This moment outdoors is brought to you by L.L. Bean, official partner of the National Park Foundation for the Find Your Park Movement. I'm going to see. I lived in Chicago for 16 years before becoming a full-time traveler.

And every one of those 16 years was nearly void of stars in the nighttime sky.

In fact, on an overcast night, the sky was lit with an orange haze until morning from the nearly

300,000 sodium vapor street lamps that blanket the city in a constant glow.

80% of the world's population lives under what's called sky glow. In the

United States and Europe, 99% of the public can't experience a natural night.

Light is helpful to people, of course, but it's also one of our greatest pollutants.

Artificial light brings disastrous consequences to wildlife, especially birds, bats, insects, and sea turtles.

This episode is a little different than most of our shows.

We travel to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, where for generations

the night sky helped the original Polynesian sailors find their way across the sea.

The audio comes from the park's Voices of Science series

hosted by Brittany Connell who talks with experts about light pollution and

how the park is working to eradicate it.

For the National Park Service, I'm Brittany Connell,

and you're listening to Voices of Science.

In a study published in 2016, an international group of scientists said that 80% of Americans

and fully one-third of people living on Earth

can no longer see the Milky Way because of light pollution.

Talking with Pascal Nelson on a late summer Hawaiian night, that statement is hard to grasp.

I couldn't imagine living a life without being able to see the Milky Way,

see the stars.

...