Preserving Our Dark Skies
By Colin Green, SLCgreen Fall Intern
Can you remember a time when you lay on the ground under a cloudless night gazing up towards the heavens, making wishes on shooting stars? Have you ever done this within the city? Probably not, because of light pollution.
Humans have lived with dark starry skies for most of our history. This connection to the celestial bodies has helped guide the natural rhythms of our bodies, but recently, in tandem with rapid urbanization, dark skies are disappearing from our lives. Light pollution is taking overnight skies across the country, but it doesn’t have to.
Light pollution comes in a few different varieties that affect us and our environment differently. The first form is called SKYGLOW and it is what usually comes to mind when thinking about light pollution. This is the light that is projected towards the sky creating an illuminated dome in urban areas around the world (80% of World Population Lives under Skyglow).
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