I think it’s amazing how light pollution is not as nearly as well-known as water or air pollution, yet it has had effects that are just as devastating or even more so than these other forms. We associate cities with awe-inspiring, bright lights and the countryside and suburbs with relative, monotonous darkness, but we neglect the fact that we are unable to see constellations, planets, or even stars in the night sky, which have their own inherent beauty. With increasing urbanization and an exponential increase in the human population, our descendants probably will not be able to see anything at all with their naked eyes; unfortunately, only those who have access to high-quality telescopes will.
Of course, the article specifically mentions that “artificial light has benefited society by, for instance, extending the length of the productive day, offering more time not just for working but also for recreational activities that require light” (A21). In fact, this may have also deterred crime to an extent since vandals will most likely commit acts where they cannot be easily seen. But I never knew that before industrialization, we had a sleep cycle that was divided in two roughly-equal parts instead of the standard eight hours during the night. Besides a disruption in the circadian rhythm and cyclical levels in hormones, light pollution has been positively correlated with several different forms of cancer, and even depression and mood disorders. Also, mating cycles and flight trajectories in animals and growth patterns in plants have been altered, so light pollution has far-reaching effects for all parts of the ecosystem.
The article mostly focused on the health effects of light pollution (hence, the title) and only briefly talked about solutions, which may actually be a bit more difficult to generate than other sources of pollution. Considering seasonal affective disorder, which causes many people to become more fatigued and groggy during the winter, which has less light, there must be a huge range in effects in people who live close to the equator, which has almost uniform sunlight year-round, and those by the poles, which have no sun at all in the winter and no darkness at all in the summer. Thus, new solutions will have to be adapted not just to demographics, but also latitude and geographical location. Also, shift workers are necessary; my uncle works for the MTA, and my aunt used to be a nurse, and both jobs experience emergencies at all hours of the day, so I’m not entirely sure if we can just change the hours that they work. However, I agree that we must eliminate all forms of unnecessary light, especially from streetlights that cause glare that radiates upward and outward instead of just downward on its intended targets, and even places that use lighting to show off instead of having any useful purposes. This issue still needs a lot of quantitative and qualitative research, but it is definitely a great thing that it is getting a lot of publicity in the present, so that its potential consequences can be eliminated for the future.
