Thoughts

I've never lived in a big city and have always been able to see the stars but, the last small town I lived in I seen it grow where to the point that there was never again a night so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. I miss nights like that and now live in a (for a short time only) a place I have to have the shades pulled tightly because of a fricken street light out my window.
Don't know how anyone deals with that. As you might guess, I have no longing for what they call civilization, nor people.

I think humans are becoming disconnected from the earth as a whole. A lot of save the planet preaching from behind technology but ask them to spend some time in nature and gaze at the stars or smell the air as nature gets ready for some rain and you're just some know nothing country bumpkin.

“I need to save the planet and only a new cell phone can help me do it because my current phone is a year old. It knows nothing of how I suffer for mother nature.”

I remember as a child being amused just by laying on the front lawn at night gazing up at the stars. Getting my first telescope in my early teens and locating the different constellations. Here in NC I must say for the most part at night with no clouds in the sky, the stars light up like tiny candles.....I can locate the constellations easily without a telescope. What’s difficult to see without my telescope is my oldest siblings head ......the seventh planet from the Sun.

This new Millennial generation is so focused on their mobile device I don’t believe they ever look upwards and notice the beauty above them.

One of the things I miss the most after having moved to Charlotte is being able to see the stars, I can't even imagine growing up never seeing them. Thankfully I get to go visit parents in the mountains and spent a few nights stargazing and smoking.

There are a few amazing phone apps that use your GPS and your camera to help identify stars, planets, constellations, and more. Makes learning a bit of astronomy even easier. It's also interesting because you can see what is below the horizon, find those things you can't normally see in your hemisphere. I hope I can someday stargaze somewhere I can see the southern cross .

Great idea, but misses the point. That's like when we were driving through the mountains for the first time and my son wouldn't get his head out of the video game. I took him to the the Guadeloupe Mountains and set up his telescope. I guess it can't compare to Industrial Light and Magic.

I reflect on that often. Gives me something to look forward to. I do not say that in any way meaning self pity or dourness. I am a huge believer in the other side

Yep.

That 2025 map is frankly terrifying.  I'll have to move to Nevada just to have a nice quiet night with the stars.

We go to Fort Davis fairly often, considering how it's 650 miles away. The McDonald Observatory there is pretty serious about Dark Skies. There are regulations covering 7 counties around it. The drilling rigs that run 24/7/365 around Midland are messing with the sky, but the engineers are seeing that they have no reason not to control the light so all new rigs are going to be built for Dark Skies.

I believe that being able to view the stars is a basic human right.
Then there's "Nightfall". I don't know. I guess it isn't obviously necessary.

Even opinion of life having no afterlife can give one meaning, a positive outlook on life makes the end not matter, what we do on the way to it is the most important. IMO

Despite living in a populated state (10 Million +) we live in a small community. Add this to the fact that our town, especially our residential areas, have very few street lights, we benefit from little to no light pollution.

The net result is that we have spectacular night views of the stars. The Milky Way is very evident most nights.

Sadly, with the storm we recently had, haven't seen the stars in almost a week now.

I wish I could see the more clearly. When I was a kid, we would leave early for the duck blind. I used to marvel at how many stars there were in the heavens. Most people who have never seen stars likely could not care less. Nothing makes you realize just how insignificant you are until you stare at the vastness of the universe. Most people today could not accept that realization.

I agree that it's a tragedy. It isn't the worst thing, to be honest. I really enjoy a good look at the stars, though. I go on night hikes with my roommates to get out of the city just enough to see a few of the brighter constellations.