In the past six years, 19 states have made efforts to move to year-round daylight saving time. So what’s in the way?
I know some think permanent standard time is best. But I respectfully disagree, for several reasons.
First, the argument for standard time is that we need the light in the morning to wake up. And, sure, that would be great. But with standard time, most people are already getting up in the dark. Sunrise only moves to 7am or later around here. A lot of people are already up earlier to get kids on buses (my bus went at 6:45) and to work starting between 7 and 8.
Meanwhile, look at what happens to evening light. Sunsets will go from 6 to 5, and many will travel home in the dark, or simply have no light when the get home, with hours to go before sleep.
The fact is, winter just doesn’t have enough light to go around. So we have to pick our poison. I’d rather get home with some light.
Second, no one considers what would happen in the summer. Here, sunrise would come at 5 am, too early and disruptive to sleep. If light would wake us up better in the winter, than it would wake us up too soon in the summer.
Third, people say we tried it in the 70s and everyone hated it. But when it happened, we didn’t just stay on daylight savings, we switched in the fall, and then back in January, an abrupt change in the darkest time of the year rather than the gradual change it should have been since fall.
And even then, many people lived it. There were people that didn’t, sure, but it is wrong to say it was universally hated.
But make we just need to compromise. Move the clocks 30 minutes and be done with it.
On permanent dst sunrise in Boise would be at 9:20 during the first half of January.
I love how a purely factual statement somehow receives as many downvotes as it does upvotes … People are weird.
It’d be like 9:50am here in the Netherlands and I still support permanent DST. The daytime is basically our employer’s time anyway, I’d rather not waste any more precious daylight on that part of the day. It really sucks getting off work and it’s already dark outside. Hard not to crash when it’s pitch black out by 5:30 pm.
The daytime is basically our employer’s time anyway, I’d rather not waste any more precious daylight on that part of the day.
I feel like this strikes at the heart of the whole DST vs. ST argument. As I mentioned in a sibling thread, it boils down to how much control we have over our own schedules. Instead of a mutualistic relationship, we’ve sold our souls to our employers. Shifting to permanent DST may be a temporary solution, but if we can’t figure out a way to form healthy relationships and boundaries with work/school/etc, even those gains will eventually get optimized away from us.
And sunrise would be 5am in June. And you ignore that sunset would be 6:20pm instead of 5:20.
The fact is, Boise gets just 9 hours of daylight. Pick your poison. I’d rather the light when I might be able to enjoy it.
In June on dst sunset is after 9:30pm. I don’t need it to be light at 10:00, it’s frankly annoying. I actually enjoy it being light when I drive to work in the morning.
The fact is, the US tried permanent dst in the 70s and everyone hated it. It’s why we took it back
I’d rather the light when I might be able to enjoy it.
There’s a subtext to every DST vs. ST argument that never gets talked about: how much control people have over their own schedules. If, instead of shifting your clock, you could instead shift your schedule, wouldn’t that achieve the same result?
The question is basically: do you want school and work to start earlier or later?
Why change the time for everyone when you can just adjust “working” hours. People who do shift work or work retail and other non- white-collar jobs are collateral damage. Roofers and farmers change their start and stop times baes on light and heat conditions.
Just start at a different time. Time is based (roughly) on the global position from a reference mark. Stop fucking with it.
This only works if everyone in the country starts and stops work/school at the exact same time which isn’t possible.
Local businesses and governments already shift their hours to be open when people are awake and available regardless of whatever arbitrary thing the clock says…
If DST and Standard Time are functionally equivalent for all intents and purposes, why not just stick with the simpler one?
I’d rather have light in the evening but I honestly just want to get rid of the changing.
But make we just need to compromise. Move the clocks 30 minutes and be done with it.
I was with you until this. But that’s because I’m a programmer and time stuff is hard enough before you start using minutes instead of hours.
I think putting the sun’s zenith at 1pm would be better year round. Even with that my kids still wake up before dawn starting in October, and I’d rather have daylight when I’m awake.
The only way it makes sense to do this is at the federal level so the whole country changes at once. Doing it at the state level is stupid, confusing and frankly just a waste of time. This country has very real and serious problems it needs to deal with, and daylight savings time is not one of them.
That would suck. They went the wrong way round.
I’d rather have sunshine left when I get off work than have some first thing in the morning.
We already tried permanent dst in the 70s and people hated it so much they switched back to changing the clocks. Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
As I said above, it was implemented incredibly stupidly. They didn’t just stay on daylight savings, allowing the sunrise and sunset to gradually change. Instead they changed in the fall to standard time and the AGAIN at the beginning of January back to daylight savings. They abruptly changed at the darkest time of the year.
Even then, it’s an exaggeration to say people hated it. Many hated it, but some others loved it. It’s also a different world. More people start at 7 or 8 rather than 9. And no doubt some people hated the horrible way they initially implemented it.
The numbers I found were they went from 76% approval to 46% approval in three months. Three months is enough to get over the abrupt change and apparently enough to figure out it’s a shitty idea.
