Let There Be Light

This Sunday's Minneapolis Star Tribune devotes the bulk of the first page of the Opinion section to a piece by one Peter Leschak decrying widespread "light pollution:"  city lights obscuring the night sky.  The piece is mostly a tribute to the majesty of the stars and constellations, but it also calls for all kinds of new regulations on security lighting, etc.
Now I could regale you, Dear Reader, with my own tale of epiphany:  the night sky, the possibility of the infinite revealed in the Big Dipper.  Except my story takes place at the crest of the Blue Ridge rather than Montana's Big Sky country.  No matter.

We've all seen the famous night-time satellite photo of the Korean peninsula,

showing the well-lit, prosperous cities of first-world South Korea (GDP Rank:  No. 12) and the almost completely dark Hermit Kingdom of North Korea (GDP Rank:  No. 96).  Since the invention of civilization, night light and prosperity have gone hand in hand ("Bright Lights, Big City").

Keshak proposes some familiar solutions to the "night pollution problem."  "Switch off the useless lights," "phase out conventional lamps in favor of LEDs," intall a "motion detector."  It's always the same set of solutions in search of a problem.

Online commenters on the piece point out the role street lighting plays in enabling the pedestrian and bicycle traffic encouraged by this same agenda.  It's not just that the light is needed for crime prevention, but for basic navigation on long winter nights.

The same people who call for these sort of solutions are the same people supporting the trial lawyers' efforts to sue you into oblivion if someone were to come to harm on or near your property, which lacked the proper eyeball-searing security lighting. 

But don't worry, the streetlights will be gone soon enough.  Last fall, the Detroit enclave of Highland Park lost its streetlights when it was unable to pay a $4 million bill to the local utility.  At the rate our nation's financial problems keep piling up, lights will be going off all over place.

In the meantime, let's not add to the list of our problems.