Johan Eklöf - The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms that Sustain Life

An urgent and erudite hymn to the night, composed by a scientist with the soul of a poet. CHLOE ARIDJIS, author of Book of Clouds

The Darkness Manifesto

On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms That Sustain Life

Johan Eklf

Translated by Elizabeth DeNoma

My flashlight sweeps over a demon painted black with bat wings and a snake for a tail. The creature looks as if its being thrown backward, light radiating from its mouth, as if it has tried to swallow the light, but can no longer resist its power. The creature of darkness is dying. I am in an eighteenth-century church in Sweden, painted with biblical themes, and in the far back you can find the most horrific devils and demons, put there to remind us of the torments of hell. But perhaps the church painter also wanted to tell us that we can overcome the dangers of darkness. From the churchs perspective, bats are the devils minions, filthy animals that are symbols of both literal and philosophical darkness, in opposition to the light of God. So, its a bit ironic that churches have so often become the nesting places of these creatures.

I continue exploring the church, climbing up a flight of stairs and stepping through a little door into the attic. On the old wooden floorboards are piles of guano and severed butterfly wings, a clear sign that the church is inhabited by the brown long-eared bat. The dusk that flickers in through the slats grows weaker, and outside the sky turns navy blue. The humid night air entering the attic carries a pleasant smell of freshly cut grass, tar, and sun-warmed wood. The bats are unwilling to show themselves from under the eaves this early in the evening, so I go outside to meet them in the cemetery and watch them alight into the summer night.

One after another they take off headfirst from the roof to the nearest tree and its protective dark shadows. In a fitful dance, they glide, inaudible to the human ear, by the red-painted wooden church, alongside the hedges and around the treetops, searching for insects. Soon the bats will be gone, swallowed by the night.

Swedish churches and their outbuildings have frequently been tended in the same way for centuries and have grown to be important havens for animals and plants in an ever-changing world. Year after year, long-eared bats have moved into turrets and attics in the early summer to give birth to new generations. In the 1980s, two-thirds of the churches in southwest Sweden had their own bat colony. Today, forty years later, research Ive done with my colleagues shows that this number has been reduced by a third due to light pollution and other factors. Because the churches all glow like carnivals in the night. District after district has installed modern floodlights to show the architecture its proud of, all the while the animalswho have for centuries found safety in the darkness of the church towers and who have for 70 million years made the night their abodeare slowly but surely vanishing from these places, maybe completely.

Sitting in the cemetery in the July night, Im not only in the company of bats. I can see a hedgehog, beetles making their way up through the grass toward the starry sky, and above the headstones caddis flies dancing like spirits. I start to relax in the gathering darkness, as all the impressions of the day are traded for more subtle experiences, and my eyes become slowly acclimated to the night. Ive entered another dimension that few others ever take the time to visit.

It is not just the bats and I who enjoy the darkness. Most mammals are more active at twilight, such as the hedgehog that keeps me company in this late hour. Half of the insects on this planet are nocturnal, and for the last couple of years we have been drowning in alarming reports regarding their disappearance. Forestry, environmental toxins, large-scale farming, and climate changemany causes are mentioned but little is said about light, even though the light-sensitive moth is one of those most disappearing. Moths looking for nectar in the darkness are easily confused by all the lights. They either dont fly at all, believing that dawn is about to break, or theyre disoriented by the beams of light when they try to navigate by using the moon. Exhausted, they die or get killed by predators, without having fulfilled their nocturnal mission, and thus fewer plants are pollinated. Many of us have probably seen the phenomenon out on our porch or under a streetlightthe brighter the lights, the greater the attraction. The light lures insects from forests and villages, from the countryside and into cities, depleting entire ecosystems.

Mossebo Church may lack floodlighting, but some light still reaches this place. A few lights are alongside the walking paths, and in the sky a faint orange glow can be seen coming from the nearest villages. This is light pollutiona collective term used for light that is regarded as superfluous, but which still has a great impact on our lives and our ecosystems.

The term was coined by astronomers, but is today used by ecologists, physiologists, and neurologists who study the effects of the disappearing night. It is no longer just a question of stars and insects. It is about all living things, including we humans. Ever since the birth of our planet, day has been followed by night, and every cell in every living organism has built-in machinery working in harmony with that rhythm. The natural light calibrates our inner circadian rhythm and controls hormones and bodily processes.

Up until about 150 years ago, when the light bulb was invented, these processes were allowed to develop slowly and without disturbance. But today, streetlights and floodlights ominously supersede natural night light and disturb this ancient circadian rhythm. The artificial light, the polluted light, is now dominantlight that causes birds to sing in the middle of the night, sends turtle babies in the wrong direction, and prevents the mating rituals of coral in reefs, which take place under the light of the moon.

Humanitys desire to illuminate the world makes Earth, viewed from space, seem to glow in the night. Every city and every street is visible a long way out in the cosmic darkness, which is perhaps one of the most obvious signs that we have entered a new era: the Anthropocene, the time of humans. Beneath the illuminated sky in the lit-up cities we have created, we can no longer see any stars, and many of us dont remember what the Milky Way looks like. We are missing out on one of natures grand treasures: the spectacles of the sky with its breathtaking perspectives, its falling stars and, on occasion, its strikingly beautiful northern lights.

Light pollution is still a term unknown to many, but its an exploding field of research, and light will probably soon be as strictly regulated as noise. The LED light, the modern diode, which has enabled the explosion of lighting in private gardens and industrial parking lots, could also be a solution to the problem. Light and darkness are not a matter of black or white. We can program and dim the artificial light and adapt it to more natural conditions. If we want to.

With this book, I examine the impact that darkness and the night have on all living creatures. In a number of concise chapters, Ill share my experiences and thoughts stemming from my twenty years in the service of the night, as a bat researcher, traveler, and friend of the darkness. I hope that this book will inspire others, function as a reminder of the importance of letting the night be a part of our lives, and give insight into how much damage artificial light can dobe a challenge and a manifesto for the natural darkness.