It's been a full week, but I just can't get used to the hour
change since we fell back an hour back last Sunday. I fall asleep earlier at
night. My eating routine is off and my always-hungry dog (by nature of the
breed) wakes me up an hour early. I didn't get to all the clocks right away, so
I was late to catch a MetroNorth train last week as well.
This somewhat-random clock change inspires many
conversations-and now a blog post. Most people are quick to point out the
social benefits of daylight
saving time. Kids don't have to wait for school buses in the dark. People
on nine-to-five schedules get an extra hour of sunlight after work in the
summertime. Potentially reduced rates of traffic accidents and crime. Maximizing
wintertime sunlight exposure also helps prevent the blues-a true affliction
called seasonal
affective disorder (SAD, yes seriously).
But in order to keep this annoying twice-yearly reschedule
going, there has to be some efficiency to it, right? Germany was the first
country to implement full-time DST, doing so in World War I to save coal and
other resources, as more sunlight meant people needed less electricity for
lighting. Other warring countries followed suit, but each of them gradually
abandoned DST after the war, only to complete the cycle again in World War II. Afterwards,
some places were using full-time DST, others summer DST and some standard time.
By the 1960s, local towns and cities were deciding whether
to use DST or not, mostly based on the employment sectors of the region.
Industrialized and urban areas preferred DST, but agricultural and rural
regions ignored DST. This made transportation schedules hard to keep or
predict, so the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was passed that required entire states
to keep a uniform time and it was enforced by the Department of Transportation.
In response to the 1973 oil crisis, the entire country was forced into a trial
period of permanent DST for 16 months.
Eventually the DOT determined that efficiencies from DST
were minimal and hard to correlate with the use of DST. And when the National
Bureau of Statistics looked at the data, it found no differences in traffic
fatalities, and couldn't correlate DST to safer morning commutes for school
children (source).
More recent studies have indicated mixed effects on energy consumption due to
DST. This
2007 study focused on California found negligible energy efficiency, and this 2008 study indicated DST
increased electrical consumption in Indiana due to extra cooling and heating
costs. However this 2008 Department of Energy review found that the 2005
extension of DST saved 0.5% electricity per day, or equal to 1.3 billion
kilowatt-hours. It seems that benefits
are strongly tied to latitude and the length of daylight hour.
There is no doubt that DST is useful for someone
who lives north of roughly the 45th parallel, as DST helps sync
up waking hours with daylight times. Meanwhile, those living below the 45th
see less benefit, and a place like Florida observes DST despite having a
relatively stable length of daylight all year long.
What we're left with in the U.S. is a hybrid style that
makes no one truly happy. But there are only two solutions to providing
northern latitudes with more daylight: DST, or adjusting sleep and work
schedules in accordance with the sun. I suppose I'd keep DST rather than
needing to wake up any earlier.
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