Is America Closer to Ending Daylight Saving Time? (msn.com) 167
U.S. president Donald Trump called Daylight Saving Time "very costly to our nation" and "inconvenient" in December. Today the Washington Post remembers he'd vowed his Republican party would use their "best efforts" to eliminate it.
But it's still proving to be politically difficult... Polls have shown that most Americans oppose the time shifts but disagree on what should replace them... [U.S. political leaders] also say they are grappling with whether the nation should permanently move the clocks forward one hour, an idea championed by lawmakers on the coasts who say it would allow for more sunshine during the winter, or remain on year-round standard time, which is favored by neurologists who say it aligns with our circadian rhythms. That decision would rest with Congress, not the president. The split often reflects regional, not political, differences, based on where time zones fall; a year-round "spring forward" would mean winter sunrises that could creep past 9 a.m. in cities such as Indianapolis and Detroit, prompting many local lawmakers to oppose the idea...
[A 2022 Senate vote to make Daylight Saving Time permanent] awoke a new lobbying effort from advocates such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which warned that year-round daylight saving time would be unhealthy, citing risks such as higher rates of obesity or metabolic dysfunction. Some researchers warned of a condition dubbed "social jetlag," saying that internal body clocks and rhythms would be persistently misaligned if human clocks were permanently set forward an hour. The concerted resistance from the health groups — which some congressional aides jokingly referred to as "Big Sleep" — helped kill the measure in the House and has contributed to a stalemate over how to proceed...
Today, roughly two-thirds of Americans want to end the clock changes, polls show. But even those Americans don't agree on what should come next. An October 2023 YouGov poll found that 33 percent of respondents wanted year-round daylight saving time, 23 percent wanted permanent standard time, and 9 percent had no preference. The remainder weren't sure or preferred to remain on the current system... The political fight is far from over, with Trump allies such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) pledging to keep pushing for year-round daylight saving time. Some congressional Republicans also have privately called for a hearing in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with hopes of advancing the Sunshine Protection Act.
But it's still proving to be politically difficult... Polls have shown that most Americans oppose the time shifts but disagree on what should replace them... [U.S. political leaders] also say they are grappling with whether the nation should permanently move the clocks forward one hour, an idea championed by lawmakers on the coasts who say it would allow for more sunshine during the winter, or remain on year-round standard time, which is favored by neurologists who say it aligns with our circadian rhythms. That decision would rest with Congress, not the president. The split often reflects regional, not political, differences, based on where time zones fall; a year-round "spring forward" would mean winter sunrises that could creep past 9 a.m. in cities such as Indianapolis and Detroit, prompting many local lawmakers to oppose the idea...
[A 2022 Senate vote to make Daylight Saving Time permanent] awoke a new lobbying effort from advocates such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which warned that year-round daylight saving time would be unhealthy, citing risks such as higher rates of obesity or metabolic dysfunction. Some researchers warned of a condition dubbed "social jetlag," saying that internal body clocks and rhythms would be persistently misaligned if human clocks were permanently set forward an hour. The concerted resistance from the health groups — which some congressional aides jokingly referred to as "Big Sleep" — helped kill the measure in the House and has contributed to a stalemate over how to proceed...
Today, roughly two-thirds of Americans want to end the clock changes, polls show. But even those Americans don't agree on what should come next. An October 2023 YouGov poll found that 33 percent of respondents wanted year-round daylight saving time, 23 percent wanted permanent standard time, and 9 percent had no preference. The remainder weren't sure or preferred to remain on the current system... The political fight is far from over, with Trump allies such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) pledging to keep pushing for year-round daylight saving time. Some congressional Republicans also have privately called for a hearing in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with hopes of advancing the Sunshine Protection Act.
Right after they (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Right after they (Score:4, Interesting)
Especially metric time.
10 days per week.
10 hours per day.
100 minutes per hour.
That's going to sort things!
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Metric time is a real thing, it defines the SI second precisely.
You are thinking of decimal time. It's been tried a few times. The French had it for a few years after their revolution, but it didn't catch on. The Chinese had some form of it, but abandoned it. Swatch, the watch company, made "beats" in the 90s as that divided the day into 1000 units, supposedly to help people coordinate meetings across time-zones.
It proved too difficult to get people to change in most cases. Nowadays there are probably other
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The Julian Date and its modified/truncated/reduced/etc variant are in active use in astronomy. Right now Stellarium says JD 2460744.30063 (3 decimal hours, 00 decimal minutes, 63 decimal seconds).
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Thanks, that's really interesting.
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I rather like the Japanese version (though it wasn't decimal) though it made clocks difficult to design.
Essentially the day was divided into two six "hour" sections, six for daylight hours (sunrise to sunset), six for night (sunset to sunrise). The length of hours in both sections increased and decreased depending on what part of the year it was.
Of course, while this neatly solves the DST issue, it also means you'd be working longer hours (literally!) during the summer if you have an office job, so it's not
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That's decimal time. Time is already metric.
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Of course, you guys might change that in the next 4 years:)
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True for medicine, science and engineering. However, American exceptionalism gets in the way. Most of the American population are to used to their "freedom ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H imperial units" of inches, pounds and ounces, miles, and miles per hour.
If Americans truly wanted to change to a new unit of measurement and still wanted to remain the exception, there are always natural units based on the fundamental constants of the universe (Plank units: time and temperature, the speed of light, and fundamental electric
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Meanwhile, in the UK, outside of the temperature, you're usually using imperial units. Distances are in miles, speeds are in MPH, food is weighed in pounds and ounces, land is measured in acres, gas is sold by the liter but your gas tank is measured in gallons, etc. In other words, the UK fakes being metric.
As far as imperial units go, there are parts of the system where it is better. Fahrenheit offers a larger range between temperatures. Each degree of Celsius represents about 2 degrees in Fahrenheit. Frac
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No, this is not true (I live in the UK). While we do use a mix of units, you're long out of date. Most of the time I use metric. Even my child's weight when they were born.
True, roads and speeds are imperial, using miles. I talk about distance in km anyway. Food is all metric since the EU many years ago. Even if something that was once 1lb is the same size, the label will now say 454g. Milk is sold in pints, but the labelling is in ml. Pints are the pub are measured as 568 ml, and spirits no longer
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Canada went metric back in the mid-70's. It went fairly smoothly, had stickers you could put on your speedometer and lots of advertising on the conversion, 50=30 kind of thing. The automotive industry had it easy as they just had to change the speedometer/odometers and paperwork, instead of the gas tank holding 20 gallons, it held 91 litres. Stores did have to change their scales which was more expensive. They won in court that they could still keep advertising in Imperial with kg in small print.
Today, the
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. Distances, while officially in km, often referred to miles.
Uh? Except some very old people, nobody refer to distances in miles in Canada. Road signs are all in km, and cars as well.
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Could be regional, or an age issue but in my circle, miles are as likely to be used as km, or at least that is the way it seems as I haven't actually counted.
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The USA and Canada need to move their paper size [wikipedia.org] to the A series as used in most of the rest of the world. That standardisation will save money.
Re: Right after they (Score:2, Funny)
We should get rid of all those pesky languages other than, I guess, Chinese or English (there are arguments for both). Standardization would save so much money.
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There are some good reasons to reduce the complexity of time though. Getting rid of leap seconds would be helpful, for example.
If we can agree on leap seconds we can agree to get rid of them too.
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Other than printer paper, all the paper I buy is ISO sized. Mostly B54, but some A4. I like it better.
Americans enjoy buying what they think is best. And some seem to enjoy telling others what is best. So long as they don't tell me I have to obey them, fine.
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Oh, and:
"Cut paper sheets commonly used by The United States Government from the 1920s until the 1980s, and still used in the United States for children's writing paper and for loose-leaf notebook filler.
Government Size was instated by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hover as a cost-saving measure for the US Government and to establish lower paper costs for schools. Its use by the US Government was repealed in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan's administration, at which time the US government adopted the standard US
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I grew up with metric and use metric for most things. But having done woodworking including some cabinetry, house framing, and construction, it becomes pretty clear why imperial fractions have lasted so long. They just work very well when you're hand measuring and building things. Everything's based on dividing by two, which you can do with a piece of string. Fractions are extremely convenient to work in that way. That's why they have been used for thousands of years in construction.
And imperial units re
Maximise useful sunlight hours (Score:3, Insightful)
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As I say every year, twice a year - change it by half an hour, one time, and be done with it.
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> Some of us want it ended in one direction. Some of us want it ended in the other. That's not a reason not to end it.
That in itself is quite a good reason not to end it. It shows that "end daylight savings time" is just a knee-jerk gut reaction.
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Why? Because we are close enough to the equator for it to not matter, same as the others I listed.
So honestly, right now... its just a political football that will never have resolution. Even though it is an easy solution with a live example of how it affects people.
Honestly, I laugh every time I see this shit... they do it to get people talking abou
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If people really wanted to change it, change it on state level.
The states have tried. Problem is, they need the Fed's permission to do what they (the states) have decided.
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Currently, most of the area of standard time zones is skewed towards 12 noon coming well before solar noon anyway. e.g. Solar Noon today in Chicago (eastern side of Central Daylight saving Time) is 1:00 pm (12:00 CST) while Solar Noon today in Indianapolis (
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Congress should just give each state permission to choose whichever time zone they want (and allow states with two time zones to keep two time zones if they want).
This is the answer. In contrast to China and India, the US already has multiple time zones. That means states already have different time zones, so there is no benefit to forcing uniformity on all states. In fact, there is already a form of state autonomy for some states right now. States will figure out what is best for them, even if it leads to weird arrangements, like in Indiana.
The only benefit to the current system is inertia and not having to make a decision.
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It's already a pain to deal with DST changes in code, and the fact that the rules change over time. Letting states diverge would have a big cost for software.
A good argument against DST is that without it, time would be monotonic.
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Why can't we do it so the clock keeps getting set back only. I need that extra hour of sleep every year. We should ditch the "spring forward" BS though.
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Your points are valid, but also very regional. As you, yourself, acknowledge. Let each state decide what works best for them. And if you go far enough north, daylight is shorter than the school day, so your kids will be travelling in the dark either to go to school, or else to come home. Again, a regional problem. The solution is to leave the decision up to the states. Why should the federal government impose a one-size-fits-all solution on the entire country?
Just to note: the problem you mention could eq
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Both parties love to push one-size-fits-all solutions on the states - it's only the topic that changes.
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At the moment we already have to be aware of the existing time (zone) differences, once each state can select their own it becomes a royal mess.
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It would not be much of a mess, not any more than currently. States will naturally coordinate with adjacent states. For example, northwestern Indiana is on Central time to coordinate with business in Chicago, even though the rest of the state is on Eastern time.
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There are obvious advantages to all states changing time in a coordinated way.
At the moment we already have to be aware of the existing time (zone) differences, once each state can select their own it becomes a royal mess.
There are even greater advantages to just not changing clocks at all.
If some location wants to start school at sunrise, then they open the school at whatever hour they want, and they can change the local school opening every week if they want. Same for government offices and businesses.
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But these effects work best at the higher latitudes, it hardly works south of the Canadian border.
A few years ago the EU has cancelled the demand for DST but so far not a single country has during summer gone back to standard time.
The advantages to all being on the same time is a bigger advantage in Europe, for many US states this is not an issue as there are differen
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But these effects work best at the higher latitudes, it hardly works south of the Canadian border.
San Francisco is about 800 miles south of the Canadian border and switching to daylight saving time in the summer works there. Without DST days would start [timeanddate.com] before 5am for a couple of months in the summer. How about permanent DST? That would mean a winter sunrise after 8.15am for a couple of months. Changing the clocks twice a year avoids this.
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BTW, solar noon in San Fransisco today is 1:20 pm. So even with Pacific Standard Time, solar noon would be coming after 12:00.
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Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's ridiculous. I'm retired now, so it doesn't matter so much to me anymore, but when I was working, it always took me up to a week to get used to either time shift. Most people going on international trips do report "jet lag" problems, and I have been on many intra-national
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When the clocks change it's at most 17 days before sunrise / sunset is "back" to the time it was before the change. Not very long, but during that time there is a benefit by not having to commute in the dark. In winter, you'll end up doing that anyway, so may as well delay the inevitable as much as possible.
In more southerly latitudes where that doesn't really apply there is an inflated opinion of inconvenience and entitlement over changing a clock because that's apparently so fucking onerous to do somethin
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I enjoyed commuting in the dark, at especially in the morning, when I was able to sleep a little on the train.
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Personally, I love the extra light later in the day year round. I just get tired of the changes and wish they'd abolish the changes all together, which ever direction they pick.
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To give you a counter example: In hot climates plenty of people prefer sunlight at 4am where they can get up early and do activities while it's still cool outside before work, rather than 8pm when it's stinking hot.
And to continue the counter example I prefer my kids to go to school in the dark so they don't grow up to be little whiny bitches. In many countries going to school in the light isn't an option and the kids do alright. Stop coddling the next generation of whimps.
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This. So much this. As someone whose night vision is not great. I love Daylight Savings Time, and expect most people with some degree of night blindness agree with me.
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So wake up at 4am then, because that's all daylight saving time is. It's just a social convention to force people to wake up earlier and go to bed earlier "to get more sunlight".
And places where the sun gets up at 4AM usually has it going down at 9PM or later, so in the end, it really makes no difference other than running the AC an hour longer because you can't take advantage of the cooler mornings to sleep, and it's too warm at night because bedtime is just when the sun goes down.
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They do, they just don't think they care. They want the long evenings in the summer, get annoyed by "having to" suddenly wake up earlier, and argue that sunrise time in the winter doesn't matter. That's why permanent DST is what gets proposed and why states don't just implement permanent standard time.
Physiologically though, sunrise time is the most important thing. And, as demonstrated by the American permant DST experiment, your physiology's preferences win.
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Republicans would prefer to put the clock back... (Score:2, Insightful)
to the 19th century when women and blacks knew their place.
Re: Republicans would prefer to put the clock back (Score:2)
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to the 19th century when women and blacks knew their place.
So back to the the century the republican party was founded by anti-slavery activists?
I think we should keep it (Score:5, Funny)
Because we all hate it, and that's the one thing that unifies us as a nation. If we got rid of it, there'd be nothing for us all to hate together.
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You think we're hateful? try traveling (Score:2)
We specialize in hate.
You haven't traveled much or met many foreigners, have you? If you think the USA is hateful, you should see the rest of the world. We're not perfect, but the more you get out of your bubble, you realize, we're a lot better than any place I've seen. I can tell you most of Northern Europe is no better...ask the rural Swedes how they feel about an Arab or African marrying their daughter. The former Soviet States are FAAAAR worse...
Inda?...the hateful KKK-grade shit that would get you fired here, is just n
Won't anyone think of Spain? (Score:3)
Spain has been in the same timezone as Germany since General Franco set it that way to express his admiration of Adolf Hitler, although geography indicates they should be in the same zone as Portugal, Britain and Ireland. The Spanish have adapted by getting up an hour later than other countries in that zone, although I'll admit I don't know what they did before Franco.
Do northern States like Indiana, Michigan or Minnesota have the option of starting their schools an hour earlier in the cold and dark months? As an alternative, they could move one zone to the west.
Re: Won't anyone think of Spain? (Score:2)
hahahaha (Score:3, Interesting)
[U.S. political leaders] also say they are grappling with whether the nation should permanently move the clocks forward one hour, an idea championed by lawmakers on the coasts who say it would allow for more sunshine during the winter, or remain on year-round standard time, which is favored by neurologists who say it aligns with our circadian rhythms.
This administration? Listen to scientists about what's best for people? That's a good one!
Re:hahahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
This administration's "scientists" are too busy re-studying settled science - such as re-investigating whether vaccines cause autism [go.com].
They want to cut government, yet apparently also want to waste some portion of those fewer dollars.
regional? solution is obvious (Score:2)
It the opinions are regional, why not adjust time zones accordingly? NYC/LA would permanently shift to summer time; Indianapolis to standard time.
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New England should move to Atlantic Time with Nova Scotia and the Canadian maritimes
Permanent DST is Impossible (Score:2)
Just try it.
After a few years of various folks whining about driving / biking / walking to work or school in the dark in the winter, the schools shift their time an hour later, the businesses follow suit to allow employees to take the kids to school, and eventually you are back to standard time. So you get off work which now runs 10 to 6 instead of 9 to 5, still can't get in a round of golf after work, nor rake the leaves in the fall, do gardening, etc. and have to push it to the weekend. Raking leaves
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"So you get off work which now runs 10 to 6 instead of 9 to 5,"
The mythical 9 to 5 job. Real work times over my career were 7 to 3:30, 8 to 4:30, 8 to 5 (the only job that gave an hour for lunch,) and 7:30 to 4.
The shift workers were either 7 to 7 or 6 to 6.
solution (Score:2)
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But realise that city is about an hour west of Greenwich...
No (Score:2)
No we are not
Solution (Score:2)
>"they are grappling with whether the nation should permanently move the clocks forward one hour, an idea championed by lawmakers on the coasts who say it would allow for more sunshine during the winter, or remain on year-round standard time, which is favored by neurologists"
Indeed, in the modern world, most of us are very fed up with this stupid practice of twice-a-year time changes. I favor the move forward an hour (summer time) and stay there. But I understand not all States want that.
Solution: Let
Just standardize on Unix time (Score:2)
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Oops, sorry I missed you for lunch, I thought you said 1745124938!
Why can't you split the diff? (Score:4, Insightful)
And move it 30 minutes?
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I know, easy, right? I mean, our politicians are SO good at agreeing on some kind of middle ground! (sarcasm)
Right after the year (Score:4, Funny)
of the Linux Desktop!
Ditch GMT, use Mar a Lago Very Mean Time (Score:2)
What could make more sense than running the prime meridian through Trumps ensuite
It isn’t broken. Don’t try to fix it. (Score:2)
Just Stop This Already (Score:2)
We're never going to change DST, ever, so twice a year we get these "well are we close to ending DST" year after year after year. So just stop these articles already
When we do attempt to change DST, we get this continuous stream of bullshit excuses from lawmakers instead. Some vague "federal government" issue, so all legislatures just sit there and go back to lining their pockets with money. And the average person is content to just sit there and post messages twice a year on some social media, then go b
The title is too long... (Score:2)
Been there,done that-hotfixed 1974,repealed 1974 (Score:2)
Setting clocks SUCKS...but what sucks even more?...dropping your kids off at school in the dark for a month or 2 in winter. Many more people end up driving to work in the dark as well...and the people who get up early are the ones who ten
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This is why it should be up to each state. If I lived in Minnesota I would not want permanent DST either. Arizona and parts of Indiana do their own thing on this already.
Split the difference (Score:2)
everyone goes on about this, but (Score:2)
why not just shift the time by 30 minutes and be done with it permanently?
Itâ(TM)s just a stupid headline that gets everybody all riled up twice a year. It is incredibly stupid.
Fourth choice - MST or Mean Solar Time (Score:2)
The original purpose of time zones was to standardize time across large geographic areas, primarily for railroad scheduling and communication in the 19th century.
Before time zones, each city or town used Local Solar Time (LST), where noon was set when the Sun was highest in the sky. This meant that every location had a slightly different time (about 4 minutes per degree of longitude). This worked fine for local activities but caused confusion as transportation and communication improved.
Time zones were crea
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The other one that comes up is farmers complaining about DST changes confusing cows for milking. However the cows are probably using sunrise as their reference and can adapt to a few minutes changes each day from the farmer using a clock time. Theses days the farmer and milk collection trucks etc could base their schedules relative to sunrise as modern phones
The middle of the day should be 12 PM (Score:2)
Are the people f
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This. PM means "post meridiem" or "after midday". If your midday is 1 hour after midday, you're doing something wrong. If people want to wake up earlier than usual in the summer, then by all means do so, but don't force others to do the same. If your employer/teacher cannot accommodate your personal preference for early mornings, too bad for you.
As a scientist, I also find it disturbing that someone wants to change a measuring system twice a year. It's like adjusting the definition of the metre (oops, I
It's a latitude thing (Score:2)
Not sure if trump is pushing for the change because he doesn't know how to change the time on a clock or if it is because he confuses DST with DJT?
Not Trump's Republican Party (Score:2)
The Republican Party is not the personal possession of Donald Trump. To first approximation its the property of those who vote for Republican candidates in local, state, and national elections and their elected representatives. To the degree DST is a federal issue at all it will be members of Congress - and not just Republicans by any means - that will decide its fate. No self respecting elected official just does what someone else tells him or her to do.
The President is not the Speaker of the House, he i
In a word... (Score:2)
In a word...no. Daylight savings time is a anachronism from agrarian cultural history.
No more than the following "traditions" will be ended, eliminated...
Gregorian calendar. ...and so on an so forth, not the Forth programming language. :)
Electoral college.
Imperial system of measurement.
JoshK.
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Because who needs standard time zones? We should go back to a time where you needed books to figure out when your train would arrive because every kept to a different time schedule.
Standardization is one part of the government's responsibility. Everyone on the same page, not doing whatever they feel like.
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My understanding is that right now states have 2 options: standard time year round, or DST with the start/end dates set by the feds. The feds could just as easily allow states a 3rd option, DST all ye
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"Just like the Dept. of Education: The feds don't need to involve themselves in every detail of life."
Yes, but the regime that wants to eliminate the dept. of education sticks its nose in other aspects of how people live (i.e. faith base initiatives, suppression of the right s of the transgendered, etc.)
Excluding criminal acts such as murder, kidnapping, and theft, you'll never see a regime in power be completely agnostic about how people should conduct their lives.
Re:Federalism (Score:5, Informative)
Just like the Dept. of Education: The feds don't need to involve themselves in every detail of life.
I love the poorly educated
--Donald Trump 2016
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
Re: Just do it already (Score:3)
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Society is hung up on arbitrary hours (e.g. 4 AM). So there isn't really a problem with "early" sunrise, other than habits and schedules that don't take into account the sun. Just go with closest to solar noon and get on with life - civilization will adjust.