I guess this brings a whole new meaning to the trope, “Don’t go towards the light.” But dumb jokes aside, this was a good article that hooked me in with a little history on the pros and cons of artificial light since its conception. And I totally dig history. Just like everything else humans create, the concept of everything in moderation applies here as well. Dr. Stevens talked about how light photons can effect us by directly hitting our retinas and that living in a city like ours just increases the amount of times this happens and messes up our circadian rhythm. It’s weird because I don’t think that’s something we’d notice right away or think out of the ordinary. But it is and it’s kind of screwing us over as it messes up our sleep schedules causing insomnia and depression which I’ve been attributing to college stress, but now I’m second-guessing that.
It’s also literally messing up our perception of the world we live in. 2/3 of the US can’t see the Milky Way because of light pollution. I bet kids who’ve grown up in the city have never even seen the Little Dipper. I can remember laying on my stoop and looking up at all the constellations my grandmother taught me when I was little and every year it gets harder and harder to see them. Light pollution is taking that view away from me, away from my neighborhood, away from everyone. It may just be higher on my hit list than air pollution is and you all know how much I harp about that.
We’ve discussed how light pollution hurts the flora and fauna so this part of the article wasn’t too surprising. I usually always think of birds getting messed up by it, so their sea turtle example was pretty cool, or well not cool by the turtles’ standards. The lights mess with their instincts and baby turtles can’t find their way to the ocean. Instead they go towards the lights from roads and cars go all Mufasa on them.
The most alarming finding is that too much light can cause tumors to grow faster and cause cancer. If there is anything we can do to stop the spread of that, sign me up. The article talked about a study done about melatonin and the breast cancer in night-shift workers, but more research needs to be done.
