Another Reason to Turn off the Lights

Yet another study has found a connection between cancer and night-time lighting.  Last time it was breast cancer, this time is it prostate cancer.  In Darkness, Melatonin may Suppress Breast and Prostate Cancers, Science News reports on another study that shows a link between burning the midnight oil and human health.

The great irony to me is that we run the lights all night long to improve our lives. But the real effect is to injure our health and degrade the environment.  I’ve long forgotten who first wrote it, but (probably misquoted here), "[Humankind] is not a rational creature, [it] is a rationalizing creature."  That is, we don’t really make sense sometimes, but we try to come up with what sounds like a rational explanation anyway.

Time to start turning down and off the lights, and only use them where we really need them.