Despite its benefits, project to bathe city in artificial nighttime glow raises concerns about consequences to people, animals
Call me old-fashioned but I have to admit to feeling slightly queasy about plans to launch an artificial moon into the skies above Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.
One is even left wondering what the Chinese Moon goddess Chang’e might make of it.
Revealing details of the project in an interview with China Daily last week, Wu Chunfeng of the Tian Fu New Area Science Society said a mostly experimental launch would take place in 2020. The plan is then to put three artificial moons into orbit 500 kilometers above Earth by 2022.
The “moons” – essentially light-reflecting satellites – would definitely have commercial benefits in terms of reducing the need for conventional street lighting and its associated energy use.
The final objective would be reflect light onto a substantial sector of the city’s surface. Light levels would be closer to a dusky gloom than to full moonlight.
As Wu acknowledged, the project has faced some criticism from those who fear the negative impact on people and animals of the disappearance of the natural distinction between day and night.
It is true to say that the millions who inhabit the world’s major conurbations are already used to living in an environment where it never truly gets dark. But the many benefits of artificial lighting in cities have the negative spinoff of creating light pollution, regarded as one of the inevitable costs we pay for modern life.
Now there is the prospect that in at least one city, Chengdu, it will never get darker than dusk. If the idea catches on in China, there is a fair bet that the technology will be adopted elsewhere; you can’t stop progress, as they say.
One day – or rather night – the whole world could be bathed in the cold glow of fake lights in the sky.
It is no surprise that the International Dark-Sky Association has poked holes in the Chengdu plan. Its public policy director, John Barentine, told Forbes magazine that an artificial moon could create problems for locals unable to screen out unwanted light, as well as for urban wildlife that cannot simply go indoors and close the shutters.
“This potentially creates significant new environmental problems with what, at first, seems like a novel approach to an already solved problem,” Barentine said.
According to Barentine’s US-based association, eight out of 10 people in the world already live under an artificial nighttime sky glow. In its campaign against light pollution, the group says inappropriate or excessive use of artificial light can have serious environmental consequences for humans, wildlife and climate.
Artificial light has already destroyed many people’s experience of the wonders of the heavens. The Milky Way is now invisible from the many light-polluted regions of the world.
And what of the wonder of the moon itself, which holds a special place in the founding mythologies of many cultures, including China? Will the people of Chengdu have to devise artificial mooncakes to celebrate their artificial moons?
Chinese people are familiar with the legend of Chang’e’s husband, the archer Hou Yi. In myth, he saved mankind by shooting down nine of 10 suns that had risen and threatened to scorch the Earth.
The tale could almost be adopted as a modern day metaphor for global warming and the dangers of tampering with the heavens.
Modern technology has created multiple advantages for many of the billions now alive. But some fundamental elements of our experience of nature should surely remain intact. Just because science is capable of doing something does not mean it always should.
That said, useful innovation does not happen unless scientists make experiments.
So, hats off to Chengdu and to Wu and his colleagues for coming up with such an intriguing plan. I’m just rather hoping that the reality of the 2020 experiment may convince them and us that fake moonlight is a technological step too far.
The author is a senior media consultant for China Daily. Contact the writer at [email protected]
(China Daily European Weekly 10/26/2018 page11)