The great daylight saving scam

[John81]

The great daylight saving scam
This weekend’s clock ritual costs more than it saves
By John Merline
-
The Washington Times
6:39 p.m., Thursday, March 10, 2011

Four years ago, Congress in its infinite wisdom extended daylight saving time (DST) by a month, with the goal of saving energy. Lots of energy.

The bill’s champion, Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, said it would save consumers a generous $4.4 billion over 15 years.

Of course, Mr. Markey was just repeating what has long been an established truism among policymakers: Setting the clocks forward in the spring saves energy because people don’t have to turn their lights on as much as at night.

Just one problem. While daylight saving time might “save” daylight, it doesn’t appear to save energy. In fact, it very well might do the opposite.

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that daylight saving time actually ended up increasing energy consumption.

That study looked at Indiana, where until 2006, only 15 of the state’s 92 counties abided by DST. That year, a state law required all Hoosiers to “spring forward,” which let researchers compare the energy consumption of millions of homes before and after the change.

What did they find? Daylight saving added about 1 percent - or $9 million - to Indiana homeowners’ electricity bills, owing mainly to increased heating and cooling bills.

Another study looked at California before and after DST was extended in 2007 and found no statistically significant effect on energy consumption, nor did a study in Australia.

There have likewise been oft-repeated claims that DST saves lives by cutting traffic accidents. After all, we all know that driving in the dark is more dangerous, so it stands to reason that pushing sunset back an hour should cut crashes.

But while some studies found no meaningful overall effect, and some slight benefit, at least a few studies found that traffic accidents climbed as much as 7 percent in the days immediately after switching to DST - because drivers are more tired from losing the hour of sleep. And these studies found that accidents didn’t go down nearly as much after the clocks fall back.

If that’s true, daylight saving time causes more highway deaths, not fewer.

Meanwhile, there’s the hidden cost of daylight saving time - the time spent changing all the clocks we own back and forth. One economist put a dollar figure on that wasted effort: $1.7 billion a year.

All of which raises the question of whether the annual ritual is worth it.

But these findings also raises a more troubling question: If we’re wrong about the benefits of daylight saving time, what other supposedly well-established facts could turn out to be wrong on closer examination?

Will we be told that ethanol doesn’t cut greenhouse-gas emissions or reduce our dependency on oil imports? (They don’t. A 2008 study in Science, for example, found, “Using good cropland to expand biofuels will probably exacerbate global warming.” And a 2010 Manhattan Institute study found that ethanol hasn’t cut oil imports.)

Or will we find that we aren’t, in fact, running out of landfill space? (We aren’t. The total area devoted to landfills is about 560,000 acres. In other words, you could fit all the nation’s landfills into one modest-sized county and have room left over.)

Or will we learn that the Chevy Volt - the much-ballyhooed electric car that symbolizes hope for Detroit, was named Motor Trend’s “Car of the Year,” and that President Obama showered with praise and tax incentives - doesn’t make any sense? (It doesn’t, at least not according to Consumer Reports, which concluded that it’s not particularly good as either an electric or a gas vehicle, and costs an arm and a leg.)

A few years ago, Mr. Markey said, “Daylight saving just brings a smile to everybody’s faces.”

If so, that might be the only thing it actually accomplishes

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/10/the-great-daylight-saving-scam/?page=1

[Invicta]

Well I like DST or BST as we call it. In fact I think we should have it all the year. They did try it for a few years, but Scottish farmers did not like milking their cows in the dark.

During the war, we had DST or Double Summer Time, when we put the clock on two hours, and one hour in the winter.

At the moment we are on GMT http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time/scripts/clock-8/runner.php Here you can set your clocks by real time.

[John81]

I would like it if they just picked a time and left it alone.

[Guest]

I enjoy daylight savings time. There is still light in the sky going to church on Sun & Wed eve. During Jun, Jul, & Aug the sun is still up when church gets out. It helps me spot the deer trying to run into my car.

[John81]

I enjoy daylight savings time. There is still light in the sky going to church on Sun & Wed eve. During Jun, Jul, & Aug the sun is still up when church gets out. It helps me spot the deer trying to run into my car.

Talk them into leaving it at that time!

[JerryNumbers]

Right its a scam, and many buy into it. And its a scam that pays off for big time for the business community.

I would be for leaving it as it will be next Sunday.

Yet, doesn't it send the children off to school in the dark? Is that good?

[John81]

Rather than leave time as God has established it, man continues to think he can control even this. What is really gained by stealing an hour of morning light in order to tack it on in the evening?

[Salyan]

Nothing, of course!

[Invicta]

Rather than leave time as God has established it, man continues to think he can control even this. What is really gained by stealing an hour of morning light in order to tack it on in the evening?

Well I like it that way. It was the railways that set our current clock. Before the railways, each major town had their own time. But this was not suitable for timetables so a standard time had to be set. This was known as Greenwich Mean Time. Mean, as it was an average time.

[betteroffdead]

I hate daylight savings time. Ever since I was a teenager I’ve always needed at least a week for my bioclock to reset itself every time the clock is changed. It’s like having jetlag.

But at the same time I hate it when it is still dark at 7:30 am or already daylight by 6:00 am the way it is at times here in Florida.

Human beings are biologically programmed to want to sleep when it is dark and be awake while it is day time. This is mainly due to hormone levels that are controlled by exposure to light. Some people even develop clinical depression, known as seasonal affected depression, when daybreak comes late in the morning- many people end up leaving for work before daybreak and then not returning home until after sunset so they go months at a time without seeing the sun.

In the winter much of the nation doesn’t have daylight until sometime after 7am local time. But most people need to be out of bed and on the road by 7am (some schools where I live begin classes before 8am so students have to be at their bus stops by at least 6:30). This plays havoc with our natural biological clocks when it is still dark outside and it also contributes to auto accidents, low grades and poor job performance.

So I propose seasonal affected depression abatement time. The principal is the same as daylight savings time, but clocks would be adjusted on a weekly basis rather than simply twice a year.

1. Make a one-time adjustment to standard time by subtracting 60 minutes from standard local time for December 17 so as much of the nation as possible will have daybreak by 7am. Note: as near as I can tell December 17 is the date for which sunrise comes at the latest hour for most of the U.S. For northern latitudes the shortest day of the year is not the Winter Solstice because the way sunlight is bent as it travels through the earth’s atmosphere.

2. Add 4 minutes per week to standard time every week until June 17.

3. Subtract 4 minutes per week from standard time every week until December 17.

Optional:
Establish time zones that are 7.5 degrees of longitude wide (half the size of current time zones) and then make standard time for each zone the equivalent of solar time at the middle latitude for the zone.

Changing the clocks each week wouldn’t be as big a hassle as it may seem. With satellite and digital technology we have clocks that can set themselves.

[JerryNumbers]

There is some constellation, due to the earthquake in Japan, our days were shortened just a bit. And they say the earth was moved on it axis.


Another thing, all people are not programmed the same, some of us do not get going till later, I'm one of them.

And to think, if anyone goes door to door trying to win souls to Christ, or inviting people to church they can do so in the daylight, that ought to be nice and conforting to both the one going door to door as well as the person they visit.

Plus throughout this country many of the elderly people can attend evening church services and be home before dark. For some of the elderly that is very comforting, for their eyes are not as good as they once was.

[Invicta]

There is one problem with daylight saving time. One day every year many people are an hour late for church, when they forget to change their clocks.

[betteroffdead]

There is some constellation, due to the earthquake in Japan, our days were shortened just a bit. And they say the earth was moved on it axis.

The same thing happened after the Chilean and Indian Ocean earthquakes. We have observed in our own lifetime that the earth has not always had 24 hour solar days, and there is archaeological and documentary evidence from ancient times that the earth's solar day was much shorter than it is now and that its solar year was shorter than our current 365.25 solar days. But yet fundamentalist Christians persist in saying God created the universe in 6 24-hour solar days. The truth is that we have no way of knowing how long the creation process took.

Another thing, all people are not programmed the same, some of us do not get going till later, I'm one of them.

This is most likely due to the way your body produces melanin based on how much sunlight it gets.

[Invicta]

The same thing happened after the Chilean and Indian Ocean earthquakes. We have observed in our own lifetime that the earth has not always had 24 hour solar days, and there is archaeological and documentary evidence from ancient times that the earth's solar day was much shorter than it is now and that its solar year was shorter than our current 365.25 solar days. But yet fundamentalist Christians persist in saying God created the universe in 6 24-hour solar days. The truth is that we have no way of knowing how long the creation process took.



This is most likely due to the way your body produces melanin based on how much sunlight it gets.

It doesn't matter is the day was shorter, or even longer in the past, it would still have been divided into 24 hours. Yes, I believe the creation was completed in 6 days and six nights, and I believe that Jonah was in the whale, 3 days and three nights. I aalso believ that Jesus was in the tomb 3 days and 3 nights, Matt. 12:20

[betteroffdead]

It doesn't matter is the day was shorter, or even longer in the past, it would still have been divided into 24 hours.

You are missing the point. We today divide time in increments that are multiples of 6 because our timekeeping tradition began in ancient Mesopotamia which had a base 12 number system rather than the base 10 (decimal) system we use today.

So for ancient people to always have had 24 hour solar days (something that likely isn’t true and likely could not be documented even if it were), the duration of the solar day would always have to be divisible by 6- 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour with the solar day having some multiple of 6 hours. But the fact is solar time and civil time did not always correspond in the past because solar time hasn’t always been divisible by multiples of 6.

For example, http://books.google.com/books?id=A42yVk8KJ8kC&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=ancient+%22solar+day%22+israel+OR+china+OR+aztecs&source=bl&ots=Fm8zc6ook0&sig=Kc2OkY0ioBzaW5X6iKpenuiClaY&hl=en&ei=m6GGTfS9F9KGtweC0MCVAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ancient%20%22solar%20day%22%20israel%20OR%20china%20OR%20aztecs&f=false, the ancient Egyptians had a 24 hour solar day (the time from one sunrise to the next) but the duration of each hour varied from one season to another and from one geographic location to another because solar time is based on seasons and latitude.

In Mesopotamia the day had 24 hours, but these hours had no relationship to the earth’s revolution on its axis; Mesopotamians used arbitrary hours that did not correspond to actual solar time because Mesopotamians wanted their days to be divisible by 6 and multiples of 6. The time from one evening to the next was divided into 12 units and each of these units was divided into 30 smaller units and each smaller unit was divided into 4 minutes. The daytime and nighttime period of each day was divided into 6 watches even though the amount of daytime varied from season to season. Thus civil time in Mesopotamia was not the same thing as solar time. The more you disrupt solar time by changing the earth’s rotational speed or its position in space relative to the sun, the more solar time and civil time get out of synch. But yet Darwinists and Bible thumpers use today’s solar time when measuring the age of the earth.