Light Pollution Can Kill?
by Tim McGee, Helena, MT, USA on 01.30.07
Back when I was working in the lab, weeks could go by when I didn't see the daylight hours. Without question, during those same weeks I stayed up late by the glow of my computer screen or television- It was self imposed, and always left me tired and feeling a little sick. But, that's nothing compared to the people who work all night long for a career- in fact it is hard to imagine any service industry that does not employ people at all hours of the day; and what about all the light flittering about our cities and towns? An increasingly large body of research shows us that our artificial light and irregularly long work days might be killing us.
In modern life it is all too easy to become detached from the normal rhythms (circadian) of life. In many ways, we think of ourselves as having evolved beyond our daily interaction with nature. We can sit comfortably in our well lit, heated homes, and connect with our friends on Second Life- unaware of the blizzard, the rain, or even day and night. Treehugger has highlighted a few other areas, (food in particular), where we are beginning to realize we need to fall in step with the rhythm of life- because if we don't, the cost might very well be our own health.
I wasn't able to confirm the direct research in the links as much as I would have liked (it is in Russian) but I'm not surprised as there have been similar connections between light and health- from the serious disease seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) to articles on the use of melatonin to treat sleeping disorders. We have biologically evolved to be part of our environment, daylight hours included- so it is not surprising that when we detach ourselves from those mechanisms we end up feeling sick. Figuring out how to live a slower life, in sync with the world, may be one of the hardest goals to achieve- both personally and as a civilization- but it is one we will need to address sooner or later.::Innovation Report
i recently got rid of my alarm clock. doing that has really helped me wake up earlier, because i'm now conscious of getting to sleep early. all in all it's made the quality of my sleeping and waking much better. before, i'd be jarred out of sleep by an alarm, and rush to my morning qigong class, arriving late or with seconds to spare. now i'm up before dawn, with hours to practice and meditate before my class.
i think there's really something to living in tune with natural cycles. it's not always easy to do because of the nature of the dominant society but maybe there have to be big changes our relationship to time. i think more and more that the people who talk about changing the calendar back to a lunar based system are on the right track. the way we keep time dictates everything we do. i don't think it can be underestimated what changes in the way we relate to the environment and each other a change of the calendar would bring about.
Light Pollution Can Kill?
LP has been doing this for decades however we have been Blinded By The Light. Two years ago Colin Henshaw and I wrote the Challenge article Is Light Pollution Killing Birds? Our latest "missive" has the title .. Is The 24 Hour Day Killing Off Life On Earth? We now "enjoy" perpetual twilight. Light at night sucks insects from habitat areas like a vacuum cleaner. Whip-poor-wills have no night. They have lost their nocturnal habitat. Birds in Ontario are deprived of their insect food supply. Humans suffer permanent jet lag by there being no night. Colin Henshaw predicted much of this in May 1994. No-one was listening then and no-one is listening now. We really will be environmentally JTL.
The images shown above reveal the full magnitude of what is happening. All these cities have been cooking the atmosphere with lighting for decades, and it is getting worse. It mirrors the decline in species diversity reported by environmental organisations over the same period. Usually pesticides and habitat destruction were blamed, but these can only be part of the problem. The effect of night-time lighting was not even suspected. A universal culture change is required to change our attitudes towards energy usage, especially nocturnal lighting, otherwise the damage to the environment will be irreparable and it may be just too late. The environment will then pay us back with our own coin, and maybe with interest.