I thought this article was extremely interesting. When thinking about the affects of light pollution, I’ve always thought about its affects on humans; this article brings up the affects of our unnecessary light on plants and other animals. I was also very surprised to learn that light pollution could be a carcinogen.
Hearing the way that light pollution hurts the biological processes of other animals is really sad. It changes reproductive cycles, instinct, perception and other aspects that are important for their survival. The species that I thought was saddest in the article was the sea turtles. Disorienting the newborn sea turtles, and leading sea turtles to the streets is heartbreaking. Some of our lights are unnecessarily bright and we can take measures to decrease our light pollution.
One of the lights that I think are bittersweet are street lights. Street lights seem unnecessary, but the lack of street lamps promote crime. (This is what I’ve been told by people older than me, and teachers in the past). So the lights from street lamps may seem like they are just on for the sake of electricity, but it helps with safety. However, my bed is right by a streetlamp and the light can easily disrupt my sleep. My solution to this is having really dark curtains, and it makes my room almost as dark as it would be without it.
The correlation of night time artificial light and breast cancer in women is very important information. This was shocking to me because I sometimes sleep with the lights on in my house. My parents often told me to turn them off, but I thought it was just for the sake of me getting sleep or not messing up my sleeping cycle. To learn that our body’s melatonin production is affected by our unnecessary light use is worth telling the public.
