California desert town takes back the night, wins rare "Dark Sky" award. [View All]

[SoCalDem]

The “right to starlight”:
The resort town of Borrego Springs, Calif.
has pledged to protect the dark skies of
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, where the
Milky Way can still be seen at night.(c) Dennis Mammana/dennismammana.com



Science & Environment
Starry, Starry Skies
http://www.miller-mccune.com/science_environment/starry-starry-skies-1696
California desert town takes back the night, wins rare "Dark Sky" award.

By: Melinda Burns | December 24, 2009 | 09:05 AM


The “right to starlight”: The resort town of Borrego Springs, Calif. has pledged to protect the dark skies of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, where the Milky Way can still be seen at night.(c) Dennis Mammana/dennismammana.com

If the Star of Bethlehem, that "star with royal beauty bright," were to appear this Christmas, it would be obliterated in most of the world by an orange halo of glary city light. Light pollution — the artificial sky glow that dims the stars — now affects 63 percent of the world's population and 99 percent of people living in European Union and continental United States, according to some estimates. The Milky Way is not visible in most cities, much less a meteor shower, Orion's shield, or, in the biggest cities, the North Star.

"The sky is fading," says a report this month in Physics Today. "... Does the vista of a star-filled night matter only to astronomers?"

In Borrego Springs, population 2,500, located in the remote Anza-Borrego Desert of Southern California, it matters to the whole town. Borrego recently became only the second "International Dark Sky Community" in the world, meaning it has exceptionally starry night skies and is dedicated to keeping them that way. We protect the desert, and now we're protectors of the sky," said Dennis Mammana, a local astronomer and photographer. "Borrego is not just a daytime place. We're a celestial preserve."

A coalition of six determined people — a representative from the Palomar Observatory in northern San Diego County and five Borregans, including Mammana — worked two years to win a "Dark Sky Community" designation this summer from the International Dark-Sky Association, a Tucson-based nonprofit group. The association's 53 chapters lobby the United Nations, the U.S. Congress, the European Union, local cities, counties, states, businesses — anyone who will listen — for reductions in sky glare.

"Light pollution is an environmental change that people have witnessed in their lifetimes," said Chad Moore, an association member who serves as the National Park Service night sky program manager. "Light domes from big cities can now be seen 200 miles away. These are parts of the sky that die." Dark-sky supporters argue that the natural night sky is vital for astronomers and essential for people's sense of well-being. An unpolluted night sky would obviously cut down on energy waste and global warming, and, as previously reported in Miller-McCune, could provide some health benefits, too.

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