A new time for Daylight Saving Time
Published on Mar 7, 2007 at 11:30 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under time.
Back in October, I posted something about daylight saving time. For many years, DST has started here in the United States the first Sunday in April and lasted until the last Sunday in October. However, a provision of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 changes the rules, starting this year, 2007. This year, Daylight Saving Time starts the second Sunday in March, so that will be this coming weekend. So, at 2:00am on March 11, most of America will suddenly shift to 3:00am. DST will now run until the first Sunday in November. My understanding is that Canada is following suit with the new change.
For me, this is terrible. I am a night person (duh!). What I do depends upon darkness, so when DST is in effect, I effectively have to stay up later according to the clock. That means less sleep. And, being a night person, the week after the new time kicks in is always tough. When William Willett proposed adopting Benjamin Franklin’s clock strategy, he had the foresight to realize that shifting by an entire hour would be tough, and he proposed a series of shorter 20 minute adjustments. But, government officials like the ease of the whole hour shifts, so that is what we do.
The rationale for DST is that it forces you to get up earlier on the days that the Sun rises earlier, and presumably you’d go to bed earlier on those days, too. The Sun is staying up later, so that means that you would be using less total electricity. That argument holds as long as lighting for activities is the primary use for electricity. But, today, outdoor dusk to dawn security lights are at an all time high, and changing the clock has no effect at all on them. Furthermore, air conditioning is ubiquitous in the US, particularly in the South, and that means that the shift in time means that there are more people at home and work sites during the hottest part of the day. Some studies have indicated that there may even be an increase in electrical use in such circumstances. The politicians and supporters of DST often look at studies done during the 1970’s that suggest an energy savings, failing to realize that energy usage has changed since then.
As much as DST disrupts me, this year there is potential for some confusion for everyone. In the fashion of the Y2k hype, computer people are predicting mass chaos and confusion this year, because computers and computerized devices that automatically make the shift to DST and back again are preprogrammed to make the shift the first Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October. They won’t shift at the appropriate time this year unless the proper updates have been installed. And, if you manually make the shift, they’ll shift again on you the first Sunday in April, and you’ll have to manually set them back. Of course, the solution is to spend lots of time and effort fixing this. Again, as with Y2k, the people and companies that programmed these devices dropped the ball by not allowing for the law to change. It has changed before, so it changing again is not all that unprecedented. All Windows operating systems, other than the newest one, seem that they will have issues unless a patch has been downloaded.
But, I guess that we’ll learn to adapt. This might not be permanent. Now that the current group of Congress critters know that they have the power to change the time, they might use it again.
-Astroprof
Seeking Solace on March 8, 2007 at 8:39 am: 1
While I too am a night person, I love Daylight Savings Time. I can’t stand it when it gets dark at 4:30 PM. Plus, I tend to be vitamin D deficient (something that is very common for those of us who live in the Northeast), so the extra light is welcome!
Astroprof’s Page » No energy savings? on April 3, 2007 at 10:37 pm: 2
[…] Well, in my earlier post on the new starting time for Daylight Saving Time, I indicated that I didn’t think that there would be much effect. The rationale for Daylight Saving Time is based on decades old research. This research was done in the days before home computers, before security crazed city dwellers insisted on bright outdoor dusk-to-dawn security lights, before almost every electronic device actually continued to draw power in standby mode instead of turning off so that they could be turned on by remote control, and before a lot of other sources of electric usage. In fact, the average home uses far more electricity today than it did decades ago, and most of that extra power usage continues day and night without a break. So, most of the talk about Daylight Saving Time saving energy is just so much talk. We don’t really save much energy in many parts of the nation. […]
Astroprof’s Page » Falling back on November 3, 2007 at 6:27 pm: 3
[…] It is time for the twice yearly task here in the United States of adjusting the clocks by an hour. At least, most of the US does that. A few places, like Arizona and Hawaii don’t mess with it. For years, we have set the clocks forward on the first Sunday in April and set them back the last Sunday in October. But, as of last March, we started a new rule of setting the clocks forward the second Sunday of March and back on the first Sunday of November. So, for most of us in the US, we set the clocks back at 2am Sunday, November 4, 2007.  If you want to read more about Daylight Saving Time, check out my posting from about a year ago. […]
Julie on November 18, 2008 at 1:29 pm: 4
Daily Savings time is a little weird. I have always been into astrology and space. Thanks for the information.