Maybe I’m sleep deprived… ok I definitely am… but I’ve been thinking about that deeply rested kind of sleep you only get in the complete darkness. I mean pitch black night. The thought of it sends my whole body to that incredibly relaxed time/space of well being. It occurs to me as I write this that some may not have ever experienced it. Or only with black-out curtains. Perhaps more importantly, some may never have the chance to experience sleeping under a dark night sky if we do not treat light as a pollutant.

Interestingly, there is no federal legislation against light pollution as it is not covered in the Clean Air Act or anywhere else… nor have any efforts to get it regulated succeeded. (hyperlink: http://www.trianglealumni.org/mcrol/EPAresponse.pdf)  Yet the Town of Southampton, Councilwoman Nancy Grabowski, together with local groups such as Sensible and Efficient Lighting to Enhance the Nighttime Environment (SELENE NY) http://selene-ny.org/, www.darksky.org and the Group for the East End were able to pass legislation in late 2009. Of course, it didn’t happen over night but over five years! Still, it is ahead of national, state, and other east end towns.

Sleep, stars, birds in migration. These are the magical and divine things lost to light pollution. And Southampton’s law (http://www.southamptontownny.gov/filestorage/596/598/4245/Dark_Skies_final_law.pdf) has several key provisions to prevent light pollution: “non-essential outdoor lights be turned off, that essential lights which are ‘off-target’ be re-aimed, and that the… wattage [of bulbs be] reduced.” It is seemingly so simple: turn off the lights. Eliminate unnecessary lighting. Put a cover on the top of your light fixtures. Point your lights down or directly at whatever needs lighting. Use low watt bulbs. And yet…. well we all see examples next door and on the horizon of light pollution.

I found the following list of damages due to light pollution pretty comprehensive:

• Environmental consequences: Over-lit buildings disorient many birds, especially during their seasonal migrations, causing death due to impact. Lights near the beach fatally confuse pregnant sea turtles and their hatching turtles sending them further inland instead of out to sea. Zooplankton, stops feeding on algae in light encouraging red and brown tides. Night blooming plants which rely on nocturnal insects for pollination die out (like moths). Frogs, sheep, birds, mice, voles, monkeys and snakes, to name a few, of the animals that change their mating habits based on light: mating and having babies when there will not be food to support them or not reproducing at all. http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/74/74.html, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0417_030417_tvlightpollution_2.htm
• Loss of starry sky:  light pollution creates skyglow that reduces enjoyment and visibility of the night sky. More than two-thirds of Americans can’t see the Milky Way from their homes.

• Energy waste: by one estimate, nighttime light streaming up into the sky from the Boston area alone corresponds to about $20,000,000 in electricity annually.

To those I would add:

• Human Health: Dark nights and sleeping in the dark are linked with health while sleeping during the daytime, lack of darkness at night and during sleep are linked with increased risk of cancer, among other illnesses.

All life evolved in response to predictable patterns of light and darkness, called circadian rhythms. Electrical lighting disrupts those natural rhythms. Little bits of light pass directly through your optic nerve to your hypothalamus, which controls your biological clock.

I realize everything has its time and place. I am not saying Times Square should turn the lights out (although even the Empire State Building has) but out on the east end at night skies should be reliably dark. Turn off the lights. And if you must have a light on at night, keep it covered.