2008-10-24 07:31:42
Eliminate Daylight Savinf Time.
Do away with DST. If people want/need to get up earlier or later to take
advantage of the daylight then JUST GET UP EARLIER OR LATER! There is no good
reason to change the clock backward and forward. Lots of places don't do it and
they don't have any problems. STOP DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!
DST served a useful purpose at one time. It *does* reduce energy usage...for
lighting. Back in the early part of the 20th century, the largest portion of
home electrical usage was for lighting. Nowadays it's such a small part this
savings has no measurable effect.
The effect it does have is actually increasing energy usage as people crank on
the AC when they get home earlier in the daylight of afternoon and it's hotter.
And AC is vastly more expensive to operate than a bulb.
Here's my favorite anti-daylight savings time page:
As others have pointed out (http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/fulltext/nrcc49212/
nrcc49212.pdf), Daylight Savings Time likely doesn't save us any energy. This,
of course, makes sense as if people are getting up earlier to avoid it being
dark when they get home, they're still using electricity in the morning which
is now dark. In short, the only way that daylight savings time in the modern
day is beneficial to anyone is people who want to play sports or do something
else outdoors after work. Not only that, but studies have shown that Daylight
Savings Time often actually costs companies money due to needing to change
clocks, employees who show up late/early to work during time changes and
computer errors resulting from time changes. The solution, is to abolish
Daylight Savings Time and save us all some time, money and bother.
Daylight Savings Time has enormous costs and very little value in return.
We should get read of it and say, "Good riddance..."
If there are issues with available daylight in a particular area, then the
times of events should be adjusted accordingly. If it is to dark at 7 AM for
kids to go out in order to reach school at 8 AM, then push back the start time
of school, etc., to 9 AM.
In reality, this is what Daylight Savings Time does, but at much greater cost.
Daylight Saving Time really only works (if it works at all) for a narrow range
of latitudes.
Too far south and the sun sets at the same time all year anyway. Too far north
and the sun sets ridiculously late in the summer, and sets very early in the
winter. Few of our southern hemisphere friends live far enough south for this
to be an issue. Anybody here from Ushuaia?
Even here, in southern Canada (49 degrees north), the sun sets at 1600 in the
winter. If we didn't mess with time zones the sun would set at 2000 in the
summer, and it isn't really dark until nearly 2200. How much later do you want
it to set?
errr... How, exactly, does DST give them more daylight?
The short days are standard time, BTW.
In the winter, start at sun rise, end at sunset. It doesn't matter that the
numbers on your clock read, and it doesn't matter that the hands on the watch
say. All that matters is you get X amount of work done.
For me, all this means is I get to drive into a sunset for 3 weeks..again.