A Plan To Fix Daylight Savings Time By Creating Two National Time Zones 545
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Allison Schrager writes in the Atlantic that losing another hour of evening daylight isn't just annoying. It's an economically harmful policy with minimal energy savings. "The actual energy savings are minimal, if they exist at all. Frequent and uncoordinated time changes cause confusion, undermining economic efficiency. There's evidence that regularly changing sleep cycles, associated with daylight saving, lowers productivity and increases heart attacks." So here's Schrager's proposal. This year, Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour (like normal), Americans on Central and Rocky Mountain time do nothing, and Americans on Pacific time should set their clocks forward one hour. This will result in just two time zones for the continental United States and the east and west coasts will only be one hour apart. "America already functions on fewer than four time zones," says Schrager. "I spent the last three years commuting between New York and Austin, living on both Eastern and Central time. I found that in Austin, everyone did things at the same times they do them in New York, despite the difference in time zone. People got to work at 8 am instead of 9 am, restaurants were packed at 6 pm instead of 7 pm, and even the TV schedule was an hour earlier. " Research based on time use surveys found American's schedules are already determined more by television than daylight suggesting, in effect, that Americans already live on two time zones. Schrager says that this strategy has already been proven to work in other parts of the world. China has been on one time zone since 1949, despite naturally spanning five time zones and in 1983, Alaska, which naturally spans four time zones, moved most of the state to a single time zone. "It sounds radical, but it really isn't. The purpose of uniform time measures is coordination. How we measure time has always evolved with the needs of commerce.," concludes Schrager. "Time is already arbitrary, why not make it work in our favor?""
like that works (Score:5, Insightful)
time zones exist because the sun sets later in the west than it does in the east. It was a fact I knew but didn't fully grasp until I moved 400 miles east along roughly the same latitude in the same eastern time zone. We were sitting outside enjoying a camp fire on the summer solstice when some one asked when the sun would set. Having spent many a summer outside at my previous place I knew it would roughly be 9pm. however I didn't take into account the difference 400 miles makes. The sun really set 30 minutes earlier.
Now in a corporate world time zones only matter in relation to when other people will be at their desks. However in the real world, where one has kids, and after school sports, hell even trick or treating, it makes all the difference in the world. Those on the eastern edge will always be screwed by things shutting down earlier. As so much just can't be done after dark, and it gets really expensive to light up every field, park, and body of water just to be able to live life after work.
Re:Sunrise (Score:5, Insightful)
Who gives a crap what the clock says? We could all just use Coordinated Universal Time. On the east coast I'd wake up at 1000 UTC have lunch at 1700 eat dinner at 2200 and go to bed at 0300.
Do Away With It! (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way to fix Daylight Saving Time (Score:4, Insightful)
Is to abolish it. It serves no legitimate purpose anymore. Standard time for all!
Re:Daylight Saving Time (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate that bloody time change. If we just get rid of it, we don't have to worry about what it's called at all.
I don't see the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
And less so now when most clocks are set automatically, and the few that aren't have 'dst' switches. Get to work an hour earlier or an hour later. It is just one of those costs of living in society. I know some people are very compulsive, and this causes stress, but I see DST no more inconvenient than speed limits. If there is a real problem it is that instead of just going with majority rule on something that is largely trivial, some communities are boneheads and want everything their way.
That said, I think most of the reasons for DST have diminished with time. While switching is easier now, the world is different. The fact that the US is now completely linked with instant communication and many people are now no longer primarily part of one region is a factor.
At some point a rational discussion on this will be possible, and it will likely end. Some of this going to be generational. While some of the world have been using DST from the early 20th century, in the US has only been widespread for maybe 50 years. This means that some people who are very attached to it are still alive.
Do Some Homework Allison (Score:4, Insightful)
"The actual energy savings are minimal, if they exist at all."
Blah, blah, blah...She obviously doesn't know if they're minimal, because she doesn't know if they exist. You can love or hate it, but at least if you're going to argue for one side or the other, present some fucking facts.
Re:Daylight Saving Time (Score:2, Insightful)
I call it "Savings". Ain't changing language grand?
Yes, failing to get a simple thing right and regarding yourself as the better man for it is just wonderful.
Re:Daylight Saving Time (Score:5, Insightful)
As a native Arizonan now living in Texas for the past 8 years, I still am not accustomed to the time changes, and am quite annoyed at the completely unnecessary practice.
China's Single Time Zone (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, China's 5 time zones operate on a single time zone, which works great if you're in Beijing, but sucks balls if you're one of the poor schmucks in Urumqi who has to get to work at 3am.
I'm not going through this again... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the Bush-era change happened, I supervised the change in my company, having to track the dozens of updates of Windows, Java, and Oracle (often because each one had to incorporate a patch to detect if one of the other two had not actually been patched). This amounted to basically $50,000 of my companies dollars wasted for no actual benefit - $50,000 just to say we still worked.
And the worst thing about it all was that even after all that money on our part, and on the part of Microsoft, Sun, and Oracle (who saw even less money relative to the efforts it took), nobody would be able to say 100% that it was "right". There still could have been one stupid little detail that would have gotten it wrong on the day of the switch or projecting forward to the switch-back.
Current estimates is that the DST change of 2005 cost the economy $5 billion in expenses *just to keep working at all* - that's 5 billion that wasn't spent on improvements, or new features, or anything actually giving new value to their customers. It simply ceased to exist, for the illusion of savings in other markets (energy and retail) that never materialized.
And I still saw most of my local trick-or-treaters after dark, so saying an extra hour of light for Halloween also was a pointless exercise.
Re:I don't see the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
And less so now when most clocks are set automatically, and the few that aren't have 'dst' switches
Which of course was broken when Congress and the President decided to move the time changes in the fall and spring for no reason. Many of those automatic clocks now don't work correctly and can't be reprogrammed. So yes, it is a big deal. Also, you still see cases of DST causing problems in computer systems and mobile devices.
Here's the rational discussion: there is simply no need for DST. Anyone attached to it is not being rational. Whether we have two, four, or six time zones is meaningless to me. But moving time around arbitrarily is complete nonsense.
Several flaws in this argument. (Score:4, Insightful)
Completely unrelated? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article seems to state that the problem is the constant changing of the time forward and backward due to DST. The proposed solution involves one final change at a regular DST interval, then no longer using DST. However, that change also involves redefining our four US timezones into two as well. I understand that it may be easier to make major timezone changes all at once, but I'm not sure the second is really related to the first.
I've seen other suggestions about simply not using DST anymore. It sure seems to me that today's modern technology and 24x7 scheduling make the idea of shifting daylight hours to different parts of the clock seem a bit outdated. Do we really save that much electricity on lighting to counteract the issues of dealing with changing the time around every six months?
Something I read previously suggested switching to Summer time and no longer using Winter time. Here in Michigan, it starts getting colder and darker earlier, then the DST change hits and it's suddenly dark pretty much as soon as you leave work. I'm not a fan of the author's suggestion to switch to Winter time (even if it is the "Standard" time) permanently. I'd much rather deal with dark mornings and have a little bit of light after work during the winter. I'm at the later edge of Eastern Time, so this effect should be even worse for those on the East Coast who would be seeing sunrise and sunset before me.
The author seems to make some reasonable points about people matching their activities to other timezones. I don't have enough experience to say whether that's really true for the majority of people, so as to justify converting the whole timezone. If we were to do this timezone rearrangement, the DST change might be a good time to do it, since people are already accustomed to moving their clocks an hour. However, I don't think it really has anything to do with the DST change, and personally I don't like the idea of my timezone moving to Winter time permanently.
Humans are diurnal (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans are diurnal (dI-UR-nal).
It means we sleep when it's dark and wake when it's light. (compare nocturnal)
The primary purpose of DST is to keep our scheduled wake time (as determined by school, work, etc) close to sunrise.
Everything else (energy savings! more shopping hours!) is just confusion and wishful thinking.
The controlling factor isn't east-west, it's north-south.
The further north you go, the more sunrise time varies with the seasons, and the more an adjustment like DST helps.
Stuffing the whole country into two time zones is a non-fix for a non-problem.
See also
How congress broke Daylight Savings Time
http://world.std.com/~swmcd/steven/letters/dst.html [std.com]
Re:I don't see the problem (Score:0, Insightful)
Which of course was broken when Congress and the President decided to move the time changes in the fall and spring for no reason. Many of those automatic clocks now don't work correctly and can't be reprogrammed. So yes, it is a big deal.
Yes, the manufacturer of your equipment designed it poorly. Are we to let the incompetence of an electronics manufacturer dictate to the rest of the world what will happen? Great, now Microsoft will fucking screw us even more.
Also, you still see cases of DST causing problems in computer systems and mobile devices.
My mother was in an airport. Her cellphone changed time on her. She wasn't expecting that, even though she was in a different time zone. It fooled her.
This had nothing to do with DST, but yeah, her device was doing something she didn't expect. What to do about that?
Here's the rational discussion: there is simply no need for DST. Anyone attached to it is not being rational. Whether we have two, four, or six time zones is meaningless to me. But moving time around arbitrarily is complete nonsense.
That's not a rational discussion either.
Re:Sunrise (Score:5, Insightful)
That is bs! The reason why California wakes up with New York is because those who have to do. Those that don't, don't wake up. For example, what are the store hours or a best buy in California and in New York? http://stores.bestbuy.com/428/ [bestbuy.com] and http://stores.bestbuy.com/187/ [bestbuy.com]. See that? Same hours! So in other words the best buy in California does not give a rats arse on when stores open in New York. They open according to the local timezone. Switch that into two timezones and things become confusing because those on either end of the zone will not appreciate the lack of sun.
The idea of two time zones is absolutely insane. I lived in Vienna while my wife lived in Zurich and there was an hour difference in sunrise and sunset. It was not nice to have to live and work in Vienna as it meant very early to rise and early to bed. I like the notion of time zones, and like the notion of switching because it really does make a difference. If it were up to me I would add a few more time zones because some cities at either side of a zone have really odd sunrise and sunset.
Re:Daylight Saving Time (Score:2, Insightful)
I just want the sun to be at it's zenith at noon, is that so hard?
Re:Daylight Saving Time (Score:5, Insightful)
They would "have to go to school in the dark"? Why is that? Shift the time school starts instead of changing the clock.
I don't have children, why am I forced to reset all my clocks twice a year to cater to your need to have a consistent clock time when school starts?
employers (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be easy for your employer, and for schools to simply adjust the time at which people are expected to arrive. If some employers did it and others didn't, or some did it by different amounts or on different dates, it would also thin traffic at rush hour and lunch which could save lives, but cost more in labor for places that are only open at those times. If I were an employer I would have the work day begin after sunrise by the amount of my employees average commute, plus some margin. So your start time is different each day by a minute or two. I would rather have them mix up now and then and be a little late, than wake up in the dark and be groggy for a few hours.
You do realize... (Score:2, Insightful)
that changing what time your clock says has nothing to do with how long the Sun is visible, right?
Re:Daylight Saving Time (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, people with your logic keep the DST madness... ... actually, I was thinking more like changing the work schedule go in and get out one hour earlier... ... eh, I was thinking more like establishing working-saturdays on winter and non-working fridays during summer. No need to change our calendar system.
Stores have winter/summer schedules already. We simply stop DST and have all businesses have winder/summer schedules. You wake up an hour earlier during the summer to enjoy your sun more.
Think about a world where there is no DST. So, one guy says:
- hm.. in the summer we lose an extra hour of sun because we don't get up early enough, perhaps we should do something about that, I' m thinking perhaps....
- I KNOW! someone interrupts, LET'S MAKE EVERYONE MOVE THEIR CLOCKS BY 1 HOUR! (mad scientist laugh)
-
- LAAME!
Meanwhile in another universe
- hmm.. you know, it would be interesting if we could work 6 days/week during the winter so we can enjoy our summers more by working 4 days/week then...
- THAT'S A GREAT IDEA! LET'S CONVINCE EVERYONE TO REMOVE SATURDAYS FROM WINTER MONTHS AND ADD THEM AFTER SUNDAYS (not before, because 2 Saturdays in a row would be stupid) ON SUMMER MONTHS!
-
- LAAME!
Re:Daylight Saving Time (Score:5, Insightful)
How does it help farmers?
I mean, do the vegetables have a clock?
Wouldn't the farmers just get up and get to work whenever it was light?... or would they stupidly get to the fields in the dark just because the clock told them it was time.
Re:China's Single Time Zone (Score:3, Insightful)
Rational question: why?
You will be at work 4 am - 12 noon, and then have the ultimate daylight savings time experience, 12-evening, at YOUR disposal, and not your employer's.
Or course you go to bed at sunset usually, but one can argue thats natural.