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British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

cbc.ca

381–390 of 583 posts

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#381
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have children and I prefer permanent Standard Time because I have the apparently weird belief that noon should be at noon. (i.e. the time 12:00PM should be when the sun is overhead) I'm not a "capitalism gives you brain worms" kind of person, but the idea that it is somehow better to literally change the location of the sun in the sky because the holy hours of 9-5 are sacrosanct is so strange to me.

I lived once in Ecuador. Pretty much the whole year the sun rises at 6am and sets at 6pm. I very much prefer Spain: in summer the sun sets at almost 10 pm at its peak… best summers of my life. I lived in Poland once too, where in winter the sun sets at 3pm: I wanted to kill myself

Summers in Spain, e.g. Madrid can be extremely hot. Having the sun not set until very late can create an unpleasant city life experience.

With people acknowledging heatwaves and energy issues, I find it interesting how that's seldom part of the conversation.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#383

I'm in BC. The astro-nerd in me would have preferred to see permanent Standard Time instead of a permanent +1 offset. Instinctively, I think morning light is important to our biology for a daily reset and the solar cue of "high noon" is also a real thing. I'm sure I've read that sleep health experts have historically supported a change to permanent Standard Time, not DST. I respect there are economic arguments for pe…

This has to be done in two steps

1) Do ANYTHING you can to stop the clocks being fucked with twice a year.

2) After that is done and stabilised, everything has been updated to non-wobbly time. Now's the time you can start arguing what the exact time zone should be.

Never try to argue both at the same time. This is what prevents the EU from stopping the DST madness.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#384
post #264
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remain unclear what authority the federal government has over such a matter It's actually an enumerated power under Article I, Section 8, Clause 5: > [The Congress shall have Power...] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; ... https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C5-1/...

I'm surprised that would be interpreted to include time zones. Units of time, arguably (measures), but time zones? Time zones are not a measure of anything. Time zones do not follow on from definitions of units of time, any more than road speed limits follow on from the definition of a mile. I would be less surprised if it were the commerce power used to uphold time zone coordination - for the promotion and regularit…

They measure the number of minutes since sunrise.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#385

The European Parliament voted to end clock changes in 2019 [1] but it got stuck and nothing happened. Meanwhile, BC just goes ahead and does it. I suppose one can still dream... :) [1] https://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/end-clock-changes-euro...

Unfortunately two very big things happened afterwards:

1. Covid, which caused a dramatic shift in the EU focus and required the Commission to permanently take on lots of extra responsibilities (debt, shared procurement of medical goods and vaccines, way more international recognition/influence, etc)

2. Brexit: Ireland has to follow whatever Northern Ireland does. Northern Ireland's Unionists will never tolerate being in a different timezone than London, and Farage and his cronies in the UK will never tolerate having to swallow down an EU directive for ideological reasons. BoJo was already saying back in '19 that the UK was going to keep daylight savings only to spite the EU. This means that Ireland will almost 100% veto any changes to DST unless London is on board with them.

There's also an underlying internal divergence about what abolishing DST should look like. While nobody in Europe likes daylight savings (the material act of switching), Southern and Northern Europe have a very different opinion about which timezone to keep. Right now basically 70% of the EU is in CET/CEST, so trade and business are frictionless - from the tip of Sweden down to Malta, from Galicia to the Suwalki Gap - all year round.

The issue now is that Northern Europeans generally don't give a fuck about more daylight in the summer - they already have a humongous amount of daylight during the night. What they'd like to do is to keep "natural" time all year around, because summer time would cause the sun to rise extremely late in winter. They'd like CET to become the new central European standard.

On the contrary, in Southern Europe people don't really care that much about sun rising at 7 or 8 in winter but really love the extra hour of sun on summer evenings. This means keeping CEST all year round.

Given that having a timezone between Southern Germany and Austria/Northern Italy or between the Rhineland and France is objectively terrible for the EU economy, nobody is going to propose this ever again unfortunately. I think we're stuck with DST forever unless someone caves - most likely the Nordics. Having basically all of Europe on a single timezone is just too convenient, that's why nobody went back to their previous timezones after Hitler and Franco fucked them up in the '40s and why China is still on Beijing time

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#386
post #219
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instinctively, I think morning light is important to our biology for a daily reset I'd bet people would happily trade away the inkling of light they get during their winter commute before locking themselves into their office for some extra daylight when they leave that office. Daylight is most enjoyable if you can actually make use of it.

That's what everyone says. But it turns out people hate spending their morning in darkness for more light at night. Which makes perfect sense: https://washingtonian.com/2022/03/15/the-us-tried-permanent-... > the inkling of light they get during their winter commute It's not an inkling. Unless you roll out of bed and instantly onto your commute, you're getting natural sunlight through all your windows for hours every…

fwiw, getting sunlight from behind a modern window is almost the same as getting it from a led or lightbulb, vastly insufficient. The glass filters out the specific frequencies that are most beneficial to us. You need to get out...

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#387
post #253
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has to be latitude dependent. > you're getting natural sunlight through all your windows for hours every morning Hah "hours". Not in Northern Europe you're not. My commute is dark on both sides. If I had to choose which side I'd prefer to be brighter I'd prefer the end of the day rather than feeling like my daylight has been wasted in the office. I shift my schedule in winter to make up for this as best I can.

I guess. I'm at 46 degrees and civil twilight at Christmas starts at 7am. I get up at 6:30, so yeah, dead of winter, I spend 30 minutes in darkness. But that's better than 1:30. I guess it kinda hinges on this idea of "wasting" daylight. I don't feel like that. I want the sun to wake me up, and have no problem doing whatever I like when it's dark in the evening. Do people generally go on hikes after work? I go out fo…

Do people generally go on hikes after work?

Yes. Of course. That’s the whole point of shifting the daylight hours.

You get off work and head to the crag to climb a few routes before it gets dark. It’s like a little mini weekend every evening for those summer months.

But yeah, if you never take advantage of that, it’s understandable to want some light in the morning I guess. But yikes, why not go out and enjoy the sunshine?

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#388
Compromise solution: In the spring, just lose the hour during the workday at 3pm instead of in the middle of the night. Designate that missing hour a holiday so employees still have to get paid for it. All the complaints about switching back and forth would go away.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#389
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. The time that would stay is the bad one. With switch, we get reasonable half a years. Without it, it would be whole unreasonable year.

Why? Can't people adjust their schedules as needed? Schools don't have to always start at the same time? And many jobs also not? It's not like 9-17 work hours are set on stone?

And coordinating that change would be easier you think?

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#390
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vancouver Southerners ... (Chiming in from Denmark)

Icelanders want a word with you :P

Wait. Somebody else who uses the dwarvish name for Gandalf?

Had to do a double take, as that's my steam handle.

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