Click the image to see the entire Earth at night!

The satellite image above shows the continent of North America at night. Using this image, you can easily trace out southern Canada, the United States, Mexico and all the major cities in each. This is all the lighting that is not hitting their respective targets and simply being allowed to radiate upward into the sky. In other words, wasted lighting.

Some of this wasted lighting cannot be seen in this satellite image. Some of the wasted lighting reflects off of particles in our atmosphere and is reflected back to us as light pollution. This light pollution interferes with our night sky, especially in large cities where the number of streetlights, security lights, etc. is the most numerous and concentrated.

Is it really necessary to light up our skies with all this wasted lighting? Is it really necessary to waste so much electricity? Isn't it about time we minimize the amount of wasted light we use nightly?

At this time, we can only imagine what this satellite image would look like if all the wasted light in the continent was reduced to the absolute minimum possible. In the future, we can realize this goal if we all do our part to reduce light pollution at the personal, municipal, provincial, state and federal levels.