Since the beginning of mankind, we have been immersed in the beauty and mystery of the night sky. There, everything is quiet, stable, and peaceful. Today, however, people must go to the wild to see the bright starry sky. The starry sky over the city has disappeared! The culprit of all this is light pollution. What is light pollution? What efforts have mankind made to protect the starry sky? Let's have a look!
Light pollution is a by-product of industrial civilization. Its sources include architectural appearance (glass curtain wall) and indoor lighting, advertising, outdoor area lighting (such as parking lot), office, factory, streetlamp, stadium, landscape, and entertainment lighting, etc. According to the world artificial night sky brightness atlas, 80% of the world's population lives under light pollution. In the United States and Europe, 99% of people cannot experience the natural light at night! There is more and more evidence that the loss of such exciting natural resources will bring more and more negative effects, including increasing energy consumption, disturbing ecosystems, destroying the growth of wild animals and plants, endangering human health, leading to crime, and affecting safety.
In the early 20th century, people realized the harm of light pollution, and began to work hard to solve these problems in the 1950s. Since the early 1980s, the global dark night campaign is to encourage people to improve lighting systems to reduce the harm caused by light pollution.
International dark sky Association (IDA) is an international non-profit organization headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. It was founded in 1988. IDA's mission is to protect the darkness of our night sky environment and inherit the night sky by managing the quality of outdoor lighting. It is the first organization to join the dark night campaign and the largest organization at present. Now, many countries in the world have such organizations to educate and advocate dark night protection.
In April 2007, the United Nations Educational, scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the man and biosphere program (MAB) and other institutions jointly held the first "world starlight conference", calling for attention to deal with the increasingly serious light pollution and protect the night environment and starry resources and heritage. At present, IDA has promoted and certified 75 dark night reserves, dark night parks and communities around the world, aiming to leave a place for us and future generations to enjoy and observe the night sky.
In human history, our ancestors once had a sky full of stars, which inspired science, religion, philosophy, art, and literature. The night sky is the common heritage of our mankind. Night protection is to protect the precious natural resources of all life on earth. In addition to allowing future generations to see the natural stars and milky way, the significance of dark night protection also lies in protecting human health and ecosystem, reducing energy consumption, and allowing astronomers to better study the universe. Dark night protection has a long way to go. Let's work together!
