How I Wish For Dark Skies
Turn off the lights
Sustainability
How I Wish For Dark Skies Again
The first time I saw the Milky Way sprawled across the night sky I was hiking back to a parking lot in Grants, New Mexico. The city lights of Albuquerque didn’t wash out the billions of stars. I stopped for a moment, star-struck, and took it all in.
There were so many stars, so many I had never seen before. The feeling I felt, the weight of the universe over me, is indescribable. On the lava fields of El Moro National Monument, it was there that I became a champion for dark skies.
I grew up in New Jersey, surrounded by cities, towns, and street lights. I grew up riding my bicycle around the block to meet up with friends. In the summer we were allowed to stay outside until the “lights” came on. As night fell around my neighborhood the lights came on. My neighbors would turn on their porch lights or backyard flood lights on.
Once a year my father would empty the porch lights. Moths and nighttime insects were attracted to them and got trapped inside. They died grisly, either being burned by the bulb’s heat or starving to death. I always thought this was an odd way for moths to die, why were they so stupid?
No one knows why moths do this, it was once believed that they used the moon to navigate but that’s been disproven. Yet, something about nighttime lights confuses them.
That made me think about us humans, why do we turn on the lights at night? I asked this question to my friends and coworkers, and their number one response was “safety.”
While I don’t deny that safety is important, being able to see where you’re walking is important at night, but I wonder if we are using safety as a crux. I wonder if we truly fear the darkness because it symbolizes death.
My mother drove my father nuts by turning on all floodlights at night and leaving them on overnight. There were two floodlights in the garage and one in the backyard. They would bicker about turning them on and off with my mother ignoring his wishes.
One day he had enough and climbed up on a ladder when my mother wasn’t home and unscrewed one of the floodlights just enough so it wouldn’t turn on. It was months before my mother noticed this and then commented, “oh the flood light burned out, can you replace it?”
My father would then “replace it” by tightening up the bulb and then a month later the bulb would mysteriously burn out again.
This game went on for years.
Comet Hyakutake hung low on the horizon. Its tail stretched across the sky, like a streak of glitter. It was amazing.
We camped on the east side of the Organ Mountains. They shielded us from the city lights of Las Cruces. We were only campers there that night and it was pitch dark, the only light we had was from a small campfire and the stars above.
I can still see the image of the comet in my mind, it’s forever burned into my psyche. The comet, the stars, the darkness, and me standing in a cold desert. It was as if the universe whispered in my ear, “this is for you Tom”.
My love of dark skies remains strong, and I wholeheartedly support dark sky laws. Supporting dark sky regulation in no way should come at the expense of safety! We need lighted walkways and highways, but we can be wise about how to implement lights.
When night falls, the only light I like to see is coming from inside people’s houses, and if you have floodlights or a porch light make sure to point them down. Shield them from your neighbors and put them on a timer or use a motion sensor.
Turning off your lights when they’re not needed — both outside and inside your home — has the added benefit of saving electricity and energy. Plus, it’ll give migrating birds, moths, and other nighttime traveling creatures a safer environment to conduct their business.
The best part of all this? There’s nothing new to buy or install. All you have to do is remember to turn off the switch.
If we all do this, New York City included, maybe we’ll get to see the Milky Way and feel awed by its majesty once again.
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