House Votes For Permanent Daylight Saving Time (nytimes.com) 194
The House voted 308-117 to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide and end the twice-yearly clock change. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, "where one G.O.P. leader said it was unclear whether it could move ahead and at least one Republican appears inclined to try to block it," reports The New York Times. Some sleep experts oppose permanent daylight saving time, arguing that year-round standard time better aligns with circadian rhythms and winter morning safety. The New York Times reports: President Trump has championed the effort to save an extra hour of daylight before nightfall and make the time zone permanent, describing the ritual of moving clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall a "ridiculous, twice yearly production." "We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day," Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post in May. "And who can be against that."
A sizable bloc of Florida Republicans in Congress is leading the charge on legislation that would do just that, mandating daylight saving time nationwide for the entire year. Representative Vern Buchanan of the Tampa Bay area is backing the bill, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna, another Tampa Bay-area Republican, cosponsored it. House leaders agreed to allow a vote on the measure this week as a sweetener for Ms. Luna in their efforts to persuade her to lift a legislative blockade she had maintained as she sought to force Senate action on a voting restriction bill Mr. Trump has championed.
A sizable bloc of Florida Republicans in Congress is leading the charge on legislation that would do just that, mandating daylight saving time nationwide for the entire year. Representative Vern Buchanan of the Tampa Bay area is backing the bill, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna, another Tampa Bay-area Republican, cosponsored it. House leaders agreed to allow a vote on the measure this week as a sweetener for Ms. Luna in their efforts to persuade her to lift a legislative blockade she had maintained as she sought to force Senate action on a voting restriction bill Mr. Trump has championed.
They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:2)
Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:4, Informative)
People complaining have simply no clue how it is to have DST in the winter, and can't imagine.
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Most of the world doesn't have DST. It's really just Europe and the US. Somehow they manage.
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I"m in the US...and I don't care which one they make permanent .....just pick one and stick with it.
I hate the hour changes....messes with me twice a year fairly badly at times....gets my pets off schedule too which is a PITA.
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Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:4, Insightful)
The root of the problem is rigidly tying people's daily routines to an arbitrary set of numbers, and then changing those numbers rather than changing the routine.
Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:5, Insightful)
Not getting any sunlight until past 10.00 AM is so annoying,
Well not getting any sun past 4:30 in the afternoon is also so annoying. I live at the same latitude: the number of hours of sunlight is too short and all you are doing is shuffling it around.
and the cost of road maintenance because rush hours is when everywhere, there is still ice on the roads, will be prohibitive.
You what?
People complaining have simply no clue how it is to have DST in the winter, and can't imagine.
Or maybe people just don't agree with you? Or maybe you also didn't read the article title? The plan was to KEEP DST, so winter is unchanged.
Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:5, Informative)
The plan was to KEEP DST, so winter is unchanged.
DST is the summer time, so the plan is to keep summer unchanged and change winter.
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Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:4, Insightful)
The sun always rises later in the winter, that's the nature of winter... The only thing this changes is the arbitrary numbers that are displayed when the sun is rising.
Instead of fixating around those arbitrary numbers, plan your day around actual environment factors like when the sun rises etc.
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Gosh, it's almost as though people in different geographic areas have different needs and desires. If I didn't know HOW IMPORTANT it is that we all be forced to do everything the same, I would suggest that timezones be regional, agreed upon by local governments. But of course that's heresy since not every local government would make the exact same choices.
Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:5, Informative)
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Then they should lobby to have their schools adjust the hours instead of making the entire timezone shift their clocks twice a year.
The advantage is that everyone makes the shift on the same day. There is no need to coordinate between kids schools and parents job.
If they go through with this, it means I leave home in the dark and get home in the dark in the winter. I work in a high rise, so I'll go all week without seeing daylight. Which is kind of depressing.
Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:5, Interesting)
If the Netherlands did this, they would reverse it immediately after the first winter. Not getting any sunlight until past 10.00 AM is so annoying, and the cost of road maintenance because rush hours is when everywhere, there is still ice on the roads, will be prohibitive.
People complaining have simply no clue how it is to have DST in the winter, and can't imagine.
Sunlight in the morning is relatively useless: most people are waking up, getting ready for work, and going to work, all of which can be done with artificial light.
Sunlight in the evening is valuable: people get off work and need to work in their yards, kids have after-school sports/activities, etc. outside, which are all either easier or only possible with sunlight.
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Today, northern Norway (and northern Alaska) has 24 hours of sunlight, the Netherlands 16:23 and New York 14:51.
And for the upcoming New Year's Eve, northern Norway has 0 hours of sunlight, the Netherlands 7:45 and New York 9:16 hours of sunlight.
Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:5, Insightful)
You're being silly. If the time is stable, then you'll set your hours to what it is. There's nothing special about the time number "10:00 AM". Businesses could have summer and winter hours if they chose to...at one time that wasn't uncommon.
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If the Netherlands did this, they would reverse it immediately after the first winter. Not getting any sunlight until past 10.00 AM is so annoying, and the cost of road maintenance because rush hours is when everywhere, there is still ice on the roads, will be prohibitive.
People complaining have simply no clue how it is to have DST in the winter, and can't imagine.
Yep, and that's exactly what happened the last time we stopped DST. The most notable instance was in 1974 during the energy crisis, when Congress enacted year-round DST. However, the change was highly unpopular due to dark, dangerous early morning commutes, prompting Congress to repeal it less than a year later in the fall of 1974. Some of us are old enough to remember that, and how much it sucked in the winter. So it very much has been tried before.
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No matter how you set the time zones, you're going to end up with a significant number of people unhappy with them. How far north/south you are in the time zone, and how far east/west you are influences how you experience it.
At the very least, if you're near a boundary, you're going to have a very different experience than someone just on the other side of it. There's no way to avoid that.
The people complaining are the ones that ended up with the current boundaries not working well for them.
The Netherlands
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I wish people would just have permanent standard time, rather than DT. Changing the time so you can have marginally more daylight in the evenings during the summer where you're already getting more daylight in the evenings anyway seems absurd to me, and not worth the impact it has on people's sleeping patterns. And nothing stops businesses from adjusting to a more reasonable set of opening patterns, maybe even changing it on a week by week basis so nobody has to wake up an hour early at an arbitrary point e
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So your complaint is that it's too cold to do things in the morning and then too cold to do things in the afternoon? You're not really making much of a case here.`Sorry but the Netherlands isn't remotely an extreme case. There are places in the world where your comment makes sense. The south of Spain for example where weather and temperatures actually are able to prevent work. But the Netherlands is simply insanely mild all year around.
Too cold to do things in the afternoon? Horseshit. The entire country fl
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Or perhaps we should all go to UTC? Sure, different countries will hold "different" hours - Elbonia, for example will be getting up at 3am as the sun comes up, and will go to bed at about 6pm, as it'll have been dark for a while by then.
It's make booking a meeting easier "shall we do 12:00? Yes sure, I can do that call on my way to work". You wouldn't have to set your watch when you travelled either, you just need to get used to getting up and going to bed when the clock says different numbers than you're u
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Re: They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:4, Informative)
Permanent standard time is ideal for human health and balance of daylight throughout the day.
That is not true. Left without clocks, humans in median latitudes tend to sleep longer in winter than in the summer. A standard schedule throughout the year is not healthy, except you live close to the equator, where the day length does not vary much during the year.
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A standard schedule throughout the year is not healthy
You're begging the question. Where's the evidence to say that left without clocks and relying exclusively on our internal cycle is the healthiest? We have plenty of evidence to show that too short or too long of sleep is unhealthy, but that is only born out in the data of extremes, e.g. regular repeated sleep deprivation or excessive repeated sleepins. Additionally you just need to look to the weekends to see that when left without clocks actual people's sleep routines vary wildly.
DST is Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep the time constant, school and work hours can be adjusted twice or so a year if wanted.
Re:DST is Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
school and work hours can be adjusted twice or so a year if wanted.
Indeed. Now how do we do this on a societal level quickly and easily in a way that everyone remains in synchronisation and there's minimal confusion and no requirement to adjust signage / information?
The idea that opening or working times are a choice are a delusion by someone without kids or without an employer (contractors can chose their working hours).
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We can operate at night, but do we want to? Your comment is precisely why I'm an advocate for permanent DST I'm not a morning person, so fuck any light in the morning. Give me sunlight in the afternoon to sit outside and enjoy myself.
Also no we can't operate perpetually at night, at least not without medical issues. This is one of the reason vitamin D deficiency is a thing.
And I agree changing clocks is silly, but I was just pointing out that the only way to adapt a society schedule in a functioning easy wa
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Well, time zones make sense unless you want to run everything on Zulu (Greenwich) time...which would have some advantages.
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Indeed. Now how do we do this on a societal level quickly and easily in a way that everyone remains in synchronisation
I guess you missed the part where OP said if wanted. I'd estimate that the pro/anti clock fiddling populations are about half-and-half now. Why should half be forced, even though they are tired of having to adjust their wake and sleep schedules twice a year, just to appease the other half?
minimal confusion and no requirement to adjust signage / information?
I never go to a business close to expected open/close hours without verifying with my phone first. Constantly shifting business hours since COVID have already made that a requirement.
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So either you abolish a strict day schedule and adopt during the year, which is not only two switch days a year, but multiple times, or you have some kind of sw
Re:DST is Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that when you get a bit further from the equator, it goes back to being "dumb". There's not enough winter daylight to go round no matter how you play with the clocks. Scotland only has six hours of daylight in the winter - so you're either going to work in the dark or coming home in the dark. And unless you're only going to sleep four hours a night, you'll be sleeping when it's full daylight for much of the summer. Changing the clock gets a brief respite in spring and autumn, but only for a couple of weeks before the sun overtakes the clock again.
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On the other hand, we tried this in the 1970ies already, and it was abolished immediately after the first winter, after traffic accidents during morning rush hour had risen sharply, and school children had to wait for the school bus in the coldest time of the day (and the school bus took longer because of all the icy roads anyway).
Re:DST is Dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
The next year we had our own timezone.
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Scotland only has six hours of daylight in the winter - so you're either going to work in the dark or coming home in the dark.
Or both! I'm further south (London) and in the depths of winter I was going to school before sunrise and would often/usually arrive home after sunset. And work is usually longer hours than school.
Re:DST is Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Even in Germany it only takes a couple of weeks and it is dark again in the winter and bright in the summer. It is even faster up north.
We are living in the 21st century, for fuck's sake. We have both artificial light and window blinds.
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I keep all my clocks on UTC now. I can't be bothered to change them twice a year.
I'm just hoping that they abandon leap seconds as well. If another one comes I might switch to TAI.
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I keep all my clocks on UTC now. I can't be bothered to change them twice a year.
Yeah mate that's frankly nuts.
Firstly, you have to go to effort to stop you phones and laptops changing their times automatically. Secondly, your clocks are now mismatched from literally everyone around you half the time. 95% of the point of clocks is to synchronise things with other people. That's why we got the concept of centralized time in the first place.
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My phone and computers let me set the timezone to UTC. For interacting with everyone else I just remember the offset.
I'm working on a pirate low frequency time signal transmitter for my house. If that works out I may switch back, if I can be bothered to replace a couple of dumb clocks with radio controlled movements.
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Unless you live in the strip of Europe where there is no offset from UTC, it sounds like you're making more work for yourself so you can brag about being different. I don't
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By "calculate" you mean add one? To be honest, the mental burden isn't that great.
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I wear a GMT watch. I set the watch to UTC and the GMT hand to local time.
Then if I need to keep track of another office or where I am I just move the GMT hand to the local time I care about.
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We have both artificial light and window blinds.
I've seen a lot of Germans but I've yet to come across those taking their artificial light and window blinds down to the beach. Hint: Any argument you think you're making about DST in your home or workplace is invalid. No one gives a fuck about the light outside when you're in those situations.
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Oh, so you never heard of sunglasses and flashlights? Well, now you know.
If you have found sarcasm in my words, you are welcome to keep it.
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That actually seems worse than the alternative. If everyone's going to be shuffling times around, just sort it out centrally rather than having a month of incredibly vexing minor synchronisation errors.
Or, you know pick hours for when it makes most sense when there's least sun (winter) and just leave it there?
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That actually seems worse than the alternative. If everyone's going to be shuffling times around, just sort it out centrally rather than having a month of incredibly vexing minor synchronisation errors.
Or, you know pick hours for when it makes most sense when there's least sun (winter) and just leave it there?
When I see the many solutions offered in here, it becomes clear that everyone should have their own personal time. 8^)
To be serious, I would hope most people in here would admit we need a Universal time (I've had a few conversations with people who see no need for it.
So it is also reasonable to understand that the earth being an oblate spheroid that rotates on a spherical axis around a light giving star is going to have a constantly changing day/night cycle with a rate of change from very small near la
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"Permanent Daylight Savings Time" is a misnomer.
What it actually is, is that the standard time in every location in the US is shifted one time zone to the west, and the clocks stay on standard time all year.
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I am amazed every time I see this. "Daylight Saving Time is dumb. We should replace it with something that would be much more inconvenient!"
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Keep the time constant, school and work hours can be adjusted twice or so a year if wanted.
Did you not realize that's what we already do? Pretending to gain/lose an hour by changing the clocks is just how we coordinate it.
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That's stucking fupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just discard the whole idea of DST instead of putting it into permanent effect?
The whole concept is an attempt to redefine time as a way of addressing perceived social problems. Schedule activities around the clock, not the clock around activities.
Everyone gets time from a smart phone (Score:2)
I propose a continuous adjustment of clocks between summer and winter to avoid the step changes between daylight and standard time.
I mean this whole business of mean solar time has us meandering about when the sun rises and sets anyway,
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Yeah, let 6:00 AM be defined as the local sunrise time! (I live shaded by a hill at astronomic sunrise.)
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Re: That's stucking fupid. (Score:2)
Most US population centers are in places east of the point in their time zones where the sun is overhead (or due south) at noon, and being a bit west is better than being a bit (or very, for New England) east. This means that DST is mostly the right UTC offset for the wrong reason: Boston should be on Atlantic Standard Time year-round, but Eastern Daylight Time is a name for the same clock setting that is already used there sometimes, so that's easier to legislate. Of course, the people who live west of the
most of the US slightly west of their solar time (Score:2)
Most US population centers are in places east of the point in their time zones where the sun is overhead (or due south) at noon,
Unless I'm misreading the map [wikimedia.org], on the East coast, the EST time zone is pretty much centered on where it should be, with New York very slightly east and Washington DC very slightly west of center. The main problem with EST is that it extends west to the city limits of Chicago, while it should change to CST around Toledo.
If anything, most of the population in the US is slightly to the western edge of the time zones, not the east.
Welp... as a self-employed person... (Score:2)
I guess I'll be an hour late to work from now on. Or an hour early, depending on how you look at it.
Wish Australia had it, even the equatorial parts (Score:2)
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We have DST, but only some states. But the sun coming up at 4:45am in summer sucks up near the tropics and makes no sense. I've often thought we should simply introduce it year round in all states.
Right, because your personal situation must be forced on the rest of the world. Everyone needs their own personal time. Making the world have time zones, and DST/Standard time is Nanny State government overreach. If I say it is 3 PM while others say it is 2 in the morning, IT is my personal truth!
Advantages and disadvantages (Score:4, Insightful)
DST is not dumb.
It trades the cumbersome problem of change time two times per year, and lots of problems with systems and doesn't implement internal timezones or at least automatic time change for a useful synchronization of regional schedules changes.
Sunlight is not something you can ignore. You can make a trick with the clocks like DST, you can change the schedules so you replicate somehow the same but without the need of change the clocks, or you can just leave your schedules off the sunlight, which generate problems itself.
Of course, DST becomes useless in places to near the equator which suffer very little sunlight variation over the year or extremely high latitude with so strong variations that an hour doesn't make a significant difference.
But DST is a valid technique to realign sunlight and human behavior.
You can also use synchronized general schedule changes (using different summer/winter schedules), so remove DST isn't a big of a deal. But the most common complain (the day schedules/clocks changes) will remain just in another format.
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I hate this idea. I say keep it as-is, or go with permanent standard time.
I'd prefer as-is, as it will save me a ton of work adjusting the time settings on a thousand devices.
This is so stupid (Score:3)
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We should stay on permanent STANDARD time, not daylight. I can't wait for to not see the sun in Dec and Jan until 9am. And screw the global time zone map.
As I've patiently described to many, the closer to the equator, the less Daylight savings time makes, because the axis tilt near the latitude axis makes light/dark hour of the day differences less extreme.
But as the latitude increases, the shift becomes more extreme. Here in Pennsylvania, right now, the sun is setting around 8:45 P.M. so it's useable light until ~ 9, and it is getting light around 5:00 A.M.
Wintertime, the times of daylight shrink a lot. So what we'll do is simply trade darkness from o
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This seems to have started with Florida, where theme parks want that extra hour in the evening (Rubio was the first to push it, "Florida businesses" wanted it). I don't live in Florida and am not a theme park. I'm one of that 5% who needs that morning sunlight.
Wait! (Score:5, Funny)
We have the political will, we have the military might, make it happen. Nuke the sun if it doesn't comply/
About Time for a Time Rethink? (Score:2)
Given modern technology isn't it about high time we step back and figure out exactly what problem(s) we want to solve?
I suspect we all really need more than one type of time. No doubts gentle reader, you probably have some ideas too..
1) Business time - Universal, something everyone is in sync with. Meeting starts at X, plane lands at X. This kind of time, it doesn't matter where you are in the world, everyone could be using the same thing because it's optimizing for being in sync. The concept of the sun be
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I'm against it. (Score:2)
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Nice!
It's dead in the Senate (Score:3)
Brick and mortar stores want daylight savings Time changes because their Big Data models indicate people spend a little bit more money in their stores during daylight hours. So we're not going to be able to get rid of daylight savings time because every time it comes up they just splash a bunch of cash around.
This is most likely just a fundraising average by a bunch of people in the House of Representatives
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But, you have it backwards. The move here is to make DST permanent, like retailers and theme parks want.
It's all relative (Score:2)
Someone made a tool to help make these arguments (Score:3)
Well, we've been through this before (Score:3)
Based on past experience in 1974, if they pass it, it won't last through the winter, when everybody says, "But I don't WANNA go to work when it's still pitch-black!"
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And, as usual, everyone in the North will roll their eyes at all the whiny babies in the rest of the country.
I'd prefer Standard Time (Score:3)
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Yeah, I gave up trying to fight this a long time ago. DST people are the clear majority. Whatever, it doesn't really matter *that* much to me. Living in Minnesota, I go to work in the dark for half the year anyway, what's a little more darkness in the morning?
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Scientific evidence says Standard Time is better (Score:5, Informative)
All the evidence suggests that it's better for our health to stay on Standard Time rather than Daylight Saving time, and sleep experts agree [www.cbc.ca].
But I guess scientific evidence hasn't meant anything to politicians for quite some time now.
Don't care (Score:2)
Pick one and stay there!
DST vs standard: change timezones (Score:2)
Yay! Washington state has been blocked by congress from doing this 2019. It's been a litmus test of congress disfunction.
DST vs standard is fixable: if everyone in a state agrees the sun should rise earlier or later, they should permanently shift the timezone that their region is in, rather than resetting the clock twice a year. Looking at a map of timezones, the regions that don't align with the natural time zones almost always selected to have the sun rise earlier by the clock rather than later. Chile's o
BOOOOOOOOO!!! (Score:2)
Definition of Crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do they always push for DST instead of regular time.
(Yes this is AI summarized but it illustrates the point.)
The primary argument for permanent standard time (regular time) over daylight saving time is that it aligns much better with natural human biology, leading to superior sleep health and fewer accidents. Sleep experts and health organizations overwhelmingly prefer year-round standard time.
Economic and Social Context
The DST Preference: Despite health warnings, lawmakers often push for permanent DST because retail, tourism, and golf industries lobby heavily for extra evening daylight, which increases consumer spending.
Health and Biology
Circadian Rhythm: Standard time aligns the clock with the solar cycle, providing natural morning light that signals the brain to wake up.
Melatonin Production: DST creates darker mornings and late-evening light, delaying the body's natural production of melatonin needed for sleep.
Chronic Sleep Loss: Medical groups like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine warn that permanent DST leads to a permanent state of "social jetlag" and chronic sleep deprivation.
Health Risks: Studies link the circadian misalignment of DST to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and mental health struggles.
Safety and Practicality
Morning Safety: Permanent standard time ensures the sun rises earlier in the winter, preventing children from waiting for school buses in pitch-black darkness. [24, 25, 26]
Accident Reduction: Better sleep quality under standard time reduces daytime fatigue, lowering the risk of drowsy-driving traffic accidents and workplace injuries. [27]
Historical Precedent: The U.S. repealed its 1974 permanent DST experiment specifically because dark winter mornings caused a spike in schoolchild traffic fatalities. [28, 29]
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The rest of the world laughs at how the greatest country in the world suddenly dies because it's not light outside. Maybe that's why Trump wants Greenland? To teach Americans how to use light switches?
Re: More dead Americans (Score:2)
Publish a new schedule. All good now.
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I really want to smack people who say this. Changing all the schedules is simpler than resetting a clock? Really? Ah, but then YOU don't have to do it. Making someone else's problem makes it simpler, even if it's ten times harder for the poor sod who has to do it.
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Driving to work in darkness, schoolchildren crossing streets, in winter.
When the daylight hours are short in winter, you have to pick some time in which it's darkness. If it's light during the morning commute, it will be dark during the evening commute.
This depends on how far north you are, of course.
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Well, I really think running everything on Zulu (Greenwich) time makes more sense. The number you put on the time is arbitrary. It's not like schools consider the schedules of the parents anyway, and everything that's automated runs 24 hours/day.
Re: Wish we'd do this in the UK! (Score:2)
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You can't change the universe, nor the solar system.
There's very specific reasons why the Sun reaches its zenith(daily peak) at mid day(12:00). You can say that the number is arbitrary. But that just illustrates your lack of understanding of the planet, what we use time for, and just how important it all is.
Cue the willfully ignorant with their 'what about $obscure timezone or $extreme longitude'.
The solution if for those few to move.
I don't know about them being willfully ignorant - perhaps just a little dull? I've had discussions with people in here who think when it is light where they are, it is light everywhere around the globe - so why not just make it the same time everywhere. Or people who acknowledge there is a globe, with day/night cycles, but believe that their day/night cycles be the universal work/not work times. Sounds specious, but a lot of people have a solipsistic worldview.
In my work, I need to know both UTC and loca
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I think a better answer would be for everyone to use the same time number, and adjust their hours of operation to fit local standards. For this I pick Zulu time for purely historic reasons, though it's really no better than any other arbitrary choice. And scrap leap seconds. Every once in awhile you might have a leap minute...either that or use leap microseconds as needed once/year...say at the spring equinox.