Quotations about Dark Skies and Light Pollution
Let's go to the hills where the outlines are clear...
~Susan Enan, "Bring On The Wonder," song lyrics, 2005, susanenan.com
In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. ~W. Somerset Maugham, 1900
The sun sets, and evening is drowned in electric lights... ~Marjorie Allen Seiffert, "The Picnic," A Woman of Thirty, 1919
Just how long is a day anyway? How long is a night when it never gets dark anymore? ~Donna Henes, "Telling Time: Leap Year," Celestially Auspicious Occasions: Seasons, Cycles & Celebrations, 1996
...the smoke-smuggered stars... ~Dr. Seuss, The Lorax, 1971
It isn't healthy to sleep with a great deal of light... ~Compton Mackenzie, The Altar Steps, 1922
Turn the lamp down low and draw the curtain wide,
So the greyness of the starlight bathes the room;
Let us see the giant face of night outside...
~Æ (George William Russell), "Prayer," Homeward Songs by the Way, 1894
One time as dusk slipped into dark,
I stood upon a stubble-hill,
And saw the stars come floating in
Like chaff blown from a mill.
And when the dark slipped into night,
I saw chaff on the plain below.
(The lights of a city smouldered there
In phosphorescent glow.)
The plain I knew, the sky I knew,
But then I wondered in dismay
Which were the stars, and which the lights…
And I asked the night away.
~Elwyn Bell, "Dusk," 1926
Be sensual, be mysterious, O my Night:
Crawl over the sky in your vast shell void of light,
Old tortoise, for such maniacs as I,
Who never have learned to live and cannot die.
Be sensual, be mysterious, O my Night.
~John Gould Fletcher, "Invocation to Night," Visions of the Evening, 1913
For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Four hundred years ago, the twinkling stars cast shadows on a moonless night. Constellations were so intricate as to be unrecognizable today, and some sky landmarks were defined not by individual stars but by the dark spaces between them. The Milky Way appeared so solid that only a magnified view revealed it wasn't one body but hundreds of thousands of stars so densely clustered that their faint, ancient light formed a path across the cosmos. ~The International Dark-Sky Association, "Our Endangered Night," Fighting Light Pollution: Smart Lighting Solutions for Individuals and Communities, 2012, darksky.org
Starless and still…
Who stopped this heart?
Who bound this city in a trance?
~James Oppenheim, "Washington Square," Songs for the New Age, 1914
Before we invented civilization, our ancestors lived mainly in the open, out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric pollution and modern forms of nocturnal entertainment, we watched the stars... Even today, the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me, after all these years, it still takes my breath away. ~Carl Sagan, "The First New Planet," Pale Blue Dot, 1994
...suddenly propelled by a desire to see the stars,
i'll find myself driving nowhere
(over great stretches of road)
until some twist around a mountain
obliterates all trace of the city except a vague
luminescence glowing in the sky...
~Ken Sekaquaptewa and Candy St. Jacques, Sahuaro, 1970, yearbook of the Associated Students of Arizona State University
Consider us, Creation!
Though you took patient eras beyond counting to create us,
Somehow we are enough detached from you, and from your purpose,
To look back, and laugh...
Consider how your bad children get around you…
We put our fingers to our noses and wiggle them at you...
We tear our Earth up...
You think to darken us with the night, so we light lamps...
~James Oppenheim, "Laughter," War and Laughter, 1916
I shall take the liberty of transporting you one hundred years into the future, to the year 1982. If you look back to 1882 you will be surprised at the rapidity of human progress... The characteristic of our new age is, above all, electricity. The changes wrought by this power since it has been thoroughly controllable have revolutionized human work and life and the very face of nature... It has been so applied as to abolish night when we will, thus fulfilling the old prophecy that in the new heavens and new earth there shall be no night. Dark roads and dark city streets are of the past... ~Edward Payson Powell (1833–1915), "New Year in 1982," Liberty and Life: Discourses by E. P. Powell, 1889
When the happy darkness creeps
From the east, across the hill,
Every little birdling sleeps,
Every butterfly is still;
Every little clover head
Folds its leaves and nods in bed,
While the starlight overhead
Through the happy darkness, keeps
Watch o'er every bird that sleeps...
Happy, quiet dark, that brings
Rest and nest to weary wings,
Rest to all the woodland things...
Oh, the happy, quiet dark,
Bringing rest from song and play,
Till the morning wakes the lark
Joyous for another day!...
~Charles Buxton Going, "The Happy Dark," Star-Glow & Song, 1909
You see how bright the lights are? — they have those horrible bluish neons that illuminate every pore of your skin, your whole soul finally... In the end, everyone looks like a Zombie... ~Jack Kerouac, The Town & the City, 1950
Virtually every process is best carried out at one time or other of the year and that is not something to take lightly... There is much more to seasonality, though, than breeding or migration. Virtually every internal process alters... We humans were clearly highly seasonal beasts until the coming of electric light but traces remain. ~Brian Follett, 2009
how the nighttime looks
during a power outage
is how night should look
~Terri Guillemets, "Dark thoughts," senryu, 2023
I thank the Lord for the night time... ~Neil Diamond, "Thank The Lord For The Night Time," Just For You, 1967, neildiamond.com
The light pollution blindfolds every star. ~Carol Ann Duffy, "Bridgewater Hall," Rapture, 2005
Only in remote spots can one still glimpse the grandeur of the Milky Way. Entire constellations have disappeared from sight, replaced by a blank sky. ~A. Roger Ekirch, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, 2005
Simply put, light pollution is excessive and inappropriate artificial light at night. Light pollution is not all outdoor lighting, and important distinctions are made depending on the ecological sensitivity of an area. Artificial lighting is an essential part of modern culture and possibly the most obvious demonstration of technological progress. The problem arises when "progress" crosses the line to become wasted energy, wasted resources, and a negative alteration of the environment. ~The International Dark-Sky Association, "Our Endangered Night," Fighting Light Pollution: Smart Lighting Solutions for Individuals and Communities, 2012, darksky.org
As a child I was afraid of night at the lake because the dark was so thick it seemed tangible, something you could stick your hands into or hold, like muck, or drapery. And the woods are still that way, but the sky is beginning to wear at the edges where gas stations hope to attract customers by immolating themselves in white light, and roadside restaurants blow their electricity bills straight into the sky. Each summer when I return to the lake I am no longer so much afraid of the dark as I am afraid for the dark. ~Paul Bogard, "Why Dark Skies?," Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark, 2008,
Light pollution doesn't just bleach the night sky. It squanders electricity, does little to curb crime, disrupts life for animals including sea turtles, bats and migratory birds, and has been linked to everything from insomnia to breast cancer in humans. "The whole issue isn't about not having light. It's how do we use light more responsibly and thoughtfully," said Paul Bogard, author of 2013's "The End of Night." ~Megan Finnerty, "Valley light pollution erasing stars from Arizona night," azcentral.com, 2014
People need the sense of beauty and perspective and awe that we get from our exposure to the universe in a dark night sky. It's part of every culture, part of being human — to contemplate what's above us. ~Marker Marshall, Grand Canyon Park Ranger, 2014, quoted by Megan Finnerty
As light pollution spreads we are slowly losing one of the oldest and most universal links to all human history. ~Peter Lipscomb, astronomer, "Dark Skies," Santa Fe Conservation Trust, sfct.org, 2013
Modern society requires outdoor lighting for a variety of needs, including safety and commerce. IDA recognizes this but advocates that any required lighting be used wisely. To minimize the harmful effects of light pollution, lighting should:
• Only be on when needed
• Only light the area that needs it
• Be no brighter than necessary
• Minimize blue light emissions
• Be fully shielded (pointing downward)
~International Dark-Sky Association, "Outdoor Lighting Basics," darksky.org, established 1988
But one thing worries me — the ever increasing plague that is light pollution and especially when it concerns the topic of this book — the Milky Way. How many of us can remember a time when we could go out into our gardens or a nearby park and see the wonderful swathe of the Milky Way cut a path across the sky? Nowadays one needs to be deep in a sparsely populated rural landscape or high in the lonely mountains in order to see this wonder of nature.
We are told constantly that the resources and animals of the world we live in need to be conserved and protected, and I agree wholeheartedly with this notion... Yet, it seems to me that the conservation of nature and the appreciation of our world stops when it gets dark. Surely, the most wonderful spectacle in all of nature is the night sky, blazing forth in all its glory. Yet most of the world seems unaware that we are losing this resource. ~Dr. Michael D. Inglis, FRAS, "A Plea to the Faithful," Astronomy of the Milky Way, 2004
Lighted towers and tall buildings so confuse migrating birds that they circle and die of exhaustion or of collisions with each other or the structures themselves. Sea turtle hatchlings attracted to coastal streetlights end up desiccated, crushed under foot and wheel, or killed by predators. Yet beyond these high-profile examples, the magnitude of the ecological consequences of artificial night lighting is only beginning to be known. But all indications are that unless we consider protection of the night, our best-laid daytime conservation plans will be inadequate. ~Catherine Rich and Travis Longcore, Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting, 2006
Such was the burgeoning popularity of gas lighting, in 1815 the Liverpool Mercury proclaimed that "daylight" would soon "prevail in our streets and shops all night round." ~A. Roger Ekirch, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, 2005
Star!
Nope, rocket.
Star?
Nope, police helicopter.
Star!
Nope, corporate satellite.
Star?
Nope, airplane.
~Terri Guillemets, “Seeing $tars,” 2023
In large cities around the world, millions of artificial lights have replaced natural darkness with a pinkish haze that hides all but the brightest stars. Poorly designed fixtures illuminate objects with the intensity of daylight, whitewashing the sides of buildings, streaming through windows and over property lines, and escaping into the atmosphere. Billboard lights and business signs demand attention at hours when there is little likelihood of customers seeing them. Searchlights and light sculptures pierce the darkness, attracting hundreds of birds and night-flying insects. Security lights brashly illuminate lonely stairways, parking lots, and ATM machines, creating shadows that actually reduce visibility. ~The International Dark-Sky Association, "Our Endangered Night," Fighting Light Pollution: Smart Lighting Solutions for Individuals and Communities, 2012, darksky.org