Meet Our Founder: eileen Kragie
As founder of Dark Sky Friends, a non-profit, and a DarkSky International (formerly known as International Dark Sky Association IDA) advocate, I am committed to educating people about responsible outdoor light at night.
I’ve been aware of light trespass for decades as the gas station lights from across the alley from my Grandmother’s house glared into her yard and home. My last summer before moving back to Northern Virginia, Hale Bop was passing through. I spent the summer sleeping on my deck in West Virginia watching the comet cross the night sky. I woke during those nights seeing the billions of stars rotating above me overhead.
Moving back to Vienna in 1998, I read you could still see the Milky Way from Turner Farm Park. I am finding that hard to believe with all of the lights and sky glow created over the intervening years. Maybe you could?! I don’t know. But what I do know is that we are losing, and in many places, have lost, something we didn’t even know could be lost.
Light pollution is growing at twice the rate of the population, doubling every 8 years and in some places scientists predict NO stars will be visible in 20 years.
I love sitting outside in my backyard, especially during the winter, when the leaves are off the trees and looking up at the stars above. I have a vague sense that when we moved here in 1969, there was a sky filled with millions of twinkling stars overhead but I don’t see them now. The Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion and Pleiades are still visible but they are rapidly disappearing.
I love the outdoors, hiking with my dog in the woods, yoga, and meditation. Anything that is quiet, solitary, and dark at night. And like many others, I find much artificial light too bright and often wear sunglasses indoors and at night to curtail the effects.
In 1992 I saw my first satellite crossing the sky sitting near 18,000 feet in Nepal. Somehow in the pit of my stomach, I did not think that was a good thing even then. Now I am learning of all that the new mega constellations and space debris are bringing, and will bring, to our lives and to the skies overhead.
We must speak up for all those with whom we share this planet who cannot speak for themselves The creatures and flora and fauna who cannot survive with trespassing artificial light. We can no longer be silent. We are all in this together.
If we don’t do something quickly, we will all lose something that no one could ever have imagined could be lost. The night sky and the night!
Raising awareness, educating people, writing letters to elected officials or simply mentioning the growing and pervasive problem of light pollution and light trespass is critical.
Board of Advisors
Greda Elmberg
Miss Greda has always been into health and wellness. She was forced to retire from a lucrative modeling career due to a hit and run car accident in Malibu. She only moved back to Canada to be hit 3 more times. In spite of her unfortunate experiences with automobiles, she is committed to preserving the night sky and fighting light pollution.
After the concussion she was severely light sensitive, so in addition to protecting the environment and creatures, she is committed to protecting human health.
This sensitivity to light now requires her to frequently wear sunglasses indoors to protect her from the glare, and you will often find her wearing them at night as she traverses the city to counter all of the bright city light.
Her love of the celestial objects peppering the skies over us, came from the love of astronomy her father shared with her growing up. Taking out the telescope to the front porch, he shared those first sights of the planets and constellations we share our galaxy with, on those nights with Greda, where her love of astronomy grew and her appreciation for pristine night skies was born.
Gracious and generous, she is especially concerned about how light trespassing onto her property affects the health of all of the wildlife, land, sea and air, who share her home, nestled between the beaches of Stanley Park and the peaks of the Canadian mountains silhouetting the view from her beach home.
Greda loves the mountains of Canada and her oceans, spending much time outside communing with nature.
Julia Warden
Ms Julia grew up in Michigan steeping in the beauty and nature of this glorious state.
Her life led her to one of hitch hiking across Europe, joining the protests of the 60’s, being involved in starting the first children’s protective services in Flint Michigan, and teaching at a variety of schools and programs across the globe.
Her commitment to educating and inspiring young minds and hearts has led to several schools being created, with teaching programs tailored to the individual students’ needs and interests.
She is an accomplished artist, an avid reader and runner, an entertaining raconteur and tour guide and a captivating educator.
She remains involved in her communities, sharing her knowledge with others and encouraging everyone to live life to the fullest. She also shares a deep appreciation of the silence, stillness and the wonder that Mother Nature eternally gifts every creature on this globe with the founder.
Enjoying both the shores of Michigan and the woods of Virginia, she is committed to helping more people discover the beauty and magic of clear, dark night skies, that many have been robbed of, through the exponential growth of artificial light at night over the past 50 years.
Yuri
The furi guru. I am passionate about life and seek to protect the globe and all of her inhabitants, sentient and non sentient alike. And our mystical heavens enveloping this little spinning blue planet on which we find ourselves.
Please join us, me and my dark sky friends, on this quest to rid the modern world of the scourge of light trespass and light pollution. Your life, our lives, depends upon it.
Help speak for all those who cannot speak for themselves.
Dark Sky Friends needs you!