Daylight Savings Time

[nakedfrog]

You need stats to back it up.

Otherwise it's still nothing more than a preference, and if we are being democratic, the #1 preference expressed is year round standard time.

How do you square that with WA passing legislation to stay on daylight time? Most times I hear people talking (so yeah, anecdotal) they want to stay on daylight time.

 

[Heartbreaker]

How do you square that with WA passing legislation to stay on daylight time? Most times I hear people talking (so yeah, anecdotal) they want to stay on daylight time.

Are you suggesting legislators always follow the will of the majority of public?

Not sure what the public sentiment is in WA, but I believe the poll I cited and linked a related story to, was a national one.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Unfortunately a lot of the research out there is based solely on the change overs. But it is pretty easy to understand people are more active when it is daylight and more active in the evening. I previously posted a link that showed unemployment in Indiana decreased after they implemented DST, since most evening activity means more economic activity.

The scientific consensus on human health, from experts in things like circadian rhythms also favors Standard Time:

https://srbr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/SRBR-Statement-on-DST.pdf

...we emphasize that the scientific evidence presently available indicates that installing perennial Standard Time (ST, or ‘wintertime’) is the best and safest option for public health. The negative effects of maintaining Daylight Saving Time (DST) will be higher. With ST there will be more morning light exposure in winter and less evening light exposure in summer. This will better synchronise the biological clock and people will sleep earlier relative to their work and school times. The feeling of chronic 'Social Jetlag' will be reduced compared to DST, the body will function better, psychological well-being and mental performance will improve. Throughout the year, ST will be healthier than DST in terms of sleep, cardiac function, weight, cancer risk, and alcohol- and tobacco consumption, to name a few examples.

 

[nakedfrog]

Are you suggesting legislators always follow the will of the majority of public?

Not sure what the public sentiment is in WA, but I believe the poll I cited and linked a related story to, was a national one.

Fine, I'll play your stupid game while I wait for this thing to load.

With bipartisan support in Congress for permanent daylight saving time, could this weekend's time change be the last?

WASHINGTON – Congress may be more divided than ever, but there’s one thing on which Republicans and Democrats can agree: No one likes losing an hour of sleep when the nation “springs forward” at the start of daylight saving time every March.

www.spokesman.com

Momentum has been building across the country in recent years to do away with the twice-yearly switch between daylight saving and standard time. Starting in 2018, when Florida’s legislature became the first to pass a law to adopt year-round daylight saving time, 14 other states have followed suit.
...
“Moving to permanent daylight saving time here in Washington state isn’t just a smart move for public health, safety, and our economy – it’s the overwhelming will of the people,” Murray said in a statement. “The state has taken action, and I am determined to make this policy a reality for us at the federal level. "

 

[Heartbreaker]

Fine, I'll play your stupid game while I wait for this thing to load.

With bipartisan support in Congress for permanent daylight saving time, could this weekend's time change be the last?

WASHINGTON – Congress may be more divided than ever, but there’s one thing on which Republicans and Democrats can agree: No one likes losing an hour of sleep when the nation “springs forward” at the start of daylight saving time every March.

www.spokesman.com

The whole USA switched before and it was deeply unpopular soon after, probably when the first winter of DST hit them.

Russia also switched for a few years and it likewise became deeply unpopular, and Russia has since switched to permanent standard time, which seems to be less of an issue than permanent DST was.

 

[nakedfrog]

The whole USA switched before and it was deeply unpopular soon after, probably when the first winter of DST hit them.

Russia also switched for a few years and it likewise became deeply unpopular, and Russia has since switched to permanent standard time, which seems to be less of an issue than permanent DST was.

We tried it once, yeah, as alluded to in an earlier post: https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/30/the-year-daylight-saving-time-went-too-far/
I don't really understand the complaint, seems normal to me for it to be dark when you get up in the morning in wintertime. Being on standard time means it's dark when you go home instead, so, yay?
I'm not going to rely on Russia as an example of how things should or shouldn't be done, really.

 

[Heartbreaker]

We tried it once, yeah, as alluded to in an earlier post: https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/30/the-year-daylight-saving-time-went-too-far/
I don't really understand the complaint, seems normal to me for it to be dark when you get up in the morning in wintertime. Being on standard time means it's dark when you go home instead, so, yay?
I'm not going to rely on Russia as an example of how things should or shouldn't be done, really.

Also as mentioned previously there are also significant scientific consensus on the negative impacts on sleep, and circadian rhythms.

Standard time more closely aligns sunlight with our biology.

 

[sportage]

Standard time killed the dinosaurs. Lets just do daylights year round. I think it was the farmers that started this switching backwards and forwards crap, and who even knows a farmer personally or gives a rats behind what a farmer thinks? They all spend the Winters in Florida or Hawaii anyway, they don't even experience the horrors of the sun going down at 4pm. Rotten farmers.

 

[Zorba]

The scientific consensus on human health, from experts in things like circadian rhythms also favors Standard Time:

https://srbr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/SRBR-Statement-on-DST.pdf

I've seen those claims, but no research from areas with a large speration between solar noon and social noon, like large parts of China. The papers I've seen that look at it in the US were in free acres journals and we're clearly written with a slant, likely why they weren't published in real journals.

I think a lot more things in society affects biological rhythms, you know like basketball and football start times and artificial lights.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Add UK to the list of countries that experimented with permanent DST, and later rejected it. It was more unpopular in more northerly latitudes, where longer darkness in the morning were most disliked.

 

[Zorba]

Add UK to the list of countries that experimented with permanent DST, and later rejected it. It was more unpopular in more northerly latitudes, where longer darkness in the morning were most disliked.

Yeah, likewise Indiana had year round standard time and rejected it. I have a feeling what we have is truly, likely the best system, demonstrated by the fact so many places have it and it's stuck with us for so long.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Yeah, likewise Indiana had year round standard time and rejected it. I have a feeling what we have is truly, likely the best system, demonstrated by the fact so many places have it and it's stuck with us for so long.

I wouldn't characterize this chaotic mess, a rejection of standard time in Indiana:
https://www.indystar.com/story/news...ral-eastern-daylight-savings-time/2126300002/
https://www.timeanddate.com/time/us/indiana-time.html

Before 2006, most of Indiana did not observe Daylight Saving Time. However, some counties decided to use DST, creating confusion about what time it was around spring and fall.

To avoid the confusion, Indiana passed a bill in 2005 ensuring that the entire state would use DST from April 2006, regardless of the time zone.

There never seemed to much standard about time in Indiana. The had (still do) two time zones, and some counties with DST and some without DST. The 2006 bill was to limit the confusion, and it still barely passed:

... twice during the session the House voted it down, but by margins too slim to defeat it for the session. On April 28, 2005, with two days left in the session, the bill came up for a final vote and seemed to have have been defeated 49-51. But as the speaker held the vote open two legislators changed their minds and the measure passed.

 

[WhiteNoise]

This has been an interesting and heated thread lol. The time change has never bothered me before. Hell the only difference I even notice is that it is either dark when I get home from work or not dark. I prefer not dark because i can actually get some shit done in my yard, on my car, etc.

Honestly I'd be good with either or just keep doing what we've been doing. Been doing this so long that I just don't care. Both have positives and cons.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

The scientific consensus on human health, from experts in things like circadian rhythms also favors Standard Time:

https://srbr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/SRBR-Statement-on-DST.pdf

I don't get the sleep rhythm argument. What about people who live a number of degrees further north? Or south for that matter? The sunlight cycle is vastly different at the equator, London, and the arctic circle! Yet humans live in all theses places, and presumably their natural rhythm isn't that different? (and if it is, well that just shows that it will adapt..).

So at which latitude, and at which time of year is the optimal sun cycle for humans?! If people can live ok at 60 degrees north with dark mornings, we can't live with an hour later sunrise at 40 north?? The difference moving north/south is much greater than changing the clock an hour!

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

I don't get the sleep rhythm argument. What about people who live a number of degrees further north? Or south for that matter? The sunlight cycle is vastly different at the equator, London, and the arctic circle! Yet humans live in all theses places, and presumably their natural rhythm isn't that different? (and if it is, well that just shows that it will adapt..).

So at which latitude, and at which time of year is the optimal sun cycle for humans?! If people can live ok at 60 degrees north with dark mornings, we can't live with an hour later sunrise at 40 north?? The difference moving north/south is much greater than changing the clock an hour!

Not just that. There's a one hour difference in sunrise at the same latitude just going east or west within a timezone. Sunrise is 7am in New York and 7:50 in South Bend.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I don't get the sleep rhythm argument. What about people who live a number of degrees further north? Or south for that matter? The sunlight cycle is vastly different at the equator, London, and the arctic circle! Yet humans live in all theses places, and presumably their natural rhythm isn't that different? (and if it is, well that just shows that it will adapt..).

So at which latitude, and at which time of year is the optimal sun cycle for humans?! If people can live ok at 60 degrees north with dark mornings, we can't live with an hour later sunrise at 40 north?? The difference moving north/south is much greater than changing the clock an hour!

Even with less sunlight, the middle of the day is still the middle of the day, when the sun is highest.

It's not a conscious thing. We evolved our biological clock to the day night cycle including it's natural variability. As such our body clocks get attuned to the cues we read from the light about the time of day. We even get subconscious seasonal cues as light changes in the fall the may be a trigger to back on more weight in fall for the coming winter.

 

[Thump553]

I remember driving through an Indiana town years ago mid-winter and seeing the kids lined up for the school bus around 8am and it was pitch black, thinking that this was crazy.

Personally I think DST is a "feature" that last had any real value sometime around 1900 or so and would welcome it's demise. This time around I relearned my car has two different clock systems-one for the dash clock, the other for the GPS and both have to be reset separately. The travails of modern life.