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Heather Clancy
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Daylight Savings--A Time Whose Time Has Passed?

By | March 13, 2008, 11:18pm PDT

Daylight Savings Time was foisted off on an unsuspecting and credulous nation as a great idea back during the 1970s energy crisis. So Congress went ahead and expanded it,more of a good thing.

Indiana may be a state that is united in its love of basketball and corn fields that run to the edge of the horizon, but it’s annually divided by Daylight Savkings Time. Some Indiana counties are dry, others wet, in terms of DST. And from county-by-county comparisons in Indiana comes evidence that daylight savings time actually increases energy use.

Why does DST take more energy? Because people have to get up in the dark. We are not robins, or daffodils, who can regulate our doings based on sunlight. We operate in America on clock time. If you have to be at work at 8AM, that means getting up in the dark. Turning on lights, heater, etc. Duh.

One study found electric bills can go up as much as 4% because of DST. And that has nothing to dco with belief in global warming, or denialthereof. It;s just a little economic reality.

You can go here to join the argument on slashdot.

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Topics

Indiana, Daylight Saving Time, Harry Fuller

Disclosure

Harry Fuller

http://blogs.zdnet.com/green/?page_id=2

Biography

Harry Fuller

Harry Fuller is a media veteran, having spent decades in TV news in the San Francisco Bay Area. As GeneralManager of KPIX-TV (CBS) he founded one of the nation's first TV station websites in early 1995. He was News Direcor at TechTV when it was founded in 1998. In 2001 he moved to London to become Executive Producer for CNBC Europe. Four years later he returned to San Francisco as Executive Editor for CNET's news.com.

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Idea
John L. Ries 15th Mar 2008
Seems that what we really need to do is to get as many extremists as possible in favor of scrapping DST. Since nearly talk radio hosts and political bloggers nowadays seem to fall into this category, they can rally their own audiences against something that really is a dubious idea (for a change). "Rally the base" is still the dominant political strategy of both major parties, so that gives the extremes disproportionate influence.

I figure the right would be easy: DST is non-traditional anyway and the former Soviet Union has been on permanent DST for decades. It's also highly likely that a significant number of members of the Trilateral Commission (at least 5) have spoken in favor of DST at one time or another (a good way to get the John Birch Society to oppose anything). We could convince some of the more religiously included Conservatives that DST contrary to the law of God (after all, who created the sun and earth upon which our reckoning of time is based?), but that would call Standard Time into question also. Unfortunately, even the strictest construction of the US Constitution authorizes Congress to fix standards of weights and measures, so constitutional fundamentalists are unlikely to be any help on this issue.

The left is a bigger problem. All I can think of is to note that retailers tend to support DST since it encourages people to spend more time in the evenings shopping (an evil swindle against the working people!). Maybe environmentalists can be moved by the fact that the later it gets dark, the more driving people tend to do (we need to cut smog and greenhouse gas emissions somehow).
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0 Votes
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Or just have DST all the time
jfp 14th Mar 2008
I would much rather it be dark in the morning when I get up than in the afternoon when I leave work to go home. Though I agree it doesn't make things cheaper, but than it doesn't make it more expensive either because i'm going to turn the light on in the bathroom whether its sunny out or not.
0 Votes
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RE: Daylight Savings--A Time Whose Time Has Passed?
redtrain65 14th Mar 2008
How about the minor hit our bodies take adjusting to the time change and the loss of sleep once a year. The time it takes to reset all clocks, IT world... # of man hours it takes to do the time change, alter schedules so processes don't run twice or are not run at all when we jump ahead an hour. Testing, testing, testing.
It is just a dumb Government process that is out of touch with reality.
0 Votes
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Not much of a hassle
jfp 14th Mar 2008
Since I run an IT network, I don't have to adjust anything on my network since all of my software is current and corrects for DST.

For myself I don't lose sleep during DST, I actually gain it since I wake up an hour earlier all winter give me DST all year long.
0 Votes
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We've already ponied up the cost and hassel
carlino 14th Mar 2008
Except that when they changed the time DST started and ended all that software had to be patched to recognized the new days. My T5 still doesn't synchronize properly in the spring and fall during the new period of DST.
Now if congress realizes they've made a mistake IT will end up paying to patch everything back.
Better to bite the bullet one more time and just banish DST entirely forever.
0 Votes
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wrong myth...
ridingthewind 14th Mar 2008
That DST was started because of the 70's energy crisis is a myth. Other than the 2 World Wars, it was, for the most part, enacted in 1966.
The most recent myth - to change when it starts and ends - attempted to add credence to the myth that it would be good for energy saving.
There is an interesting petition you can sign to oppose DST (and one to improve the time zones as well) if you are interested in stopping the myth propogation at www.standardtime.com or the usual (ineffective?) write your congress-person...
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Not a myth, history
atowhee 14th Mar 2008
DST was NOT stsrted in energy crisis, it is much older...it was expanded to encompass more time during 70s because it was sold as an energy saver
0 Votes
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Yawn
Yagotta B. Kidding 14th Mar 2008
You people are still doing that? Weird.
0 Votes
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You don't live in Arizona, do you?
John L. Ries 15th Mar 2008
Amazing that the otherwise highly conservative state of Utah hasn't followed suit.

Seriously DST strikes me as a gimmick to encourage people to get up and go to bed an hour earlier than otherwise and gimmicks always involve complexity and reduced reliability. As such, it has long been my opinion that DST should be scrapped. If we retain it at all, it should be limited to the spring and summer months (start on the first Sunday after the Vernal Equinox; end on the first Sunday after the Autumnal Equinox).
0 Votes
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I think it's a good idea
ron.cleaver@... 14th Mar 2008
I love DST. It'so nice to have more daylight after work, to play with the kids or just sit outside and enjoy it.

Who cares about getting up and going to work in the dark? Not me!
0 Votes
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Bunker season
Yagotta B. Kidding 14th Mar 2008
I love DST. It'so nice to have more daylight after work, to play with the kids or just sit outside and enjoy it.

Gaaa -- who wants to sit outside in the heat?

You're giving up the only decent time of day (right around sunrise) in favor of lurking in the AC waiting for it to finally get dark and start to cool off.

Barf.
0 Votes
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Nothing stopping you...
John L. Ries 15th Mar 2008
...from getting up an hour earlier than otherwise on Standard Time. Would give you an extra hour to putter around (maybe even work out) before work.
0 Votes
+ -
Idea
John L. Ries 15th Mar 2008
Seems that what we really need to do is to get as many extremists as possible in favor of scrapping DST. Since nearly talk radio hosts and political bloggers nowadays seem to fall into this category, they can rally their own audiences against something that really is a dubious idea (for a change). "Rally the base" is still the dominant political strategy of both major parties, so that gives the extremes disproportionate influence.

I figure the right would be easy: DST is non-traditional anyway and the former Soviet Union has been on permanent DST for decades. It's also highly likely that a significant number of members of the Trilateral Commission (at least 5) have spoken in favor of DST at one time or another (a good way to get the John Birch Society to oppose anything). We could convince some of the more religiously included Conservatives that DST contrary to the law of God (after all, who created the sun and earth upon which our reckoning of time is based?), but that would call Standard Time into question also. Unfortunately, even the strictest construction of the US Constitution authorizes Congress to fix standards of weights and measures, so constitutional fundamentalists are unlikely to be any help on this issue.

The left is a bigger problem. All I can think of is to note that retailers tend to support DST since it encourages people to spend more time in the evenings shopping (an evil swindle against the working people!). Maybe environmentalists can be moved by the fact that the later it gets dark, the more driving people tend to do (we need to cut smog and greenhouse gas emissions somehow).

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