Do we really need daylight saving time?
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tom Liberatore, a materials purchasing manager, walks past clocks being tested prior to shipping at the Electric Time Company in Medfield, Mass. on Thursday.
Spring forward, fall back.
But why?
The reason the United States and many other countries, mostly in the West, shift to daylight saving time is contentious and confusing, and some of the more popular explanations are not grounded in reality. (It isn’t for farmers, as you may have learned in school.)
The general concept is to move an hour of sunlight from the early morning, when many would sleep through it, to the evening, when you could most likely do more with the light.
“For most people, an extra hour of daylight in the evening after work or after school is much more usable than the hour of daylight in the morning,” said David Prerau, the author of “Seize the Daylight.”
But since the idea was put in place, it has faced detractors and debate. Several states, including California and Rhode Island, are considering abolishing the practice. As with many other congressional acts, it’s worth considering who the beneficiaries are.
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Who Profits?
Extra daylight means extra time to spend money.
And if you’re in the United States, you’re probably going to get in your car to go spend that money.
“Americans really do leave their homes when there is more sunlight at the end of the day,” said Michael Downing, a lecturer at Tufts University and the author of “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.”
“We go to the parks, and we go to the mall, but we don’t walk there,” he said. “Daylight saving increases gasoline consumption.”
No one is more aware of that than gas stations, which is why the Association for Convenience and Fuel Retailing, a lobbying group for convenience stores, has pushed to start daylight saving time earlier in the year. In 2010, Jeff Miller, the group’s chairman at the time, said the industry had added an estimated $1 billion in annual sales since the organization lobbied to add a month to daylight saving in 1986.
“That’s tens of billions of dollars in sales since then,” he said in a news release.
Those in the leisure industry have also benefited, Downing said. For example, he said, the Chamber of Commerce has lobbied on behalf of retailers that sell gardening, home repair or sports equipment. Lobbyists from the golf industry estimated in 1986 that an extra month of daylight saving would be worth $200 million to $400 million.
Before lights were installed in professional stadiums, Major League Baseball had to end some games in ties because of darkness, and fans often felt robbed by such dissatisfying endings. In the two seasons after daylight saving began, the number of ties decreased to five from 22.
Who’s Opposed?
It might be surprising to find farmers in this category, considering the common belief that they are the reason for daylight saving time.
“I don’t know how that ever became a myth, but it is the exact opposite,” Prerau said.
He said daylight saving time actually disrupts farmers’ schedules.
Initially, farmers were the strongest lobby against the change. But since then, opposition has fragmented into much smaller interest groups, Downing said, including religious groups that schedule prayers around sunrise. Parents have also complained about having their children walk to school in the dark.
Some have argued it leads to an increase in traffic accidents. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York warned drivers to be vigilant, calling the morning commute that will now be darker “a serious danger.”
And some anti-federalists are opposed to what they consider unnecessary government intervention. (Arizona and Hawaii are the only two states that have held out.)
Energy Savings
The idea was originally rooted in saving candle wax, not electricity.
Historians have traced the notion back to Benjamin Franklin, who realized he was sleeping through some daylight hours while visiting Paris in the 18th century. He suggested French officials shoot cannons at sunrise to jolt people out of bed, optimizing the amount of hours they spent awake when it’s light out. That way, they could cut down on using candles to light their homes while awake, Prerau said.
But the first idea to move the clock hands came from William Willett, who unsuccessfully proposed it to the British Parliament in 1908. Germany, however, seeking cost savings during World War I, heard the idea and enacted it in 1915. Three weeks later, the British followed, and other world powers were close behind, including the United States in 1918.
Reducing energy consumption is still often cited as a chief driver of daylight saving time, but experts can’t agree on whether that is actually a result. There have been many conflicting studies.
An Energy Department report from 2008 found that the extended daylight saving time put in place in 2005 saved about 0.5 percent in total electricity use per day.
But Matthew Kotchen, a Yale economist, found a 1 percent increase in electricity use after Indiana introduced daylight saving statewide in 2006, estimating a cost of $9 million per year for consumers.
“The consequence for Indiana has been higher electricity bills and more pollution from power plants,” Kotchen wrote in Room for Debate.
Downing said the idea was originally based on having “an eight-hour economy,” but electricity demand is no longer based on sunrises and sunsets — not when there’s air conditioning.
“It has long been a cynical substitute for real energy policy,” he said. “It’s the ideal energy policy because it has no apparent direct cost to consumers, and it asks no one to consume less.”
© 2016 The New York Times Company
22 responses to “Do we really need daylight saving time?”
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It is utter nonsense , saves no energy and upsets schedules only.
Uh we don’t have dlst in Hawaii…
No DST is one more reason to enjoy Hawaii nei.
Daylight Savings Time is a money maker for many businesses, but adds to the energy usage and higher electricity bills of the consumer.
Don’t need to turn on the lights at home until an hour later at night during DST.
You need to turn on the lights one hour earlier in the morning! Duh!
But you probably will still be sleeping in the morning.
Daylight saving time is useless.
No its not. I love daylight savings. Means the stock market closes at 10 Am Hawaii time instead of 11. Also means the daily show will now come on at 8 PM instead of 9.
Why did Hawaii not go along with the rest of the nation as far as DST? I guess we are the baby of the family and babies are always rebellious. Without daylight savings time, we are managing well enough. For example, it would still be light well into the 8:00PM hour and that would upset the apple cart here in Hawaii. For the many that deal with mainland business, they keep in mind that during DST, they allow for the hour change. Besides that, our nearest Pacific neighbor, California, is two hours away during non-DST hours, and we like that. Then again, why not use DST, in order to maintain the two-hour distance? The mysteries of our existence in the back reaches of our minds are incredible, having evolved from single-cell amoebas to multi-celled complex creatures that can design Saturn rockets that go to the moon, yet still have to build prisons to keep the incorrigible under control. Who knows, maybe it would be better to degenerate into a third world country, so that we would not need the modern convinience of TheTrain as well as TheJail.
We don’t have it here because we don’t have the change in daylight hours that the mainland does. Our daylight varies only by a couple of hours during the year while the mainland is double or more.
Exactly. Because of our latitude, there’s not nearly the variation of day/night length that one finds at higher (or much lower) latitudes. (the first time we took our son to Germany, he was going nuts because it was still light at 10 pm.)
Spring forward, fall back.
But why?
Yes, that particular mnemonic phrase is illogical. A spring retracts, so it should be spring back, while when one falls, it’s more often backward, so that is better expressed as fall back.
Spring back, fall forward. Confused now?
Not if you are on a “spring” board or on a pogo stick. Think outside the box!
I have seen many elderly fall backwards when they loose their balance.
I understand the concept but I always thought it should be the opposite way around since there’s longer days in the summer and shorter days in the winter. The extra hour should be in the winter when there’s less daylight. They don’t need the extra daylight in the summer since days are longer already. Am I wrong? Can someone explain?
When my in-laws were alive and we visited them in the summer, it started getting light about the same time as Hawaii. (5AM). Without day light savings time that would mean it would be getting light at 4. So I can see it making a lot of sense.
“Bah, Humbug! “, a quote from the past is appro!
I would say it’s a waste of time. People just need to continue to get up and go sleep the same time everyday. The only difference is the sun comes up and goes down earlier or later. No biggie for us.
It is a bggie for us. lol. Means stock market now opens at 3:30 instead of 4:30. Please don’t let Hawaii ever adopt it.
Re California adoption of daylight savings in 1949:
‘…the seasonal time change … “tends to reduce juvenile delinquency,” according to “religious and women’s groups.”
Does anyone know why we even have time zones? (China doesn’t) It had to do with completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1879 and the need to publish train schedules that made local sense. (it also makes sense if you realize that for every 15 degrees around the world, there’s a perceived one hour difference in the time of day.)