August 23, 2016
Source: Bigstock
Hey, you know another dubious cocktail of science and romance? Fascism! And guess what? As promised, the NYT:
Night skies like this one are disappearing across much of the world, nibbled away by the ever-expanding glow of city lights. American skies are no different. Four out of five Americans live in places where they can no longer see the Milky Way….
So for more than a decade, the two towns and a local dark-sky nonprofit have been dialing down the dimmer switch…. They coax homeowners to hood their porch lamps or dim a bright light outside their house.
“People out of ignorance go with whatever’s cheap or whatever’s brightest,” said Ed Stewart, a board member of the local dark-sky group. “You multiply that by 200, 300, and there goes the sky.”
He said advocates met with homeowners” associations and held stargazing parties to sell the virtues of the night. When they gaze over the valley and see winking floodlights on a ranch or home in the hills, they see their next targets of persuasion.
“You can”t just go up to someone and say, you”ve got a bad light, and legislate the problem away,” he said. “People resist that, especially in Colorado.”
The mayor of Westcliffe, Christy Patterson, said she once got a phone call complaining that her garage light was too bright. “I didn”t even have the light on,” she said.
Yeah, who needs cheap, bright lighting anyhow? “Progressives” hate progress. These idiots would probably burn Edison in effigy except, well, you know…
And they probably laugh at horoscope readers, and give unsolicited lectures on the difference between “astrology” and “astronomy,” even though they”re the ones whose lives really are harnessed to the stars.
I”m reminded of a friend’s former (thank God) extra-crunchy Toronto neighborhood, where every Earth Day evening, roaming gangs of children would chant, “Turn off your lights!” under his apartment window like extras from The Wicker Man.
You know where else it’s super dark at night? North Korea.
Which, okay, we only know because we shot satellites into space. Look, it’s not all bad. I heartily approve of such commercial endeavors, just not the moon-shot, space-station “because it’s there” crap, which is more or less the Olympics in the sky, and just as pointless.
And so, some of you are sputtering right now, are the movies, which are full of other kinds of stars, no? But that’s where you”re wrong. Because I said so. Now, where’s my box of Kleenex?
