Pollution has come to mean trash. Islands made of plastic in the ocean, bags being found in the stomachs of birds, aquamarine rivers turned brown with waste. But trash is not the only pollutant on earth, nor is it the most common. One of the most harmful types of pollution is the kind that illuminates the sky at night, scaring away all the stars.
What is light pollution? Light pollution is when man made light pollutes the sky during the night, so that the stars can no longer be seen. While this doesn’t seem like it’s all that bad, it has more negative implications than you might realize.
Among the negative effects of light pollution are wildlife, sleep disorders, depression, and even heart diseases and cancer. How does it have such a negative effect? LAN- or Exposure to light at night- can reduce your melatonin levels, which has been directly linked in some of the common causes of cancer, specifically breast cancer.
“Previous studies have indicated that [even] minimal exposure to light at night (LAN) increases depression risk,”National Library of Medicine, Kenji Obayashi said.
Not only does light pollution have severely negative effects, but it is also a widespread problem. “80% of the World Population Lives Under Skyglow, New Study Finds,” Dark Sky International said. Dark Sky International is an organization that focuses its efforts solely on attempts to alleviate light pollution.
This means that 80% of the world is subjected to something that has been proven to cause depression, cancer, and heart diseases.
Past and recent studies have also shown that skyglow and light pollution related problems are increasing by 10% every year.
10 years from now, will we still know what stars are? When we look up at the sky, what will we see? As a species, the human race has evolved and advanced so much. We’ve cultivated new plants, created once unimaginable technologies, and stepped foot on the moon.
But through the process of accomplishing all of these impossible things, we’ve haven’t had the time to look up. To just look up and see the sky full of stars, stars that have guided our race through the ages, in navigation, philosophy, science, and so much more. If we just took a second to look up at the sky, we might realize that there isn’t much to see anymore.
So take a moment every once and a while, to just look up at the stars, and know that in a few short years, they may not be able to be seen at all anymore.
