Twenty years ago, light pollution could be considered only a problem for astronomers. But fundamentally, life has evolved over millions of years with half the time dark and half the time light, and we have now enveloped our planet in a luminous fog of light. Light pollution has become a real environmental problem on a global scale.
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A starry sky is something that touches your soul. Our civilization’s religion, philosophy, science, art and literature all have roots with our views of the heavens, and we are now losing this with consequences we cannot fully know. What happens when we cannot be inspired by the night sky?
Map of light pollution’s visual impact on the night sky
New Map Shows the Dark Side of Artificial Light at Night
More than a third of humanity cannot see the Milky Way due to light pollution, and a new wave of energy-efficient lighting could make the problem much worse
by Lee Billings
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-map-shows-the-dark-side-of-artificial-light-at-night/
The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness
by Fabio Falchi et al.
Science Advances (10 Jun 2016)
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/6/e1600377
Artificial lights raise night sky luminance, creating the most visible effect of light pollution—artificial skyglow. Despite the increasing interest among scientists in fields such as ecology, astronomy, health care, and land-use planning, light pollution lacks a current quantification of its magnitude on a global scale. To overcome this, we present the world atlas of artificial sky luminance, computed with our light pollution propagation software using new high-resolution satellite data and new precision sky brightness measurements. This atlas shows that more than 80% of the world and more than 99% of the U.S. and European populations live under light-polluted skies. The Milky Way is hidden from more than one-third of humanity, including 60% of Europeans and nearly 80% of North Americans. Moreover, 23% of the world’s land surfaces between 75°N and 60°S, 88% of Europe, and almost half of the United States experience light-polluted nights.
「光害」人口の７割天の川見えず 都市化の日本、世界は３人に１人
東京新聞
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/s/article/2016061001002181.html
夜間照明など人工の光が過剰にあふれる「光害」のせいで、世界の３人に１人が夜空に広がる天の川を見ることができずに暮らしているとの研究結果を、イタリアや米国のチームが１０日付の米科学誌に発表した。
都市化が進んだ日本では人口の７０％が天の川が見えない場所に住んでいた。北米では８０％近く、欧州では６０％だった。光害は天体観測に支障を与えるため問題視されてきたが、チームは「星空を鑑賞して思索する機会が奪われる。他の公害に比べて注目されてこなかった光害だが、もはや専門家だけの問題ではない」と指摘する。
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