Let There Be Dark Analysis

Shamsun Nahar

Professor Baca

ENGL 1301

18 December 2016

Analysis of “Let There Be Dark”

“Let There Be Dark” is an article written by Paul Bogard which was published in the Los Angeles Times on the 21st of December 2012. Paul Bogard is a writer of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light, a book which was translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. He is also an editor of the anthology Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark, a collection of essays by twenty-eight wonderful writers on the value of darkness and the costs of light pollution. Bogard’s writing has appeared in prints and articles in the Los Angeles Times, Outside, National Geographic, Conservation and etc. Over

He says, “our bodies need darkness to produce the hormone melatonin, which keeps certain cancers from developing, and our bodies need darkness for sleep. Sleep disorders have been linked to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and depression, and recent research suggest one main cause of ‘short sleep’ is ‘long light’.” In this statement, he makes an obvious claim that darkness is necessary for sleep. Then, he talks about the negative health effects such as sleep disorder, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and depression. This statement allows readers to see the true importance to allowing darkness to our world, as we feel obliged to preserve darkness for our well-being of mental and physical health. Bogard does not stop there, in fact, he reveals that darkness is also important to nature. There are “nocturnal and crepuscular species of birds, insects, mammals, fish and reptiles” out of which, “400 species of birds that migrate at night in North America, the sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs—and some are not, such as the bats that save American farmers billions in pest control and the moths that pollinate 80% of the world’s flora.” In this statement, Bogard explains that the loss of natural darkness is not only impacts us humans but also to those other living among us. This sends a message of deep importance of darkness, which is extremely necessary for these species to survive, as well as do their service for society by providing pest control in farms. Then he concludes his point by saying that “ecological light pollution is like a bulldozer of the night, wreaking habitat and disrupting ecosystems several billion years in the making.” Here, he uses scientific facts to back up his argument that natural darkness is key to nature and ecology, and by removing natural darkness would eventually destroy the ecology which took billions of years to