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US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

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Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#241

Post by joe_the_user »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #26

Such a terrible idea compared to permanent standard time. There is plenty of light during the summer, so there's no need to optimize for that. The winter is when daylight is scarce, so that's what should be optimized for.

The winter is when daylight is scarce, so that's what should be optimized for.

Yes but so-called Standard Time was only optimizing that for a small group - the intention was rural children walking to school could do so in daylight. And otherwise it pessimized the use of scarce sunlight by moving forward the time workers left to when it was dark.

Always Standard Time might be better than awful switch but permanent Daylight Savings would offer most people who work 9-5 more sunlight over the year, the actual optimal solution.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#242

Post by jrockway »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #2

>Sunshine Protection Act Jesus, does everything need to be hyperbolic virtue signaling. Won't someone please think of the children!

It's modeled after a Florida law with that name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Protection_Act

Florida is "The Sunshine State", so the name was a little more clever in that context. I can't emphasize enough that I call it a little clever, not a lot clever.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#243

Post by bluGill »

sremani wrote: post #59
runjake wrote: post #7

What does this mean in terms of short-term, real-world effect in the US?

Daylight Savings has real effect on the northern states than southern states. One of the arguments for Day light savings change is that -- it would still be dark during the time kids go to school in winter, early spring and late fall, many places in US will not have Sun rise at 8:00am. No matter how much we may be removed from the nature -- our wakeful hours are directly impacted by Sun rise and Sun set. On the other…

Maybe the middle States, but in the northern states you go to school in the dark and get home in the dark.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#244

Post by paxys »

Priority 1a – Daylight saving all year.

Priority 1b – Standard time all year.

.... bottomless pit ...

Last possible priority – Switch clocks back and forth twice a year.

It would suck so bad if because of the fighting between the two preferable options we are stuck with the worst one.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#245

Post by anchpop »

rhexs wrote: post #228
mdturnerphys wrote: post #146

More info here: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-approves-bill-tha... Important note: "Senator Marco Rubio said after input from airlines and broadcasters that supporters agreed that the change would not take place until November 2023."

Quoted post unavailable.

Presumably your state chose to elect some of the senators who voted unanimously to pass the bill because the electorate trusted their judgement. Sometimes making the best judgement that means consulting with interest groups like airlines, who offer an important service millions of Americans depend on. I'm not sure what you're unhappy about here

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#246

Post by nostrademons »

tptacek wrote: post #189

Obligatory: https://archive.ph/Aro0a Barro is very fond of pointing out that we tried this once in the 1970s and almost immediately rolled it back. Permanent DST means that it's dark between 8-9AM in large swathes of the US. Among other problems, having kids go to school in the dark or twilight hours is unsafe, so schools responded by adjusting their schedules, which is an even bigger problem than DST, because the re…

That makes this the perfect time to do this.

There's tons of research out there that early school start times have a negative impact on students' learning, alertness, and well-being. We should be pushing schools back to a 8:30-9:00 AM start time. My high school started at 8:30, which was much better than my sister's 7:00 AM start time, and this was explicitly called out as a plus when my high school was accredited.

The reason we don't do this is exactly the reason you mention: for the convenience of adults and the rest of the economy. Children don't get a voice, but corporations do. And that's also what makes this the perfect time to do it, when the future of work is in total disarray, nobody knows how they're going to be handling RTO, and large swaths of America is quitting for remote jobs (or just quitting) anyway.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#247

Post by acoard »

mobilene wrote: post #238

I live in Indiana, where we didn't change time at all until ...was it about 10 years ago? I forget. We were EST year round It was wonderful not to have to deal with DST. But then we started observing DST and ...glory be, we had sunlight in summer until after 9 pm! That was quite a revelation, and very welcome. So I'm all for permanent DST. Or putting Indiana in the Central time zone and observing permanent Standard T…

You also wind up not getting sunlight until close to 9am during winter in some places. Personally I don't mind, but I've heard that some sunlight-sensitive people can really suffer in those conditions. Personally, I'd say keep the winter-time hours all-year round, even if you give up an hour of sunlight during summer just to tack it on to winter mornings.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#248

Post by radley »

Obligatory link to previous attempt (1973) to make DST permanent:

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/31/archives/schools-ask-end-...

TLDR: schools asked to reinstate DST because more school children were killed in accidents walking to school in the dark that year.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#250

Post by Beltalowda »

paxys wrote: post #67
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #26

Such a terrible idea compared to permanent standard time. There is plenty of light during the summer, so there's no need to optimize for that. The winter is when daylight is scarce, so that's what should be optimized for.

The amount of sunlight stays the same. The question is whether you want more of it in the morning or the evening, and there isn't a "correct" answer there. Going by general public sentiment I'm willing to bet it's more towards the latter though.

The entire idea of DST is that it provides a nice balance between the two: still reasonably light in the morning in winter, and move some of the very early morning sunlight to the evening in summer.
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