Category: General

Why Daylight Saving Time Should Be Abolished

I ranted about this last March. Since then Scientific American has made Daylight Savings Time number one on their list of Human Creations the World Would Be Better Off Without.

This week-end SA editor David Biello added his voice to the growing consensus that DST should be abolished.

DST is an ill-conceived anachronism and a bumbling attempt at social engineering. It’s major raison d’être is energy conservation, but there is growing evidence it has just the opposite effect. In their 2008 study of DST in Indiana, Kotchen and Grant concluded…

Our main finding is that—contrary to the policy’s intent—DST results is an overall increase in residential electricity demand.

Times have changed and it is time to stop messing with the clock twice a year!

Get Rid of Daylight Saving Time! (Rant)

I’m sitting in my office at 7am and it is completely dark outside. Why?  We have “sprung forward” on that biannual experiment called Daylight Saving Time. They’ve stolen my morning again, the bastards! DST is an anachronism that should be abandoned. According to Wikipedia…

Modern DST was first proposed in 1895 by the New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson, whose shift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and made him aware of the value of after-hours daylight.

1895? New Zealand?! Bug collecting?!! What on earth were we thinking?

In my view the first few hours of daylight are precious. I try to be “solar” and get up with the sun each day. Problem is, they keep moving the goal posts back and forth. If you live in Florida in the summer this is particularly unfair. Early morning is the only part of the day that is clement and suited for activities outdoors in the fresh air! Old Ben Franklin had the right idea, “If you want to save energy, get up earlier!”

There is little evidence that DST saves energy (or anything else for that matter). It does favor certain sports and retail interests, but honestly, are those minor concerns enough to subject an entire society to such disruption twice a year?