Light pollution's effects #5:

Loss of the Stars (Skyglow)

Imagine children growing up without being allowed to see trees or birds (or any other aspect of nature). How is this any different from preventing our children from seeing the stars?! But by installing outdoor lights everywhere —- usually with little consideration of its effects on glare, safety, and energy waste — we are ensuring that only a small percentage of children growing up in the world today will ever be able to see and ponder the wonders of our beautiful starry night sky.

It doesn't take much poorly conceived artificial lighting to wash out the faintest stars with a murky glow. This luminous pall of light pollution has become a worldwide problem. According to a comprehensive study published in 2001, about two-thirds of the world's population — and 99% of those in the continental US and in the European Union — live where the night sky is light polluted to some degree. For those with average eyesight, more than two-thirds of the US residents and more than half of the EU population can no longer see the Milky Way.

These two photos dramatically illustrate how bad things have gotten. During the widespread blackout in eastern North America on August 14, 2003, Todd Carlson photographed the Milky Way from a location looking south over Toronto during the blackout (left) and once power was restored one day later (right).

From space, the night side of Earth teems with glowing patches from big cities and small towns. Maybe these are the “thousand points of light” former president George Bush liked to talk about. Astronauts say this modern-day constellation rivals the stars, even from orbit, and has a golden glow. They can even trace the luminous web of interstates that link the gleaming metropolitan areas.