Daylight "Savings"? Who Needs It?

First of all, how - exactly - does moving the hand on the clock "save" daylight.  You have to be impressed by government's skill at euphemism.

Every year, about this time, I ask myself the same question.  What good is daylight savings time, anyway?  Apparently some people love it -- I'm not one of them.  So this year, I thought I'd find out a little more about it.

We can thank Ben Franklin for the idea, though in his time there was really no way to implement it. 

Here's a little history from a National Geographic article on the topic:

    "It wasn't until World War I that daylight savings were realized on a grand scale. Germany was the first state to adopt the time changes, to reduce artificial lighting and thereby save coal for the war effort. Friends and foes soon followed suit.  In the U.S. a federal law standardized the yearly start and end of daylight saving time in 1918—for the states that chose to observe it.

     During World War II the U.S. made daylight saving time mandatory for the whole country, as a way to save wartime resources. Between February 9, 1942, and September 30, 1945, the government took it a step further. During this period daylight saving time was observed year-round, essentially making it the new standard time, if only for a few years.

     Since the end of World War II, though, daylight saving time has always been optional for U.S. states. But its beginning and end have shifted—and occasionally disappeared.  During the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, the U.S. once again extended daylight saving time through the winter, resulting in a one percent decrease in the country's electrical load, according to federal studies cited by Prerau.

     Thirty years later the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was enacted, mandating a controversial monthlong extension of daylight saving time, starting in 2007."

So we learn that the purpose is not to save daylight (which, of course, is silly), but to save energy.  Does daylight saving time really save any energy?  A good question, to be sure.  In spite of the federal studies cited in the above quote, the answer is, no, not really.  More recent studies have shown that what is saved in the evening is transferred to... you guessed it, the morning.  People still have to get up at the same time and go to work -- in the dark (at least in the beginning and end of the change), necessitating the turning on of lights in the house.  We're using about the same amount of energy--just at a different time of the day.  And for those of us who live in the northern realms, daylight savings time gets more than a little annoying when the sun is still up at 9:00 at night (especially if you're trying to put small children to bed).  And, furthermore we tend to stay up later because, who goes to bed right when the sun goes down?... so we STILL have lights on at night...and most of us are probably getting less sleep.

Not only this, but "springing forward" significantly increases the risk of fatal car crashes and heart attacks, according to Dr. Charles Czeslier, M.D. Ph.D. of Harvard Medical School.  Add to this our summer sleep deprivation, and we discover that messing with our internal clock can be downright unhealthy!

The most audacious aspect of Daylight Savings Time, in my opinion, is this one-size-fits-all mentality of government.  Depending on what latitude you live, your day will be longer or shorter and the daylight hours will be different.  So exactly WHO does DST benefit?  It's probably no big deal if you're living on the 38th parallel (or below), but suppose you live in Alaska?  How about Maine, or Vermont, or the Dakotas?  In my opinion, there are some things the government ought to keep its hands off of...and time is one of them.

I love the sunshine as much as the next person.  But don't mess with my clock!