ECOLOGY OF
THE NIGHT - QUOTES
 From
its incipient molecular origins, life on earth has evolved in the
company of a daily cycle of daylight and darkness. The environmental
rhythm of the earth's natural photoperiod has played an extremely
important part in biological history. Virtually every group of organisms
has evolved the ability to utilise the daily cycle and seasonal
progression of day length as sources of environmental information.
Geographical distribution, seasonal biology, growth, metabolism
and behaviour of animals are profoundly influenced by the length
of the photoperiod.
Diurnal rhythms
are extremely important components of animal behaviour, and day
length also influences circannual activities of plants and animals.
This is understandable as light is normally the most predictable
factor of the physical environment. In contrast to temperature,
the natural photoperiod is always the same each year for a given
season and latitude. As has been know since the 1940s, it is the
length of night (strictly the period of uninterrupted darkness)
rather than day length that governs most of these activities and
it is a well-established scientific principle that artificial disruption
of this can induce unnatural activity in plants and animals.
Alan R. Outen
Biologist, Hertfordshire, UK
A
pristine night sky almost universally stimulates thought. Some are
humbled in their insignificance before the visible universe, and
some are exhilarated by a sense of identification therewith. Some
measure and test the movement of our earthly platform within the
solar system, the solar system within the galaxy, and the galaxy
within the universe until human understanding is exhausted and calculation
at its limit. Some speculate about life elsewhere, and some contemplate
that the flesh, blood, and bones of our very bodies-even the energy
powering our thoughts-are the light and substance we see coming
down from the spangles above.
Jerry Rogers, US National Park Service
Be
humble, for the worst thing in the world is of the same stuff as
you; be confident, for the stars are of the same stuff as you.
Nicholai Velimirovic (1880-1956)
The
greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between
the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison
we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.
Andre Malraux (1901-1976)
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 We
cannot win this battle to save species and environments without
forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well —for
we will not fight to save what we do not love.
Stephen Jay Gould (1942-2002)
Harvard Biologist
Outdoor
lighting has transformed the nocturnal face of the earth. Individual
countries and large towns can be identified from space by their
nocturnal illumination. In the USA, the distrubution of outdoor
lighting can be seen to coincide with that of the country's population
with illumination clustered around all large metropolitan areas,
and the greatest concentration in the Northeast corridor.
T. A. Croft 1978
The
challenge for advocates of sustainability may be to build a greater
appreciation for the importance of spirituality into their work.
WorldWatch Institute
Tis
the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen
For what listen they?
John Keats
Astronomy
compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to
another.
Plato (427 BC - 347 BC), The Republic
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