End Daylight Savings
petitions.whitehouse.gov
End Daylight Savings
1–10 of 149 posts
Re: End Daylight Savings
#2I like the points made here and the general thrust of the petition; however, the big question I have: where is the data to back up these claims?
The argument would be a lot more convincing if sources or studies were cited for claims such as increased air conditioning costs, etc.
Re: End Daylight Savings
#3One real problem with daylight savings is that it goes the wrong way. The idea was that in the winter there would be fewer hours with the sun up, and it made sense to put those hours in a more useful part of the day.
When daylight savings was introduced, that "more useful part of the day" was earlier in the day. That doesn't hold today, though - as TFA says, most people work indoors under artificial lighting, and shifting daylight hours earlier into the day just means they're wasted while we're behind desks. What we really need is more daylight in the evening, so we can make productive use of our leisure time playing catch with our kids, practicing with the football club, drinking beer on the porch etc.
Still, killing daylight savings would probably be better than "reverse daylight savings", and more politically feasible. Certainly more feasible than crazy ideas like moving to UTC (and probably better for the average person anyway).
My pet peeve, though, is leap-seconds. Life would be a lot easier if you could rely on days always having 86400 seconds.
Re: End Daylight Savings
#4Slightly off topic -- but these petitions have been cropping up more and more lately, but have they actually done anything? Are there any we can point to that actually caused some change in government behavior?
All I see in every response is just politician-speak from random government officials. Typically they acknowledge the submission and then wave it off with no specific action to fix it.
Re: End Daylight Savings
#5Given that Congress recently extended DST in the name of saving energy, I doubt there is much appetite for abolishing it. While the benefits are disputed, the benefits of no DST are also disputed, simply because almost no industrialized region has abandoned DST, so there is no data. Clearly DST is a stressor, but there may health benefits to stress induced hormesis.
Personally, I prefer DST simply because it gives a longer block of sunlight in the evening, when I can be active, at the expense of daylight in the morning, when I am asleep anyway. I'm not sure my sleep would improve with the extra light in a non-DST world.
Re: End Daylight Savings
#6This video explains DST really well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aWtseb2-4
Re: End Daylight Savings
#7One real problem with daylight savings is that it goes the wrong way. The idea was that in the winter there would be fewer hours with the sun up, and it made sense to put those hours in a more useful part of the day. When daylight savings was introduced, that "more useful part of the day" was earlier in the day. That doesn't hold today, though - as TFA says, most people work indoors under artificial lighting, and shi…
> The idea was that in the winter there would be fewer hours with the sun up, and it made sense to put those hours in a more useful part of the day.
Daylight Savings time happens during the summer, not the winter. Winter time is unadjusted and tracks a true solar day. Summer time is adjusted, and indeed it's adjusted in the direction you favor (to provide more daylight hours at night).
Re: End Daylight Savings
#8Given that Congress recently extended DST in the name of saving energy, I doubt there is much appetite for abolishing it. While the benefits are disputed, the benefits of no DST are also disputed, simply because almost no industrialized region has abandoned DST, so there is no data. Clearly DST is a stressor, but there may health benefits to stress induced hormesis. Personally, I prefer DST simply because it gives a…
My method of killing DST would be to accept it year round. I would much rather have the extra time at the end of the day, after work.
I'm not sure if we can just unilaterally say "All our timezones are +1 now, forever" though.
Re: End Daylight Savings
#9daylight savings creates useless complexity, confuses the electronic devices, travel plans, flights and many other human and post-human activities. artificial lighting, flexible working hours, remote working are all helping better day for everyone.
beyond that, following bold suggestion exist; 1) the 'second' time unit must be quicker to match average human heart rate. 2) time zones maybe abolished totally and 1 single time zone maybe used.
Re: End Daylight Savings
#10One real problem with daylight savings is that it goes the wrong way. The idea was that in the winter there would be fewer hours with the sun up, and it made sense to put those hours in a more useful part of the day. When daylight savings was introduced, that "more useful part of the day" was earlier in the day. That doesn't hold today, though - as TFA says, most people work indoors under artificial lighting, and shi…
> My pet peeve, though, is leap-seconds. Life would be a lot easier if you could rely on days always having 86400 seconds.
Is this sarcasm? The only time I've ever noticed leap seconds was the story about a bug in the Linux kernel's handling of them.