Saving Daylight
The Ass. Press reports that Congress is considering a bill to extend Daylight Savings Time by more than a little over a month. Demonstrating its unusual math skills, they write:
Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.
Apparently, for the Ass. Press, the one-week period between the last Sunday in March and the first week of April counts as a month. As to why anyone would want this two-month five week extension, proponent Fred Upton (R-Mich.) nonexplained that:
“Extending daylight-saving time makes sense, especially with skyrocketing energy costs.”
Which it does how, exactly? By making people turn off their lights one hour earlier at night, just so they can get up an hour early and have to turn on their lights before dawn? Maybe this trade-off does result in a net savings, but it’s not exactly clear how, and it would be nice if they’d elaborate a bit as to what else it entails, particularly in late November, when the sun doesn’t come up all that early as it is.
Meanwhile, the bill’s other sponsor, Ed Markey (D[u]-M[b]ass), appears to be unclear on the very concept of what the misnamed “Daylight Savings” actually does. Apparently, he thinks it’s not about time shifting at all, but about actually saving daylight:
The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use.
Silly me, I never knew that having more daylight was an option. In that case, why stop with one hour for most of the year, when we could just as easily vote to give ourselves four hours year-round? More daylight for all!
UPDATE: Boifromtroy beat me to the punch.
UPDATE x2: Sunday’s Weekend Live reported that the proposal would have Daylight “Savings” Time begin on the first Sunday of March, not the last. In which case, the Ass. Press got the dates wrong and miscalculated the time between their wrong dates, but ended up computing the right amount of time as a result of these two boners. Who said two wrongs don’t make a right?
April 8th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
I like the idea of just not ever going back to daylight wasting time. Just keep the clocks forward. Not for any energy reasons (because that’s made up) but because I like having daylight until 8:30.
April 8th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
I like having daylight until 8:30 too, but in December it would mean having 6:00 a.m. about four hours before sun-up.
April 8th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
I’d thought my cats would appreciate the added hour of daylight due to DST, but I’ve noticed that they don’t seem to be care one way or the other. Very strange.
April 8th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
During WWII, the US went on “War Time” year round. It turns out that unless you live on a farm of have to venture out very early, it saves energy and increases productivity by a little bit.
Of course it would mean sunrise at 8:30am in mid-December in L.A. But sunset would never be before about 5:30pm.
April 8th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
My dogs got pretty excited when they saw me changing the clocks, but then again, they get excited about everything.
April 8th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
SayUncle is right.
April 8th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
People think that Daylight Saving Time will make it stay dark until 8:00 in the winter. (Well they don’t, but still that’s what it sounds like). Daylight Saving Time makes sense in the Summer for a couple good reasons. People don’t like having the sun wake them up at 4:30 AM and set at 7:30…They’d rather have the sun wake them up at 5:30 AM, or probably not at all, and not give them the hint about bedtime until 8:30 PM, this makes sense because during the summer we want to play baseball, and have outdoor BBQs, and those tend to be difficult to do in the morning. Over the winter this is a dumb idea. People don’t really care if they’re in or out, and probably are just as happy to be home, but having the Sunrise at 9:00 AM to set at 5:30 PM when everyone is pretty much still at work doesn’t do a whole lot of good. Better to have the sun rise at 8:00 AM and dusk at 4:30 which tends to at least help us get through long days of work, and tends to match our own waking expectations. Also it would really suck to have to start work 2 hours before the sun rises.
People like daylight saving time because it’s an unofficial mark of summer. They conflate these and think daylight saving time would be nice in the winter. When all they’re really thinking is that summer would be nice all year round. Which it would be, but you can’t have that.
April 8th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
According to the article, it will save “the equivalent of 10,000″ barrells of oil a day. We use about 20 million bbl/day. Which means Congress is screwing with our clocks to save 0.05% of our daily consumption.
I hate DST. The world seemed to function just fine before 1966.
April 10th, 2005 at 11:38 am
For many of the reasons Joel stated, I’d actually like double daylight time in the two months surrounding the summer solstice. Sunup 6:30-7am, sunset 9-9:30pm here in LA. Wider times as you move north.