Observable light emissions increased globally by at least 49 percent from 1992 to 2017, a study from the University of Exeter this year found. ![]() In North America alone, light emissions rose by around 6 percent annually from 1947 to 2000, according to research published in 2003. ![]() Light pollution has been on the rise for decades. “Essentially, we’ve upended that in the last 100 years by the rapid and ever-increasing growth of artificial light at night,” said Ruskin Hartley, executive director of the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). Since widespread use of lightbulbs ramped up over a century ago, we’ve no longer been exclusively governed by our planet’s built-in bedtime - a natural cue for our own circadian rhythms that also influences how plants and animals go about their lives. Across the globe, amateur and professional astronomers alike are illuminating those consequences, and some communities are taking action. But as artificial light has increased over the years, its far-reaching implications have grown more apparent. ![]() The light on your porch or the streetlights in your neighborhood probably don’t come to mind when you think about pollution.
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