What happened to those lovely dark nights, when all the stars came out? They’re gone, along with hurricane lamps and black outs.

Now that LED lighting has conquered the world, seen from space our planet is a bright, glittering jewel at night. Even darkest Africa is filled with a billion points of light, and more’s the pity. It’s unnatural and astronomers hate it.

The obsession with climate change has waned, and activists are focusing heavily on pollution, especially light pollution. They want artificial lighting to be abolished from 2am to 5am, every night.

How did this happen? Quantum computing destroyed the cryptocurrency mining craze in months, and graphene-polymer batteries are so efficient, your devices hardly ever need recharging. Which means that the abundance of solar power on the energy internet has encouraged everyone to keep the lights blazing, all night long.

Cash crops like cannabis and ‘speed wheat’ thrive under flood lighting, and everyone knows that productivity increases with effective lighting. Robots and drones don’t need light to work in the dark, but their human supervisors do! Literacy rates in previously disadvantaged communities have rocketed, and basic education is at an all-time high, globally. Daylight saving has been abandoned. Who needs it?

But animals and plants have evolved to take advantage of the nocturnal hours, for sleeping, feeding or biological cycles. “We’re not sure exactly how this constant daylight affects natural ecosystems,” tweeted @Greenpeace, “but we know it’s not good. We’re changing evolution!”

The greatest opposition to this call might be from the sporting industry. Weekends are a thing of the past, and every spectator sport now takes place at night. And you can’t play in the dark!