Time to end Daylight Saving Time?

We don't observe DST here on the Lower North Shore of Quebec.

Frmrsldr wrote:

Ending DST is best done if all the countries currently observing it drop it to make international commerce and communication less complex and complicated.

Actually, a number of countries, including China, do not observe it already, and I believe one or two Canadian provinces don't either if I'm not mistaken. So it's a mess already no matter how you slice it. Personally, I'd say scrap it and join the majority of countries.

Actually, Saskatchewan is on DST year-round.  Has been for years.  So much so that we mostly forget we're on DST and our Chamber of Commerce begins the "we must institute DST!" campaign every couple of years.  Twits.

China doesn't observe time zones at all. All of China operates on Beijing time.  I found that surprising when I was there last year.

It's time to end Daylight Saving Time. In fact, it was time to end it two nights ago.

Could someone please inform the pimply-faced geek in rabble's IT department that the babble clock should be set an hour back; and that there's a very simple software fix that will look after time changes automatically?

P.S. For those who really feel strongly about it, I've already sent an e-mail this morning to the tech folks, letting them know that babble didn't do the DST change.  Not sure whether it really matters much, since all it means is that we're now on Atlantic time instead of Eastern. 

Production goes up too. In march they shift an hour of daylight from early morning, (when people are asleep in bed) to the evening, when they are awake. You COULD get up an hour earlier and use that time. But it is more pleasant to use it in the evening when it is 5C or 6 C warmer. some of the reason is to do with deaths on the roads too.  I cannot remember if more happen in the early morning or in the evening.  Another reason is that evening sunlight has less UV rays so you skin gets brown before you go on holidays to mexico.

bagkitty wrote:

It is seemingly impossible to find a definitive study... a lot of the overview articles have words to the effect that "studies are contradictory" - but the rationale of having daylight saving time in order to reduce energy consumption is at best marginal and may, in fact, increase energy consumption. (I took the easy way out and checked wikipedia ). Much in line with a radio program I remember hearing (I think it was CBC's Ideas, but I am not positive and have not been able to find a link), the primary beneficiary of DST seems to be the retail industry - one thing the studies do agree on is that consumption goes up when DST is brought in. I think it is time to scrap DST, the costs seem to outway the benefits -- and the further from the equator you are, the less sense it makes...

Timebandit wrote:

Actually, Saskatchewan is on DST year-round.  Has been for years.  So much so that we mostly forget we're on DST and our Chamber of Commerce begins the "we must institute DST!" campaign every couple of years.  Twits.

China doesn't observe time zones at all. All of China operates on Beijing time.  I found that surprising when I was there last year.

I'd found the same when I was in Xinjiang. A country that size needs more than one time zone in my opinion.

http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html  gives some of the history.

It was originally suggested so that workers could enjoy an extra hour of summer daylight after their jobs were done.  Most people support it but every year on babble someone complains about it.   Fact is we get much more light in summer than in winter and daylight savings time effectively transfers an hour of that extra light from early  morning (when the vast majority of people are asleep) to evening. (People will dispute this because they have not researched it properly).

 Most people end up getting about 180 EXTRA hours of light in waking hours.  It is a significant amount  and a valuable contribution to our leisure time.

I think that we should follow SK and go on DST year-round!

Brian.... I question the practicality of it this far north... maybe if I lived in the U.S. in a mid-Atlantic state it would make sense, but when it is 9:30 or 10 hre in Calgary and the sun has not set, I wonder how useful the concept is (and I am not that far north, I remember being in High Prairie and waiting for the Canada Day fireworks which couldn't start till after midnight because it was too light). Although I don't have children (much less school age children) I do remember it being a problem trying to get the us to keep a regular bed time in June because the sun was still up after the scheduled bedtime... I think, on balance, it (DST) is not particularly practical. Remember, we are talking sunset, not full dark.... I think it is just inertia that keeps it going.

We don't observe DST here, but I wish we did. It's ridiculous to see it getting dark around 5pm here.

ETA: oops, I just realized that if we observed "fall back" one hour, it'd get dark at 4pm instead of 5pm!

China has one time zone. Amazing!

Don't forget to spring ahead one hour on Sunday.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/rabblerabble/cid_001b01c1ddf88245...

And Tweety says you must change your clock at 2 am Sunday morning, otherwise you'll tear a hole in space-time. Or something pretty close.

No DST here on the Quebec coast. We neither spring forward nor fall back.

As long as 19th century industrialists are able to save a few pennies on electrical power with an hour more of daylight, it's all that matters to me. People and their families don't mind screwing up sleep-wake cycles as long as some really old codgers can save up to be rich.

Puh-leeze.  I don't hear too many people complaining about being able to be out and about longer on a summer evening.  And of those who do complain about DST, I'd guess that three quarters aren't complaining about it being light out later, they're complaining that "the guv'mint" has the audacity to try to monkey with nature (standard time being a natural thing, like gravity).

I'm liking the fact that it's 5:22 on a Friday evening, I'm feeling real good cause Mary Jane dropped by earlier with some wine, and there's still plenty of daylight left on the evening.

ooo, send mary this way next slumberjack ;)

I thought there was a decent case to be made that DST saves a significant amount of energy in the US in particular but not limited.  If it's light at 4am, but nobody is awake til 5am, doesn't it make sense to call 4am 5am instead so we make use of that extra hour of lighting instead of resorting to electric lights an hour earlier at night?...it's like Earth day except every day, yet another reason to feel warm and fuzzy

Am I off with that...or?

If you rob me of my money, I can always forgive you because I can always make more money.

If you rob me of my time, I can never forgive you because no matter how hard I try, I can never make more time.

I had a good dynamo on the bike.  Way more light than the little led lights that they have now. But I was doing tourist.  Not much point riding the bike in the dark as a tourist when you cannot see the landscape.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

Quote:

I could go about 50 miles after work on friday by bycycle on my tourist runs.  60 would have been possible if I has the extra light.

 

That happens to you too? As soon as the sun goes down my tyres go flat.

You get the feeling that if the feds declared a national Maypole dance, or a national go jump in the lake day, millions would obey.

Well, do you want the sunlight in summer in the warm of evening when most people are awake, or at about 4 in the morning when you are asleep? 

Thats the choice.

For most people that is a no brainer.  So answer that question FIRST and THEN worry if you answer is the same as federal law.

Because lets face it, this is all about YOU. What works for YOU?

For those of you who don't want to mess with "God's time" (the Saskatchewan reason for their way of treating time) I would have to say that tradition seems to be beating logic. (And God didn't create the Saskatchewan time zone no matter what they think).

And so many of you are atheists that that should be repugnant anyway.

And the point about being against the federal government even if you have to cut off your nose seems to be valid.  "What did the feds ever do for us?"

 The earth is tilted at 23.5 degrees to its orbit. But that means that there is a huge 47 degree difference in tilt with regard to the sun between winter and summer.  In the tropics, that makes little difference but up north it's a big difference.  Shunting an hour of summer sun from morning to evening makes sense to most people.

Brian White wrote:

Well, do you want the sunlight in summer in the warm of evening when most people are awake, or at about 4 in the morning when you are asleep? 

Thats the choice. 

For most people that is a no brainer.  So answer that question FIRST and THEN worry if you answer is the same as federal law. 

Around here, in the summer the sun comes up around 4 am and it isn't dark until 10 pm.  I guess we get the best of both worlds.

Quote:

  For those of you who don't want to mess with "God's time" (the Saskatchewan reason for their way of treating time) I would have to say that tradition seems to be beating logic. (And God didn't create the Saskatchewan time zone no matter what they think).

And so many of you are atheists that that should be repugnant anyway. 

Actually, most of Saskatchewan is in the Mountain Time zone - so determined on the basis of geography in 1966.  However, the provincial government decided that the eastern part of the province, which straddles the Central Time zone, would operate on Central Standard time, and the communities in the rest of the province, with the exception of Lloydminster, decided to harmonize with that of their own accord by 1972.  It was a patchwork of time zones prior to that.  There was no religious involvement in the decision, so not sure what all this "God" business is about. 

So we are, geographically-wise for most of the province, operating on DST all year round.  It's fine.  It works.  It's the spring back I don't understand.

Odd note:  Did you know that all of China operates on Beijing's time zone?