Light Pollution

He brings up the point about animals and how they are affected by darkness decreasing. Bogard states that the 400 species of birds that migrate at night in North America, the sea turtles that lay their eggs at night and the bats that prey on insects in the dark are all being affected by the increase of artificial light (Bogard). Another aspect that makes this essay strong is the author’s word choice. Throughout the article, the author uses language that is rich and vibrant, but can also be understood by most people. He uses words like awash, sugary spreads and irreplaceable, among many others. The audience is easily entertained by his word choice and the overall flow of his writing. This strengthens his argument and makes the reading enjoyable to whoever reads it. Also, Bogard organizes his paper in a way that is easy to understand and follow. He presents problems of light pollution throughout the article and then follows them up with possible solutions and examples of how the solutions can be achieved or are currently being achieved. He discussed the problem of light pollution increasing every year and explained how Paris turns off their monument lighting at 1 a.m., suggesting that countries and

There are various types of air pollution contributors in California such as fire generated pollutants and vehicle traffic, which add particulate matter and carbon monoxide into the air we breathe. According to an article by Union of Concerned Scientists (Cars, trucks, and air pollution, 2014) particulate matter is made up of fine particles soot and metal that can pose serious threats to human health when deep in the lungs. Other pollutants emitted from vehicles are: nitrogen oxide which lowers the body’s defense system against respiratory infections such as pneumonia, carbon monoxide which blocks oxygen from reaching vital organs, sulfur dioxide which is emitted by both power plants and vehicles affect children and asthmatics, and hazardous air pollutants (toxics) which are chemicals that are linked to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2014).

Air Pollution today has lead CDC's fight against environmental -related respiratory illness, including asthma.An estimated number of 6.5 million deaths are attributed each year to poor air quality, making this the world's largest threat to human health.According to the World Energy Outlook and the IEA estimate that death due to household air pollution in Africa may decrease by 110,00 to 2040.However, due to economic growth, urbanization and automobile emissions, outdoor air pollution may rise from 300,00 to 450,000 over the same period. Am going to be looking at the causes of air pollution. the problems emerging with air pollution and also how we as a community can help decrease the amount of death rate associated with air pollution.I remember growing up in Africa Air pollution was always a talk about a subject that always comes out because it is really contagious due to the fact that we are breathing bad air that is caused by our human contribution to the environment.Air pollution is considered to be a public health problem, it is responsible for most of our health problems after some research has been conducted in many different parts of the world and regions. According to the Geochemistry and Health paleopathological research suggests that air pollution is a form of smoke, plagued our oldest ancestors.Air pollution has emerged as one of the leading risk factors for stroke worldwide.

Forests have been cut, crops planted, pastures seeded, and urban areas paved. One of the most troubling consequences of human modification of ecosystems is an ongoing loss of species and therefore a loss of biodiversity around the world. The current extinctions have a human cause: habitat loss (such as clearing of tropical rainforests); the introduction of invasive species; unregulated hunting and fishing; and pollution of water, air, and

Paul Bogard, a professor of creative nonfiction and environmental literature, in his work entitled, “Let There Be Dark” discusses the effects associated of light pollution. Bogard’s purpose is to display the harmful effects on humans and the ecosystems surrounding them due to the increase of light at night and how to solve them. He utilizes pathos, ethos, and logos in order to portray to readers the urgency and negative effects caused by light pollution.

People seldom take the time to stop and really think about the impact that this development has on the environment and the effect it has on life itself. Inconveniences to those of a community tend to become the focus of developers’ agendas. Building new parking lots and four-story car garages so people can park their cars closer to their destination, as the thought of a long walk seems too much to bear. As more areas are developed, nature’s balance is disrupted, causing the destruction of animal’s natural habitats, reduction of plant diversity, and over-cultivated soil. A community created by man, often at the expense of the environment, supplants the beautiful and life-sustaining environment created by nature. The urban progression has destroyed the natural habitat of many plants and animals, dramatically altering the atmosphere in the

Paul Bogard’s essay clearly focuses on the object of light pollution. He believes that people use too much light. He states several reasons why too much light creates numerous different problems. Throughout his essay, readers can easily view just how Paul feels about light pollution, and how people should address the issue. He demonstrates his points in a diversity of methods.

For the most part, goldfish exposed to ambient light experienced a higher change in oxygen consumption than fishes that were exposed to dark light. However, because the p-value for our experiment, 0.211, fell below the recommended 0.05 threshold, we were unable to report a statistically significant difference in the metabolic rates of goldfish exposed to different lighting conditions (ambient vs. dark). Because it is likely that the differences in average oxygen consumption between the two conditions (exposure to ambient light vs dark light) were a result of chance, we were unable to reject the null hypothesis stating that there is no statistically significant relationship between the metabolic rate of goldfish, and its exposure to light. With this being said, previous studies have reported exposure to light to be an important factor governing the biological cycle of fish (Choi et al. 2017; Bromage et al.

In the text “Our Vanishing Night”, Verlyn Klinkenborg argues how humans have actively transformed the night to become more like the day, and in doing so have fueled the ongoing problem of light pollution. Klinkenborg immediately establishes a common misconception among humans in that, we continue to change the night even though our species is diurnal creatures. Since humans have engineered artificial light, it has only brought negative consequences to the natural world. He utilizes concreate examples of specific animal’s sufferings such as, nesting sea turtles finding fewer dark beaches to nest on and birds singing at unnatural hours, to demonstrate the extensiveness of light pollution. Klinkenborg contrasts the past and the present indicating how light pollution has become a new problem in the world. In the 1800s, you could walk by the most populous cities and only a few houses where lit with gas, but now most of humanity lives under crossing domes of diverted light. By creating a sense of guilt, he illustrates the beauty of the world above humans that has been lost and masked by the ghastly lit night. He creates this sense of guilt to instigate humans to act in order to protect the environment by diminishing light pollution. Klinkenborg demonstrates that this problem cannot be fixed through one solution. He provides smaller temporary fixes, such as efficiency and conserving, that could go a long way in limiting the effects of light pollution. Due to manipulating the

In his article “Let There Be Dark”, Paul Bogard builds a persuasive argument through a series of effective examples that natural darkness needs to be preserved. To prove his main argument, Bogard implements facts and statistics about the negative effects of light pollution such as the carcinogenic effects of a lack of darkness, the dependency of flora and fauna on natural darkness, and the inspiration sparked through the stillness provided by darkness. Even though humans are the only living things contributing to artificial light at night, the decreasing amount of natural darkness is negatively affecting people’s health. For most people, this problem does not seem evident, since we still spend about eight hours every day sleeping in darkness. Bogard makes this issue seem more tangible by classifying the job of working the night shift as a carcinogen, stating that “our bodies need darkness to produce the hormone melatonin, which keeps certain cancers from developing, and our bodies need darkness for sleep.”

“Ecological light pollution is like the bulldozer of the night, wrecking habitat and disrupting ecosystems several billion years in the making,” says Bogard to express the damage artificial light

For convenience the review is organized around the following domains: ecosystem, cultural system, change, and research trends and needs. An ecosystem is composed of abiotic and biotic components which interact through the flow of energy, matter, and information, and all of this varies in space and time. (67)

Even if sea turtle survival or stargazing isn’t high on our priority list, light pollution should still concern us. As humans, we are dependent on visual cues, so illumination of our nightscapes seems comfortable and necessary. However, unnatural nighttime lighting affects our circadian rhythm, or 24 hour day/night pattern. According to a 2009 Environmental Health Perspective article on the dangers of light pollution, “Disruption of the circadian clock is linked to several medical disorders in humans, including depression, insomnia, cardiovascular

Before mankind began to develop ways of creating mass amounts of artificial light, the world was in a natural and perpetual cycle of dark and light. Night and day. With the invention of electricity and the lightbulb, humans have had the power to alter this cycle into a society of perpetual light and the perpetual cycle of dark and light was proven to not truly be perpetual. This alteration of the cycle has created the concept of light pollution; artificial light that illuminates the night sky. In “Let There Be Dark,” Paul Bogard argues that light pollution is damaging to humans. To strengthen his argument, he uses loaded words, logos, and credible sources.

Eighty percent of the turtles that are born on land will not make it to the ocean. Instead, these innocent turtles are drawn by bright lights inland. Here the babies are prey to bustling cars and sewer drains. These bright lights proceed to create a glowing sky littered with light pollution that disrupts bird migration and wastes money. This light pollution produces negative effects on wildlife, and wastes energy; however, it can be prevented through regulations and fixture adjustments.