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To help stargazers gain a frame of reference and help in the preservation of knowledge that only the deep night offers, the International Dark-Sky Association has been working to create a series of dark-sky preserves—places far away from development and its attendant human light—where people can travel to see the pristine night sky. In the United States, these are often located at national parks in the darkest quadrants of the country. At one of the few preserves in the East, at Cherry Springs State Park in north-central Pennsylvania—more than sixty miles from the nearest city and sitting atop a 2,300-foot mountain—more than ten thousand people a year pay $4 to stand in an observation field in the middle of the park and be stunned by what was a common sight for people a century ago: the shadows cast by the Milky Way, the sheer number of stars.

In moderately light-polluted skies, which is the ordinary view for most people in the developed world, the major constellations, such as Orion, the Big Dipper, and Cassiopeia—many of which are defined by second- and third-magnitude stars—stand out among the visible stars. In the darkest skies, what we know as the common constellations recede back into the multitude of stars. "There's a good part and a bad part," one amateur astronomer said of looking at the ten thousand stars visible at Cherry Springs State Park on a clear night. "It's good because there are so many stars. It's bad because there are so many stars. It's hard to keep yourself oriented sometimes."

But given time, those ten thousand stars would seem natural enough. Whether we are oriented by the constellations or not, to be in the presence of a truly dark sky is an unforgettable feeling: the stars have a palpable presence; you can almost feel the pressure of them.

As great a challenge as it is, reducing our light is only part of the solution, for a third of the world still isn't tied to an electric grid, and elsewhere grids are insufficient for demand—generators may be old and hydropower plants may not be able to provide consistent power. Although some societies continue to thrive with traditional lighting, in a more widespread electrified world, many without electricity feel its absence intensely, just as farm families in rural America did during the 1930s. In our intricate, interdependent global economy, where people living in vastly different circumstances have almost no ecological distance between them, simply creating sustainable industrial economies will mean little if the standard of living in less developed countries doesn't rise. Secure people will be far more interested in building sustainable economies for themselves than will those who must struggle to survive.

The lack of adequate light alone threatens to leave many people behind. In the country of Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, electricity generation has actually declined in recent years because of a deteriorating political situation. At its best, the country's hydroelectric power resources serve about 60 percent of its citizens, and then mostly in the rainy season and for only part of the day. Those in the countryside often have no electricity at all, so some country schoolchildren look for alternatives to candlelight. "When my mother buys me a candle at home to study, it doesn't last long," one student said. Some of them walk to gas stations near their homes to study under the outdoor lights; others camp in the yards of wealthy homeowners, reading with the help of the exterior lights and the glow of windows. Those who live within an hour's walk of the airport in the capital city of Conakry study in the airport parking area, amid the departures and arrivals of international flights, the roar of engines, the bustle of people coming and going. Older students sit on concrete pilings, bent over their notes, the fluorescent lights above them. Younger students hunker on curbs and traffic islands. "I hardly ever take notice of the arrival of planes or cars.... I am here to study," one student remarked. Another said,