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Making War On Light Pollution

Hugh Pickens writes "Almost thirty years ago I worked in the Middle East helping install a nationwide communications system and had the opportunity to be part of a team doing microwave link tests across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter. Something I've never forgotten were the astonishing nights I spent in the desert hundreds of miles from the nearest city where the absence of light made looking at the sky on a moonless night feel like you were floating in the middle of the galaxy. In Galileo's time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9 and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. Read a story from the New Yorker on what we have lost to light pollution and how some cities are adopting outdoor lighting standards to save the darkness."

2 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is outrageous by Criterion · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Tried that, it's not in the repository.

    --
    We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
  2. Re:morals. by contrapunctus · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    My post was well intentioned.
    Why did yours have to be condescending?