It’s that time of year again: my semi-annual rant on people’s futile attempt to manipulate nature. There are a certain number of daylight hours in a day. Sure it changes each day from the shortest before Christmas (in the northern hemisphere) to the longest six months later (and it varies depending upon latitude). What time we say it is however is for convenience for coordination. It is arbitrary. Actually, since 12 noon is also supposed to be midday, then in theory the time from sunrise to noon and from noon to sunset should be equal. I’m not sure where this is the case. Are time zones designed so that smack in the middle of one (or at one and or the other) this really is true?
Anyway, I have to say that “daylight savings” was not one of Franklin’s brighter ideas. We are raised on the concept that changing the time saves electricity. Well, maybe it worked in Franklin’s time (um, electricity? Houses did not have electricity back then), but every time we reach the spring ahead or fall back day, we are bombarded with studies about how changing the time does NOT save electricity.
What does it do? It is all psychological. And personally, I hate it. First in the spring when we go on daylight savings, we “lose” an hour. We have a weekend that is actually one hour shorter. And what do we get for giving up this hour?
Well, let’s see, when our bodies think it is 5 AM, our clocks say 6 AM. Morning already? That’s a week of groggily getting up late and being sleep deprived. And that is not good for our health. I remember when Bush (W) made Daylight Savings start 3 weeks earlier one year. It literally took me those three weeks to get adjusted. I mean it was only one hour and I just couldn’t do it. (And why is the president in charge of setting the date?)
So, people are up an hour earlier, regardless of when you get up. Man, is it dark! We may not notice the change in daylight hours from one day to the next, but an hour change is very noticeable. We are sleepy and it is dark. Solution: turn on bright lights. In fact, I just saw something on Yahoo news about turning on a light by your bed instead of your snooze button to help wake up. So, with a country of sleepy people, that’s a lot of light.
In theory that is supposed to mean that we make up for it (or more than make up for it, or what is the point) by using less electricity when we get home. After all, now 5 PM is 6 PM and it is still light outside.
Oh, but I forgot, we are all on the road an hour earlier so the sun is in a different spot. Depending on the time and the direction you drive (like east), traffic is a mess for at least a week while people adjust to different lighting conditions or to suddenly having the sun blaring in their faces. I wonder if there are more accidents. That would offset savings wouldn’t it?
Same goes for driving home in the evening (especially west).
Psychologically, having it lighter longer in the afternoon, is that supposed to be a good thing? Does it make up for the darkness trying to get out of bed? I don’t think so.
Okay, so let’s fast forward six months. Up until last year, it seems to me that the time change was usually the week before Halloween. Now, I understand the thinking: Halloween is best celebrated in the dark so make it dark earlier. However, when you have little kids, you don’t want it dark. You want it to be late enough for most of the people in your neighborhood to be home but not so late that it is dark—easier to see kids walking across driveways and streets in the light. For some reason, in 2010, we went off Daylight Savings after Halloween.
I remember one time, years ago, when we actually stayed on Daylight Savings Time for a year and a half. Some grand experiment or something. Whatever the case, the bad idea is also badly named. It is impossible to save daylight.
And of course in the fall, you have the same driving issues all over again. Sure, maybe it’s easier to get up in the morning, but suddenly it is dark earlier. How is it that on one random day, making it lighter in the morning and darker in the evening saves money (going on standard time) and yet making darker in the morning and lighter in the evening also saves energy?
Anyway, I have two solutions. One, we set the time for noon as midday and leave it that way forever. You stay in a time zone, the time setting never changes. Or we can pick among the daylight savings time, the standard time or split the difference (change by 30 minutes) and be done with it.
Arizona and Hawaii stay on standard time all the time. Time for the rest of the states to do it too or for the country to stop doing it (and let states that want to continue it on their own).
Of course, this is all better than back in the USSR when the entire sprawling country was on Moscow time. I guess I should be grateful we have time zones at all.
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