starry night
I must thank Jason Kottke for mentioning the New Yorker article "The Dark Side: Making war on light pollution" by David Owen. Owen notes that "most Americans are unable to see the Milky Way in the sky above the place where they live:"
To see skies truly comparable to those which Galileo knew, you would have to travel to such places as the Australian outback and the mountains of Peru. And civilization's assault on the stars has consequences far beyond its impact on astronomers. Excessive, poorly designed outdoor lighting wastes electricity, imperils human health and safety, disturbs natural habitats, and, increasingly, deprives many of us of a direct relationship with the nighttime sky, which throughout human history has been a powerful source of reflection, inspiration, discovery, and plain old jaw-dropping wonder.
I've long deplored the largely unmourned loss of our galaxy from the night sky; with light pollution nearly ubiquitous, most of us live out our lives without ever seeing the Milky Way as our ancestors saw it:
How much more would we appreciate these wonders if we could actually see them?
Our incessant chatter deafens us to the sounds of nature, and our glare blinds us to its sights; we're creating an impenetrable cocoon for ourselves, one in which our senses are deprived and we are regressing into ignorance rather than maturing. If we have the strength to emerge, will we be able to understand the world around us?