Most of the time I live near Geneva, Switzerland. The Société Astronomique de Genève, my local club, has been very active in educating the public about the effects of light pollution for many years, culminating in a Switching Off event of all public lighting in the canton and city of Geneva, the neighbouring districts of the canton of Vaud and many communities of neighbouring France, affecting over 500,000 people. My second home is in Suffolk, which still enjoys relatively dark skies but is threatened with “development projects” where light pollution may not be a priority. I would like to offer sharing the experience of our local efforts in Switzerland to help the situation in Britain.

We want to reconnect people with the wonders of a dark starry sky. Darkness at night is one of thekey characteristics of rural areas – it’s what makes the countryside different from towns or cities.But too much light in urban areas can be problematic, and light doesn’t respect boundaries; it canspread for miles from the source and blurs the distinction between town and country. Even in thedepths of the countryside, genuine dark starry nights are becoming harder to find – security lights,floodlights and streetlights all break into the darkness, blurring the distinction between town andcountryside. Not only that, but light pollution is shown to be harmful to wildlife, to our own healthand wellbeing, and excess light is contributing to our carbon emissions.

I am old enough to remember a time when the night Sky was much darker than it is today. The skiesthen, when it was clear, seemed to contain far more stars than you can see now, set against ablacker backdrop. Urban night Skies are blighted by light pollution, and in most city areas you mighteven struggle to see some of the brighter stars at night. This is not just because cities have lots oflights, so that people can see where they are going, but it is because the lighting is so very bad,spilling over in all direction. I have always lived in a rural area, but it is quite evident that even inrural areas bad lighting is creeping in. You have badly angled insecurity lighting; but some of theworst offenders are without doubt, new industrial parks and units; and sporting facilities. Floodlighting that spills in all directions can be seen to turn the night sky into a bright blue white blindingglare. This is happening in rural Britain, and in all respects we are losing more of the rural quality ofsome country areas. Part shut off street lights has helped to a certain extent, though. Lighting uplarge areas of countries at night could have dire consequences for wildlife. Nocturnal animals think itis daytime, when it is actually night, and diurnal animals are affected too. Animals that are active byday, need to rest at night. People also need to sleep at night. If everything is lit as bright as day, andlight is pouring into your bedroom at night, this can mean that people suffer from insomnia. For bothwildlife and people, lighting up the night will have health consequences, and could even shorten lifeexpectancy. I have been fortunate enough to travel to places in the world where there is no lightpollution. Zero light pollution and a star studded clear transparent sky is breath-taking. The MilkyWay is so bright, it looks like bright clouds. Even stars that look dim from home, are bright fromthese areas, making it more difficult to identify the patterns of the constellations marked by thebrighter stars. Even in Britain and Ireland, there are still many places where it is very dark at night.On a clear night, this is something everyone should witness. If a sky is really dark at night you won’tbe able to see the clouds above you when it is cloudy. If you can see lots of clouds at night easily,then the light pollution is quite bad where you live. Even though I live in a rural area, there is enoughlight spilling out from the urban areas to make it reasonably easy to see clouds at night. When youfly back on an aircraft at night back into a UK airport on the cloudy night, you can often see wherethe Cities and towns are from the aircraft, as the clouds are lit up from beneath. This shows howmuch energy is wasted in lighting up the sky. The Dark Sky Parks have been highly successful and thishas helped to preserve the night-time rural quality of these areas. I personally would like to see evenmore dark sky parks and islands in the United Kingdom, even in Leicestershire where I live andparticularly Rutland; close by. It is not lighting that is the problem, it is bad lighting. People want lightat night to light the area of their property or to provide some light to our streets at night. It is thespillage of light far and wide from the area it should be lighting that is the problem. You could,though, argue, in urban areas that there are too many lights. We have to educate people, localauthorities, the lighting manufacturers, and government about how detrimental bad lighting can beto the environment and to people’s health. All you can say is that bad lighting is bad for theenvironment. Bad for the health and wellbeing of the population. Bad economically, bad because ofthe loss of that part of our culture that let us view a blacker than black sky at night, studded withstars so bright. You would look up in wonder at such a sky. Such a sky would have inspired people tobecome scientists in the past. It is a loss than really can be reversed, by being sensible as to how welight up property and streets at night.

Conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of dark night skies of the Mendip Hills AONB not onlygives our, and future generations the opportunity to observe the stars and the nocturnal world around us, but most importantly ensure the recovery of nature. By turning off unnecessary artificial lighting and promoting better building design, we can enhance the nocturnal environment, enabling nocturnal species to forage more naturally, and we can help restore uninterrupted diurnal rhythms of plants, animals and humans. By signing up to the Dark Skies Matter campaign we are raising awareness of the natural beauty of the dark night skies of the AONB and the nocturnal environment, helping to ensure that dark night skies will be above us for the future.

As a child living in suburbia, I loved looking up at the stars. Now I live in a rural area near Gatwick and there are so few stars visible. And where have all the moths gone? We used to have to clean them off the windscreen of the car and off the headlights, but not now! There is such a decline in night flying insects which have been affected by light pollution, surely it has to be toned down. During the last war there was total blackout, yet people managed to find their way about. It's crazy to say we need lights to see when the down side is that we are interfering with nature so badly.