This past week was International Dark Sky Week—a week to raise awareness about the harmful effects of light pollution. Earlier this week, an excellent blog post made me pause and reflect about darkness and light, and how we can’t really appreciate the light until we experience darkness.
Welcome to week 16 of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a sustainable living tip for the week. In addition to light pollution, this week’s post has some startling carbon and climate change facts, and thoughts on the effects of meat consumption on the planet.
The Sunday Spark – Week 16
On my mind this week: Reflection on darkness and light
Earlier this week, an informative post from EcoGreenLove on the effects of light pollution made me pause and reflect on how we don’t appreciate really the light until we’ve experienced darkness.
Reading the post took me back to a vacation in Prince Edward Island over 25 years ago. My husband and I were staying in a small cottage near Cavendish. The cottage was in a quiet area overlooking the ocean. On the first night of our stay, I went outdoors and looked up. I was blown away by what I saw. Never in my life had I had seen such a spectacular night sky. I recall commenting to my husband “I never knew there were so many stars in the sky”.
That trip was the first time I had ever given light pollution any thought. Living in the most heavily populated area of Canada, the effects of light pollution dull our view of the stars, even in rural areas. And it’s far worse now than it was in those days.
All of this made me consider the contrast of light versus dark. Light is usually portrayed as good, whereas darkness is bad. Think of expressions like “step into the light” or “I saw the light”. Even in the bible, we hear “the people in darkness have seen a great light”.
As I reflected on light pollution, and that starry night in Prince Edward Island, I realized we need darkness to really appreciate the light. The same is true of life—the darkest and most difficult days give us reason to appreciate the good ones.
So instead of cursing the darkness in the midst of life’s challenges, let’s remind ourselves we can only really see the beautiful stars in a dark sky.
Learn more about light pollution
The blog post that inspired this post raises awareness of the serious issue of light pollution and its impact on wildlife, human health, climate change and other things. It’s well worth a read, so I encourage you to check it out here: Light Pollution [Visuals + Video]
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Three highlights of the week
It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:
- I had a busy and productive week at work—finally getting to work on a few things that had been sitting for a while.
- On Friday, I had a wonderful catch up with some friends over tea and muffins at a local cafe.
- The ducks have returned to our local pond. I hope that means we’ll have ducklings before long.
Three things I learned this week
All of this week’s learnings came from a course on LinkedIn Learning: 34 Things to Know About Carbon and Climate and The Carbon Almanac site. Here are some disturbing environmental facts from the course:
- Gas-powered leaf blowers emit the same amount of carbon in one hour of use as driving a Toyota Camry for 1,770 kilometres. Not to mention the noise pollution! (www.thecarbonalmanac.org/034)
- There are 150 to 200 species going extinct every single day. (www.thecarbonalmanac.org/367)
- The 4 Cs (coal, combustion, cows, concrete) account for 70% of our climate change problem. (www.thecarbonalmanac.org/003)
Sustainable living tip: reduce your meat consumption
Seeing cows on the list of the 4Cs is a reminder of the impact of livestock on the environment. Something else I learned from The Carbon Almanac is that methane—a by-product of meat and dairy cattle—is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20 year period. (Source: UNEP)
That’s an important reminder of the impact of eating meat on the planet. With that in mind, making an effort to reduce our meat consumption can only be a good thing. I definitely eat a lot less meat than I used to. For tips on how you can cut back, check out Giving up meat won’t save the Earth…but it might help.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.
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Looks like you have a new format too, Michelle! I really like it. The sight of a gazillion stars at night is one of the many reasons I fell in love with Northern Arizona. In fact, Flagstaff, the largest town in the area, was named the first International Dark Sky City in 2001. I can’t remember what I was watching recently, but it was said that if concrete was a country, it would be the third largest contributor to global warming. I find that terrifying! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and important findings, my friend. 🌞
Thanks Lisa. I decided to switch up the format of my Sunday posts for 2023. So far, I’m enjoying writing them.
I did read that the Dark Sky movement started in Arizona. I’d never heard of the “4 Cs” until recently. It’s frightening when you think about the damage we’ve done to the Earth over the last century.
As someone who lives in the busy part of the city, I have to say that I’ve never really seen a proper starry night. It’s not just the light pollution, but also the sound pollution that gets me. I guess humans are just synonymous with pollution. That’s why it’s great we have blogs like yours! Keep on keeping on, Michelle!
Yes. I could write a whole other post about sound pollution. The year before that trip to Prince Edward Island, we drove to western Canada. We stopped on the shore of Lake Superior in Northern Ontario. As we sat at the lake’s edge, I said to my husband “Listen!” When he asked what he was listening for, I responded “Silence!” It was so quiet and peaceful.
Thanks for dropping by Stuart!
I remember visiting my village a long time ago before pandemic and I was shocked to see so many bright stars. I realised two things that day. One, that the stars are still there but clouded by air and light pollution. Second, we have become so busy looking down at our mobile phones that we don’t have time to appreciate the beauty of nature. I loved when you said that we cannot appreciate light without darkness. And that’s the irony and fact of life.
Thank you Ranjana. Yes, it is sad that we have lost the ability to appreciate the simple beauty of nature that’s all around us. Perhaps if we took the time to appreciate it, we would have more respect for its value.
I used to cross country ski thru a pine forest at night. We use to stop and sit just looking and listening to the darkness. It was almost spiritual.
Oh that sounds wonderful, Judy. I definitely think darkness is underrated. It can be very peaceful and spiritual.
Like your trip to PEI it was ages ago. It’s wonderful to have the memories. I wish I had been able to get to PEI when I was in Nova Scotia. I hear it is wonderful.
It is a beautiful place. The red soil and sand make it feel very “other-worldy”.
Have you heard about the https://meatfreemondays.com/? Check it out there is also an impact calculator. The result is astonishing!
Yes, I have heard about meat-free Mondays. That calculator is amazing. I just wish I could wean my husband off his steady diet of meat and potatoes. I would love to experiment more with meatless dishes.
It took me years but now my husband stopped eating red meat, that apparently is the most pollutant. Persevere and one day he will change his mind.
Maybe but I’m not hopeful. He doesn’t even eat rice and pasta, and eats very few vegetables. He would starve if he gave up meat.
Oh I see , you made me laugh when you said he would starve 😀
As yet, I’ve never see the night sky as it truly is. Only on the T.V.
It’s sad when you think about it, Rachel. That 25-year-old memory has stayed with me. It was spectacular.
Growing up I lived in the middle of the Cornish countryside and I would often marvel at the night skies and all the stars I could see. There were so many, and so clear! I also spent a lot of my childhood in London and that was a different story. Light pollution has definitely got worse since I was a child and I think about its impacts.
It really is much worse now. Between light pollution and air pollution, we just don’t see stars like we used to. 😢
I’m struck by your observation of darkness…being necessary for light. I hadn’t thought about it in the way you expressed, Michelle. I don’t think much about the stars we glimpse from our backyard but a friend from a much more densely populated area remarked recently that the ‘night sky was gorgeous’ and I realized she was right. Where she lives…in a very urban and polluted area, seeing stars is an uncommon experience. 😔
It’s a good point, Vicki. Just another example of a simple pleasure that has been lost as the world becaomes more urbanized. We live in a smaller city, so we do see stars at night from our back garden, but nothing like what I saw from that beach cottage in Prince Edward Island.
I hear you. I can’t imagine how beautiful it was from that lovely vantage point! 🥰
I agree that many folks may have never seen a truly starry sky. It is almost breathtaking — and also can be very (appropriately) humbling to view the vastness of our tiny corner of the universe. It is very interesting how things like electricity and overhead streetlights, which seem like a positive development in our lives, can also end up contributing to our being estranged from the natural cycles of our planet (such as rising with the sun and going to sleep when it becomes dark) as well as the wonder of the universe represented by an un-light-polluted sky. Thank you for your wonderful, steadfast, cheerful, informative, not-in-denial blog!
Thanks Will. Yes, a starry sky is quite magical when you think how far away those stars are. I suspect many in the heavily-populated eastern United States and the southern part of Canada have never really seen a starry sky. My in-laws live in a rural community and the night skies are clearer, there, but still nothing like that night in Prince Edward Island.
I have a sense that there are many people on the planet who have never really seen a night sky and probably never will. That true darkness is amazing, and beautiful and life changing in many ways.
It really is. That trip to PEI was over 25 years ago, yet I’ve never forgotten that sense of awe and wonder I had when I stepped outside that night. The closest I get these days is when we visit my mother-in-law on their farm, although they are close enough to populated areas that the light pollution obscures the view of the stars to some extent.