Nature Notes: The Dark Side
My power was out in Noyac for four hours on Monday, and it got me to thinking about how much electricity we use these days. When I was growing up on the North Fork in the middle of the last century you could still see the stars bright and shining in all their glory, no matter that most were thousands, if not millions, of light-years away.
On the South Fork it would seem that the stars get dimmer and dimmer with each passing year. Of course we know that the light emitted from each star is the same each night; it’s just that ambient light interferes with the dark adaptation ability of our eyes. And the surroundings are more lit up than ever. Such near-field interference, especially great in the summer months, causes us to perceive the stars and planets as dimmer.
In Mattituck in the mid-20th century the village was generally dark from 8:30 p.m. on, save for a few streetlights and the lights from passing cars. We have entered the age of massive artificial lighting. We light our thoroughfares, our business districts, our stores, and houses more than ever these days. Electric bills reflect this huge increase.
We equate night light and night music with having a good time, leading a richly stimulating life. We eschew the dark. Some of us would enjoy living in a world where there were 24 hours of light every day of the year, as in the polar summers. Birds and other wildlife, on the other hand, do not seem to mind the dark. Songbirds, with few exceptions, spend the night sleeping with one eye open. Many mammals and amphibians are active at night. They use their noses together with their dark-adapted eyes to ply their trades.
Stores in shopping centers that used to close at 5 or 6 p.m. now often close at 9, even later farther west. The Bridgehampton Commons serves as a good local example. We modern humans, who mostly work all day, now use the nights to have fun, play, see the sights, and hear the sounds of the pulsating 21st century. Before 1939 there were no night games in Major League Baseball. Now it seems that there are more games under the lights than there are day games. Even college teams host a goodly share of their games under the lights.
When I was a boy, all of our summer baseball games were played during the day. These days almost every local village has a lighted ball field, tennis court, or soccer field where games can take place in the dark.
We love artificial light to the degree that we leave outside lights and some of our room lights on throughout the evening and early morning hours. The bigger the residence the more lights required, both inside and out. When I took a night drive through what used to be the quietest and darkest parts of Bridgehampton, Water Mill, and Noyac last week listening for the songs of whippoorwills, I could have navigated most of the backroads without my headlights on because there was so much ambient light. To be sure, that ambient light was not a gift of nature; it cost a dear price, just ask PSEG, our sole electric supplier.
The cost of electricity is mighty. How is it that the population of Suffolk County is decreasing, yet the need for electricity is continually increasing? Look around; it’s easy to see why. What if all street lighting were with LED lights? We would probably see a big dent in the kilowatt hours used across the county. What if all those driveway and other outside lights were solar? Another big dent in the electricity bills would be realized.
Add the air-conditioners, electric hot water heaters, TVs, electric ranges, and all those other appliances that run on electricity and your kilowatt-hour needs are doubled, if not tripled.
We are spoiled to death, folks. We have become just as light-needy and phototactic as those moths that fly around at night under the streetlamps.
Astrophysicists tell us that our sun is good for another million or more years. Even Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb more than a century ago, said we should look to the sun for future energy needs. We are doing just that, but much too slowly from my point of view. All those box stores, warehouses, schools, and other institutions with lots of roof area should be solarized as soon as possible.
I met a man in Hampton Bays on Saturday who has 26 solar panels on his roof. He paid nothing out of pocket for electricity during April and May and expects June, July, and August to provide all the electricity he needs for free.
Before we go out into the ocean and disturb our marine mammal, sea turtle, fish, and invertebrate nurseries and feeding grounds any more than we are doing right now, I say we should exploit our sun to the fullest. And what about passive heating from the ground? When it’s below zero in the dead of winter outside in the open air, the temperature of the aquifer under our feet is about 50 degrees or more Fahrenheit.
Quite a few houses on the South Fork are already tapping into the seemingly endless supply of subsurface heat using geothermal systems, and the Bridgehampton School is about to become one of the first big institutional users of it. Go, Bees!
Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].