BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy California could get rid of daylight "saving"

This is a great idea. I hope it passes and that others follow suit. This playing around with the clocks twice a year is a nonsense.

When "daylight saving" was voted on in California over fifty years ago,


No evidence that any of this happens, and the society we live in now is quite different in its energy use and patterns of living.

What do you think?

So what do you like about turning the clocks forward and back?

And what about what you don't like about it?

For me . . .

[i]I hate losing the hour in the spring and have jet lag for a week, feeling tired and headachey.

And I hate the whole tiresome business of changing the clocks back and forth.

But I like having what autumn/winter light that's available in the afternoon. So I'd be happy to turn the clocks forward an hour and then just leave them alone.

Mona, I dislike resetting the clocks as well. It is difficult adjusting to the change in time in either direction. Perhaps we should just change our work hours to accommodate the light!

Daylight saving time doesn’t actually benefit anyone. Strangely, it’s still a thing!

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver asks, Daylight Saving Time - How Is This Still A Thing?

Mona, I want to chime in.

*My peeves are setting clocks back and forth.

*Getting back on track after losing an hour, even though I know an hour will be lost.

*I love the extended light at nights and would like to keep it that way.

I'm done complaining.

Chel

Saw this on Facebook:

Who came up with the brilliant idea of moving the clocks forward on the weekend. . .in the middle of the night?? Why not move them ahead on a Friday around 4PM?

Could make it more popular with working folk!

I wish they would do away with it. Time change is disruptive for children, pets, and everyone else.

Here's the abstract for a research paper that deals with the energy costs/savings of daylight time.

Matthew J. Kotchen, Laura E. Grant
NBER Working Paper No. 14429
Issued in October 2008
NBER Program(s):   EEE   PE

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've done the highlighting.)

This morning National Trust Rangers are very carefully moving one of the famous standing stones at the ancient Avebury World Heritage Site.

“Obviously Stone Age man didn’t have daylight saving, so twice a year we have to move one of the stones.” said Hilary Makins, National Trust Head Ranger.


The date on this story is . . . April 1 . . . but it fits nicely in this thread, I think. (The UK goes on daylight saving time tonight.)