The Case Against Daylight Savings Time
The need to change the clocks twice a year to accommodate Daylight Savings Time is unquestionably annoying. But it’s alleged to save energy. But does it? Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant of University of California at Santa Barbara say no in “Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Indiana”. The abstract:
The history of Daylight Saving Time (DST) has been long and controversial. Throughout its implementation during World Wars I and II, the oil embargo of the 1970s, consistent practice today, and recent extensions, the primary rationale for DST has always been to promote energy conservation. Nevertheless, there is surprisingly little evidence that DST actually saves energy. This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment in the state of Indiana to provide the first empirical estimates of DST effects on electricity consumption in the United States since the mid-1970s. Focusing on residential electricity demand, we conduct the first-ever study that uses micro-data on households to estimate an overall DST effect. The dataset consists of more than 7 million observations on monthly billing data for the vast majority of households in southern Indiana for three years. Our main finding is that—contrary to the policy’s intent—DST increases residential electricity demand. Estimates of the overall increase are approximately 1 percent, but we find that the effect is not constant throughout the DST period. DST causes the greatest increase in electricity consumption in the fall, when estimates range between 2 and 4 percent. These findings are consistent with simulation results that point to a tradeoff between reducing demand for lighting and increasing demand for heating and cooling. We estimate a cost of increased electricity bills to Indiana households of $9 million per year. We also estimate social costs of increased pollution emissions that range from $1.7 to $5.5 million per year. Finally, we argue that the effect is likely to be even stronger in other regions of the United States.
I say: scrap it. Something approximating real time is good enough.
75 Responses to “The Case Against Daylight Savings Time”
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March 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
To me the purpose of DST is to have more of the lengthened summer day take place while we’re awake and can enjoy it…Otherwise, at its earliest around the summer solstice the sun is rising at 4:20 in the morning (here in Portland close to the 45th parallel).
March 8th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
You don’t need to have energy savings for DST; it’s just an inherently good idea. Most people aren’t awake at 6-7 am, but everyone is awake at 8 pm, and that’s prime leisure time as well. Why not adjust the daylight hours so it’s not dark outside during most people’s non-work hours? As for the annoyance in adjusting clocks, you could just permanently have DST. It’s never been explained to me why you want an hour longer of light in the summer but not the winter.
March 8th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I say: Keep it.
Whatever time best coordinates the time of day when there is sunlight to the time of day that people want sunlight is, for social purposes, the real time.
Physicists and astronomers and computer scientists can plug formulas into their fancy computers if they want some scientific construct of time.
March 8th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
DST might increase energy demand, but my guess is that it also increases physical activity. It is difficult to go for a jog when the sun sets 15 minutes after I get off work. The extra sunlight in the evening makes me much more active.
Considering out country’s physical activity level, any extra sunlight in the evening should be encouraged.
March 8th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
As for the annoyance in adjusting clocks, you could just permanently have DST. It’s never been explained to me why you want an hour longer of light in the summer but not the winter.
Because you also get an hour less daylight in the morning. This doesn’t matter in June, as 4:20 vs. 5:20 in the morning doesn’t affect msot people.
But most people don’t want it dark ouside at 7 am or later, which is what happens if you use DST in the winter.
March 8th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
As someone who works from 9:00am to 5:30pm in a windowless office, I greatly appreciate the extra sunlight provided by Daylight Savings Time. I say keep it. I would, however, recommend that we change the name of Daylight Savings Time to “Standard Time” and change the name of what is currently called “Standard Time” to “Daylight Deprivation Time”.
March 8th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
It’s not a bad idea, but starting it he first week in March is way, way, way, too early. The sun actually rose later this morning in San Francisco, 7:31 AM, that it did at any time in the dead of winter. That is absolutely insane.
March 8th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
FYI the authors of this study wrote a letter to the NYTimes that’s a little more accessible: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/opinion/20kotchen.html?ref=opinion
March 8th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
The idea that you can run a ‘natural’ experiment on time zones in Indiana seems fucked up from the start.
(Taking a glance at the methodology, I can see what they’re doing — comparing data for the counties that switched between DST and standard time — but time zone decisions in Indiana are mostly based upon the situation in bordering states.)
March 8th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I work at home, set my own hours, don’t wear a watch, and have clients in three different time zones, none of which is mine. I never know what time it is, anyway. Nor do I care. Unless you change the time by eight hours, I probably won’t even notice.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
The sun actually rose later this morning in San Francisco, 7:31 AM, that it did at any time in the dead of winter. That is absolutely insane.
Here it rose here at 7:21 which is exactly one whole minute later than the low point in December. And it will rise earlier by a minute or two everyday from now until June. I don’t see that as a problem.
But most people don’t want it dark ouside at 7 am or later, which is what happens if you use DST in the winter.
See above.
I’d be fine if we adjusted our clocks monthly to keep the sunset at its summer high point which is about 8:30 here!
March 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Here it rose here at 7:21 which is exactly one whole minute later than the low point in December. And it will rise earlier by a minute or two everyday from now until June. I don’t see that as a problem.
Well, aside from personally hating waking up when it’s dark, I’ve seen some statistics that there are more traffic accidents and that it’s more dangerous for children walking to school when it’s darker outside. Perhaps someone less lazy than I can find these. 7:30 AM is very late for the sun to rise.
I just think there has to be a middle ground where we don’t set it back so early in the year that it turns into the dead of winter all over again. The previous system of April and October worked for me. Extending it seemed unnecessary.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
And then I left a comment all in italics. You see what DST is doing to me???
March 8th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
What’s with the unnecessary dishonesty? The environmental effect is ambiguous at best but the economic effects aren’t. More sunlight in the afternoon means substantially more shopping time and higher spending. You should at least compare this positive economic effect to your suspect environmental hypothesis before making any reasonable judgment of DST. Of course 1.5-5.5 million dollars of economic costs, with all its positive externalities, is nothing compared to an equally large “social” benefit from reduced pollution.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Re: Most people aren’t awake at 6-7 am, but everyone is awake at 8 pm, and that’s prime leisure time as well.
Perhaps the Yglesian hipsters aren’t awake till 8 o’clock, but those of us who don’t spend every night at the club, tend to wake up at a decently early hour.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Also keep people like me in mind, if you would, who suffer from some variation of SAD–I dread the winter months and wait anxiously for DST because it drastically affects my mood.
Though ironically I can’t particularly enjoy DST time today because the sky has been overcast for the entire day…doesn’t make much of a difference.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
“I probably won’t even notice.”
Okay that’s not quite true, I have some clocks that automatically update, and some that don’t. When I woke up this afternoon, I noticed that my clocks read different times. After a few weeks, I’ll be annoyed enough by this that I’ll reset the clocks that didn’t reset themselves. That won’t change the fact that I’ll be working at 3AM (or is it 4AM?) and sleeping at noon.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Perhaps the Yglesian hipsters aren’t awake till 8 o’clock, but those of us who don’t spend every night at the club, tend to wake up at a decently early hour.
Lots of your (and my) beloved proletariat types work night hours, H.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Is the only argument against DST that it’s “annoying” to change the clocks? It’s not that annoying.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
So why don’t we just use Muslim Time? The only times in my life when I actually conform to normal time behavior is when I’m in a Muslim country. I adjust my schedule to the Calls to Prayer. Wherever you are, you’ll always hear them. And trust me, when you’re hungover, the Fajr (prayer at the first sign of morning light) will rock your world. I learned that one after going to clubs in Istanbul (more Raki than Ataturk could drink) and going back to my hotel which was situated very close to the Blue Mosque. After that, I adjusted my schedule.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
One of the best things about living in Arizona is not having to switch, but in Phoenix it would be better to switch the opposite way: move it forward in the winter when it’s nice out, and backwards in the summer when it’s freaking 112.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
those of us who don’t spend every night at the club, tend to wake up at a decently early hour.
Got to feed your imaginary horse, Brave Sir Hector?
March 8th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
GRRRR.
I get up at five (am, you clowns). Now it won’t get light until 7:00 or so. It’s not the change of DST, it’s that we keep jiggering with it. It was in April, and has crept back to early March? (And the wretched Candy Lobby actually got it moved to after Halloween…. no really, http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/an-extra-hour-of-daylight-thank-the-candy-lobby/?hp )
I bet studies would show the murder rate goes up after the Time Change….
March 8th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
We’ve talked about this before, but there’s always the Chinese approach: one semi-arbitrary time zone everywhere, and everyone works around it, changing schedules to fit the seasons. (People on opposite coasts who have to collaborate or be hooked into events 3000 miles away already manage that.) It might even make AnachroHector happy.
Fucks over Alaska and Hawaii, but them’s the rubs.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Residential Electricity demand? Thats just stupid since residential electricity usage is such part of electrical usage.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
One vote for the sun setting between seven and eight every night, with bimonthly or monthly adjustments
March 8th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I don’t mean to go all Canute on y’all, but isn’t changing the clocks so the sun comes up at a different time sort of, well, silly? Granted, I live in Arizona, where we resist the temptation.
And energy isn’t the only excuse that’s been used. I remember being told it was for schoolkids catching buses, for farmers, and so commuters didn’t have to drive into the sun.
As for the Indiana experiment, did the survey adjust for location? After all, the impact of a time change is going to be different in the eastern part of the zone question, than in the western. Have to remember that time zones are chunks, whereas sunrise/sunset actually roll gradually westward.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
The energy saving thing was always a hoax.
Daylight savings is popular because it gives working people more daylight when they are off work. More time to putter in the yard, play golf or time to get to the beach for sunset. For millions of reasons almost all having to do with leisure time for adults daylight savings makes perfect sense. Only the most out of touch elitists or the obsessively rational could possibly object.
The reason not to have it in winter was always based upon something that was not a lie, even if it is not quite as relevant today. That was having kids on their way to school in the dark.
The current compromise giving the maximum number of daylight savings days ever is based upon overwhelming popular support for daylight savings time. Deal with it.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
What Adam (2) said.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
“Perhaps the Yglesian hipsters aren’t awake till 8 o’clock, but those of us who don’t spend every night at the club, tend to wake up at a decently early hour.”
Uh…what? Presumably, you as well as I work a normal job on a normal schedule, which is generally something around 9-5:30. Barring an awful commute this requires getting up at 8:15 or so. Even an hour earlier if you work 8-5 with a full hour lunch and at no point in the year are you leaving the house while it’s dark, at least where I live.
Of course, my bosses aren’t assholes and they have flex time, so I usually work 9:45-6:30 and sleep in a bit. I guess that makes me a hipster, though I can’t say I live remotely near any clubs.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
“But most people don’t want it dark ouside at 7 am or later, which is what happens if you use DST in the winter.”
7am is fine. 8 is too late, perhaps. But still better than getting dark at 4:30.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Those of us with SAD celebrate this day the way Evangelicals celebrate Easter.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
geez, nice analysis– one factor: energy usage one resource: this paper.
im a bike commuter. i get to ride in the light in the morning, but from october to (now) march, i ride home in the dark every worknight. so i welcome the arrival of dst with much enthusiasm.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Ways to save energy
March 8th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
First, it’s a tiny annoyance to shift clocks, but ever so tiny. Second, the energy loss shouldn’t be taken for granted based on this one paper. But even if it’s true, it’s because people actually are freer to get outside. Isn’t that a good thing? Sure, we could pass a law just locking people in their homes, whatever the time zone, but is that really the best way to save energy?
If it’s annoying, in fact, keep DST year round. When I leave work, and it’s already dark, or will be dark in moments, it deadens my spirit and does shrink my universe. It’s harder to make myself walk a mile across town for an event, to see friends, or just to enjoy myself and have dinner somewhere new. The light in my eyes an hour before I intend to get up is that much more annoying.
I suspect indeed that most supposed SAD is not about natural light but about that sense of powerlessness. Maybe bloggers don’t feel it. Maybe they should remember they’re not typical working people.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
After all, the impact of a time change is going to be different in the eastern part of the zone question, than in the western. Have to remember that time zones are chunks, whereas sunrise/sunset actually roll gradually westward.
It picks a set of counties that went from no-DST to DST, and picks another group as a control. As I hinted upthread, things are complicated in Indiana for lots of reasons, not least because the northwest portion of the state (as the primary made clear) is basically Chicago commuter country (i.e. Central Time), and the southern portion has a commuter relationship with northern Kentucky, particularly the bit just over the Ohio River from Louisville (Eastern Time).
That study focuses on a group of southern counties which started observing DST — one set in the eastern portion went from pure EST to EST+DST, another in the western corner went from EST to CST+DST. It makes clear that it’s only examining one variable — and arguing that the old Franklin sunlight vs. candlelight argument is now offset by the cost of residential heating and A/C. Which, I suppose, gives other researchers a set of results to feed into a broader study.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
“but there’s always the Chinese approach”
How about the Indian approach? They have one time zone, but it’s a half hour off. I don’t care much about time, but sometimes it’s important. That half hour is really annoying because I can’t ever remember which way it goes. When you’re trying to send a Fax to the US and it doesn’t go through because nobody’s there for another 30 minutes, it’s annoying. But hey, at least someone will bring you some tea while you’re waiting.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
As far as I’m concerned we should just pick one, either one and stick with it. I don’t care if it’s DST or regular time, just stop fraking around with the clocks. The time change throws me every time it happens, so I want it to stop.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I’ve always opposed Daylight Savings Time because the extra hour of sunlight fades and deteriorates fabrics more quickly. I don’t want to have to replace my curtains and awnings so often.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
If you think this is an alternative to getting rid of it – and not, in fact, the exact same thing – you’re an idiot who can’t be trusted to speak intelligently on the subject.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
““but there’s always the Chinese approach”
Actually I say the opposite: the problem is the Eastern Time zone is way too wide. Maine should properly be on Atlantic time, and it’s completely arbitrary that Indiana and Alabama are on the same longitude but two different zones.
The half hour thing has some merit (Newfoundland does it as well- although I’m not sure that counts as an endorsement)
March 8th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Kolohe has a point: Indiana is in a strange position, right at the edge of a time zone. When I lived in Michigan, the switch to daylight savings time meant plunging my morning commute back into pre-dawn darkness. and trying to get to sleep with the sun still up in the summer. Basically, daylight savings time is moving Michigan into the Atlantic time zone, which is crazy. While in Boston, it’s great, because we’re more or less supposed to be in the Atlantic time zone anyway. Sunrise is at 7:08am today in Boston, 8:05 in Kalamazoo.
March 8th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I find the anti-DST people just plain weird. If it’s a problem for you to change clocks, or to adjust your schedule, I’m okay with that, and the answer is to make DST year-round. Getting rid of it, making sure we have more early morning daylight for 19th century farmers, really doesn’t make much sense nowadays. Just make it permanent year-round.
March 8th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
What exactly is the logic in making DST year round? Can’t we just get rid of it entirely and you change your schedule by an hour for the same effect?
March 8th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
“What exactly is the logic in making DST year round? Can’t we just get rid of it entirely and you change your schedule by an hour for the same effect?”
Well, most people’s schedules aren’t really that flexible, particularly their work hours. If all of society started going to bed and working an hour earlier, I suppose you could get rid of DST. But really isn’t that a much less feasible solution than just implementing it?
March 8th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
You guys understand that DST doesn’t actually add an hour of daylight? The hours are the exact same.
If you want more daylight, you could just get up earlier. There is no law saying businesses have to work 9-5 either. They could just as easily work 6-2, for example, which I think was the factory schedules when there were factories.
In northern climates you still are going to get very little daylight in December and quite a bit in June.
I find getting up and going to work in the dark much more depressing than leaving the office when its dark. Then again I live in the center of a big city and there are plenty of brightly lit stores, restaurants, and bars in the evening when I live, though obviously none are open before 8 AM. There is no lawn for me to sit out on or barbecue on after work, and I don’t play golf. Different people have different preferences for when they want daylight, but to some extent they can adjust this by changing their sleeping patterns. It would be nice if the clocks reflected the preferences of people who had the least choice in the matter.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Well, most people’s schedules aren’t really that flexible, particularly their work hours. If all of society started going to bed and working an hour earlier, I suppose you could get rid of DST. But really isn’t that a much less feasible solution than just implementing it?
Still don’t get it. Work hours are as they are now because someone set them up to be as they are now, presumably for some sort of reason. If we changed the clock, that reason would still exist, so people would presumably conserve their activities to sun-time rather than changing to match clock-time.
March 8th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
On Realist’s point: the reason I invoked the Chinese example — the Republic’s five time zones were merged into one by the PRC (Beijing time, UTC+8) and the DST experiment in the late 80s was abandoned after five years. Most people out in the west of China work to the hours that make most sense for the season, though rapid urban/industrialization is forcing more co-ordination with the east in places.
But there’s no reason why states and counties shouldn’t change their hours of business for local stuff, instead of changing their time zones.
They could just as easily work 6-2, for example, which I think was the factory schedules when there were factories.
Six-till-two, two-till-ten, ten-till-six. I grew up around people whose lives were lived on that schedule, which, at least, usually gave you a couple of hours of sunlight outside work, even in the dead of winter.
March 9th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Iran conducted such an experiment nation-wide a few years ago. Ahmadinejad thought that there is no evidence for energy conservation for date time saving. After a year the Iranian parliment reverted back to DST.
the related news
As far as I remember, the problem is not exactly energy conservation but it’s reducing or shifting the energy consumption during on-peak hours.
some try to address this issue with dynamic pricing of electricity.
March 9th, 2009 at 4:35 am
I don’t know that Indiana’s a good state to use as the basis for a study on Savings Time and energy effects.
Indiana’s almost entirely in the Eastern time zone, but it really should be Central to begin with. (Alabama, which is almost directly south of Indiana, is entirely in the Central zone.)
The effect of savings time is to adopt the standard time of the next time zone to the east. So Indiana’s shift to savings time turns its clocks a second time zone east of what would be natural. You’d get more need to use more lighting in the morning in Indiana as a result of Savings Time than you would elsewhere, and workers during the summer would effectively be arriving home in the heat of the afternoon, resulting in more energy use for home cooling as a result of Savings Time than would be the case elsewhere.
So I’m going to take the Indiana study with a grain of salt. It’s a convincing rebuttal to the proposition that if shifting your clocks one hour for savings time is good, then two hours must be even better. But nobody’s making that claim to begin with.
As for what DST is all about, what rapier said at 28. We like our surplus daylight in the evening, not in the morning.
March 9th, 2009 at 6:40 am
DST is a great thing. The trees and shrubs around my house really thrive with that extra hour of light!
March 9th, 2009 at 6:50 am
It seems like everyone is over thinking DLS thing….. let’s just move it a half hour and leave it alone. Done! We all know that by the time you get your briefcase, coffee, check the thermostat,lights, oh, is the front door locked? Better leave the porch door unlocked encase FedX or UPS delivers,get all your stuff into the car, double check the thermostat, um……turn off the coffee pot…..Now where was I? Oh! Hey! a half hour is gone.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:39 am
I think we should have DOUBLE Daylight Savings Time.
DDST would be from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
I know it would waste a lot of energy but it would be wonderful to get up as the sun is getting up and then having the sun stay out an extra hour at night.
OK Macy’s would have to start the fireworks at 10:15 instead of 9:15 but wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the sun up at 9:30?
Of course, you can’t have the sun get up at 5:40 in the morning and wake you up on a lazy summer day. Wait, that is a good thing too.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Rapier in 28 seems persuasive to me. However, I’m opposed to DST this year because it made me miss the first half-hour of Watchmen. I thought I was all punctual and on-top-of-things, getting to the theater half an hour early. I get in there to pick up my ticket and the usher tells me I’m half an hour late. Stupid DST.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Fostert,
India isn’t the only place that has half-hour time zone. Newfoundland, Venezuela, and maybe some other places as well. Unbelievably, Nepal appears to have a 15 minute offset from India (i.e. they’re on the 3/4 hour). Perhaps it was done just to be different from their behemoth neighbor, I don’t know.
As people have said above, why don’t we just have businesses and the government alter work and school schedules in the summer to be an hour earlier? That would make more sense than changing the clock to fit our schedules.
March 9th, 2009 at 11:48 am
If you want to get up and hour earlier in the summer time, get up an hour earlier. Just don’t make me do it.
I think a better idea would be to work an hour longer in winter and an hour less in summer.
Daylight Savings Time is unnatural. Get rid of it.
Fay
March 9th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Wow! what an idea ! What a concept ! Beautiful .. Amazing
March 9th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
This was a good natural experiment of a rural area on the western extreme of the eastern time zone. It found that daylight time had a very minor negative impact. But we have no idea if the same results would be found in an urban area or an area in the center or other extreme of a time zone.
It is a good study, but it provides no guidance as to what would be the results if you just changed the environment just a little.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I moved to the States from Ireland where, in the summer, there’s still light in the sky up 10.30pm. I have waited for bated breath for the arrival of DST and a bit of decent light in the evenings. Getting up earlier is unrealistic – there’s not much you can do in the morning when nothing is open and you have to go to work anyway. I say an extra hour of DST please.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
The point of DST is not to save energy, silly, but to save money on corporate electric bills. They want to keep “9 to 5″ in the daylight (most people I know work “8 to 4″ or “7 to 3″ these days – but you get the point).
Of course, this means that by the time you get home from work in the winter you have to turn on all of your lights.
There are no savings in this scheme for you and me. We actually lose out, as per usual, so the corporations can save a few dollars.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I don’t care what the stated purpose of DST is, I love DST. I see many comments here that echo my personal feelings. I get more exercise; I am not normally up and about at 6 or 7 a.m.; I like being able to experience daylight when I am finished with my workday/school day; I like going to bed later; I like having the ability to do more outdoor things (whatever I choose, working in the yard or exercising or just playing with my dogs). I play tennis year-round and DST is cheaper for me because I don’t have to pay the outrageous court fees at indoor centers. I like to ride by bike. I could go on and on and on and on…….. I like my my daylight!!! I like my sun!!!
March 9th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I am so much happier when I can leave work and go home with the sun still out that I would prefer to keep DST, or even make it year round, regardless of the economic or social cost. I guess I’d be willing to incur costs of about $10,000 a year for more sunlight! What’s the annual cost of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and how much does DST mitigate that cost? Maybe there’s a way to price this, but I can’t think of one.
March 9th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Speaking as someone who lives and works in South Central Indiana … DST completely SUCKS here. Nearly everyone (except golfers) hate it. It is very unpopular. Not changing time worked great for our location. Putting our sunrise and sunset on the same time with NYC is flat-out retarded. Of course, it took a Republican Gov. to implement something this unpopular.
When I lived in California and Virginia, it wasn’t a problem. Location, location, location.
March 9th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Think I’ll just sit back and await that massive groundswell of anti-DST sentiment to wash over the country. What’s that you say? There isn’t a massive anti-DST sentiment? Alrighty then; I’ll enjoy my endless summer twilight, thank you very much.
March 9th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
We should dump DST. But, to make the impact of year-round standard time less problematic, we should move everything back 30 minutes, one-half hour, in the fall and just leave it there. It would be a hassle, but only once.
March 9th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
My biggest beef with springing forward is that I invariably end up being a zombie the following morning at work. Readjusting my circadian rhythms to match the whims of our Clock Overlords is a lot of effort for me. Why can’t we spring forward on Saturday mornings, as a rule?
March 9th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I say: scrap it. Something approximating real time is good enough.
I say scrap standard time, and just stick with DST. And perhaps double down as per #53’s suggestion. I loves me some light in the evening, and don’t care about a bit of morning darkness. You can always muddle through if you’re at work anyways.
March 9th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Indiana is an anomaly. Based on the sun, it should be on central time, but it’s chosen to be on eastern time (presumably because they think it’s economically beneficial to be in sync with Ohio and points east). So at the beginning and end of the daylight savings time period, the sun rises very, very late in Indiana.
Take a look at a time zone map and you’ll see what I mean when I say that Indiana (and most of Michigan, too) should be in the Central Time Zone:
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/timezone.htm
March 9th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Indiana is an anomaly. Based on the sun, it should be on central time, but it’s chosen to be on eastern time (presumably because they think it’s economically beneficial to be in sync with Ohio and points east). So at the beginning and end of the daylight savings time period, the sun rises very, very late in Indiana.
Utah is in the same boat — on the western edge of the Mountain Time Zone. The sun rose this morning at 7:50 (so they say — it’s snowing and no one has seen it yet).
I bike for exercise, and having kids, that only really works in the morning. So I am hating DST right about now, because it is now dark when I leave and dark when I return.
If I golfed, or if I was still a kid, I would love DST completely.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Nepal appears to have a 15 minute offset from India (i.e. they’re on the 3/4 hour). Perhaps it was done just to be different from their behemoth neighbor, I don’t know.
I don’t know the history of it, but I suspect it’s a sovereignty thing. It’s a mind-bender to work out times outside Nepal when you’re there. (The biggest TZ jump is on the Afghan-Chinese border, from UTC+0430 to UTC+0800.)
And yeah, it’s always seemed weird to me that Detroit is in Eastern time.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Everything anybody says in favor of DST is just so much horse manure. It is one of the most irritating, nonsensical idiocies I have ever encountered. For heaven’s sake! If you want to get up earlier in the summer, do so! But why in the name of all gods great and small do you want to force the whole world to comply with your silliness? Leave time alone! Stop giving me mild jet lag twice a year!
March 10th, 2009 at 8:21 am
I don’t care either way, but my daughter likes to walk the 2 blocks to her bus. As soon as it’s warm enough to walk, it’s pitch black in the morning.
I think we should split the difference (30 minutes) and keep it that way year round.
March 10th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I wonder if the study considers the fact that Indiana is on the western edge of a time zone. I live on the eastern edge of a time zone, and I love DST b/c it preserves more light, but I don’t think I’d mind all that much losing DST if I were fifty miles to my west in Indiana.
April 11th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
DST is outdated it doesn’t save anything and even
increases the rate of heart attacks and accidents.
For small kids or people with sleep problems it is hell.
http://www.standardtime.com