Is Daylight Saving Time Worth Saving?

Daniel_Stuckey writes "In politics, health, and academia, there are plenty of detractors that say daylight saving might not be worth saving. One vocal opponent is Missouri State Representative Delus Johnson, who wants to end the watch and clock switchery altogether. In short, he says we should spring forward this one last time, without ever falling back. He wants Missouri – and other states willing to join a pact – to permanently adopt daylight saving time and call it Standard Time. He's sure that it'll increase economic development in the later part of the year; giving people a little more daylight to do their Black Friday shopping. Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant at the National Bureau of Economic Research have argued that DST has had adverse effects on energy spending. They calculate some extra $10-16 million spent by Indiana due to time changes. Their research concluded it's probably a much bigger loss in other states. A year ago, Motherboard's Kelly Bourdet reported on a health study that concluded DST might actually kill you. Chances of heart-attack were stated to increase by 10 percent on the days following the spring change, and to decrease by 10% after gaining the hour in the fall." There's even a We The People petition about it.

Comments

Morning sunlight is a waste

[jimbolauski]

Why is it so important to have sunlight in the morning, give me evening sunlight that I can enjoy after work. I don't need sunlight for my morning deuce.

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[xclr8r]

just move it 30 mins and be done with it.

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[Art Challenor]

In many northern lattitudes, this is the norm, daylight savings or not.

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Have you ever heard of the land of the midnight sun? The number of daylight hours changes dramatically at high lattitudes, such a system would not be workable. With such variable light, your system woudl redifne the definition of hour through out the year. In the artic circle, an hour would range from 1 day to an infatesimally small amount. Doing buisness with any would be insane. Arranging for internatinal meetings and events would not work without detailed knowledge of the sun's position at that given point. It would be fairly chaotic.

I thought you were going to propose something sensible for a second, like only using UTC everywhere at all times of the year.

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[wavedeform]

Children walk to school early in the morning..

Ahh the "think of the children" argument. I live in a relatively safe bedroom community near a major city. There's a grade school around the corner from me. I can say with some certitude that kids don't walk to school these days.

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[SternisheFan]

And "falling back" in autumn usually happened just before Halloween. Lots of kids walking the roads in the dark were getting hit by cars due to this, especially in the beginning.

Get rid of DST, it was meant as an energy saving idea during the energy crisis of the 1970's, and never really accomplished its intended goal.

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[vux984]

so just let 6pm be sundown and 6am be sunup, no matter where you are or what time of year it is

You do realize that the number of daylight hours varies over the year, and by latitude right?

In winter at even medium latitutes (northern contiguous united states) there might only be 7 or so hours of daylight a day. So 6am and 6pm would be 7hours apart and then the time from 6pm to 6am would be 17hrs long? So the length of an hour would change depending on whether it was day or night?

Go far enough north and there is no sun up in winter. At all. How does your system of time work if there is no rising sun for a full month?

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[jythie]

UTC everywhere would be wonderful. I am so tired of confusion over meetings across timezones...

Re:Morning sunlight is a waste

[pla]

Children walk to school early in the morning. The brighter outside it is, the better parents feel

Fuck how parents feel. The kids don't really care.

And I don't give a damn about the candy industry or the amount of light on Halloween, either. We, as a society, need to move beyond pandering to the whims of these "helicopter" parents turning their "precious and unique snowflakes" into a generation of helpless losers unable to grasp the idea of "don't stand in the road" and "don't get into the van" and "don't believe Mr. Timmons when he says he has a roll of dimes in his pocket for you".

And if you take this as humor, I feel sorry for you, you've already gone too far over to "their" side.

NO.

[fyngyrz]

No! It's a royal pain in the ass. Get rid of it!

Re:NO.

[mattventura]

Lots of things are a pain in the ass. US measurement system, silly date notation systems, IPv4, the two party system, etc. Unfortunately none of those are going anywhere anytime soon.

Re:NO.

[pixelpusher220]

Indeed, but there's literally about zero effort to just not fall back. This is low hanging fruit on the pain-in-the-ass fruit tree.

Re:NO.

[hawguy]

Must be rough having first world problems.

All problems in first world nations are first world problems (by definition), but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be remedied.

Re:NO.

[Sique]

Your argument basicly is "a measurement system is fine if you are used to it". The same arguments can be said for metric units, and they are also true. I can double, triple and quadruple metric units the same way than imperial units. I know that my body temperature should be somewhere between 36 C and 37 C, and that I have to drive carefully if the temperature falls below zero. There are exactly zero arguments for imperial units if you are not used to them. There is no reason to learn them now if you grew up with metric units. You don't gain anything (beside talking points) by knowing imperial units additionally to the metric ones.

a Native American Proverb

[FudRucker]

only the US Govt thinks you can cut one foot off the top of a blanket and sew it on to the bottom of a blanket will make the blanket longer

Exactly- spring forward AND HOLD FOREVER

[markdavis]

>"Representative Delus Johnson, who wants to end the watch and clock switchery altogether. In short, he says we should spring forward this one last time, without ever falling back. "

I have been saying this for many, many years. Go on daylight savings and then NEVER CHANGE AGAIN. Give us light when we can *USE* it in the winter.

The second best solution is to go on standard time and NEVER CHANGE AGAIN.

But remaining on this INCREDIBLY STUPID system of changing time twice a year is just INSANE. It does NOTHING to save energy. In fact, it does almost nothing positive at all. Yet it causes tons of lost productivity, sleep problems, irritation, confusion, and inconvenience.