The End of Night by Paul Bogard – review

Would less artificial light be better for us all?The End of Night takes as its theme the rapid disappearance of darkness in our world or, more accurately, the growing encroachment of light. Night-time as our ancestors knew it, even as recently as the mid-20th century, is under fire. If the lights of the world stage now never quite go out, the question is how does this affect us, its audience, and the other forms of life that share our environment?The subject is a fertile one – though predictably the answers prove somewhat melancholy – and Bogard sets about his investigations with an energetic purposiveness and enterprise. The bulk of his research involves locations in the United States, but the American landmass is a large and various one, including a wide variety of terrains. In addition, Bogard hops about the globe, to Paris, to Florence, to the Canaries, to the Isle of Sark, like some benign necromancer seeking darkness where he can find it.By his account, the rapid spread of lighting in our time is a major, and endangering, feature of capitalism. The "brightest beam on Earth" can be found in Las Vegas, emanating from the Luxor casino's blend of nine xenon lights, each 6ft tall and 3ft wide, a veritable deathtrap for the moths and other insects drawn ineluctably by its dazzling allure. But it is a more subtle source of destruction for the bats and night birds that feed from this well-lit buffet, for the feast draws them so far from their natural habitat ...
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