This is what the night sky is supposed to look like - what it did look like before modern civilization became so afraid of the dark that it decided to put up lights 24 hours a day and drown out the stars.

Let's talk pollution and waste. Do you know that in the USA commercial and residential lighting burn up the equivalent of 4-5 million barrels of oil of energy ...per day? ...and that about 40-50% of that - 2 million barrels of oil per day - is wasted by aiming lights at the sky rather than using lower wattage bulbs with full cutoffs to keep the same amount of light aimed at the ground - where it could conceivably do some good - as currently exists.

Light pollution causes glare - which can cause the deaths of drivers and pedestrians at night through temporary blindness. It disrupts the human sleep cycle and can thereby suppress immune response. It promotes blooms of toxic algae in water ecosystems by disrupting predator zooplankton feeding cycles. It causes the deaths of between 4-40 million birds per year through crashing into lit buildings and losing direction during yearly migrations as well as disrupting or destroying the growth cycles of several species of reptiles and amphibians.

Light pollution is not just a nuisance for amateur astronomers.

Under the skies of GrandView campground in the White Mountains east of Bishop, CA, the stars and the silver glow of the Milky Way are the only forms of light in the sky. The sky darkness at 8600 feet approaches magnitude 8.0, with an SQM reading of 21.99 mag/sq. arcsec. I could actually see a shadow cast by the Milky Way as I held my hand over the table I had my astronomy gear sitting on. Few get the chance to see a completely natural sky these days, and I consider myself very fortunate for having been able to do so.