OPINION

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By Amani Kimball-McKavish

It is nighttime. You are sitting on the beach, listening to the white noise of waves softly crashing in front of you. Or, perhaps you are laying down in an empty grass field with the hum of crickets flooding your eardrums. You could also be camping in the woods, sitting by a fire, or doing anything you could possibly imagine while being surrounded by the pitch black abyss of night. However, one thing remains the same wherever you are; you look up and see a breathtaking array–or lack–of stars surrounding you. 

Light pollution is an ever-growing problem, and not many people are aware of its severity. The streetlights that illuminate roads at night, elaborate lighting that adorns big city buildings, floodlights that allow for nighttime sporting events, and even the lighting within your house all contribute to light pollution and its effects on the environment. 

An illuminated city sky with very few visible stars.

An extensive amount of unnatural light leads to disruptions in circadian rhythms, your body’s process of producing and releasing melatonin throughout the day. This disruption is especially detrimental to nocturnal animals whose bodies have trouble differentiating between resting times and hunting times due to sky glow at night.

Birds, who follow stars to navigate, either cannot see necessary stars or mistake streetlights for stars and collide with buildings and other large objects in their path. For baby sea turtles who hatch on the beach and use the moon to make their way to the sea, large lights are easily mistaken for the moon. This causes sea turtles to head away from the ocean, and die soon after.

Not only does light pollution affect animals, but it also affects humans. Melatonin is an incredibly vital hormone to the function of our bodies, as it dictates sleep schedules and helps maintain immune health. Without sufficient melatonin production, you could develop sleeping disorders, anxiety, depression, and even cancer or cardiovascular disease. The most common culprit to interfering with such melatonin production in humans is light– especially the blue light emitted by your technology.

Stars are one of the many beauties of the natural world, and the effects of light pollution have made a drastic mark on star visibility as well. I always find myself taking a moment to look up at night, hoping to see a dark sky filled with stars. However, most times this is not the case, and I am instead met with the view of a blue-gray tinted sky, with its only stars being the especially vibrant ones and the occasional misidentified airplane. 

Lotti Stefanovich (‘22), who lives within the city of Richmond in the Fan neighborhood, says, “Unfortunately I don’t see any stars when I look up into the sky. I wish I could see them, because when I do, like at my grandparents’ home in Wisconsin, it feels so magical and beautiful.” Like me, Stefanovich also experiences disappointment when glancing into a sky void of stars at night. Streetlights reflect between the city’s roads and clouds above, masking what would be a view of millions of stars. Because population is denser within the Richmond city limits, it makes sense that stars are the hardest to see in this area. Streetlights flood the skies and make it nearly impossible for bright stars to stand out in an illuminated night sky. 

Driving a few miles west and outside of the city, Catherine Horner (‘22), who lives near Collegiate, says, “I can see the stars from my house, but one time I was in the countryside, and I saw even more of them. I didn’t realize that many existed.” Without directly naming the culprit, Horner points out that light pollution plays a fundamental role in the amount of stars we are able to see twinkling in the night sky. While there is an improvement in visibility from the city, many stars continue to be hidden by light pollution in the Mooreland Farms area and other suburban areas around Richmond. 

View of the sky near Collegiate School with some but not total visibility.

Continuing westward towards Robins Campus, an explosion of stars is visible as one drives towards less populated areas. As someone who lives in the city, I immediately notice the shift from the blank skies of Richmond to the star-lit skies of Goochland when driving on Patterson Avenue at night. Lower Tuckahoe resident and star lover Eliza Stone (‘22) says, “It’s really quiet and gets really dark where I live, so it’s easy to see a ton of stars.” She can even see the Big Dipper and Little Dipper during the summertime. Stone also brings up the point that “there’s not a ton of new construction” where she lives, meaning light pollution isn’t on the rise in her area. This explains why she can see so many stars, even after 15 years of living there. 

Even farther down Patterson Avenue, close to the Luck Stone quarry in Goochland, lives Ava Riddle (‘22). Riddle also “loves stargazing and bringing friends out to stargaze” by her home. She has noticed that there are “definitely a lot more stars than in the city,” which is a clear theme in students’ comments who live in more suburban areas. 

A photo of stars in Goochland.

Entering onto the highway and pushing towards Short Pump, Kathryn Sutherland (‘22) provides an interesting perspective on how light pollution has affected her. Sutherland, who has lived in the same house for all 17 years of her life, tells me, “I used to see stars and now I don’t. It’s so sad.” She acknowledges that the disappearance of stars in her area is due to evergrowing development in Short Pump, which has increased the amount of light pollution surrounding her home. Sutherland shares my same feeling of disappointment when looking up into a sky whose stars are there, yet not visible. 

The sad truth is that humans are causing light pollution, and it is worsening at an increasing rate. Evident in students’ testimonies about star visibility, the farther away from high populated areas you go, the less light pollution there is. Light pollution not only makes it challenging for us to see stars at night, but it also has significant effects on human and animal behavior and health. So, what can we do? 

There are several things you can do in attempts to reduce light pollution. Firstly, use your phone less at night! Your phone emits blue light, which can have a serious effect on your melatonin production and ultimately cause issues with your sleep cycle. 

Secondly, turn off your lights when not in use, or invest in energy efficient light bulbs or smart fixtures that are motion sensored. I’m sure your mom or dad always told you to “save the polar bears” as a kid, and they were right. Not only does turning off your lights save energy, but it also reduces the amount of light that interferes with animals and other species. 

Ultimately, it is most important to be cautious about your effect on the environment; while light pollution may not seem as large of an issue as climate change or endangered animals, it certainly plays a role in disrupting the environment and creating problems that will soon become irreversible.

All photos by Amani Kimball-McKavish.