Introduction

The foundations of civilization are grounded in the night sky, as the stars have been stitched into the human race’s history. There was no place on the planet where people did not commune with the darkness of night and watch the cavalcade of stars sweep over the Earth in an endless procession. Today, we are witnessing the disappearing view of the night sky in the course of one human lifetime, after it had been here with us for hundreds of thousands of human lifetimes.

Here is a nursery rhyme that you may know but four lines of. People are mostly oblivious to something they do not know exists while knowing it exists. We know intellectually that stars are in the sky, while at the same time, not seeing and experiencing the stars in the sky. It is a cognitive dissonance that is under the surface. Most people are born and live under a dome of light, yet we learn this as one of our very first songs.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are!

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.

Twinkle, Twinkle, little star

How I wonder what you are?

We thought that was all there was to it. The rest of the poem was forgotten because it had lost its meaning to modern civilizations. We have literally become adrift from our ties to the cosmos because it has ceased to be a part of our daily lives. We have forgotten what an indispensable part the stars were to our very existence. The rest of the poem illustrates.

When the blazing sun is gone,

When he nothing shines upon,

Then you show your little light,

Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the trav’ller in the dark,

Thanks you for your tiny spark,

He could not see which way to go,

If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often thro’ my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye,

Till the sun is in the sky.

‘Tis your bright and tiny spark,

Lights the trav’ller in the dark,

Tho’ I know not what you are,

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

“Twinkle” was published in 1806 when a person needed the stars for their survival. Those tiny sparks that we relied on to get home for hundreds of thousands of years are now all but invisible to nearly one billion people. Though we do not see them, we can still hear their call.

Anthropogenic light pollution is the main driver of astrotourism. If light pollution did not exist to the extent that it does, astrotourism would hardly get a mention save for the occasional meteor showers, rare eclipses, and journeys to the far north by the intrepid traveler to see the auroral displays. Our relationship with the night sky has been stripped from our daily lives and along with it the mystery, romance, fear, magic, spirituality, joy, and peace that goes with communing with the stars.

Life is born in darkness. When people have near-death experiences, they speak of “going to the light.” It is highly ironic that we fear the former but crave the latter to such a degree that we have set the night on fire with our lights without understanding the consequences like the plastics that have been released into our environment over the last 70 years and are found at the bottom of the ocean floor and the top of our tallest mountains. Like light pollution, we did not see it coming.

People want to escape the light-polluted confines of a big city and get under the stars and experience the night, and by creating a monetary value on a pristine night sky, people will be compelled to protect it—it is not our nature to be driven by the higher angels of ourselves but by our purses. This is not necessarily the case for generations X, Y, and Z. Like the Baby Boomers once were, they are full of ideas and desire to create a better world, not just get ahead in it; for them, it has become a matter of planetary survival. Astrotourism is a step toward that, and in its own way, can transform the consumer to have a greater understanding of the world they live in and their impact upon it.

Hopefully, by the time a first-time astrotourist returns home, they will see artificial light at night (ALAN) in a new way and take steps locally to reignite the stars in the sky by raising awareness of the issue of protecting the night. The astrotourism market will have a direct impact that will amplify the protection of a nocturnal landscape full of wildlife that relies on their connection, as we once did, on the ability to see the stars.

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