Kill the lights, not the bugs

Except for those that inhabit remote parts of the planet, everything we do, everything we have and everything we are is a result of electricity and artificial light. And it is a new invention.

In 1882, Thomas Edison opened his first power plant providing electricity for several hundred lights in New York City. However, it was only in 1930 that 70 percent of US households were electrified. The number of UK wired homes increased from 6 percent in 1919 to 70 percent by 1939.

In 1990, around 70 percent of the world had access to electricity; this increased to 87 percent in 2016 with about 13 percent of the world without electricity. But that number is distorted as at least 50 percent of the population in 38 of the 49 sub-saharan countries live without electricity, including 94.7 percent of those in Liberia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Chad, Sierra Leone and Malawi.

The household electrification level in the Philippines stands at 94.94 percent as of June 2021.

Electricity was momentous. But the ability to have available artificial light 24 hours a day changed the world. Factories and agriculture could operate around the clock for the first time in the 5,000 years of recorded history.

You might have seen on the Internet the satellite pictures of the world at night showing man-made luminousness. These are stunning for the story they tell. The Eastern seaboard of the US, Europe, and Japan are brightly lit, while the interiors of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America remain dark. Part of this is because of the sparse population in these areas.

A night view of Egypt from the Nile delta and Cairo up the river to the ancient city of Thebes is a snake with an enormous head and a long wavy body while the rest of the Sahara is dark.

But electric lights glowing at night have more to do with economic activity and quality of life than population. Those nations with scant electric lights are some of the poorest on earth.

The most striking examples are the nations of North and South Korea. North Korea—an energy exporter to China—produces 537 kwh per capita annually. South Korea generates 9,810 kwh per capita or 18 times as much. A night photograph shows the South flooded with light while the North has a small splash around Pyongyang.

It has been estimated that 83 percent of the world’s people live under light polluted skies. But that is the price to pay for the highest general standard of living in human history.

Europe is facing an unprecedented energy—electricity—crisis. But apparently that is a good thing.

Deutsche Welle (DW) is a state-owned broadcaster funded by the German government, the same government that ridiculed President Trump when he warned in 2018 of German dependence on Russian energy. German regulations now require that public buildings generally no longer be heated, and the temperature in offices will be a maximum of 19 degrees. Britain alone suffers more than 28,000 excess winter deaths a year with about 200,000 in all of Europe each year.

Dw—september 1, 2022: “German cities are turning off some lights at night, which not only saves money and electricity but benefits human health, the climate, and biodiversity. Other species struggle to adapt to the use of artificial light at night. Corals, for example, don’t reproduce as usual and newly hatched turtles have been found walking inland, where they die.”

No mention was made on how many corals or sea turtles inhabit Germany. Further, “One [unnamed/named/cited] study suggests that an estimated 100 billion nocturnal insects die in Germany as a result of artificial lighting.”

While it’s true that nocturnal insects suffer high mortality rates from Artificial Lighting At Night DW published an almost identical article on January 14, 2021. However, no call to action was made then to cut the lights when the German people still had energy to keep them from freezing in their homes.