Extended daylight saving time: Bah, humbug

[CatWoman]

Those of us who woke up in the dark this morning supposedly have a right to feel virtuous. The extension of daylight saving time in the United States is intended by Congress to save electricity. The principle behind DST is that a society can conserve power by not wasting any daylight hours on the sleeping multitudes. As spring has approached, we've come perilously close to such reckless behavior. But no more!

The attraction to lawmakers of this kind of wave the magic wand and electricity use declines without anyone having to sacrifice anything is obvious. But does the theory hold true when DST starts cutting into the traditional domain of winter?

A recently published study by researchers at the University of California says no. (Thanks to Economist's View's Mark Thoma for passing on a link to the study provided by Environmental Economics.) Using data from Australia in 2000, when several states extended daylight saving time for two months for logistical reasons related to Australia's hosting of the Olympics, the researchers come to a contrarian conclusion. (One state refused to go along due to rural protest, providing a handy control for comparison purposes.)

Electricity use was not conserved in the extended DST states. Instead, consumption patterns revealed a new, sharp spike in morning electricity use, as Australians woke in the dark and cold, turned on the heat, and started flipping on switches. Electricity demand actually rose.

The argument is not against daylight saving time per se, but against extending it too far into the winter, and forcing people to awaken in the frigid, barren wee hours of the morning. There appears to be an optimum time to tweak our clocks, and we may be pushing the boundaries of what works.

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/?last_story=/tech/htww/2007/03/12/daylight_savings_time/

[bryant69]

1. I agree.

This early Daylight Savings times is stupid and counterproductive.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[tridim]

2. As an RC pilot I love it! Now I can fly after work.

More daylight is also good for the psyche after a long, cold, gray winter. IMO we should stop daylight savings all together, but that's probably because I wake up at 8:00 and not 6:00.

[whistle]

3. My computer clock which is Windows XP Dell Computer that I obtained

....direct from Dell just 18 months ago did not change the time

[benld74]

5. Thats because the DST patch did not come out until Mid Feb this year, download it.

[Lex]

14. My Dell that is several years old and runs XP changed just fine.

nt

[Xenotime]

4. I absolutely hate the fact...

that I have to do something * signed into order.

[IChing]

6. Elsewhere, in recognition of Daylight Savings Time, President Bush

set the country back 70 years to Nazi Germany standard time.

[TahitiNut]

7. Indeed. We should all go back to local time. This "Standard Time" is just bullshit.

It's a damned pain in the ass when my sundial is far more accurate.

[whistle]

9. One degree latitude from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle

varies between 30 miles to 69 miles so in effect there would be 360 time zones or morse based on solar time and season. But it did work quite well before the invention of transcontinental railways.

[TahitiNut]

10. With GPS, there's no reason we can't have local time accurate to the second.

After all, it's all about the apparent position of the sun! The clocks in our cars (and on our wrists) can work in conjunction with GPS and give us accurate local time no matter where we are.

"Zones"? We don't need no freaking "zones"!

[whistle]

13. That is correct, but what is the advantage to that as every degree of latitude traveled

...would represent four minutes. Would that in fact help navigation or hinder it? It would certain cause complete chaos on the ground

[TahitiNut]

17. Who needs navigation when we've got GPS?

After all, what's most important is the relative position of the sun. People who don't like a change in local time can restrict their travels to north-south.

I'm tired of all them people in New York City getting sunshine at an earlier 'time' than we get it here in Detroit! It ain't fair! Even the people in Chicago get sunshine earlier and they're on the other side of us. It just ain't fair! Just this morning, New York City got sunshine 37 minutes earlier than we did! Chicago got it 42 minutes earlier than we did! Detroit got screwn! (Not as bad as CatWoman, though. We got our sunshine 2 minutes earlier than she did!)


Trivia: Detroit didn't change from local time to 'standard' time until about 107 years ago.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

8. For white collar convenience only

All kinds of employees in health care, manufacturing, foodservice, hospitality etc - not to mention education - work day shifts that start hours earlier than those of office and other white-collar employees. The earlier time shift is of no help to them.

edit for typo

[Faux pas]

11. There's nothing like the sun being up late into the evening in the

summer to save electricity :sarcasm: with all those air conditioner running all night long.

[Lex]

15. I'm pretty sure the sun is up the same amount of time.

The time is changed is all.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. The whole daylight savings thing

is pretty amusing in a place like Alaska where in the summer (here in Anchorage) the sun rises about 4:30 a.m. and sets around 11:30. It wouldn't make a whole lot of difference if the sun was rising at 3:30 and setting at 10:30, except maybe we could get the kids to come in from playing outside a little sooner.

Up in Barrow the sun doesn't set for two months, so it's REALLY a moot issue up there.

[northofdenali]

19. Yep, Blue - see my post below -

:rofl:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. In Japan, without daylight saving

the sky starts lighting up at 4:30AM and is pitch dark by 8:00PM--in the middle of the summer.

I never understood the rationale for DST until I experienced that.

[Parche]

16. SLEEP

OH MEOW!!!!! :rofl:

[northofdenali]

18. It's basically moot up here!

Today: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=81 Today in Fairbanks:

Sunrise at 8:21 AM in direction 96° East by south
Sunset at 7:42 PM in direction 264° West
Duration of day: 11 hours, 21 minutes (6 minutes, 44 seconds longer than yesterday)
Sun in south at 2:01 PM at altitude 22° above horizon

We're gaining more than 6 minutes a day now, it'll be up to 7 soon. The feds screwed with our time zones back when Big Oil asked them to (reduced from 4 to 2); we used to be 5 hours behind the East Coast, now it's 4, and with DST, we're 2 hours off schedule.

On June 21st we'll play minor league baseball (Go, Goldpanners!) at midnight without lights.

The only reason we have to go on DST is to stay level with the lower 48. I don't mind it, but when we go off it, we get up in the dark and come home from work in the dark. That's also moot in midwinter when we only get about 3 1/2 hours of daylight, most of which is really dusk! Here's a timed photo of sunrise to sunset on December 21, looking at the horizon -



CatWoman, how are your kitties? I have a new one! :hi:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

20. Not Sure About The Energy Savings, But On A Personal Level I Love It!

Gimme sunlight babyyyyyyyy!!

[gravity]

21. I just like it being light outside later

I always rediscover the outdoors whenever daylight savings time comes. It's just depressing when it gets dark so early.

[etherealtruth]

23. DST S-U-C-K-S

I would like to shake all the congress critters that voted for this until their veneered teeth rattle.

*Obviously, I deal with the time change very poorly.