Light Pollution Reflection / Refraction Number 29
Posted November 7, 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.
Change
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Of all the words that apply to the election of Barack Obama, CHANGE certainly must be at or near the top of the list. Whether you voted for Obama, McCain or any of the other candidates for president, you likely focused on change.
But President Obama can not bring about change alone. Real and substantive change will occur only if and when the majority of Americans get involved, not just the few "political junkies" who get high on being involved.
Here's how I see it: Millions of people did their obligatory civic duty on Tuesday, Nov. 4th. They voted then watched the results. But by now, many have already shoved the responsibility for the changes they demand of their "new" government onto the people they elected.
Most people who voted will return to their daily lives bellyaching and complaining that President Obama isn't doing what he promised. But how many of the people who voted for him--and even part of those who voted for others--will step up during the next four years and actively participate, physically get involved, in doing something to help bring about the change they supposedly voted for?
More than 130 million may have voted in this election, but fewer than 100 thousand Americans are likely to step up and actually act daily to make America a better place rather than the usual grumbling and grousing you'll hear everywhere during the next four years.
Likewise, here's how I see it when it comes to dark skies and the elimination of light pollution: This year and next, ten thousand or so people will pay their annual dues to the IDA--in other words, they'll vote--and then promptly go on about their lives: observing, watching their favorite sports events, reading their monthly astro-glossies, partying, or otherwise entertaining and distracting themselves while light pollution increases night after night after night after night after...!
Only a few dozen, maybe 100 astronomers and a few nonastronomers, will sacrifice their time and energy and effort for the cause, will work monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, minutely, secondly, to make the sky dark! What will you do each day?
The majority of astronomers will likely expect someone else to do something creative, wait for the editors of the astro-glossies such as Sky & Telescope and ASTRONOMY magazine to provide leadership and ideas (something they've yet to do!), or wait for someone else to step up and ACT...dare I say it...incite a DARK SKY REVOLUTION!
And again, as I've said before, a dark sky revolution should NOT be violent, not be full of anger and hate and self-righteousness, and and and... The word REVOLUTION does NOT mean we must embark on a campaign, a crusade of violent activity, violent thinking, violent actions! BUT...
Point blank: If YOU don't step up and fight for darkness over your community, it won't happen! Change occurs only when YOU make it occur!
ASTRONOMERS, this is your time. Yes, the sky can be dark!
Thank goodness Martin Luther King and many of his followers stepped up to incite a civil rights revolution. They did not set out to make it a violent revolution! Indeed, it was based on NONVIOLENCE!
What we need now is just one astronomer, one person like MLK, to initiate, motivate and activate astronomers across this country, across this planet, to step up, to incite a DARK SKY REVOLUTION!
Barack Obama is going to be a tad too busy to be that person. Are YOU that person?
Come to think of it: I wonder...had MLK not stepped up, not spoken out, not stood firm, not marched proud, not moved people, would there even be a President Barack Obama today?
WATCH one small part of a REVOLUTION! I remember it well! Click on VIDEO, scroll, click on "Watch the video".
AGAIN..."Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sunny Days and Milky Way Nights.
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© Jack Troeger, Dark Sky Initiative. troegerj@raccoon.com