In Defense of Wild Night. Issue 2 (4th May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dill, Kimberly M.
• Is Part Of: Ethics, policy & environment. Volume 25:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 153
• Page End: 177
• Publication Date: 2022-05-04
• Subjects: Environmental philosophy -- environmental ethics -- light pollution -- transformative power -- re-wilding; Environmental ethics -- Periodicals; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; 179.1
• DOI: 10.1080/21550085.2021.1904496
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2155-0085

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In this piece, I extend a transformative power account to the conservation of dark (and starry) night skies. More specifically, I argue that the transformative power that dark nights bear warrants their conservation and is best understood in terms of the important intellectual, cultural, aesthetic, and (psycho-physiologically) restorative effects that they afford. This gives us a pressing set of reasons to combat the growing, global phenomenon of light pollution. To do so, I argue, we ought to preserve the few remaining dark refuges that we have left (what I term wildness regions) and synergistically re-wild (i.e. re-darken) urban and suburban environments. Synergistic re-darkening, I propose, can be achieved by (i) establishing interpretive (educational) 'dark zones', (ii) implementing bioluminescent lighting technologies, and (iii) strategically employing lighting design. Finally, and in order to enact a degree of epistemic justice, I argue that we ought to implement multi-cultural 'co-learning' initiatives, which promote education pertaining to both Western, scientific and indigenous, North American astronomies.