19654

Light pollution is a side effect of cheap fossil fuels. As such, we may be closer to the end of this problem than most people think. Electricity is still the best bargain in the civilized world, but blowing it off into the night sky has always been folly. When energy prices reach a high-enough level, streetlights, commercial signage, and private-yard lights will begin to wink out. I eagerly await that day.

Tom Ness
Grants Pass, Ore.

The study by Chad Moore and Dan Duriscoe quantifying light pollution is valuable. However, like most similar studies, it does not address the deleterious effects light pollution is already having on humans. The notion persists that the electric destruction of night is nothing more that a minor nuisance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. One has only to survey a few people to see how abysmally ignorant they are about the stars in the night sky—which they have basically never seen—to understand the pernicious effects of light pollution on our very nature as intelligent beings.

Patrick L. Lilly
Colorado Springs, Colo.