80 percent of US children may never see a starry sky

As towns and cities continue to get brighter, natural darkness is becoming an endangered resource. It’s now at a point where eight out of every ten children born in the US today will never view a sky dark enough to see the beauty of the Milky Way, the galaxy that contains our solar system. In a fascinating interview with Venue, author Paul Bogard explains how our perception of darkness has changed as artificial light levels have increased, touching on the potential ecological and health consequences of light pollution. True darkness is so dark it is bright — the darker and clearer it gets, the brighter the night is. While there’s so much light in the places we live and we continue to overlook its effects, future generations may never see the natural luminescence of the night sky.