Saving Daylight Savings Time

The Senate recently approved a bill which will make Daylight Saving Time (DST) permanent in the country. The Sunshine Protection Act, introduced by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, received wide bipartisan support. If passed by Congress the official time the sun reaches its highest point in the sky will be 11:00 am in lieu of noon starting in November 2023. The bill ensures the benefits of daylight will be enjoyed by every American all year long and not just in the summer. It also shows that legislators can come together and do the right thing for the American people. Senators across the nation followed the science and unanimously passed the bill. If it gets through Congress and past the President’s desk, Daylight Savings Time will be saved for future generations.

Too bad it's a completely bad idea.

Most Americans have a vague notion of what Daylight Savings Time is. They know it involves adjusting the clocks by an hour but are unsure when we are on it and when we're off it. In a nutshell, the clocks are pushed ahead in the spring so that the sun will set later in the day. The best way to understand why we do this is to note that the sun would rise at around 4:15 am in June at mid latitudes if we didn't have DST. By pushing the clocks ahead the sun rises at 5:15 am and sets one hour later. DST gives us an hour of sunlight after most of us are done with work. It's a great idea. 

Some people believe that DST "makes more daylight in the evening," but that's not the case. The amount of daylight each day changes during the year depending on your latitude and can't be altered by legislation. The closer to the equator you are the more equal the day and night are in duration and the less variation there is in the time the sun rises and sets. For example, in Ecuador there is about 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night all year long, and the sunrise varies only by 8 minutes. So DST is not employed in countries near the equator. It's also not used in countries near the poles either because the variation in sun set and rise and the length of day and night is so great that DST has little affect. In countries like the United States Daylight Savings Time is quite affective.

Historically, the only downside to DST was having to change the clock on a video cassette recorder (VCR). Most people gave up setting their clocks as it was quite common to see the clock on a VCR blinking. Some people even advertised back in the day "clock adjusting services." For $25 they would come to your house in the spring and fall for DST or after a power outage and set all the clocks to the proper tine. Today most electronics are bluetooth enable allowing them to pick up the time from the internet. So altering the times on electronic devices is not a problem anymore even though Rubio said that he wanted Daylight Savings Time to be permeant so "we don't have to do this stupidity anymore."

Many senators voted for the bill because they believe that shifting the day saves energy since our morning routines are generally shorter than our evening activities. The only issue I have with this idea is that lights use very little electricity especially now with LED lightbulbs. The big expense in the morning is in the hot water we use when taking a shower, and that's not going to change no matter when the sun rises and sets.

Contrary to popular belief, Ben Franklin did not propose Daylight Savings Time. While in France, he wrote a satirical letter to a French newspaper suggesting that Parisians should get up with the sun in lieu of their normal time of noon; thus, saving on candles in the evening. Daylight Savings Time was first suggested in 1895 by an entomolgist from New Zealand, George Hudson, who wanted more time in the evening to collect insects. Hudson suggestion adjusting the clocks by two hours instead of just one. In 1907 a British citizen, William Willett, published a pamphlet entitled "The Waste of Daylight" in which he promoted the idea of "British Summer Time," that is, advancing the clocks by an hour in the summer. Willett’s main reason he wanted the clocks adjusted was so he could play golf later in the evening. Apparently collecting bugs takes twice as long as golf.

To deal with the varying amount of daylight throughout the year, the romans chose to divide the daylight during the season into 12 equal hours resulting in a 75 minute hour in the summer and 44 minutes in the winter. Roman numerals lack placeholder value and as such appear cumbersome, but they actually make adding easier because there is no need to carry a one. Roman accountants strung strings of letters together then replaced groupings with simplifications to sum the total. Since DST causes so much confusion, it is unlikely that the concept of variable length hours and a number system with no value on position would be embraced today.

Back in 1974 when I was in fourth grade the government instituted Daylight Savings Time in the winter in response to the "energy crisis" caused when the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to sell less oil to any nation that supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Now the important thing to remember about DST is that it makes it darker in the morning. Just for fun, guess what time the sun rises in December in a mid latitude state?

7:00 am.

So that means when DST is instituted in the winter, the sun will rise at 8:00 am and kids will be getting onto buses in total darkness. That's what happened to me in grade school. It lasted for just one year when people commuting to work at night collectively said,

"Screw this!"

Marco Rubio was still in diapers in 1974 so it's doubtful he recalls how much winter DST sucked. Other countries tried it too and came to the same conclusion that having it pitch black in the morning during the cold of winter is unsafe for children riding buses and people commuting to work. Not to mention it's downright depressing. Just ask anyone who lives in Norway.

So the Sunshine Protection Act will likely pass in the House which leaves a veto from President Biden as the only way that this nonsense will come to an end. The President is certainly old enough to know that permeant DST just doesn't work. If he shoots it down, both sides and the media will attack him, but if goes along with it in a year everyone will say that it was just another thing he screwed up.

Come on man! Veto this thing.