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Re: (meteorobs) Letter to Reader's Digest

Title: Re: (meteorobs) Letter to Reader's Digest
hi all
couldnt resist replying to your letter Joe Rao....dot it is indeed very sad that not many people in the world get to see the wonder of the night and especially the Milky Way anymore , due to creeping light pollution.....at the risk of appearing a nut , i would tentatively like to draw attention to a possible  correlative link between the rise of light pollution (and the lack of celestial inspiration from the universe  ) and the fall of religion and spirituality generally (at least in the ,  so called , western world...as a result of a lack of celestial inspiration from the universe). Dont get me wrong , im not a christian or of any other faith (in fact most people would call me an atheist ) or making judgements or arguments in favour or against religion and faiths .
This is just a personal theory of mine i have come too , independently as far as i know , i am unaware of this theory being discussed before , but please point it out if it has been .
My evidence for this theory.. is my own quasi-spirituality, that i have felt many times when looking up at the night sky for long periods , especially the winter Milky Way,  from a very dark country site ( from Southern hemisphere 35 degrees south )  and feeling incredibly small and insignificant , but at the same time somehow part of it , and definitely creates many big questions in your mind , and making you think outside of day to day life. I have many times felt the night sky to be a kind of Ultimate Cathedral , as i gaze slack jawed into its wonders . And i have travelled home from such nights feeling unexplainably spiritually enriched , and conversely feel impoverished in a way when in long breaks between such excursions.
That could be enough raving for know i think ...but my point is ...the anti-light pollution groups are possibly overlooking a very powerful ally in their fight..... the faiths and religions of the world !!
Strange bedfellows indeed !!
.....but on the other hand i could be just a nut ...

regards
Kearn Jones

From: Skywayinc@aol.com
Reply-To: meteorobs@atmob.org
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 20:41:19 EDT
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: (meteorobs) Letter to Reader's Digest


Here is a letter I recently wrote to Reader's Digest.  Perhaps some of you also saw the Melville article . . .

ATT: You Said It, Reader's Digest   

      The short article by Greg Melville on stargazing that appeared in your August issue ("See Tonight's Star-Studded Show," page 191) unfortunately failed to mention an increasing problem for stargazers both young and old: light pollution. Literally hundreds upon millions of precious watts are wasted each year because poorly designed streetlamps send a portion of their light into the sky. Over the past two decades, the increase in this ubiquitous, overbright, garish lighting has so polluted our nighttime environment that a majority of the current generation has never seen the Milky Way.  

   Unfortunately, having a "simple sky guide" as Mr. Melville suggests - like H.A. Rey's constellation book - will do no good if you can't see the stars and constellations thanks to bright lights. The "60 streaks per hour" that Mr. Melville quoted for the August Perseid shower probably will amount to just a fraction of that figure for most folks who must compete with the perpetual light blight that hangs over most of our towns and cities.  

   Fortunately, there is an organization that is trying to fight light pollution: The International Dark Sky Association (IDA).  Certainly their URL ( www.darksky.org ) should also have been given a mention in Mr. Melville's piece. Sadly, if light pollution is allowed to continue to proliferate we ultimately will lose our view of the night sky - the next endangered natural resource.  Indeed, a generation from now, if the current siege of "light blight" goes unchecked, seeing the stars will be reduced to a museum rendition, with your local planetarium becoming our children's only view of the universe.

-- Joe Rao
  Meteorologist
  News 12 Westchester
  6 Executive Plaza
  Yonkers, NY, 10701

A week later, the Digest replied:

From: Janice_Leary@ReadersDigest.com
Importance: High
X-Priority: 1 (High)
Subject: Reader's Digest letters
To: jrao@news12.com

Dear Mr. Rao:

I am an editor at Reader's Digest magazine writing in regard to the letter
that you sent to us recently regarding the article, "Tonight's Star-Studded
Show." We are considering including your comments in our letters-to
the-editor column and want to clarify one point.

In your letter, you say that "a majority of the current generation has
never seen the Milky Way." By current generation, do you mean young people?

Please send your reply to janice_leary@readersdigest.com by Monday, Aug.
12. And thank you for writing to us.

Sincerely,

Janice Leary
Senior Associate Editor/Research  
Editorial Research Dept., Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest Road, Pleasantville, N.Y. 10570


      NOTE: Spoke to Ms. Leary on the phone Thursday afternoon . . . my letter is tentatively set to appear in the October 2002 issue.

-- joe rao


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