The night sky is getting 10% brighter every year. We're forgetting darkness

Night skies are rapidly brightening - about 10% brighter each year - with roughly 80% of people now living under light-polluted skies. A journalist describes traveling to an International Dark Sky Place in southeast Oregon to see the Milky Way and contrasts that rare darkness with urban glare. The piece calls for treating darkness as a public good by regulating outdoor lighting: enforce warmer color temperatures, shield and aim fixtures, cap brightness, reduce redundant floodlights, and adopt zoning or headlight rules. It points to Flagstaff’s pioneering lighting ordinances (first rules in 1958, Dark Sky City designation in 2001) and notes New York state is considering a Dark Skies Protection Act as an example of policy pathways.

Light pollution is framed as an ecological and public-health problem: artificial night lighting disorients sea turtles, moths, fireflies, frogs and migratory birds, disrupts plant-pollinator interactions and seasonal timing, and alters circadian rhythms that humans need for sleep and recovery. Emerging threats include more than 11,000 Starlink satellites and proposals for satellites to provide artificial sunlight, none of which require environmental review despite affecting life on Earth. Restoring accessible darkness, the argument concludes, would let more people see stars, give wildlife needed nocturnal habitat, and improve human health without eliminating necessary illumination.