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As someone who has never seen the appeal ofearly mornings, I love the arrival each spring of"summer time" or "daylight saving time" (DST).A system that transfers an hour of daylight fromthe slow and sleepy beginning of the day to itsmuch more exciting end has always seemed likea stroke of genius. Losing it in late October is acause for great sorrow.
on the last Saturday night / Sunday morning ofOctober, the people of the European Union willbe united in a single act of turning back time.From Killarney to Kefalonia. we will change thetime on our watches, giving ourselves an extra hour in bed inexchange for five months of darker evenings. What kind ofdeal is that?
When the days are getting shorter, we make them feel evenshorter by inviting darkness to arrive 60 minutes sooner. Notsurprisingly, there are calls in many countries for an end to thiswaste of daylight.
But loss of daylight is not the only thing to consideras we turn back the hands on our docks. Studies fromNew Zealand to New York have found that DST alsosaves energy and reduces crime and traffic accidents.An increase in accidents in the dark mornings is morethan offset by a decrease in the lighter evenings.
The US clearly believes that a little extra sunlightcould go a long way. This year, it started anexperiment: DST 2007 began three weeks earlier,on the second Sunday in March, and will end aweek later, on the first Sunday in November. TheDepartment of Energy will study the effects to seeif the new dates should be permanent--but it hasreason to be hopeful. The decision in 1986 to bringDST forward from the last to the first Sunday in Aprilis estimated to have saved the country about 300,000barrels of oil a year.
In Britain, the latest attempt to experiment withtime failed in January this year, when Parliamentdefeated a bill that would have moved the UK toCentral European Time for a trial period. Supporterssaid the longer days could prevent 450 deaths onthe roads each year and cut carbon emissions by170,000 tonnes. Its chief opponents are a small butpowerful group——farmers and Scots. I have twosuggestions here. Farmers could do as cockerels do,and rise with the sun, whatever the hour. The Scots,who have their own parliament, could vote to staywith Greenwich Mean Time (the US state of Hawaii,after all, has not adopted DST).
The idea for DST originally came from BenjaminFranklin in 1748. It was not seriously suggestedagain until 1907, when a London builder,WilliamWillet. wrote a pamphlet called The Waste ofDaylight. Parliament rejected the plan.
Germany and Austria were the first countriesto see its benefits, officially adopting summer timein 1916. within a year, they were followed by anumber of other nations, including Britain, Franceand Australia. Today around 70 countries havesome kind of DST--Japan, India and China are theonly major industrial countries without it.
We've come this far from Franklin: most of ushave half a year of daylight where we want it.Now, in the interests of our safety, our leisure timeand global warming, we should resist the comingdarkness and push for a permanent summer timethat puts the "win, win, win" in winter.
on the last Saturday night / Sunday morning ofOctober, the people of the European Union willbe united in a single act of turning back time.From Killarney to Kefalonia. we will change thetime on our watches, giving ourselves an extra hour in bed inexchange for five months of darker evenings. What kind ofdeal is that?
When the days are getting shorter, we make them feel evenshorter by inviting darkness to arrive 60 minutes sooner. Notsurprisingly, there are calls in many countries for an end to thiswaste of daylight.
But loss of daylight is not the only thing to consideras we turn back the hands on our docks. Studies fromNew Zealand to New York have found that DST alsosaves energy and reduces crime and traffic accidents.An increase in accidents in the dark mornings is morethan offset by a decrease in the lighter evenings.
The US clearly believes that a little extra sunlightcould go a long way. This year, it started anexperiment: DST 2007 began three weeks earlier,on the second Sunday in March, and will end aweek later, on the first Sunday in November. TheDepartment of Energy will study the effects to seeif the new dates should be permanent--but it hasreason to be hopeful. The decision in 1986 to bringDST forward from the last to the first Sunday in Aprilis estimated to have saved the country about 300,000barrels of oil a year.
In Britain, the latest attempt to experiment withtime failed in January this year, when Parliamentdefeated a bill that would have moved the UK toCentral European Time for a trial period. Supporterssaid the longer days could prevent 450 deaths onthe roads each year and cut carbon emissions by170,000 tonnes. Its chief opponents are a small butpowerful group——farmers and Scots. I have twosuggestions here. Farmers could do as cockerels do,and rise with the sun, whatever the hour. The Scots,who have their own parliament, could vote to staywith Greenwich Mean Time (the US state of Hawaii,after all, has not adopted DST).
The idea for DST originally came from BenjaminFranklin in 1748. It was not seriously suggestedagain until 1907, when a London builder,WilliamWillet. wrote a pamphlet called The Waste ofDaylight. Parliament rejected the plan.
Germany and Austria were the first countriesto see its benefits, officially adopting summer timein 1916. within a year, they were followed by anumber of other nations, including Britain, Franceand Australia. Today around 70 countries havesome kind of DST--Japan, India and China are theonly major industrial countries without it.
We've come this far from Franklin: most of ushave half a year of daylight where we want it.Now, in the interests of our safety, our leisure timeand global warming, we should resist the comingdarkness and push for a permanent summer timethat puts the "win, win, win" in winter.