The night that disappeared

There was once a time when night meant darkness.

When the sun disappeared below the horizon the sky slowly turned to night and the stars appeared. The streets became quiet, the birds went back to their nest and all sorts of other animals performed their nighttime routines. Darkness wasn’t just the lack of light, it was a vital part of the natural world.

In the present however, this is becoming less and less common.

All around the world, streetlights are kept on throughout the night. Buildings continue to glow when their occupants have left. Billboard signs brighten the roadways, homes glow through the early hours and even the sky in large cities can sometimes appear faintly orange rather than completely dark. We’ve driven the day far into the night.

And have we lost something that we never knew we needed?

This phenomenon is called light pollution, the excessive, unnecessary or poorly directed use of artificial light at night. Unlike air pollution or plastic waste, it doesn’t always look harmful. In fact, a bright city looks modern, safe, beautiful. But while this may be true, light pollution is an intrusion on nature.

For example, many forms of wildlife rely on the natural pattern of light and darkness.

Artificial light can affect the animal’s natural pattern such as feeding and breeding, and its interactions with plant life and other animals. Insects are a good example because while they’re small creatures scuttling around your home they’re pollinators and food sources for many larger animals.

When their environments are artificially changed the consequences of that change can spread all the way up the food chain.

Light can also affect the natural patterns of other animals such as birds. Many migratory birds travel at night, and use environmental clues as to where they should go. Artificially changing these clues can lead these birds off of their natural patterns.

Even plants and other lifeforms follow a natural pattern of light and darkness.

Nature has had millions of years to create lifeforms which thrive in a specific kind of manner, usually which involves the rising and setting of the sun. In only a few millennia, humans have added in an entirely new source of light into the night.

And we’ve added it almost everywhere.

But this isn’t an argument against artificial light as a whole.

Artificial light has had a very positive effect on the human race. Streetlights help us see, hospitals need light to operate, and homes, schools, and offices all rely on artificial light. The issue isn’t artificial light as a whole.

The issue is unnecessary light.

A street doesn’t become safer just because it’s brighter. An empty building doesn’t need all of its floors lit up until sunrise. A billboard doesn’t need to point a beam of light straight up into the sky. Artificial light doesn’t need to be excessive.

In fact, we don’t need to go back into the past.

There are many ways we can prevent light pollution without going back into the stone age. Cities can use lights which mainly direct their light to the ground. Lights can be turned off when they’re unnecessary. Policies for buildings and homes can be made which dictate that lights which aren’t in use should be turned off at night. We can avoid lighting our homes when nobody is there to see it, and we can avoid lighting our outdoors when it’s unnecessary.

We even have the opportunity to save energy.

Every unnecessary light uses power, and when you add it all up between millions of artificial lights the total is staggering. Efficient use of artificial lights saves energy and reduces our impact on the environment.

But perhaps the largest change we can make is our attitudes.

We’ve gotten so used to light, that darkness is unfamiliar to us.

A dark sky, lit only by the natural glow of stars, is an inconvenience to us. But imagine going out on a clear night away from any major city. You’d be met with a sight much different than what you’re used to. The sky is full of stars, the universe surrounds you. You can see that, if anything, the lack of artificial light reveals just how vast and interesting the universe around us is. The sky, the universe, didn’t disappear because we covered it in artificial light.

Protecting darkness, and the view of the natural wonders like the glow of stars, should be a goal for us all.

Certain parks, woods, and natural reserves can be set aside specifically just to protect this experience. Cities could enforce responsible lighting ordinances, architects can take into account their buildings effects on the ecosystem at night, and communities can put on events which allow us to experience a night close to nature. A night where we look up at a sky similar to what our ancestors might have seen.

Most importantly though, we need to realize that environmental issues don’t always present themselves in dramatic ways.

Sometimes the damage is subtle. It’s a light left on in an empty house, or a building kept artificially bright through the hours of the night. It’s a sky polluted by the glow of thousands of lights across the city. One light can seem insignificant. But millions of them together can be devastating.

The end of the night is a powerful lesson to us all. Humanity has progressed significantly in its ability to change the world around us. We can brighten our streets, warm our homes, and keep in touch with our friends and family anywhere in the world at any time. But just because we have the power to change the world around us doesn’t mean we should change everything we can.

Perhaps humanity’s greatest advancement is the power to know when not to.

WriteToWin Monsoon 2026