Permanent DLST ... not!

Between January and September in 1974, President Richard Nixon made
daylight saving time permanent for a brief period. Public Domain

Yet another "great" 2022 quote from yours truly ... The move by the senate to make daylight savings time permanent is a testimony to pols not understanding what happened the last time this switch was implemented as the response by the public was unanimous. It sucked. Yours truly was living in NYC at the time and the months in darkness were a total drag without question. Seems this rube was not alone in his sentiment as millions complained and the DLST initiative was quashed. DLST of the standard time variety does work as it aligns with the circadian biorhythms of life on earth so if congress wants to do something actually useful for a change, make standard time the norm and be done with it. As an aside, this reminds one of the fiasco of the US trying to go metric whereby Congress should have said, by such and such a date, metric becomes the law of the land but NOOOOO, the US vacillated and nothing of consequence was ever done.

In February 1974, eighth and ninth graders board the bus at seven a.m. in the dark to head for Drake Junior High School in Denver, Colorado. Image: Denver Post / Contributor Denver Post

Yet another reason why DLST does not work, especially in winter.

As fall approaches, so too does the end of daylight savings time (DST). On November 2nd, the hour between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. will happen twice. When we all wake up Sunday morning, we’ll find it’s an hour earlier than it feels like it should be. Then, we’ll go about our day with a blissful extra hour of time. 

For DST enthusiasts, this represents a sad day that brings an earlier sunset and the start of the dreary winter months. For DST haters (like your correspondent), it represents the annual reclamation of the hour of sleep that was stolen from us six months earlier. Either way, the annual spring forward/fall back cycle remains as controversial and largely unpopular as it has ever been.

The consensus amongst sleep experts and researchers is that we’d be best served just dropping the whole idea of DST and returning to plain old standard time (“ST”) throughout the year. But there’s another possibility: What if it was daylight savings time all year round?

Well, that actually happened in the mid 1970s.  & it sucked ...

In closing ... Humans are diurnal, so our natural inclination is to be most active during daylight hours. As such, it makes sense that we’re given to rising with the sun and going to sleep once it sets. Weed explains that waking up before the sun disrupts this rhythm: “We need light in the morning to regulate the circadian clock,” she says. “Compared to Standard Time, permanent DST has darker mornings, which can make it more difficult to stay in sync.” In other words, we are slaves to the sun.

Any questions?

Daylignt Savings Time/365/Not

The move by the senate to make daylight savings time permanent is a testimony to pols not understanding what happened the last time this switch was implemented as the response by the public was unanimous. It sucked. Yours truly was living in NYC at the time and the months in darkness were a total drag without question. Seems this rube was not alone in his sentiment as millions complained and the DLST initiative was quashed. DLST of the standard time variety does work as it aligns with the circadian biorhythms of life on earth so if congress wants to do something actually useful for a change, make standard time the norm and be done with it. As an aside, this reminds one of the fiasco of the US trying to go metric whereby Congress should have said, by such and such a date, metric becomes the law of the land but NOOOOO, the US vacillated and nothing of consequence was ever done.

Same it ever was. - Talking Heads. 

The Senate gave itself a pat on the back earlier this week when senators voted without objection to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

"The good news is if we can get this passed, we don't have to keep doing this stupidity anymore," said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., of his legislation to end the need to annually change the clocks in March and November.

However, America tried this before — and the country hated it. In the early 1970s, America was facing an energy crisis so the government tried an experiment. Congress passed a law to make Daylight Savings Time permanent year-round, but just for two years. The thinking was more sunlight in the evening would reduce the nation's energy consumption.

It didn't work, said David Prerau, one of the nation's foremost experts on the issue.

"It became very unpopular very quickly," he told NPR.

Americans do not like changing their clocks, but they disliked even more going to work and school in the dark for months — the price the nation had to pay for more sunlight in winter evenings.

It also didn't reduce energy consumption as intended. In 1974, Congress repealed the law — before the two-year experiment was even up. Nearly 50 years later, Congress is back at it.

Tits on a bull applies, right? :)

DLST yet again ...

Donald Trump and Tom Cotton in Washington DC in 2017. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

The very stable genius is pushing for permanent daylight savings time yet again, ignoring the fiasco in 1974
when kids went to school in total darkness at 8:00 AM. This is just another example of a know nothing
not knowing anything at all.

A blast from the past ...

The move by the senate to make daylight savings time permanent is a testimony to pols not understanding what happened the last time this switch was implemented as the response by the public was unanimous. It sucked. Yours truly was living in NYC at the time and the months in darkness were a total drag without question. Seems this rube was not alone in his sentiment as millions complained and the DLST initiative was quashed. DLST of the standard time variety does work as it aligns with the circadian biorhythms of life on earth so if congress wants to do something actually useful for a change, make standard time the norm and be done with it. As an aside, this reminds one of the fiasco of the US trying to go metric whereby Congress should have said, by such and such a date, metric becomes the law of the land but NOOOOO, the US vacillated and nothing of consequence was ever done.

As for kids, nighttime and going to school applies.

In February 1974, eighth and ninth graders board the bus at seven a.m. in the dark to head for Drake Junior High School in Denver, Colorado. Image: Denver Post / Contributor Denver Post

PS, it's already getting dark.

60 minutes, + or - :)

The New York Times; Photographs by GeorgeManga, Science Photo Library, Erik Von Weber, Yevgen Romanenko, and Liyao Xie via Getty Images

You can blame ole Ben for Daylight Savings Time as Franklin did a detailed send up as to why moving time ahead one hour in spring and summer was a "really" good idea. :)  

Letter to the Editor of the Journal of Paris, 1784

In the six months between the 20th of March and the 20th of September, there are

Nights 183

Hours of each night in which we burn candles 7

Multiplication gives for the total number of hours 1,281

These 1,281 hours multiplied by 100,000, the number of inhabitants, give 128,100,000

One hundred twenty-eight millions and one hundred thousand hours, spent at Paris by candle-light, which, at half a pound of wax and tallow per hour, gives the weight of 64,050,000

Sixty-four millions and fifty thousand of pounds, which, estimating the whole at-the medium price of thirty sols the pound, makes the sum of ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand livres tournois 96,075,000

An immense sum! that the city of Paris might save every year, by the economy of using sunshine instead of candles. If it should be said, that people are apt to be obstinately attached to old customs, and that it will be difficult to induce them to rise before noon, consequently my discovery can be of little use; I answer, Nil desperandum. I believe all who have common sense, as soon as they have learnt from this paper that it is daylight when the sun rises, will contrive to rise with him; and, to compel the rest, I would propose the following regulations; First. Let a tax be laid of a louis per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun. Etc, etc etc :)

In 2021, the take on D.S.T. differs depending on who's doing the talking.

The twice-yearly switch no longer saves much energy, but it does take a serious toll on people’s health. “Light is the most powerful regulator of our internal clock, also known as our circadian rhythm, and some people may not even adjust to the time change after several months,” says Anita Shelgikar, an associate professor of sleep medicine and neurology at the University of Michigan Health System. “Chronic misalignment between the internal clock and occupational, family and social activities can be very disruptive.”

If Americans already spend most of the year on Daylight Time, should we just get rid of Standard Time altogether, as so many legislators have proposed?

Steve Calandrillo, a law professor at the University of Washington who has conducted economic research on the topic, thinks it’s the right move. One reason is that darkness in the evening is associated with both larger numbers of fatal car accidents and higher levels of crime than darkness in the morning.

“D.S.T. brings an extra hour of sunlight into the evening to mitigate those risks,” he writes. “Standard Time has precisely the opposite impact, by moving sunlight into the morning.”

Photo by Brooke Campbell on Unsplash