Six things to know about the political debate around daylight saving time
Six things to know about the political debate around daylight saving time
Nineteen states have passed legislation to make daylight saving time permanent. But those laws won't take effect until Congress makes it legal. And the medical community sees one major problem.
Why couldn’t you say what the medical communities issue is in the post rather than leaving some cliff hanger and making me click into the article?
Medical communities “issue”:
But the medical community has taken issue with how the bill proposes to make the change — specifically, that it mandates all states adopt permanent daylight saving time rather than sticking to standard time
Doctors and scientists argue that standard time is actually better for our health. Our internal clock is better aligned with getting light in the morning, which, in turn, sets us up for better sleep cycles.
But isn't morning figurative? You can always get up earlier. You can't get up later if you work.
People generally sleep to around the schedule of work and school. If you change the clocks these change. Most people don't really have control.of when they wake up.
Instead of making it so the sun is never overhead at noon again, couldn't we all just agree to do things an hour earlier? Surely its cheaper and less disruptive to global coordinated time keeping if we just ask Dolly to rerecord the song to be "8 to 4."
This is what drives me crazy. People act like it's impossible to just, I dunno, start work earlier during some seasons rather than passing an act of congress to officially change the clocks.
Once we all get used to the time shift any benefits will be lost. And people will be bitching about how dark it is in the winter in the morning.
I mean you're not wrong, but its also a larger societal thing which ends up meaning government who negotiates such things. Its not just work, but school start times and bus schedules, public transport times, parking fees/times. It balloons out a bit, so its easier to have some official stance. However, it doesn't have to be federal, and could just be local municipal governments.
In general, though. Yes, individuals could just shift what they do, and this is exactly what humans did for a long time. The industrial revolution changed us so that we needed to coordinate and regiment societal schedules, and here we are now.
So much simpler before rigid timekeeping was a thing. Get up when a bird tells you to and when the shadows get long go back inside.
Unfortunately people tend to expect businesses to have consistent hours for the most part. I see in a lot of small town businesses where they have winter hours vs summer hours but those tend to be shops that only cater to the local population. Having some consistency across the board is a net good thing and I'd be great with just picking one and sticking to it though. It's not as though it actually changes the hours of daylight, just our perception of when they are anyhow.
I've lived in a country that does not change for almost a decade now. It feels great to not have to deal with it (well, mostly; it affects scheduling calls with family in the US)
So, instead of changing the clocks in the spring, we're going to stay work an hour early? So we're adjusting our schedule instead of our clocks? How the fuck is that any different?
Every work an overnight shift? Everyone I know who does it ends up switching to "normal" hours on weekend just because all their friends and family live normal hours. Normally you sleep when everyone else is eating lunch, so every holiday you are switching to a normal schedule. Even if you try to keep the same schedule, almost nothing is open at 2am so you can't do any shopping on your weekend if you don't switch to follow the local world.
Once we all get used to the time shift any benefits will be lost. And people will be bitching about how dark it is in the winter in the morning.
Yup. You know how we know that? Because they did this in 1973, and it lasted 10 months before people realized it was stupid idea and repealed the law.
Despite living in a time where all human knowledge is available in everybody’s palm, people demand action because they are inconvenienced rather than taking 5 minutes to understand why things are as they are.
The earth is tipped on its axis, and as a result, the days getter shorter and longer throughout the year. We change the clocks as a way of dealing with this, not because the government is stupid and wants to make everybody's life miserable. The biannual time change is irritating, but it’s better than not doing it. But I guess every 50 years people have to relearn this.
I'd take "3 to 11" and just use GMT. Then none of these bickering parties have a leg to stand on anymore.
It makes the same problem though. You create some abstraction layer of "at 3 I start work". You then travel somewhere else, and you have to shift your abstraction layer again to "at 8 I start work" --- or you ask "but its 3 at office X, why aren't they at work?" and then still need to shift mental times to figure out when local day/night is.
The local noon system works to ease the local abstraction shift, but makes it harder to jump to absolute times.
Why is it so important that the sun is directly overhead at noon?
First of all, the sun is rarely directly overhead at noon anymore, even during standard time, because we use the same time for all the time in the time zone, so the sun is only directly overhead at noon if you are in the center of the time zone. (And even then, the sun is not always overhead at noon all the time- see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time )
Have you ever noticed that the sun is never directly overhead at noon, even when you think it should be? I doubt it.
Second of all, Noon is no longer mid-day anyway. The vast majority of people are awake for fewer hours before noon than after noon.
Permanent DST basically means that we are now considering 1PM to be mid-day, which is more compatible with most people's schedules.
I want to point out that solar noon is the term to describe when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky.
What is important isn't that the sun is directly overhead, just that it is "close" to overhead. Wherever you live you plan your day around the sun. Sure we have lights, and if you never go outside they are fine - but most people would agree that is a terrible life: once you accept you will go outside once in a while you want the times you go outside to be when the sun is up if possible (except astronomers who what nobody else to have those artificial lights on when it should be dark)
So, instead of changing the clocks in the spring, we're going to start work an hour early? So we're adjusting our schedule instead of our clocks? How the fuck is that any different?
Living in the PNW, I would very much prefer to be on permanent summer ti.e, since that way fall and winter night time does not come obscenely early.
It gets very depressing to go to work when it's still dark, stay in a windowless room while it's light, minus a few short breaks, and then go home and it's already dark again.
I just don't want the sun to come up at 5am in the summer.
I honestly don’t mind that tbh. I like watching the sun rise early in the morning
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Senate passed the bill through an expedited process and with unanimous consent — legislative rarities in this day and age.
Members cited higher priorities, like a budget deficit and war in Ukraine, but there was also a growing chorus of criticism about the bill's approach (more on this below).
Even if either bill manages to pass both chambers, it'd still need to be signed by President Biden, who hasn't indicated how he leans on the issue.
This season's turnover time is 2:00 a.m. on Nov. 5, meaning residents of most states will want to move their clocks back an hour when they go to bed this Saturday.
The nation's convenience stores, for example, told a congressional subcommittee that they see an uptick in spending when clocks are set to daylight saving.
Nineteen states have actually passed measures pledging to switch to permanent daylight time if Congress changes the rules to allow for such an action.
The original article contains 765 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Don't some states already do their own thing? Like Arizona? What is the holdup with allowing states to go permanent DST? Each state feels daylight a little differently due to basic geographic position so why are they dragging their feet or trying to implement a blanket policy. Let each state decide.
AZ changed long ago and got grandfathered in before Congress decided this was an inter-state trade thing they should regulate. Same for Indianna I think?
Indiana has DST now. Mitch Daniels made it part of his campaign platform for some reason.
Next DST, move the clocks up half an hour and make the change permanent. Extra half hour of sleep, extra half hour of sunshine, and no more changing clocks.