‘Daylight Saving Time’ ends at 2am. Set clocks back one hour. According to National Geographic News the point of DST was to make more hours of light during the evening.
The drive behind the switch was “to adjust daylight hours to when most people are awake and about,” Mosley said.
Daylight saving time decreases the amount of daylight in the morning hours, so that more daylight is available during the evening.
Not everyone benefits from the daylight saving time change, Mosley conceded. Farmers and others who rise before dawn may have to operate in the dark a while longer before daybreak.
. . . often causing udder confusion.
I was always of the mind that if darkness is a concern to your school or business, the hours that you operate should change. Changing the time itself seems silly.
I would like to see a comprehensive study showing the balance between what he ostensibly save by this, and what it actually costs. I bet we’d find that it’s not worth snot in the end, that it’s a huge, unnecessary hassle that pays back little or nothing but aggravation and errors.
Benjamin Franklin supposedly proposed this originally in order to “save candles.” That’s all well and good, I suppose, but it was long time ago. Supposedly also, the latest changes were made to save energy. But I’ve read that it might not, and in fact might cost more energy, or lead to more environmental damage, as it encourages more wasteful use of leisure time.
I’ve heard it argued that we need to do this so that kids won’t be standing at bus stops in the dark. Two things about that. First of all, kids will either leave in the dark or come home in the dark, no matter which way you push it. So what’s the point, then? Secondly, plenty of businesses shift their hour seasonally. Assuming that a time shift really does do some good for them, why can’t schools make the change on their own, instead of dragging the entire society with them? Will some people be inconvenienced? Absolutely. How would that be different from how it is now?
Finally, there’s this: My friend just got a ticket for parking overnight. Except that he wasn’t in violation. The cop was off by an hour — and even noted the correct, nonviolating time on the ticket indicating that my friend violated a law that he hadn’t violated. (We’re still trying to figure that out.) Given that may friend may have to come back from out of state to challenge this in our fabulous municipal court, and several public officials will have to deal with it regardless, what was saved, and how did we all benefit?
Even this very conversation would be unnecessary without this.
Many parts of the world don’t do this time shift thing, and they seem to do just fine. Maybe a few candles aren’t worth all this.