The most direct impact of light pollution is the loss of dark skies. How is this a problem, you might wonder. The loss of dark skies has implications on (and are not limited to) an individual, on society and on our culture as a whole.
The presence of excessive light in the skies interferes with our visibility of galaxies and celestial objects, which are long-existing natural spectacles. Can you imagine looking up into the night sky, and you see nothing but an artificially lit piece of sky?
This phenomenon has been common since industrialisation, where city lights and illuminated infrastructures became a common sight. In 1994, a power shortage across Los Angeles caused residents to call 911, upon the sight of cosmic bodies in the sky that they had never seen prior to the blackout. The “cosmic body” was actually the Milky Way, a natural spectacle they had not seen before as refraction from the city’s lights had always kept it out of sight.
An estimated 60% of Americans are now unable to view spectacles such as the Milky Way due to increased light pollution. “We’ve taken what was once, one of the most common human experiences – to experience darkness, and we’ve made it into one of the rarest human experiences.”
A video by The Atlantic has captured our modern-day phenomenon very aptly:
What will happen to the Milky Way?
References
Buck, S. (2017). During a 1994 blackout, L.A. residents called 911 when they saw the Milky Way for the first time. [online] Medium. Available at: https://timeline.com/los-angeles-light-pollution-ebd60d5acd43
Case, N. (2016). Light pollution: an aurora hunter’s foe. [online] AuroraWatch UK. Available at: https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/aurorawatchuk/2016/11/14/light-pollution/
Kyba, C.C.M., Kuester, T., Sánchez de Miguel, A., Baugh, K., Jechow, A., Hölker, F., Bennie, J., Elvidge, C.D., Gaston, K.J. and Guanter, L. (2017). Artificially lit surface of Earth at night increasing in radiance and extent. Science Advances, [online] 3(11). Available at: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1701528
The Atlantic (2015). What Happened to the Milky Way? YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KcNphXXNEE