Valley Voice: Dark skies help preserve wilderness

Richard Brock | Special to The Desert Sun

I read Judith Fein’s Nov. 15 Valley Voice, "Light up our streets to make them safer for pedestrians," where she urged cities in the Coachella Valley to improve pedestrian, bicyclist and driver public safety by installing more streetlights to make our community more like places such as New York City. While I empathized with her position from a safety standpoint, I also wanted to point out a heartfelt contrary position on light pollution.

As The Desert Sun staff wrote in a 2014 article headlined “Spectacular night skies in Joshua Tree,” the night sky is vulnerable to light pollution beyond our cities’ borders. As the paper noted then:

Even the isolated border of Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park isn’t far enough away to escape the glimmer of city lights. The lights of the surrounding towns and the Marine Corps base can be seen, and from another direction the cities of the Coachella Valley create an orange glow. Light pollution has seeped into this remote part of the desert.

A 2006 article in Sky and Telescope by Valerie C. Coffee titled “National Park Service Tracks Light Pollution” noted the following:

According to NPS Night Sky project manager Chad Moore (Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah), "At every park we have surveyed, we have detected artificial lights." Glare from the city lights of Las Vegas, for example, intrude upon Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks in California

The night sky is nothing more than an extension of what many might call "wilderness." What remains of our wilderness is part of our heritage as creatures nurtured on this tiny blue ball hurtling through space that we call Earth. Wilderness is the reason we set aside large swaths of land in this country and preserve it in as pristine condition as possible.

While opinions are easy to come by these days, I submit that wilderness is important to us as human beings. It helps ground us in what we once were and what we are becoming. As any camper young or old will tell you, a tall tale or two by starlight is a moving experience that we can imagine we share with our primitive ancestors. And who among us has not wondered aloud while looking at the stars: “Where does it end?”

That wondrous perspective will be lost forever unless we manage our National Parks and manage light pollution so that we can enjoy them in all permutations of wilderness, including the dark sky at night.

It is not necessary to pit light pollution against public safety as an either or choice as Judith Fein’s column suggests. It is not as if there is no lighting in the desert at this time. And the lighting that we do have is already impacting important wilderness areas like Joshua Tree National Park. The important thing is to strike a balance, and that is what some desert cities are trying to do.

As Judith Fein’s column pointed out, the Palm Desert Municipal Code is concerned with “minimizing light pollution,” not eliminating it. While speed limits in the Coachella Valley are often set at 50 mph, no one says you must drive at the upper limit of speed when your safety or the safety of pedestrians is compromised by night vision issues.

Richard Brock of Indio is a retired attorney. Email him at 2rich.brock@gmail.com.