CW assault
One of the things I am incensed about is the way in which humans like to blame the rest of nature for problems that are intrinsically human. This leads to situations in which the natural world is further harmed by projects that don't solve the problems.
As a recent hideous case in point, a walrus was killed in Norway because allegedly she posed a risk to humans. The actual problem was that humans refused to leave her alone, but rather than deal with the problematic human behaviour, the walrus was killed. This sort of thing happens a lot when inappropriate human behaviour causes problems with wild creatures. Bears suffer a lot from this sort of thing.
The main argument for filling the night with light is to improve safety and combat crime. Lighting the night has not caused night-time crime to cease. It does however put strain on insects, birds and other wild things. We barely even understand what we're damaging when we light up the night - and we do so to tackle human behaviour, when that human behaviour is not dealt with by brighter illuminations.
I had a rant recently about how trees were being cut down in response to a local attack. Apparently some women were afraid that predatory men could hide in the bushes - knowing the area intimately I must point out that this was never going to be a serious issue and that many of the trees we lost could not possibly have hidden anyone. Trees and bushes do not cause attacks. This is a people issue, and trashing other living beings doesn't really make anyone safer. People who might attack you don't stand around doing self announcing things so that you can see it would be a good idea to avoid them. Equally if someone intends you harm, being able to see them slightly sooner doesn't change much.
We park our cars under trees and then want the trees cut down because they, or the birds in them, make a mess of the car. We build on floodplains and then we want more dramatic and invasive flood management projects to deal with the water. Trees catch fire in drought conditions and we treat it like the trees are the problem, not the human-made climate change.
We cannot solve intrinsically human problems by attacking other living beings or by destroying habitats and ecosystems. The trouble is that human problems would take effort and time to deal with, while killing the walrus or cutting down all the trees is relatively quick and cheap, and then you get to say that you've been responsible and dealt with the problem.
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