Rebecca Boyle

The End of Night

Boyle describes an environmental tragedy that most of us never think about: light pollution. Her essay is broad and rich, moving effortlessly from a Chilean desert to newly hatched sea turtles to circadian biology to cell phone screens. It’s an ambitious piece with many parts, but it doesn’t feel heavy. I think that’s partly because of Boyle’s light touch, her sentences that often surprise and delight: