BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Daylight Saving Time - Nonsense or Energy Saver?

I see the USA has undergone the annual ritual of the turning of the clocks forward. Europe will follow in a few weeks, and I'm not sure what the rest of the world does.

When I was teaching a course on energy & environment, I looked around for evidence of energy saving, and there doesn't seem to be much. What little I found showed, at best, a small saving, and at worst, a cost, but mostly inconclusive. Considering all of the bother and bother involved, there is amazingly little research about whether it's of any use or not.

What do you think about daylight saving time?

I think it's baloney. The Native Americans in my area have a saying, "Only the white man would think that cutting off the top of a blanket and sewing it to the bottom hem will make it longer."

The paper by Kotchen & Grant (2008) showed daylight saving caused an overall slight increase in electricity usage in Indiana. But the 1% increase was an average - in the fall it was 2-4%. But electricity isn't the only use for energy. Some research showed an increase in car use, meaning that fuel use (& pollution) would be increased.

Daylight Saving Time does just relate to energy saving - or not. A number of studies show that there are other aspects of changing the clocks forward and back. Moving the clock forward is obviously disruptive to your sleep pattern. You will lose at least an hour's sleep. Maybe not so noticeable on Sunday morning, but certainly on Monday morning when you have to go to work. During the first week after changing the clocks forward, there's a notable increase in heart attacks.

You can read more about the effects here.

Here's an early April Fool. Very funny. I wonder if they got their inspiration from cartoonist Sidney Harris.