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EU To Stop Changing the Clocks in October 2019 (dw.com)
European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc last week announced that the EU will stop the twice-yearly changing of clocks across the continent in October 2019. From a report: The practice, which was used as a means to conserve energy during the World Wars as well as the oil crises of the 1970s, became law across the bloc in 1996. All EU countries are required to move forward by an hour on the last Sunday of March and back by an hour on the final Sunday in October. Bulc said EU member states would have until April 2019 to decide whether they would permanently remain on summer or winter time. [...] "In order to maintain a harmonised approach we are encouraging consultations at national levels to ensure a coordinated approach of all member states," Bulc said.
The decision to tackle the issue was prompted after the Commission launched an online survey. Some 4.6 million Europeans answered the survey -- three million of those respondents were from Germany -- with 80 percent of them voting to scrap the practice .
DST is a waste of time. Now it is time for the U.S. to do the same.
I consider myself a "purist" and wish that we'd just stop using DST completely and just go with "winter" time year-round.
The more south you go, the less "saving" daylight is needed since there's less daylight variance between the seasons.
The more north you go the more "extreme" sunrises would get if you use "summer" time (DST) in the winter. Once you get into longitude 40N range (NYC, Detroit, Toronto), if you use 'summer time' in the winter you get sunrise at 8:30. Sunsets will be at 5:30 instead of 4:30, and that's hardly worth much IMHO.
We have electrical lights now: is it that big of a deal that it gets dark "sooner"? The last time it was really dark in an urban area was giant 2003 blackout. I'd rather have earlier sunrises, as otherwise people's circadian rhythms are going to all sorts of fucked up (especially dangerous while driving).
I hate people saying "I prefer day light savings time because <reasons>."
Why?
Because the clock already have a definition which make sense.
12 is the middle of the day. Sun as near zenith as it can be.
00 is the complete opposite. Sun as far away as possible.
As soon as the clock pass 00:00:00 you're moving towards the brighter part instead of the darker part.
It's symmetrical and make logical sense.
I totally understand if some people wish they had more light hours after work or if current schedules are setup so that they are more awake in the evening than in the morning for whatever reason and as such prefer it that way. But that's all changeable without messing with the clock and how that the earths rotation around the sun. Let 00 be when you are turned away from the sun and 12 be when you are turned against it still. As for all that other crap change that if you want too. If you want to maximize sun hours why aren't people going to bed at 20 and up at 04 instead for instance? Totally achievable. You don't have to screw up the clock for that!
"But it's so much work! It's easier to just change the clock!" ... but change the times/schedules/opening hours/.. not the definitions for how a freaking clock work.
I guess that could be argued vs the current setup where we move the clock twice per year. It's likely less work to change those things once and then stop doing those changes than doing those changes all the time but not changing opening hours and what not.
But yeah. It would be a bit of work. But definitely not something which can be done. And yeah, if we stuck with winter time all the time it likely would make sense to change things around one hour because as is summer time run for a longer time than winter time so that's the more common hours for things, so what we are used to and it's fine keeping it like those in the winter too.
And if you are going to change the clock anyway then change it to 1000 hours, 1000 minutes and 1000 seconds ir 10 of each while at it because that would make more sense than especially the analog clock which do two rotations in one day and the am and pm crap you people got in some societies.
It's really not, the choice of 'permanent summer/winter time' is really functionally identical to choosing a different time zone. So the forced choice meaning there is no "default" inertia is simply opportunity for Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg tio return to their 'natural' time zone (by longitude) 1 hr west of Germany/Italy/etc, which was only altered due to Nazi occupation. On the other side, if Poland wants to be 1 hour east of Germany in same zone as Baltics, that is plausible policy too. The thing is, every country has ALWAYS been able to designate it's time zone, that was never controlled by EU, and even before EU/EC countries tend to either be in same zone as neighbor, or 1 hr offset from immediate east/west. If you approach this as subjective preference re: summer/winter you might imagine patchwork of variation, but functionally it is no different than choosing a time zone, which countries have always approached pragmatically in relation to their neighbors. The borders of time zones may change somewhat, but they've done so before (in fact, creating the un-natural time situation for Spain as well as FR/BE/NE/LUX) and that isn't really anything to worry about.
From what I've heard, the problem in Britain is that almost everyone prefers BST to GMT, but there's an equally-strong nostalgic draw to being on GMT for at least a few months per year... an enduring reminder that Britain was once the literal center and reference point of the civilized world, and everyone *else* defined their local time relative to London's time.
I suspect France will have a similar national dilemma. It didn't get to name GMT, but it DID get to name UTC (or at least, SI did). Europe's geopolitical center might have shifted eastward after Germany reunified and the EU grew... but as long as France gets to have UTC for a few months per year, it can still feel smugly superior and regard itself as the world's timekeeping reference point. Moving to CET year-round would be yet another psychological concession that continental Europe no longer revolves around Paris.
Predictions:
1. France will stick with UTC for the sake of national pride initially, decide it hates early sunsets, and join the rest of Europe in UTC+1 within a couple of years.
2. Britain will come up with a solution worthy of a Terry Pratchett novel... UTC+1 year-round, except on Boxing Day. On Boxing Day, clocks will be turned back an hour sometime early in the morning, solar noon will occur at 12:00 GMT somewhere in Britain (often in London, occasionally near the site of the Greenwich Observatory itself (or at least, somewhere above its parking lot, since the actual meridian is a few hundred feet away from the "ceremonial" meridian's painted line), then clocks will skip from 22:59:59 GMT to 00:00:00 UTC+1, ensuring that the madness & confusion persist for only a single calendar day.
The first year, everyone will think it's cute in the days leading up to it, the day itself will end with thousands of people missing flights and trains due to mass confusion about whether or not the time change is a joke, and a few weeks later Parliament will quietly pass a law making Britain UTC+1 year-round, except for the literal sites of the Greenwich Observatory and Stonehenge (which will be GMT year-round... preserving the symbolism, while sparing 99.999% of Britain's population from having to deal with its consequences).