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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."
And not even that.
If you have to call someone on the other side of the globe (and trust me, a LOT of businesses have to do that), now you can't even do simple math to say, "Oh hey, California is nine hours ahead of me, and now it's noon for me. Maybe I shouldn't call right now." Instead you are going to HAVE to have a program or similar that'll show you what kind of sunlight people have where you're about to call, because you can't actually use the time for anything.
The internet has NOT done away with the circadian rhythm. Until it does, a single worldwide time zone is an even stupider idea than DST.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
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.
What Florida is voting for is to move from EST/EDT to AST (no daylight savings). They are not exempting themselves from Standard Time, they are voting to adopt a different standard timezone. They are voting to eliminate daylight savings time. Standard time in most of the world follows political borders not some raw calculated mean position every 60 minutes apart.
A black time market! I like that...
Ezekiel 23:20
It baffles me to no end that it is apparently easier to convince people that the entire world should operate on a different schedule, than it is to convince people that individual buildings should have opening hours that make sense based on their requirements.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All