After midnight at the Megler Bridge, near the mouth of the Columbia River, Astoria, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The night sky—the silent dark between stars—is a living commons bridging Earth, life, and spirit. As the 13th‑century Zen master Eihei Dōgen taught in Keisei Sanshoku or “The Sound of the Streams, the Shape of the Mountains,” rivers, forests, mountains, and night are not mere backdrops but the body and speech of the Buddha—sacred, alive, and deserving reverence.

Imagine stepping outside on a clear night, looking up at the stars, only to find the heavens dimmed to a faint, featureless glow. Where once the Milky Way stretched across the sky, now only a handful of stars remain visible to the naked eye. This creeping veil is light pollution—the quiet theft of night’s natural darkness. It spills from streetlights, billboards, and high-rise windows, casting cities in a permanent, artificial twilight.

While it leaves no residue in air or water, its effects ripple through life on Earth, confusing migrating birds, misleading sea turtle hatchlings, and disorienting nocturnal animals. The same lights also negatively impact humans, disrupting sleep, altering hormone cycles, and affecting overall health. Also, access to natural darkness is not equally experienced: communities differ in how light—or the lack of it—shapes public safety, cultural life, and ecological exposure.

An international team of researchers notes that “[m]any of the behavioral and physiological processes of life on Earth are connected to daily and seasonal cycles. For example, visual predation requires sufficient light, and predator-prey interactions are therefore expected to be affected by sky glow.” In response, groups like DarkSky International have emerged as advocates for protecting natural darkness, safeguarding both our view of the stars and the countless species whose survival depends on nighttime.

Mažeika S.P. Sullivan, director of the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park and lead author of a 2018 research published in Ecological Applications, said, “We are experiencing this pollution that we don’t think about, but it’s all around us and it’s chronic and it’s happening everywhere—from newly lit villages in rural Africa to streams alongside the highway in Columbus, Ohio. It’s also unprecedented in Earth’s history.”

Taylor Stone, a scholar in environmental ethics, argues that natural darkness has intrinsic moral value and should be considered alongside clean air and water while making decisions about urban lighting and biodiversity protection.

The Growing Problem of Light Pollution

Light pollution refers to any excessive, misdirected, or intrusive artificial lighting that disrupts natural darkness. Scientists identify four primary forms of light pollution: glare from overly bright lights; sky glow, the diffuse brightening of the night sky in inhabited spaces; light trespass, where unwanted light spills where it “is not intended or needed”; and clutter, the visual confusion created by dense, competing light sources.

Urban growth intensifies all four components. Streetlights, signage, stadiums, and architectural lighting cast a constant haze over cities.

Since 1992, global artificial light at night has grown substantially, with satellite‑based measurements showing at least a roughly 50 percent increase in detectable light emissions over 25 years and indications that total light output may have risen several times more than that when accounting for emissions satellites miss.

Citizen science data collected between 2011 and 2022 reinforce the rapid growth of light pollution. Volunteers around the world have documented steadily dimming night skies, with an estimated annual increase in sky brightness of........

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