“America the Beautiful is at her best in December when billions of tiny stringed light bulbs turn the mundane or darkness itself into magnificent beauty and celebration. Holiday lighting is a great social offering—a positive externality in the jargon of economics—given by many to all.”
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The editors and bloggers at MasterResource wish our readers an energetic holiday season. We will resume January 2, 2023.
…“The number of species affected by the growing light pollution problem is large and expanding. Oddly enough and justly we humans have in recent years been added to that list.”
“Generating the power to these lights has contributed millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere annually, thus contributing to global climate change, with no human benefit.”
– The Rewilding Institute (below)
The Deep Ecologists just don’t like human beings doing their own thing. Don’t eat meat. Don’t drive or fly. Don’t multiply. And … don’t violate the natural darkness.
There is even a International Dark-Sky Association formed in 2001 in the cause of promoting night sky for land-based astronomy. Enter Jason Kahn, who introduces the film Saving the Dark in this article, The Ecological & Human Need for Dark Skies.…
“Energy is not for conserving; it is for unleashing to serve us, to make our lives better, to allow us to realize our dreams and to reach for the stars, those bright lights that pierce the darkness of the night.”
Since early men ignited the first fires in caves, the unleashing of energy for light, heat, cooking, and every human need has been the essence and symbol of what it is to be human. The Greeks saw Prometheus vanquishing the darkness with the gift of fire to men. The Romans kept an eternal flame burning in the Temple of Vesta. Our deepest thoughts and insights are described as sparks of fire in our minds. A symbol of death is a fading flame; Poet Dylan Thomas urged us to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”…