From albeit limited study I have conducted principally concerning New Zealand's but also the world's nocturnal insects over the last eight years, I have concluded that climate change is but the tip of a much bigger and far more deadly iceberg of titanic proportions.
Our human-made iceberg is right now accelerating the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. If this doesn't pose an existential threat to homo sapiens then I don't know what does.
Human activities are leading to drastic declines in wildlife populations (69% since 1970 and climbing) which, crucially, include huge losses of invertebrates such as insects and rising rates of extinction across all categories of species: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
This must be curtailed and all but eliminated, if not for their sakes then for ours.
An amateur entomologist told me how he saw mounds (many thousands) of dead mayflies piled up along a bridge by the Manawatu River, caused by the local council installing white LED lights on it for pedestrians.
This story is backed up with others observing we have far fewer bugs splattered on our cars' windscreens.
We are doing precisely the same thing here with excessive lighting in Otago Harbour.
Dunedin's light pollution arises principally from Port Otago, industry and commerce. While some lighting is needed for work and safety, much else is unnecessary and it is avoidable by employing the well-established principles of responsible lighting. Is light pollution acceptable nowadays with the sword of Damocles hanging above us?
Is this not a shabby way to treat our precious wildlife, especially for a city that has been bestowed with the mana and the mantle of wildlife capital of New Zealand?
This was exemplified to me by celebrating an event ostensibly showcasing the life-giving stars of Matariki with a man-made drone light show. It's not a 10-minute light show I object to. I have no desire to stop people enjoying and celebrating Matariki, but it's the principle behind it.
We are divorced from Matariki and Puaka.
If fireworks aren't acceptable because they create pollution then why is a light show OK? Look instead to nature's many splendid light displays such as glow worms, fire flies or the aurora and the stars.
I propose that Dunedin holds a starlight festival that celebrates everything that belongs to the night. One that rejoices in nature's cloak of darkness — which we are surely losing, and that is not idle speculation.
Plunging wildlife populations and extinction-causing human activities other than climate change may include but are not limited to:
1. Habitat destruction, loss or change.
2. Chemical pollution, especially non-biodegradable chemicals, e.g. forever chemicals.
3. Herbicides, insecticides and other pesticides.
4. Plastic pollution producing micro- and nano-plastics, which in turn release toxic chemicals. There are at least 13,000 chemicals used in plastics and about a quarter are known to be toxic.
5. Intensive agriculture and the extensive use of fertilisers causing eutrophication of steams, rivers and lakes.
6. Urbanisation, unfettered expansion of human habitation, encroaching on wildlife habitat.
7. Light pollution, and not just visible light but right across the electromagnetic spectrum.
8. Sound pollution. Sound can disrupt wildlife, especially aquatic animals.
9. Air pollution, fine particulates and noxious gases emitted from vehicle exhausts and smoke from homes and industry.
10. Invasive species that are spreading like wildfire, I imagine caused in part by international commerce and tourism plus climate change.
11. Radioactive waste from nuclear power. Fusion will bring its own environmental issues.
12. Unsustainable human population growth.
13. Mining of finite mineral and fossil fuel resources and now, and in colour, minerals from the moon and asteroids.
14. Space pollution. Tens of thousands of near earth communication satellites like SpaceX's Starlink constellations will soon brighten the already substantially artificially brightened night sky out of recognition, so that our wildlife may no longer rest, orientate themselves or navigate using the stars at night.
Shall stargazers rejoice when entrepreneurs arrange satellites like a Matariki Māori new year celebration drone light show in space creating advertising? Don't rejoin that this can't happen because some nations have a convention.
Entomologist and ecologist Wagner describes the havoc we are wreaking on insects as ‘‘death by a thousand cuts’’. Scientists have referred to this impending catastrophe as the insect apocalypse.
Unsubstantiated hyperbole and conjecture? You be the judge. Prove me wrong.
The pace of Earth's terminal decline may yet abate. Dunedin can play a vital role in restoration, by becoming a bona fide dark sky city, one which represents to me far more than merely eschewing her growing light pollution.
■Michael Broughton is a member of Dunedin Dark Skies.
