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Pictured: Jake Ronecker at Powder Valley Conservation Area.

By Don Corrigan

Jake Ronecker of Webster Groves recalls a night sky full of twinkling stars when he was a youngster. Much of that twinkling has disappeared. The dedicated naturalist is working to bring some celestial beauty back for kids of the future.

Ronecker and other members of the Missouri chapter of International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) will tell you that working to reduce light pollution can bring back twinkling stars, but it’s also all about bringing back a healthier planet.

“It’s sad that more than 80% of Americans can no longer look up and see the Milky Way where they live,” said Ronecker. “What’s even more worrying, though, is what light pollution is doing to our health, and the well-being of other creatures on the planet.”

Consider the birds of the air, as a prophet of old once told us. Birds are having a tough time migrating and surviving. They no longer can see the stars that might guide them to where they need to fly, but they do see plenty of lights.

According to Ronecker, the Mississippi River Flyway is an important sky-high highway for birds. The lights of St. Louis and those on the Gateway Arch have disrupted the flight patterns and bird migrations for years.

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“We need not even make war; only by preparing, by playing with our new weapons, we poison the air, the water, the soil of our plants, damage the health of the living, and weaken the chances of the newborn.”   —  Martha Gellhorn, War Correspondent

By Don Corrigan

A new book published at the end of 2022 explains the complex and  traumatic legacy of the atomic age in the St. Louis region. Given the half-life of radioactive materials, it seems no book can ever be the last word on what is a continual crisis.

Many American baby boomers can recall their fathers explaining to them that the atomic bomb was necessary to end World War II; that the human loss would have been much worse without it; that the legacy of the bomb was likely a Pax Americana and a lasting peace.

The baby boomers’ fathers had it wrong. They did not realize how atomic weapons would proliferate; how they would become more lethal; and, how the contaminant byproducts of the first bombs would endlessly plague the “Gateway City” of the American Midwest.

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