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Are The Alternatives Even Worse Than Daylight Saving Time? (chron.com)
The New York Times notes an important caveat to Florida's recently-approved law observing daylight savings time year-round: it specifies that their change will only go into effect if "the United States Congress amends 15 U.S.C. s. 260a to authorize states to observe daylight saving time year-round."
"In other words: Even if the governor signs the bill, nothing will happen now... States can choose to exempt themselves from daylight saving time -- Arizona and Hawaii do -- but nothing in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time." Meanwhile one California legislator exploring the idea of year-round standard time discovered that "youth sports leagues and families worried that a year-round early sunset would shut down their kids' after-school games." But the Times also acknowledges problems in the current system. "In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. -- more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone." So is there a better alternative?
An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider: Standardtime.com has a unique suggestion. Their proposal has only two time zones in the continental U.S. that are two hours apart, which The Atlantic calls "a simple plan to fix [DST]"... Johns Hopkins University professors Richard Henry and Steven Hanke have come up with yet another possible fix: worldwide adoption of a single time zone. They argue that the internet has eliminated the need for discrete time zones across the globe, so we might as well just do away with them...
No plan will satisfy everyone. But that doesn't mean daylight-saving time is good. The absence of major energy-saving benefits from DST -- along with its death toll, health impacts, and economic ramifications -- are reason enough to get rid of the ritual altogether.
The article associates Daylight Saving Time with "a spike in heart attacks, increased numbers of work injuries, automobile accidents, suicides, and more." And in addition, it also blames DST for an increased use of gasoline and air conditioners -- adding that it will also "rob humanity of billions of hours of sleep like an evil spacetime vampire."
"In other words: Even if the governor signs the bill, nothing will happen now... States can choose to exempt themselves from daylight saving time -- Arizona and Hawaii do -- but nothing in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time." Meanwhile one California legislator exploring the idea of year-round standard time discovered that "youth sports leagues and families worried that a year-round early sunset would shut down their kids' after-school games." But the Times also acknowledges problems in the current system. "In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. -- more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone." So is there a better alternative?
An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider: Standardtime.com has a unique suggestion. Their proposal has only two time zones in the continental U.S. that are two hours apart, which The Atlantic calls "a simple plan to fix [DST]"... Johns Hopkins University professors Richard Henry and Steven Hanke have come up with yet another possible fix: worldwide adoption of a single time zone. They argue that the internet has eliminated the need for discrete time zones across the globe, so we might as well just do away with them...
No plan will satisfy everyone. But that doesn't mean daylight-saving time is good. The absence of major energy-saving benefits from DST -- along with its death toll, health impacts, and economic ramifications -- are reason enough to get rid of the ritual altogether.
The article associates Daylight Saving Time with "a spike in heart attacks, increased numbers of work injuries, automobile accidents, suicides, and more." And in addition, it also blames DST for an increased use of gasoline and air conditioners -- adding that it will also "rob humanity of billions of hours of sleep like an evil spacetime vampire."
Standardization of time trivially falls under the Commerce Clause. It's one of the few things that does. Standard time dates back to the rail system and was put in place to resolve slight differences in time between various locales - originally not only did each state have its own time, each city and town would as well!
In order to allow train schedules to synchronize across state lines, the federal government made a single, nation-wide authoritative time system, and created time zones to keep noon relatively consistent within states.
Standard time is a good thing. DST is pointless and dumb, but standard time is incredibly important. Going back to the system of patchwork time is a very bad idea.
But... I'm near the eastern end of EST. Near the summer solstice, with DST in effect, it's light out from about 4:30 AM to 9 pm. Honestly, I'd be better off if there were a 2-hr DST shift - I don't get up before 5:30 AM, 5:30 to 10 pm would be much better, which is what they get at the western end of EST and what I grew up with.
WIthout DST, we're looking at it being light out from 3:30 AM to 8 PM. To me, a 3:30 AM sunrise with the modern fixed work/school/daycare schedule is just inhumane. And what a waste having all that daylight waaay before time to get up, and then get dark at 8 PM.
OK, so getting rid of DST makes summer suck. So we could just do DST all year like Florida wants to?
Well, Russia tried permanent DST, and depression and morning traffic accidents is winter went up. Near the western edge of EST, winter solstice sunrise is already 8:20 AM. Permanent DST would make the sun come up at 9:20 AM - about two and a half hours after most people get up for work/school. That is depressing. I remember waiting for the school bus on frozen, dark snowy days well before civil twilight even began, but with permanent DST, we'd be talking about getting to school and classes starting way before civil twilight. So people get depressed and have accidents now for a week on either side of the time change... but if we get rid of it, I'm not sure we aren't just trading it for another set of problems - insomnia in summer, less summer sports and exercise, and trading two weeks of depression and accidents in the spring/fall for three months of depression and accidents in winter.
A single world time zone doesn't help with any of this. It's not like everyone will just run a nocturnal schedule in the part of the earth that gets midnight at what's now noon and vice/versa. If you have to call someone around the world, the question would just shift in semantics from "what time is it there" to "what time do people get up there?" And having a single time zone with no DST doesn't help with it being light too early in summer or too late in winter. Companies, schools, etc could be free to shift the time on their own, but for anyone with complicated schedules, having different organizations make different decisions about whether to shift or not just makes everything worse.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Accurate data from China is never easily available.
...the less your opinion about daylight savings matters.
There was a Roman essayist called Hadrianus who observed that the more comfortable peoples' lives are, the more they are compelled to twist minor issues into catastrophes.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.