We as humans are easily fooled, bombarded by faith and
science always looking for something to believe, searching for the facts. It
does not have to be that complicated; there is so much on this earth that we
will never decode or discover, and light years of galaxy that we will never
understand. The reality is that we are small, tiny microscopic organisms that
are single handedly destroying ecosystems. Our planet will always be here no
matter how much oil we spill or chemicals we burn, this earth will survive. As
for humans and all the living ecosystems, they can all be terminated.
We are loosing sight of just how small we really are, caught
up in our technology and growth of the human experience. There are many things
that help us see the bigger picture such as new life, regeneration such as
flourishing growth after a forest fire, death, and even the night sky. The stars connect us to a world so detached
from our own, larger than thought, imagination, and destruction. Through all
the economic growth and adaptation we are losing darkness, we can now go days
without seeing the stars, and not even notice. Speakers from the film The City Dark discuss all different
effects we are having on the night sky and what we are loosing when we can no
longer see it. One speaker I related with said, “If our civilization didn’t see
the stars and didn’t see how big the universe was, would they come to believe
that they’re more important in this much tinier universe because that’s all
they see?”. Sadly I think it has already happened, many of the world’s most
“powerful” people live in very large cities; these people are making decisions
for entire countries. There is an obvious disconnect from the danger of our
expansion and nature in such civilization.
Image source: http://www.darksky.org/assets/media/A1-05.jpg
Sadly the loss of darkness in cities has been a slow gradual process, every time a new parking lot or community is build there is just a little more light in the sky. What is the most troublesome is the idea of children never seeing the night sky in all of its glory, some children don’t have opportunities to leave the city and will grow up learning about the stars from stickers and screens but will never experience the wonder of looking up and seeing millions of starts at once. We are becoming so large that, “our society is kind of taking over the wilderness, but no one is really noticing it”. This that’s does not mean there is no hope, there are many ways to decrease light pollution and in tern benefit our own health and restore nature to its former glory we just need to look past ourselves as a society and make a concious effort to change.
Sadly the loss of darkness in cities has been a slow gradual process, every time a new parking lot or community is build there is just a little more light in the sky. What is the most troublesome is the idea of children never seeing the night sky in all of its glory, some children don’t have opportunities to leave the city and will grow up learning about the stars from stickers and screens but will never experience the wonder of looking up and seeing millions of starts at once. We are becoming so large that, “our society is kind of taking over the wilderness, but no one is really noticing it”. This that’s does not mean there is no hope, there are many ways to decrease light pollution and in tern benefit our own health and restore nature to its former glory we just need to look past ourselves as a society and make a concious effort to change.
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