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.

摘要

在这篇文章中，我将一个变革性的权力帐户扩展到保护黑暗（和繁星点点）的夜空。更具体地说，我认为黑夜所具有的变革力量值得保护，并且最好从它们所提供的重要的智力、文化、审美和（心理-生理）恢复效应的角度来理解。这为我们提供了一系列紧迫的理由来对抗日益严重的全球光污染现象。为了做到这一点，我认为，我们应该保护我们留下的少数剩余的黑暗避难所（我称之为荒野区域）并协同地重新荒野（即重新变暗）城市和郊区环境。我建议，协同重新变暗可以通过（i）建立解释性（教育性）“暗区”，（ii）实施生物发光照明技术，以及（iii）战略性地采用照明设计来实现。最后，为了实现一定程度的认知正义，我认为我们应该实施多元文化的“共同学习”倡议，促进与西方、科学和本土北美天文学有关的教育。