The Daily Parker

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Anti-daylight saving time article is early this year

Apparently the morning people haven't let up in their assault on us night people:

[S]o far, legislation to go on year-round daylight saving time has passed in at least seven states, including Delaware, Maine and Tennessee this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Oregon was the most recent, approving year-round daylight saving on June 17.

“After the 2018 time change, I don’t know what happened, but people got grouchy,” Oregon state Rep. Bill Post, a Republican who sponsored the bill, toldthe Oregon Public Broadcasting network.

The grouchiness is not just in Oregon. A month earlier, Washington legislators adopted year-round daylight saving time. California voters have approved the same, and sometime as early as next month, the California state Senate is expected to review the matter, according to state Assemblyman Kansen Chu, a Democrat and the bill’s author.

OK, let's review: clock time is completely arbitrary. It has no relation to the iron-clad astronomical motion that determines when the sun comes up and when it sets.

I think the permanent DST idea attacks the problem from the wrong side. Maybe the problem is that so much of our life requires people to get up and go to sleep when their bodies don't want to. Changing wall-clock time twice a year just shuffles the furniture.

But, hey, let's apply our energy to this anyway. It's easier than fixing real problems.

Comments (1) -

  • David Harper

    8/18/2019 7:23:56 PM +00:00 |

    Britain experimented with permanent DST between 1968 and 1971, but Parliament voted to end the experiment.  People were unhappy about late sunrises in mid-winter, even in southern England.  Dairy farmers and postmen disliked having to work long dark hours in winter.  And the reduction in road accidents involving children coming home from school in the evening was more than offset by an increase in accidents in the morning as they went to school in the dark.

    As an amusing aside: the senators from Idaho were apparently persuaded to vote for the 1986 extension of the period of DST when it was pointed out that longer leisure hours in the evenings meant more sales of fast foods, including French fries made from potatoes grown in Idaho.  The spuds have it, the spuds have it!

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