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My husband told me about this today, and I agree with you. I am thrilled about the The Sunshine Protection Act. I have long been in favor of year-round daylight saving. More light!
Was this meant in sarcasm? How would there be any more light on a given day than the amount of time the sun is above the horizon?
Right now, only a third of nations in the world use DST, and that third only uses it half the year.
Going to permanent DST would put the US permanently out of sync with 2/3rds of the world all year long and out of sync with the entire world for half a year.
Going to permanent Standard time would put the US in sync with 2/3rds of the world all year long and in sync with the entire world for half a year.
But the US going to permanent Standard time would probably encourage every other nation to go to permanent Standard time (except maybe India...they'll probably decide to remain half an off the rest of the world).
It seems ridiculous to change "time" twice a year, and even worse to change it permanently. "From now on, noon is 1pm!" What's the point?
If you want more daylight, get yourself up an hour earlier.
Employers could offer flex time, so early birds could come and go early, and night owls could work late and sleep in. Everybody could be happy.
When I lived in Hawaii, we'd get calls from the East Coast in our middle of the night because they didn't stop to think, or did the math wrong. Adding more time zones would make it even worse.
I think:
1) we should stay on a single time year 'round.
2) Stick with Standard time.
3) It's hard enough for people to figure out time zones as it is. Don't make it worse.
LOL.
When I was active duty, I was stationed (rather frequently) in the Far East. But our theater headquarters was in Hawaii, with the international date line between us. When I was in the Philippines, there was nearly a full day between us and Headquarters.
One day I was on the phone with a guy and told him that I needed a document faxed to me "right now." His response was, "Tell me what time it is there now so I can figure out when to fax it."
I'm torn. On the one hand, I hate the switching back and forth and would like one standard for the entire year. On the other hand, I don't know how I feel about driving to work in the dark at 7am on the east coast. All in all, though, I'd probably support making daylight savings time permanent as I think there is more upside than downside, including later periods of sunlight.
That was one of the major concerns which arose in the U.K. experiment 50 years ago. In addition to safety issues of walking to school in the dark, many teachers reported that it was much harder to get the children motivated at the start of the school day when they'd already had to get out of bed and make their way to school in the dark.
How about starting school 1 hour later, and ending 1 hour later. That would solve the problem unless it would create other problems along with it.
Not in favor of permanent DST. We live in a hollow, and the sun already doesn't hit our house until 10:00AM in mid-December. So that's going to be 11:00AM now? Yuck.
And I do remember when Nixon changed it temporarily in the 70's because of the Arab Oil Embargo. A kid got killed waiting for the school bus in the dark in the middle of winter. Then they abolished it. I just don't think it's worth it.
Honestly I'd be more in favor of abolishing DST permanently.
Indeed. In the 70s we had a coach whose little girl was killed in traffic one morning because it was dark. Surely that isn't less important than missing another hour of daylight on a summer evening or needing room darkening shades to keep the morning light out at 7:00.
One day I was on the phone with a guy and told him that I needed a document faxed to me "right now." His response was, "Tell me what time it is there now so I can figure out when to fax it."
That's a good one! But it illustrates how some people really seem to have trouble working with different times.
Having lived the first 48 years of my life in England, for years I always got the feeling that a great many of my fellow countrymen really struggled with the concept of time zones, perhaps because the U.K. lies entirely within the same time zone so it's not an issue most of the time (excuse the pun). If people had regular business calls overseas, were in the military, or traveled a lot they were fine, but otherwise their exposure to having to change their watch (beyond the twice yearly ritual for BST) was being reminded to to set it forward an hour when visiting France, or being told what time to set it to when going on a fly-drive vacation to Florida. And then there was still the confusion of BST/DST starting on different dates, especially back when U.S. daylight time started toward the end of April - A full month after the U.K. Perhaps Americans are just more comfortable in generaldue to having multiple time zones across the nation, even for those who rarely go outside their own time zone, and especially since the days of networked TV with the constant reminders about "8 Eastern/7 Central" etc.
How about starting school 1 hour later, and ending 1 hour later. That would solve the problem unless it would create other problems along with it.
The way I see it, whatever adjustment is made to solve one problem is just as likely to create a different problem somewhere else. For example, from a practical point of view, starting school an hour later would compensate for the time change in winter, but what if parents have a job which won't accommodate that shifted schedule?
As I said earlier, I think the basic issue here is trying to force the clock to conform with some sort of pre-conceived ideas we might have about what time something should start, end, or take place, since different people in different places, different cultures, and different ways of life are going to have different ideas about what those times should be, based upon what they've been used to. When the majority of people had some sort of occupation which largely depended upon daylight it was natural to adjust one's rising and bedtimes to match the sun, whatever actual time that may have been. Is this a problem which has really been created over the century or so (which just happens to coincide roughly with the length of time that DST has been around) since people have been able to become more independent of sunlight thanks to electric light, good heating, air-conditioning, and so on? And with perhaps a little irony, could it be that with more and more people working flexible hours, working from home etc. that those fixed times are really no longer so important as they once were, at least in some fields?
I've never heard of that proposal either. For a country the size of the United States, it would leave many places so far outside of their proper time zone that I don't think people would ever go along with it, even if the time were to be set at a line running down the middle of the nation.
I know that China stipulates that official time is the same across the entire country, and since it's based on the time in the capital, it means that western parts of the country are running way ahead of their natural time. I remember reading years ago that in many such areas people deal with official time only when necessary and operate on unofficial local time for their day-to-day dealings locally.
I know this might make some people's heads explode trying to figure this out, but how about we just have a single time zone for the entire world, it actually works out quite well!
Time, 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds is all just a human construct, just have one time zone, and get rid of AM/PM. People will get used to the sun coming up at 2:35 or 9:50 or 17:40 or 13:52 or 11:26.
You will know the exact time of anywhere in the world and you don't have to worry about places being on the eastern edge of a time zone or a western edge of a time zone, just think about it!
I know this might make some people's heads explode trying to figure this out, but how about we just have a single time zone for the entire world, it actually works out quite well!
Time, 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds is all just a human construct, just have one time zone, and get rid of AM/PM. People will get used to the sun coming up at 2:35 or 9:50 or 17:40 or 13:52 or 11:26.
You will know the exact time of anywhere in the world and you don't have to worry about places being on the eastern edge of a time zone or a western edge of a time zone, just think about it!
But if you're trying to call someone on the other side of the world, you'll have to figure out if they're likely to be asleep. Time zones help with that.
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