Welcome to Thinkday, formerly Tuesday, on What I’m Thinking About. Every Thinkday I will write about a topic that has been on my mind during the last week. I hope you will find the post informative and entertaining. In coming weeks you the readers of this blog will pick my topic, but today I am going to talk about something that has been annoying me since 2:00am Sunday morning. That’s right, Daylight Saving Time.
DST is one of those things that people either love or hate. Like most of you I hear the argument every year that DST helps us conserve energy, reduces traffic accidents, makes farms and gardens more efficient, and gives everyone a pony on their birthday…ok maybe not the last one; you get my point.
Daylight Saving Time, as we know it, was started roughly in 1918 with a revision of the Standard Time Act. The Standard Time Act was a piece of legislation originally passed in 1883 to establish a standard time, and four time zones, across the United States. This was necessary, as time was previously kept locally according to “sun time”, and didn’t always line up as trains traversed the country. So, in 1918 Congress passed a revision to the Act that shifted the time for one hour during a portion of the year. This was law for everyone in the country, whether you liked it or not.
The reasoning at the time was that people were sleeping during “good daylight” in the morning, and using “artificial light” for extended periods in the evening. It was estimated at the time that this would save $40,000,000 in the conservation of coal alone; that’s $565,052,539 in 2009. When you consider how much smaller the population was then, compared to today that is a huge savings per person. No wonder they initiated it. Interestingly enough, not everyone was pleased with the change, like today, and the law was amended giving power to each state to choose whether they would comply or not. The only thing the government, Department of Transportation actually, would mandate was a standard date and time to transition from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time, keeping everyone on the same page.
So, the States are actually in charge of whether you are required to observe DST, not the US Congress. In fact the only thing we can complain to Congress about is when they adjust the start and stop, such as in 2005, or during moments of crisis like the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and World War II. Beginning in 2005 DST gained four additional weeks, one at the beginning during the fall and three at the end, during spring. Congress is to blame for losing that hour of sleep each March, although not many people complain about the hour gained each November. I for one hate the change either way.
Like the flowers blooming and the leaves changing, each spring and fall a call for abolishing DST is heard around the country. This voice is getting louder each year and argues two main points: Mental wellbeing and skepticism over claimed energy savings. Many people state that the sudden time shift will adversely affect circadian rhythms, and can really mess with people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Trust me this is true; it really messes with those people. Many also point to the sudden shift as giving the whole country simultaneous jet lag that takes weeks to recover from. These arguments have merit and deserve study, but unfortunately not enough has been done to truly study, in a wide spread manner, the effect of DST on people’s mental wellbeing. Sure there have been studies done, but most of them are recent, lack an extended study period, and are not backed up by peer review.
Others question whether it really saves a significant amount of energy each year. When Congress was debating making a change in 2005, effective 2007, they commissioned a study on what kind of an impact extending DST would have on the nation’s energy consumption. They found that during the extra weeks proposed the nation would save .05 percent, a half percent, of electricity consumed. This would roll-up to a savings of .03 percent over the course of a year. In terms of “primary energy” consumption, this would equal a savings of .02 percent. Now none of these percentages sound that amazing, I mean really we are talking a savings of two to five cents for every ten dollars. But when you look at the sheer volume we are consuming in electricity and power that is a big impact. Now there have been studies completed recently that say otherwise due to air-conditioning usage, particularly one in Indiana, but these studies do not take into consideration abnormal weather patterns nor history, and do not have a control in their studies. I am not saying they are flawed, rather that there needs to be multiple studies, with larger samples that reach consensus before conclusions can be drawn.
When I started really thinking on this issue I was a firm believer that Daylight Saving Time was unnecessary, annoying, and quite honestly a health hazard for those suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. But I have to say that my opinion changed once I started researching and thinking about the bigger picture. I still find it annoying, but I can see the positive impact it can have. I think the system we have now isn’t perfect, and that the start and stop dates need to be reconsidered, my suggestion being the second week in October and the second week in April, but research would definitely need to be done. For those of you who point to Arizona and say, “but look at them they are fine without Daylight Saving Time”, I say, yeah but look at two things A) they have extremely hot summers and need an earlier dark time to cool off, and B) Arizona is much closer to the equator, particularly Phoenix and Tucson, than the majority of the United States, their exposure to direct sun light is significantly different.
Oh and one more thing, it is pronounced Daylight Saving Time, not “Savings Time”. And that is What I’m Thinking About today.
As a retired person it becomes less of a matter of saving anything. I have noticed that retired people sleep more than non-retired people. Going along that line, energy savings (electric and Gas) are not effected.
ReplyDeleteAs a child growing up in the northwest I as always told daylight saving time was to allow us to work in the garden and grow more things. It is hard to pull weeds in the dark, every plant feels the same (maybe not to adults). Milking cows in the dark works as you have something to hold on to, just the bucket in line. Gardening is best done in the light, sooo DST was good it your father sent you the garden at 6:00 AM.
A couple of things did happen this year that seem a little silly. My clock on the night stand changed to DST on Friday night, Not Saturday night. Being retired it took awhile to notice it. My computers asked if it was alright to change the time, as if it mattered to the computer.
Keep up the Blog gets us old people thinking about things other than whatever old people are suppose to think about.