We have the Dark Sky program in my town thanks to our proximity to Tucson and their high-tech telescopes. We have no street lights in our developments as it is, and now these idiots want us to stumble around in the dark outside? I think not.
If lights made you safe, Las Vegas and LA should be the safest places on earth.☺
There is an organization called the International Dark Sky Organization that strives to make the skies darker for astronomy by trying to educate communities about how wasteful the high-powered lighting used at night is in terms of unnecessary energy used, dollars spent on electricity, and the judicious use of shielding on outside lights.
They mean well. Being an amateur astronomer myself, I can see a need for education showing that there are cheaper ways of lighting our communities and still having the necessary lighting needed for security. And boy, do we ever need security! Now, more than ever.
I don’t want to see our night skies get washed out with excess light any more than they do. Like I said, they mean well, but like any other movement, there are a few who go too far, thinking of their own interests ahead of anyone else’s.
There actually are “dark sky” communities in the Southwest designed for astronomy, where everyone shuts their lights off at night.
Those people who want to live under those kind of skies, if they have that kind of money to spend, should move to those places, instead of moving into a community and start making demands.
I wish I could do that.
As for the birds, they’re not going to become extinct no matter what we do…
🔭🔭🔭