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EU Backs Ending Daylight Saving Time (theguardian.com)

New submitter Zarhan writes: Earlier this summer, European Commission conducted a poll on whether EU citizens would like to abolish adjusting their clocks twice a year. The results are now in: 80% of the respondents want to get rid of the changes every spring and autumn. EU Commission is planning to follow through and abolish the practice. In EU, individual countries decide what timezone they belong in, but the clock adjustment is an EU-level decision. The recommendation for now is to stick to summer time year-round, although individual countries will make those decisions. More from DW. The changes are known to affect sleep patterns and causes loss in productivity and even heart attacks, especially when you lose one hour of sleep during the spring change. "I will recommend to the commission that, if you ask the citizens, then you have to do what the citizens say," said Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission's president. "We will decide on this today, and then it will be the turn of the member states and the European parliament."

7 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Democracy? by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 2, Informative

    stuff sounds dangerously like democracy or something

    Rest assured. These polls are not known to the average European citizen. Only lobby groups check them, or mobilize others to check them. At no point was there a referendum or something like that.

    --
    Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  2. The Great White North by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here in Canada there is a push in some regions to abolish daylight saving time. Parts of the country (e.g. Saskatchewan) are already sane about this. Ditto the northeast corner of B.C.

    Even at my relatively southerly latitude (49 degrees north) summers are light regardless of our nominal time zone. Winters are dark, again, regardless of our time zone. If we stayed on PST (UTC-8) all year the sun would set at 2030 in the summer. What more do people want? And on PDT all year (UTC-7) the sun would still set at 1700 in December. What good is that? It wouldn't rise until 0900. Ugh.

    ...laura

  3. Historically, it was used to conserve coal use by Lucas123 · · Score: 4, Informative

    While many believe DST was started for farming, in fact, most farmers don't like it. Historically, DST began in 1916, when the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary introduced it as a way to conserve coal during wartime. Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the next year, and the United States adopted daylight saving in 1918. Broadly speaking, most jurisdictions abandoned daylight saving time in the years after the war ended in 1918 (with some notable exceptions including Canada, the UK, France, and Ireland). However, many different places adopted it for periods of time during the following decades and it became common during World War II. It became widely adopted, particularly in North America and Europe, starting in the 1970s as a result of the 1970s energy crisis.

  4. Re: Enough already! Have DST, don't have DST ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    They aren't scrapping DST, they're making it permanent. Which is only marginally less retarded than changing the clocks. Noon should align with the position of the sun.

  5. Re:well now ... by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think you are confusing Socialism with Communism.

    It is an easy mistake to make, because most people are ignorant idiots.
    Socialism is in free market economies with democracy. However there are more regulations and wider government funding for public good initiatives.
    While Communism is the government having direct control of everyone's lives.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  6. Re:well now ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    you still sound confused and wrong. Let me help:

    DST was invented to have people get up *earlier* during the summer so that they could work *longer hours* during the day. Your corrected sentence says that "[DST] is when clocks move one hour backward"... umm....

    DST is the *summer* time, not the *winter* time. The way to remember the clock movements is easy: "spring forward" and "fall back". I'm guessing you got that part right, but at some point confused yourself into twisting DST from being *summer* to being *winter*.

    Anyone who has to deal with timestamps is all too familiar with all of this nonsense and doing away with it is the best thing. But for some silly reason, everyone wants to "eliminate it" by eliminating *standard* time. For example, Florida is set to rule DST year round. The smart thing to do would be to just put themselves on Atlantic time, but that would be like acknowledging how stupid the proposal is. Similarly, this EU story is about making DST permanent. Sigh.

    ah, how appropriate for confusing DST or wanting DST to replace standard time... captcha is 'deluded'. Or maybe that's just me thinking that anyone cares :)

  7. Re:well now ... by jittles · · Score: 3, Informative

    Permanent Daylight savings time is nothing else than moving your time zones by one, or renaming 12 o'clock into 1 o'clock. In the end, it's the same with another name. Why not just get up one hour early? That's exactly what "permanent Daylight savings time" means.

    Because I have core hours that I have to be in the office for. So getting up an hour early does not mean I get to go home an hour earlier. It just means I have an extra hour at home before I go to the office. Not the same thing at all when businesses may not be open during that extra hour.