Guiding lights thing of the past

It is Matariki and someone has forgotten to switch the streetlights on.

There is no moon tonight and it is nearly solstice - the days are getting abrupt. The clouds are brooding, they seem moodier than usual The remains of the sunset burn bright: orange, pink and purple flame over Castlecliff. The river seems deeper, still and inky, reflecting only the fading sky.

I am hoping that the clouds clear before someone remembers to turn the lights back on - it would be a perfect night to see the stars.

While pleasing to a stargazer, this darkness is perhaps not ideal for the city's streets, and I exercise an unusually high degree of caution crossing the road. Nevertheless, it is dark and peaceful, and I like it.

We are fortunate in a town like Whanganui - relatively small, low-rise and not too flashy - to be able to step outside most nights and see the wanderers passing overhead. In more densely populated areas of the globe a century of industrialisation, electrification and urban sprawl have created vast tracts of constant, inescapable nightlight, obliterating everything in the heavens from view. The social, ecological and environmental impacts of this illumination are only just starting to be acknowledged, with excessive artificial light now recognised as a pollutant. Astronomers were the first to notice the absence of darkness, observing the luminaries fading out of existence as a result of "skyglow". In 2001, with few places remaining in the developed world to see stars, the International Dark-Sky Association was formed to protect and preserve celestial viewing. New Zealand now has its own "dark sky" - one of only a handful in the world. The Aoraki-Mackenzie Dark-Sky Reserve, above Tekapo, was approved by the IDA in 2012. Contributing to the success of the bid were council ordinances aligned with the RMA to curb light pollution.

Apart from the odd supernova, stars aren't in danger of dying out, though - we are just losing the ability to see them.

As well as disrupting the behaviours of nocturnal animals reliant on night for survival, introduced light is disorienting migrating birds and sea life, causing genetic mutations and reproductive discrepancies in amphibians and reptiles, and unbalancing delicate lunar-oriented ecosystems.

Meanwhile, studies suggest that one quarter of all artificial light produced is in excess of what is needed.

Many of our ancestors lived by the stars, navigated, planted crops and cast predictions by them. Stars were literally the guiding lights of the past that are rapidly being extinguished - along with vast bodies of knowledge and, potentially, whole ecosystems.

The overriding issue, perhaps, is how this loss of darkness reflects humanity's gradual disconnection from the natural world, with all its rhythms and cycles, through overexposure to artificiality - undoubtedly the same reason why Matariki, or Puanga, is not yet accorded public holiday status.

It must be time we flicked the switches.

Helen Marie O'Connell is a night, not a morning, person but she is going to make the effort this year to get up early and see Puanga rising - because she is grateful that she can.