Daylight Savings
I wonder if the logic behind daylight savings time has even really been thought out. It is socially accepted now as being the normal thing to do, but do we really benefit from such changes? Wikipedia informs me that the original rationale behind this was energy conservation. Some studies showed that by moving the clocks forward one hour during the spring/summer months, that we could reduce our energy consumption by 1%.
I'm not sure I see the logic in this. Certainly, there are some potential savings in regards to energy use, but they seem to be offset by the system itself. For example, since sunset occurs one hour later, there is one extra hour at the end of the day when we don't have to use lights in our homes. This does nothing to change the amount of sunlight hours, so it has no impact on our use of air conditioners.
In the wintertime, back in regular daylight hours, we gain sunlight in the morning and instead favor it getting dark at 4pm. My thinking is that regular time increases energy consumption. On winter mornings, people will rely on lights in their homes no matter what. The days simply aren't long enough. However, if we were to continue daylight savings through the winter months, it seems like we could economize in terms of power consumption at the end of the day.
This also poses problems with time zones, for many areas do not observe daylight savings. If indeed daylight savings is all about efficiency, it doesn't seem to be fully thought out. Most of all, however, it seems like the fact that it gets dark at 4pm during the winter months is far more depressing than anything. What about continuing daylight savings the whole year round?
1 Comments:
A lot of things bug me about the whole idea of DST.
1. Is the use of the word 'observe'. I don't understand why certain regions 'observe' DST. It seems to me like the word 'apply' makes more sense. We apply the idea of DST. If we were to 'observe' it, it wouldn't much affect our lives now would it?
2. When one looks at a map of places in the world that observe DST, it can be seen that within the same province areas might not observe it whereas other areas do. It's quite a bizard site to behold. Which means, depending on where you live, it is possible to have to observe completely different time zones just minutes from each other.
and
3. My hassle with the system is pretty much the same as everybody else. The idea that the government tells me when to wake up, because my day doesn't seem to be affected too much by it. I have to recall whether certain clocks have been turned back (or forth) or not. And the ever increasing problem of whether my cellphone has done it automatically or not. Euh...ick. I'm not big on relying on technology that's automated for small reasons such as this.
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