the stars from the night sky, leaving in their place a depthless orange haze hanging just above the rooftops.
A recent study in Science Advances magazine estimates that fully onethird of humankind can no longer see the Milky Way, that effervescent backdrop to the stars. Just a few decades ago, a person anywhere in the world could look up and marvel at the four thousand stars visible to the naked eye. Today the average city dweller sees less than a hundred.
The stars have floated up there for billions upon billions of years— and it only took us about 100 years to snuff them out.
The countless lights that line our streets don’ t just illuminate the ground; they needlessly beam light in every direction. On overcast nights, cities announce themselves a hundred miles away as a dull glow on the horizon. Some estimates say that 40 % of a typical city’ s electric usage is sucked up by this 24-hour grid, often lighting areas that are deserted for hours on end. This wasted energy costs us around $ 3.5 billion per year, but this is a topic for another night.
Light pollution doesn’ t just take a toll on our wallets, it harms the natural world as well. Birds that use the moon and stars to navigate during migrations can get pulled astray by the alluring glow of a city below. Many of them crash against illuminated skyscrapers and fall to their death.
In coastal areas like Florida, newborn turtles are disoriented by the brightly lit beachfront properties, scuttling away from the safety of the ocean to certain death. Even when it isn’ t outright fatal, artificial light can disrupt the delicate cycles of nocturnal animals and even hamper the sleeping patterns of humans.
Thankfully, a global network of dedicated stargazers, professional and amateur alike, are working to save our skies. To do that, they’ re establishing protected zones around the world known as“ dark sky preserves.”
Much like national parks enforce borders and regulations to protect life on the ground, a dark sky preserve sets rules and regulations as to lighting in a certain area to conserve the darkness of the nighttime sky. In other words, they flick the lights off to ensure the stars stay on.
The first Canadian dark sky preserve received its designation as recently as 1999. The Torrance Barrens Conservation Reserve is a 1990-hectare parcel of land in the Muskoka region about 200 km north of Toronto. Regulations restrict the amount and quality of manmade lighting in a five- to eight-km radius.
The area is, naturally, a great spot for looking up: The land is broad and flat, with thin stony soil that has kept the trees small and stunted, offering a largely unobstructed view from horizon to horizon. The Torrance Barrens preserve was the brainchild of Peter Goering, a retired architect from Toronto and an avid stargazer.
PHOTOS AT LEFT AND ABOVE: JOHN ENTWISTLE. six star magazine 21