Since granting Flagstaff, Arizona, the prestigious title of the very first International Dark Sky Place in 2001, the body has supported applications in 49 countries, from Japan to Hungary. The UK 'climate refugees' who won't leave.Amidst mounting concern from ecologists and astronomers in the 1980s, the IDA was the first recognised authority in the dark sky movement, and remains the largest today. Globally, light pollution has increased by at least 49% over 25 years. He began researching the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), a body that recognises and accredits dark-sky areas worldwide.įounded in Arizona in 1988, the IDA was set up by two astronomers to protect night environments from skyglow – excessive, artificial light directed upwards into the sky. All the songs on that album are about navigating by the stars." "It's about Sark in the Channel Islands, which has absolutely no street lighting or cars. "One of my favourite singers is Enya, and she released an album called Dark Sky Island," he says. Hughes, a former parish councillor who is standing for town council again in September, had the idea to apply for Dark Sky status in 2013 when an album from one of his pop heroes "flicked a lightbulb" in his mind. This is because in December 2021, the region became a Dark Sky Park : an international marker of exceptionally low light pollution. Dark skies are a portal to this heritage: "These are the same stars that cavemen in furs and woolly mammoths would look at in the Neolithic ," says Hughes.Īlthough the landscape around them is undergoing change, with new houses, hotels and developments springing up, residents of West Penwith can feel safe in the knowledge that their night skies will likely be protected for generations to come. His home is in West Penwith, a region renowned for its rugged moors, granite tors and mystic stone circles. Hughes lives in Cornwall, a peninsula in the southwestern tip of England that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. In contrast to his childhood growing up in London amidst the glare of orange sodium-vapour lights, he usually sees hundreds – and, as his eyes adjust, thousands – of stars studding the night sky. On dark nights when the Moon is hidden and the clouds are at bay, Kevin Hughes sits at the bottom of his garden and gazes up at a velvety black sky.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |