14 DAY TRIAL // Light pollution, a phenomenon endemic to all large cities of the world, may also be the root cause for increasingly difficult amateur astronomical observations in previous pristine areas, such as Death Valley, in California. Famous for its tar-black skies, the region has been a magnet for telescope wielders for many years. Now, because of the many lights that Las Vegas has, including spotlights and searchlights, the sky is becoming increasingly lit, making it difficult for astronomers to notice meteor showers and the movement of the stars.
Dante's View, one of the most famous places in Death Valley, is located approximately 85 miles away from LV, and yet pointing a camera at the sky here is useless. The only image photographers get is a dark sky. If they pan around and focus on the lights of the city, which spring up from behind the hillsides, they get a picture of a shower of light.
"You can see the Luxor vertical beam. That's the brightest thing out there," says Dan Duriscoe, a night watcher, after photographing the famous searchlight of the pyramid-shaped hotel on the Vegas Strip. In the last 6 years, light pollution from Las Vegas increased by more than 61 percent, as light from hotels and bedroom communities took over a large portion of the sky above the eastern part of Death Valley.
"What is alarming to me is, what's going to happen three or four generations from now if this growth of outdoor lights continues?" Duriscoe asks. The problem is global, experts add. Official estimates say that almost two thirds of American citizens cannot see the Milky Way from their apartments or houses, on account of light and air pollution. Worldwide, a fifth of the population is in the same situation.
A potential solution to this problem will be to make the billboards, flashy ads and lamp posts shoot their light downwards, so as to avoid damage to animals and ecosystems. Migratory birds, whose routes pass above large cities, are known to fly straight into skyscrapers, as they get confused by the enormous amount of light, when there should be darkness at night.
Another solution will be to make the commercials less flashy, and to force advertising companies to drop the white background on those banners. White light accounts for most light pollution worldwide. In countries such as France, environment activists formed organizations that simply walk the streets at night and turn off neon signs, taking advantage of the fact that national law forces store owners to outfit their stores with an outside turn-off switch, in case of fires.