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Daylight Saving Time is Super Unpopular. Here Are the Countries Trying To Ditch It. (washingtonpost.com)
Daylight Saving Time ended in the United States on Sunday, bumping the clocks back an hour. The change happened in Europe a week earlier, meaning the time difference between the continents was momentarily smaller. It's another confusing wrinkle in a confusing temporal process that confounds the world. From a story: Today, 70 countries change their clocks midyear for Daylight Saving Time, including most of North America, Europe and parts of South America and New Zealand. China, Japan, India and most countries near the equator don't fall back or jump ahead. In much of Asia and South America, the Daylight Saving Time shift was adopted, but then abandoned. It has never been observed in most of Africa. While the United States extended its Daylight Saving Time in 2005 and Florida wants to make it its standard time, other countries are moving to ditch the practice.
The European Union is weighing a plan to abandon shifting from daylight saving time midyear. "Millions ... believe that summertime should be all the time," the European Union's chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, told German reporters in August. Juncker was referring, in part, to an online poll conducted by the E.U., which found that changing clocks is tremendously unpopular. (As my colleague Rick Noack pointed out, however, there are methodological problems: "The largest share of participants came from one country -- Germany -- where the time switch has been a somewhat odd front-page topic for years. But any E.U. decision would also impact the 27 other member states.")
The European Union is weighing a plan to abandon shifting from daylight saving time midyear. "Millions ... believe that summertime should be all the time," the European Union's chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, told German reporters in August. Juncker was referring, in part, to an online poll conducted by the E.U., which found that changing clocks is tremendously unpopular. (As my colleague Rick Noack pointed out, however, there are methodological problems: "The largest share of participants came from one country -- Germany -- where the time switch has been a somewhat odd front-page topic for years. But any E.U. decision would also impact the 27 other member states.")
I can't believe I've had to endure forced jet lag twice a year my whole life, for no reason that anyone can coherently articulate.
It would be nice if we can end it while I can still enjoy it, lol
"The largest share of participants came from one country -- Germany -- where the time switch has been a somewhat odd front-page topic for years. But any E.U. decision would also impact the 27 other member states.")
It seems screamingly obvious to me that most people would prefer a little extra daylight after work. That has the most utility to the most people. Make DST year round and be done with it. There is no reason that noon has to be the time of day when the sun is highest overhead. That's just tradition for the sake of useless tradition.
Statistically, two of the most dangerous times of year come the week after each of the time changes as people's body-clocks don't match up with the time of day. There are an increase in accidents and deaths during this time.
I understand that there are concerns for children standing in the dark waiting for buses. Perhaps we need to make daylight savings time the standard time year round (or just make schools start an hour later and the suggested work day start an hour later).
Let's stop the charade and just set time to a static time year round.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Let's just all switch to UTC and be done with the current mess already.
Or the 40K Imperial clock, that might be amusing...
Which makes sense considering they're the ones who came up with the whole thing.
Since it's mostly automated it's weird that people would be so upset....but sure, if it actually serves no purpose anymore then get rid of it.
The weird thing is that this article recap doesn't mention why we're still using it, or what purpose it serves today.
Hopefully it's not a scenario where people that don't know anything are trying to tear down something they don't understand because it annoys them
I see two excuses used for not being DST year round.
1) Economic. Something to do with electricity usage and we're supposed to use less of it... etc... however, studies have shown the effect is actually very negligible.
2) Children waiting at bus stops in the dark. Change school/business hours so that people don't leave in the dark.
Switching between DST and not is hugely unpopular and it wouldn't really cause any harm to remove it.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Daylight Saving Time does not "confound the world". It does, however, provide endless fodder for those who wake up every day looking for something about which to be outraged.
Forget ditching DST, get rid of standard time. Who cares if i go to work in the dark, I want to come home to enjoy some sunlight! During standard time in the winter I not only get the joy of coming to work in the dark, but getting home in the dark as well, because it's sunset by the time I leave.
I'd love to have an hour of daylight to get stuff done outside when i get home and not have to wait for the weekend!
Switching between DST and not is hugely unpopular and it wouldn't really cause any harm to remove it.
Of course, you have to realize that people who object to moving the clock back and forth, have no experience what it is to actually go through an entire year on a fixed GMT offset. It could very well be that we decide to abandon DST, and then people realize this sucks even more.
It's not tradition for the sake of tradition, it's a clumsy attempt to get our mechanical clocks to align more closely with our biological clocks. Without any clocks, people naturally synchronize their activity to the sun, waking earlier in the summer and sleeping earlier (and longer) in the winter.
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I know this will never happen (It's about as likely as adopting Stardates...) but UTC for everybody would solve the problem. Fact of the matter is, people do things at different times (like eat Breakfast) at different times (actual time, not clock time) around the world. The clock time should reflect that. I'm a bit biased because I deal with international video conferences and UTC would make things SO MUCH EASIER.
Why change the clock? Why not just change business hours if it's going to be year round?
Which do you think is easier? Mandating a clock change for everyone or convincing every business to simultaneously change their operating hours?
I suggest the former is the only practical solution.
Strictly speaking, our current work hours are tradition for the sake of useless tradition.
Quite true but getting that to change will be nigh impossible in any sort of organized fashion. Much easier to just change the clock for everyone. Defining noon as the time of day when the sun is highest overhead is an equally arbitrary and useless tradition but FAR easier to change.
It's noon when the sun crosses the local meridian. Solar noon is the only thing that matters or makes any sense for time keeping.
That is an arbitrary definition of noon. You could just as validly define 1pm or 3pm to be the time when the sun is at the highest point in the sky. Saying it has to be exactly at noon is just pointless tradition. The definition of the fundamental unit of time (the second) has zero relationship to the location of the sun in the sky. 1 second is defined to be exactly 9,192,631,770 cycles of a caesium atomic clock.
Winter time is actually the standard time. Summer time is the deviation from it. You're basically moving your country from its natural timezone to the timezone east of it. (Or, if you live in western Europe, from the timezone to the east to two timezones to the east.) So while summer time all year round sounds pleasant, it's not. Winter time all year round makes more sense.
It's not tradition for the sake of tradition, it's a clumsy attempt to get our mechanical clocks to align more closely with our biological clocks.
At this point in time it very much is tradition for the sake of tradition. Since most people's daily activities have shifted towards later in the day it makes sense to change our time keeping to match that with the greatest utility.
Without any clocks, people naturally synchronize their activity to the sun, waking earlier in the summer and sleeping earlier (and longer) in the winter.
So what? We have clocks and are always going to have clocks so how about we set the time of day to have the most utility for the lives we actually lead?
Solar noon is all that matters? So it's a different time 20 miles west of me? That doesn't sound the least bit chaotic and useless? I set my DVR to record, but it's 13 minutes later over at the broadcast tower...
So, the suggestion to use "summertime" all the time basically moves (Central) Europe into the East European timezone (UTC+2). Why? Why not leave it in its proper timezone (UTC+1)? Because the proles think "eternal summertime" means "eternal summer"?
Wouldn't standard time year round improve the bus stop situation?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Indeed winter time is when noon means "Sun at highest peak".
However, most people who want to eliminate time changes are asking for year-round DST. That's because DST is already more than 6 months of the year and business opening and closing is more based on DST than it is "winter time". Yes, that is effectively moving "a time zone to the East" but unfortunately businesses all start an hour earlier than they historically did. Who here starts work at "9am"? When did your office last start at 9am? 8am has become the standard- DST is probably to blame for that. We've already adjusted all our clocks to be "one time zone to the East," at least in the US, because of DST. It would be an easier transition to go to DST being the standard than it would be to go back to winter time.
If we go back to Winter Time businesses won't start closing at 4 by standard, they will stay at 5 and people want that extra hour of sun in the evening. It's easier to change time zone than it is to change ingrained standard work-hours.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
8 am?! I'm still trying to get the kids to school at that time. I start work at 9:30.
But I know there are people who want to start earlier. My wife gets out of bed before 7 in order to beat the traffic, and I've had colleagues who start at 8 or 7 even.
And that's my point really: if you need to start early, then start early. If you want to start late, then start late. Don't try to force one view on everybody by messing with what time means.
Does anybody really know?
OK, 30 Minutes of DST all year and be done with it!
How unpopular it is, is irrelevant. There are tons of things that are unpopular but still necessary, like taxes (Sorry US, but it's true).
The real question is whether there is a benefit to doing it. I have yet to read about one single actual tangible benefit to it. And no, the perception that you have "more daylight" doesn't count, because it's not true.
Meanwhile, the negatives are VERY large: Increased number of accidents due to fatigue. Health problems such as heart attacks caused by the shifts. Etc.
The whole concept of DST is idiotic, based on nothing resembling good reasoning, and should be eliminated.
He wrote solar noon. It's the exact and only definition of that.
Solar noon has ZERO relationship to the number 12 on our clocks. We can define noon to correspond to whatever number on our clock we want it to be. For part of the year we move it to be a different number than 12 because it's practical to do so.
Don't try to force one view on everybody by messing with what time means.
Either we force one view on everybody, or we all pick our own.
If you don't like the first, nobody's stopping you from setting your personal clocks to your own preferred offset.
It has always been under state control. The only federal mandate is that if you change, you change on the same dates as the rest of the county, and that the entire state changes at once.
Well, did they actually ask them? I don't think so. Of course, being the EU, if they did ask people and got the answer they didn't want then they'd just keep asking them until they gave up and agreed so that they could get on with their lives.
I'm all for scrapping summertime, not keeping it permanently.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Just think, willy-nilly, we change clocks back or forward a whole hour, and we don't even do this world-wide. If we can do this - change time itself, something that has such a heavy importance in every society - couldn't we change any societal norm at the drop of a hat?
But, careful with that ax Eugene, once something's set into society, it's hard to change it, regardless how ridiculous it is.
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Originally, DST was politically conceived to address two anomalies.
1) Duh, Daylight was very short during standard working hours, more daylight more productivity.
2) Depression triggers - Change was good; more sunlight more vitamin D less moods swing
Half a century its social media fodder for change, albeit back to no-change.
Children have been waiting at bus stops in the dark for decades. That's no excuse to make a change. What's great about it is that those same children get home while it's actually still light out, and they can get some outside playtime before the streetlights come on.
Just another day in Paradise
I live in Phoenix, AZ and I'm against DST. It's not helpful and even if we were to change the clock, it should be in the opposite direction. Since there's no universally better time system, let's just stick with centering days close to solar noon and let people adjust their work schedules as they wish rather than mandate it via time changes.
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Also no spike in traffic accidents, heart attacks, etc.
In a post-agricultural society, all that stuff is optional and unnecessary.
Why do people still do it then? Tradition.
Why not get rid of the International Date Line? That's more confusing than DST.
When I flew from Sydney to Papeete, I arrived the day before I left, i.e., departed 8:30 p.m. Sunday from Australia...arrived after after 10 p.m.on Saturday--the day before--in Tahiti with no reservations because my stateside travel agent didn't consider the International Date Line. She might be forgiven since that was before airline schedules were computerized.
Is there DST in Alaska, Yukon, Northwest territories? Lapland? it's light most of the time in Summer, and dark much of the Winter. DST doesn't make sense in central and southern Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas where it cools down to a balmy 105 degrees F. at night.
So, what are the complaints about DST? It was for farmers and factory workers, so they say, but farmers aren't thrilled about milking cows in the dark. Oh, wait, they have lights!
I only have three things to set. Alarm clock, my Mustang, and my work car. Everything else is automatic, but, that being said, DITCH IT! Set it either standard time or DST and leave it alone.
most of my clocks change automatically, and those that don't, about half are wrong til the next change since I am too lazy to change them ":-)
Just end it.
Now.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Indeed winter time is when noon means "Sun at highest peak".
Horseshit dependent only only one specific location in each timezone and not at all relevant for large portions of the population.
So while summer time all year round sounds pleasant, it's not.
Why not? None of your post so far backs up this statement. What is your definition of pleasant? It sure as heck isn't ensuring that the sun is at it's highest point at 1200. Pretty much no one can give a shit about that, other than owners of sundial ornaments.
Natural timezone? There is no single natural timezone for a given location. The time at which the sun is highest in the sky changes depending on the season.
Therefore it makes sense to let each location make up their own timezone, within reasonable limits of course, and stick to it.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Summer time sounds more pleasant than winter time because we associate summer with warm, pleasant weather, and summertime with these long summer evenings. Winter is cold and harsh and winter time means it gets dark early.
But changing winter time to summer time is not going to make our winter days any longer. It just means the son won't be up until 9:45 (where I live at least). That is going to mess with our biological clocks. However arbitrary people think timezones are, our bodies have evolved to respond to the cycle of sunlight. Winter mornings are hard enough as it is. Keeping it dark for an hour longer is really not going to make them easier.
And to think all this fuss doesn't change the fact we still have 24 hrs. in a day.
Yes, it does.
Last Saturday had 25 hours. A Saturday in the spring had 23.
A standard time day is a legal construct, not a physical one.
And do you have ANY IDEA how much that complicates automated systems (like building energy management) that have to deal with getting things to happen at the right time for production schedules? *I* do. I had to write some of those programs. B-b doesn't even begin to express it.
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True, but parents often have to drop their kids off while heading to work. Later school hours would make such difficult. (Buses seem to be going away for some reason.)
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But changing winter time to summer time is not going to make our winter days any longer.
If you think this arguement has anything to do with changing the length of day then you've most fundamentally missed the point.
the son won't be up until 9:45 (where I live at least).
Great, so what you're saying is sunset won't be until a full hour later in the evening allowing you more daylight after work. That sounds very plesant.
That is going to mess with our biological clocks.
You're not a farmer, you don't get up at the crack of dawn and go to bed at sunset, and if you did you wouldn't be a farmer anyway. Literally no one in the world sets their awake / sleep time by the sun anymore, and if this is an issue for your may I recommend a set of curtains and a decent sunrise alarmclock.
However arbitrary people think timezones are, our bodies have evolved to respond to the cycle of sunlight
No. Your bodies have evolved well beyond that since the invention of the candle. Your biological clock actually works just fine in complete darkness or in full on daylight as well though studies have shown that it actually runs slightly slower than the average day consistently for all people and so when deprived of external stimulous after about 2 weeks you're clock is out by a couple of hours. Clocks fix that quite easily. Humans are incredibly adaptable to our environments. We live fine in areas of the world where the sun doesn't set or doesn't rise for half the year. I drive to work in pitch black and home in pitch black. In Summer I will happily sit and watch the sunset at 11:30pm if I feel like staying up late, otherwise there's no problem going to bed while the sun is still up either.
Winter mornings are hard enough as it is.
Get a heater. The only thing that makes winter mornings hard is the dread of cold outside the bed. But if you can't (and you legitimately might not be able to) cope with your sleep patterns not regulated by light, the fix is trivial. There's literally countless product on the market to help you.
I think you miss my point. I strongly suspect that many people, probably not in this discussion, but very likely in that EU poll, prefer summertime because of the association they have with summertime. But that's not going to work in winter.
I'm not sure why you think an hour of daylight after work is more valuable than an hour of daylight before work. I strongly prefer it being light when I get out of bed, and certainly by the time I go out the door. It doesn't have to be light when I go to bed or have dinner or anything like that. It being dark when I get leave work is not great, but some darkness is unavoidable in winter, and I prefer it being light when I need to become active over it being light when it's time to stop.
And no, our biological clock has not evolved since the invention of the candle. We have become better at fooling our biological clock with the invention of the candle, but that's not the same thing. Daylight still matters. Otherwise, why would we even be having this discussion?
But our biological clock being slightly slower than a real day, also means that daylight in the morning is more important than in the evening; that's when our clock resets. We have no problem dealing with darkness at the end of our day. See how eagerly people go to bed far past dusk, or even in the middle of the night. But most people do not like getting up before the crack of dawn. Artificial light could have meant we use more of our early morning, but we don't. Instead, we use more of our evening. We don't care so much about living in darkness at the end of the day, but we don't like darkness at the start of the day when we need to get active. And that's also the thing that makes winter mornings so hard: getting out of bed while it's still dark.
Here in the US we should, move out clocks to DST + 1hr so solar noon and clock noon are at the same time. Daylight will wax and wane as the seasons change, but there is not an excessive amount od daylight am or pm. But mostly, it's just logical.
^^ Wait until you find out that even within your own country there are different timezones, let alone other countries with even more timezones and an international date line and everything.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
If we all switch to UTC the businesses won't have a choice. They will have to establish new schedules everywhere out side of the EU anyway.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.