Light Pollution Reflection / Refraction Number 23
Posted September 18, 2008
WARNING:
I guarantee my reflections and refractions will create controversy and confrontation; and quite likely I'll step on many toes, but it's time to be brutally honest.
'TIS A DARK - BUT NOT - STORMY NIGHT!
Really!
You are driving on a two-lane road that stretches to the horizon.
A few cars are approaching in the distance with headlights on high beam. Your's are too.
For safety's sake, high beams are bright, shine up, out, and all about, as well as down on the highway ahead of you.
Soon, however, you lower them to low beam as an oncoming car approaches. This simple and common sense act of courtesy has advantages for both you and the oncoming driver.
The driver of the oncoming car does likewise. Both of you know "low beaming" your lights is the polite, courteous and safe thing to do.
Turning off headlights would not be a safe option, but "high beaming" oncoming drivers is dangerous and ill-mannered!
You drive on encountering other approaching cars. Both you and the oncoming drivers low beam your headlights.
Occasionally, a driver approaches but does not low beam his / her lights. You are slightly annoyed, but with no malice, anger, or hostility, you politely and quickly click, click--high beam - low beam--the oncoming driver. He / She "wakes up" and low beams, too.
Common courtesy. Common sense.
Your journey continues. Suddenly, over the crest of a hill, you approach that rare, unresponsive driver that won't low beam, even after you flick your lights several times. Maybe he / she is drowsy, preoccupied, on the cell phone, or is just a jerk!
You race toward each other, your lights safely downcast; his / hers glaring, blaring, blazing directly in your eyes, flagrantly disregarding your safety,. You pass in the night. Perhaps you utter a salient slogan or two, and drive on. The road and landscape ahead is nearly invisible as your light-soaked eyes slowly return to normal.
You have just encountered the two-head(light)ed, high beam, light monster!
Moral: LOW BEAM YOUR LIGHTS!
Fortunately, most drivers are polite and courteous and automatically low beam lights when approaching an oncoming car.
Sadly, however, there are the few stubborn, impolite drivers-- light monsters...jerks--who rudely high beam you, obliterating your view of the road, jeopardizing your safety, and as all people who've encountered one of these jerks knows, your night vision.
Astronomers, stargazers, you already know what this little parable is about. Alas, when it comes to creating light pollution, you know most people are not like the majority of drivers who low beam their lights automatically. You know many, if not most people are light monsters!
Who are these jerks?
Most are business owners and a few fearful neighbors! Yes, I know I'm being impolite going after business people here; but you know as well as I do, business lights create most of the light pollution in your community.
To be fair, (no, not compromising), many business people just don't know they're rudely high beaming you. Many business people are just "asleep at the wheel" like those drivers whose brain's are momentarily out to lunch. And all they need to "awaken" them is a quick, polite, flick of the switch to remind them to low beam their lights.
But there are others! You know them! They couldn't care less about astronomy, stargazing, the night sky, dark skies, or anything else but their profits! How do we stop the light monsters, the jerks, the boorish louts, the SOBs (Satans of Brightness!), as I've called them since I started this dark sky crusade??
We must force them to low beam their lights! Indeed, we must force them in many cases to go further, to turn off their wasteful, unnecessary lights!
Lighting laws, you say? And again, as I've said before and will again, “...and how are they working out for ya?”
Alright: yes, I know the following may seem off-topic, but the issues of CAFOs (Confined / Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), light pollution, and dark skies are similar in some ways, soooo...
As I write this R and R this morning (Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008), what I see in a recent video released by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) showing torture inside some (many?) CAFOs, so enrages me I can't think of words to describe my anger!! And I'm not a vegan, not a vegetarian, not a communist, etc. I've written about the CAFO issue in earlier Reflections and Refractions (R & R), numbers 16, 18, and 21!
This video could become the turning point for those of us who fight them, the 911 of CAFOs! I'd hope that it forces humans to think critically about how their food is produced-- especially meat! The deniers, such as but not limited to the Farm Bureau, etc. who say PETA is out of touch and pretend that this abuse is not happening are truly the ones out of touch with reality.
Question: If this video were of humans, how would you / we react? We'd do whatever necessary to stop such torturous practices - INSTANTLY!
Here's the real story: all the corporate, mainstream media, including all the local mid-Iowa TV, radio, news(?)papers, continue to miss: The practice of Confining / Concentrating Animals in Feeding Operations IS abusive! It IS abusive to treat animals with such total disregard, disrespect, and disgust, confining them most or ALL of their lives in pens, buildings, etc.! These animals did NOT evolve to live such horrible lives!
Back to dark skies. Astronomers / Stargazers / Nonastronomers who love the night sky: What we need is the equivalent to this PETA video; something that will spread like a virus across the planet, "watched" by millions showing how humans are abusing OUR night sky!
Not necessarily a video, but something equally defiant, equally visual, something that gets the attention of all those oncoming light monsters and jerks, driving down the road of life in their hollow, superficial, materialistic, self-absorbed, self-centered, high beamed lifestyles, blazing light up, out, and all about, abusing the night sky!
If I knew what that "something" was, I'd make it, do it, create it in a millisecond, but I'm not a particularly creative person, soooo.....
If you've read this R and R to this point, please make it viral, please e-mail all the other people (astronomers or nonastronomers alike) on your list of names and tell them to read it! Maybe someone who reads it will know exactly what to do! It doesn't do any good for you alone to read any of my Rs and Rs and not pass them on to others, whether you agree or disagree with my style, comments, or approach. If only a few thousand read my refractory words, it'll do no good...
Thank you.
Sunny Days and Milky Way Nights.
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© Jack Troeger, Dark Sky Initiative. troegerj@raccoon.com