Our Vanishing Night by Verlyn Klinkenborg

"Our Vanishing Night" is about the deleterious effects of light pollution on the Earth. The essay provides examples of how animals are impacted by artificial light and the history of this issue. It ends by pointing out that darkness is essential to the biological welfare of animals and people alike. Today, the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) has been trying to inform the world about this issue. The twenty-first century, with the mass growth of metropolitan areas, it is likely that light pollution will become an even greater dilemma, so this essay speaks of an important issue. Since many people in the world are perhaps still not fully aware about this problem, this essay is most likely intended to inform the reader about light pollution and its effects. Such effects include how nightingales may start breeding at an earlier point, which disrupts their migration schedule. Klinkenborg writes, "Of all the pollutions we face, light pollution is perhaps the most easily remedied." (Klinkenborg 65). The greater intention is that readers, with this new knowledge, will do something. The author, Verlyn Klinkenborg, has a Ph.D. at Princeton University.  Mr.Klinkenborg won Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award and has written for many magazines, including The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine. He currently teaches literature at Yale University. Mr.Klinkenborg’s essay was probably intended for environmentally conscious or curious teens and adults, as the language is easy to understand. The main rhetorical device that the writer of this essay uses is imagery. Writes Klinkenborg, "And yet above the city's pale ceiling lies the rest of the universe, utterly undiminished by the light we waste-a bright shoal of starts and planets and galaxies, shining in seemingly infinite darkness" (Klinkenborg 64). The author also appeals greatly to pathos, describing helpless birds and newborn sea turtles dying because of light pollution. Ultimately, Klinkenborg does inform the reader about the harms of light pollution, which was his purpose. But he should have taken this a step further and listed specific ways the reader can help. Klinkenborg does not list specific solutions besides really general ones like “changing light design”.

Man V.S Nature

“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.”-Leo Tolstoy

Source: http://btlau.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/alone-in-the-dark/