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Idaho Wants To Establish America's First 'Dark Sky Preserve' (idahostatesman.com)
schwit1 shares a story from the AP:
Tourists heading to central Idaho will be in the dark if local officials get their way. The first International Dark Sky Reserve in the United States would fill a chunk of the state's sparsely populated region that contains night skies so pristine that interstellar dust clouds are visible in the Milky Way... Supporters say excess artificial light causes sleeping problems for people and disrupts nocturnal wildlife and that a dark sky can solve those problems, boost home values and draw tourists. Opposition to dark sky measures elsewhere in the U.S. have come from the outdoor advertising industry and those against additional government regulations.
Researchers say 80 percent of North Americans live in areas where light pollution blots out the night sky. Central Idaho contains one of the few places in the contiguous United States large enough and dark enough to attain reserve status, Barentine said. Only 11 such reserves exist in the world... The proposed Idaho reserve is mainly land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and contains the wilderness of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area... Leaders in the cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley, the tiny mountain town of Stanley, other local and federal officials, and a conservation group have been working for several years to apply this fall to designate 1,400 square miles (3,600 square kilometers) as a reserve. A final decision by the association would come about 10 weeks after the application is submitted.
Researchers say 80 percent of North Americans live in areas where light pollution blots out the night sky. Central Idaho contains one of the few places in the contiguous United States large enough and dark enough to attain reserve status, Barentine said. Only 11 such reserves exist in the world... The proposed Idaho reserve is mainly land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and contains the wilderness of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area... Leaders in the cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley, the tiny mountain town of Stanley, other local and federal officials, and a conservation group have been working for several years to apply this fall to designate 1,400 square miles (3,600 square kilometers) as a reserve. A final decision by the association would come about 10 weeks after the application is submitted.
I'll offer that the few times I've been driving through the middle of frelling nowhere in the middle of a clear night, I've been awed by the number of stars visible and the scene above me. Stop, kill the lights, and stare up in wonder...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I also live in Europe, and the first time I saw the night sky the way our ancestors had seen it for millions of years wasn't before I got 20-something years old. I happened to spend the night on a small island with little artificial lighting; for some reason I threw a random look to the sky, and I saw an unexpected spectacle that left me so amazed that I wouldn't look back down for minutes. I discovered that the Milky Way was something that one could actually see in the sky, in its immense size, and not only in pictures on a book. It was quite a revelation, I couldn't believe that such a sight had been denied to me for a lifetime, without me - or anybody near me - ever knowing.