Early Daylight Saving Time a Bust

[El Supremo]

Source: USA Today/Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) — The early onset of Daylight Saving Time in the United States this year may have been for naught.

The move to turn the clocks forward by an hour on March 11 rather than the usual early April date was mandated by the U.S. government as an energy-saving effort.

But other than forcing millions of drowsy American workers and school children into the dark, wintry weather three weeks early, the move appears to have had little impact on power usage.

"We haven't seen any measurable impact," said Jason Cuevas, spokesman for Southern, one of the nation's largest power companies, echoing comments from several large utilities.



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-04-03-dst-bust_N.htm

[Pavulon]

1. Please dear god

don't change it back. This makes lots of work for technical people. Most everything is on a network, and clock sensitive.

[MissWaverly]

3. I heard the airlines had to re-negotiate arrival and takeoff times

with foreign countries to the tune of millions of dollars.

[merwin]

14. I saw a bunch of outdoor clocks around where I live move forward last

weekend. I guess not everyone has done the work of fixing the problem yet :)

[IndianaGreen]

24. Congress made a stupid mistake, they should put it back the way it was

And our stupid Republican governor made an even bigger mistake by forcing Indiana to go on Daylight Savings Time, thanks to him we now have 3 time zones in the state.

Hoosiers should go back to Gawd's time!

[Pavulon]

26. Major

pain to change systems over. More daylight is good, patching systems sucks.

[IndianaGreen]

27. Think of job security... this is not something they can outsource

I don't think they can...

[Hieronymus]

29. My computer clock was off for three weeks, including date stamp on email.

[bmbmd]

2. More golf played.

More fish caught. Not exactly a waste, eh?

[KittyWampus]

47. less prozac taken? Darkness at 6pm is depressing. Most people use the extra hour after work

to recreate. A healthy way to use that time.

[sharp_stick]

4. I can't believe anyone thought this would change energy usage

The world is a lot more of a 24 hour place than it was when daylight savings was introduced.

I like the later daylight, I don't mind the morning dark anywhere near as much as afternoon dark during the winter. I really hope they don't change it back. IMO they should just leave it set to the summer time year round.

[Kolesar]

6. The US shifted daylight savings time a decade or two ago

Why did they not "get it right" then? Is nobody competent these days? I am missing sleep!! I am getting irritated !! !! !!!

[FiveGoodMen]

8. I like the later daylight myself, but there's one stupid thing in the current plan

In addition to starting DST three weeks earlier, we're going to end it one week later. The week after Halloween. So all the kids will either have to go out later or else trick-or-treat in the daylight.

[hlthe2b]

55. My thoughts exactly....

I may have avoided another 2-5 pound weight gain, just because I've had more incentive to be active after work.

I NEED my sunshine!

[Kolesar]

5. My VCR will never be correct.

Took me forever to get the No-Win-XP on my desk to show the right time. Our alarm clock actually moved itself up an extra hour this weekend.

There is no "patch" to fix the VCR or alarm clock. And this bullshit is going to happen again in November.

[high density]

17. Yeah I have a phone system at work that is similar

I can't disable DST on it, so I get to change the clock four times a year now, when before it was automatic. Oh well. At least my VCR has the option to turn off DST.

[rurallib]

7. Apparantly DST has never saved any energy

NPR had a story several weeks ago about a study under the Nixon Admin on DSR energy savings that never quite got finished. The reason it never got finished was that the preliminary data actually showed an energy increase and that was blasphemous.
So from what I understand this effect has never been truly studied. But it is truthiness we seek, not truthfulness when creating talking points.

[SoFlaJet]

9. well it just made our summers

down here even longer and hotter-thanks

[Henryman]

10. Really????

A bust, huh?
I never saw an energy savings reason given for this recent change. I did read beforehand that there was not expected to be any energy savings. I think some people (and reporters) just love to label any change a bust. I, for one, just love the opportunity to enjoy some daylight after work. I feel great!

[Nite Owl]

11. I have poor night vision

so for me this was about the only thing I can agree with this administration passing!

[I_Will]

12. we've done a *lot* more evening driving to run errands while it's "light" out...

...so we've definitely increased our petro energy spending and decreased our "renewable" electric (lights) energy spending minimally.

And, since "money trumps peace, sometimes", we've spent money shopping that we may not ordinarily have done so I guess we're being "good 'merkuns", by that standard. :sarcasm:

[durtee librul]

13. Lived in AZ for about 8 years and never

missed DLS time...to me, it's crap. Just leave the damn clocks where they are now and move on to worrying about the important 'stuff' in the world.

Sorry, just don't see the 'wisdom' of moving clocks ahead and back.

[CreekDog]

18. I lived in AZ and hated standard time in summer

It got light sometimes as early as 4am, then I got off work at 6, ate dinner and by 7:30, dark dark dark.

I know that in Phoenix in July, the sun is not your friend, but it's kind of hard to get a bike ride in at 8pm when it's pitch black in nearly streetlightless Tucson.

[Toucano]

19. I agree with you.

People would adapt to a rhythm based on the sun, and that would be better.

[ProudDad]

33. I'd like to leave them all

at "Daylight Time".

"Standard Time" is screwed -- go to work in the dark, come home in the dark...and watch the day go by from your desk...

[Renew Deal]

15. Do you really trust the power companies?

I don't. That said, it was poorly thought out.

[high density]

16. I'd rather have permanent DST

I like having the light later in the day.

[spooky3]

38. me too; I love DST.

[slackmaster]

48. Same here

It worked well in San Diego.

[TrogL]

20. It caused more disruption than Y2K

Then at least we had a year's warning and had time to install patches etc.

[anotherdrew]

21. repeal this republican bullshit NOW the sooner the better

and jeez! no shit it resulted in no measurable savings, anyone could have predicted that.

[ProudDad]

31. Sorry, it was a Democrat Plot in this country

"In 1784 Benjamin Franklin anonymously published a letter informing Parisians that the sun rose before noon, so they could economize by getting up earlier to use morning sunlight, thereby burning fewer candles in the evening.<13> Franklin's mild satire proposed taxing shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells or firing cannons at sunrise, all in the spirit of his earlier proverb "Early to bed and early to rise / Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."<14> Franklin did not propose shifting clocks; 18th-century Europe did not keep schedules in the modern sense.<15>

In 1905 builder and outdoorsman William Willett invented DST during a pre-breakfast horseback ride where he was dismayed by how many Londoners slept through the best part of a summer day.<16> An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk. Two years later he published a proposal for DST which attracted many supporters, including Balfour, Churchill, Lloyd George, and MacDonald. Edward VII also favored DST and had already been using it at Sandringham. However, Prime Minister Asquith opposed the proposal and after many hearings it was narrowly defeated in a Parliament committee vote in 1909. Willett's allies introduced DST bills every year from 1911 through 1914, to no avail.

World War I changed the political equation, as DST was promoted as a way to alleviate hardships from wartime coal shortages and air raid blackouts. Germany, its allies, and their occupied zones were the first Europeans to use DST, starting April 30, 1916. Most belligerents and many European neutrals soon followed suit—for example, the United Kingdom first observed DST on May 21, 1916—but Russia and a few other countries waited until the next year. Australia and Canada followed fitfully, some locations observing DST as early as 1916. However, the measure proved unpopular among farmers, and many countries repealed DST after the war. For example, in 1918 the United States established DST from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October, but Congress repealed DST after 1919; Woodrow Wilson, another avid golfer, vetoed the repeal twice but his second veto was overridden. Since then the world has seen many enactments, adjustments, and repeals of DST, with similar politics involved."

[superconnected]

22. this cost me weeks and many of our devs months to put out the several

dst versions of software for our time sensitive systems.

I'm in ip tv. other than guide and tv times being off, some equipment wouldn't sync with others when the time was off between them to do transferes so people could get cable tv. They allowed several seconds delay but not an hour.

We fixed this on software and equipment we could fix it on. We found plenty that we couldn't fix though as not all the hardware we use was made by our company.

What we had to do was set many sites to puerto rican time, if they were on the east coast, east coast time if they were usually on central, etc. We had to switch them back this weekend for the normal dst they were programed for.

[superconnected]

23. I don't know if this is true, but from another site:

"I have an Amazing but True Golf Facts Calendar on my desk.
A couple of days ago the fact was
"The National Golf course Owners Assoiation lobbied hard for the 12.3 billion dollar federal energy bill, and was thrilled when it passed in 2005. Why would a golf course group care so much about an energy bill? The Legislation included a provision to expand Daylight Savings time by 3 weeks, beginning this year. The measure means an additional hour of golf for 28 days each summer."
That is why the republicians voted for it. "

[NYC]

25. That's extremely interesting.

Sounds like the most likely explanation for what just happened.

[El Supremo]

28. Where was the Bowling lobby?

Bowlers like to go inside when it's dark.

Golf is the official sport or the Republican Party.
Bowling is the official sport or the Democratic Party.
Baseball is non-partisan.

[ProudDad]

32. Here in California

LOTS of liberal/progressive/radicals play golf too.

And we LOVE DST...

[KoKo]

40. That would make sense for a Repug Congress to do...Golf has been suffering

since Clinton days amd the dot com bust. People now are working longer hours under Bush Regime and Golf courses have been closing in our area for lack of players.

Golf lobby and Real Estate Lobby thought it would help their struggling business.

[AngryAmish]

41. That is exactly why this Democrat is such a big supporter

I have not had a chance to take advantage of it this year (because I have been very busy) but more golf = a happy AA.

[ProudDad]

30. Us late risers

LOVE IT...

I'm getting more daylight and lovin' it...

[Raine]

34. It was a dumb and costly experiment

that shouldn't be repeated.

[LeftHander]

35. Cost U.S. Businesses MILLIONS

In wasted IT time patching servers and updating applications for this folly.

Grrrrrr.....

I spent over 80 hours alone on DST issues.

[E-Z-B]

36. The crowning achievement of the 109th Congress

Way to go.

[grace0418]

37. Well it may not have saved energy but I LOVED having it come early.

I get major SAD here in Chicago and having that extra sunlight at night has helped tremendously.

[okoboji]

39. it wasn't about saving energy

it was about getting the consumer out to the stores later at night 3 weeks earlier.

I had a senior management video this past Monday and one of the exec's said "DLS helped increase sales this year, because it was 3 weeks earlier."


here's a link to an article I just found talking about this very same thing...
http://dotcommonsense.blog-city.com/daylight_savings_time_is_really_about_more_money_for_busines.htm

[Canuckistanian]

42. Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner

That's right, "energy savings" was never the real consideration.

It's a gift to the retail and leisure industries, pure and simple.

[progressoid]

43. Exactly....

Hey, I'll be in your neck of the woods in a couple days for a job. Hope it's not snowing!

[IndyOp]

44. Thank You! Okoboji speaks truth and truth is power. (n/t)

[bdamomma]

51. definitely it is getting people to be more productive, and making

money of course.

[DuaneBidoux]

45. Suddenly all my clocks are off an hour again.

I guess they were now set up to change times automatically (2 microwaves, 2 Dvd players, and a couple of miscellaneous devices). I didn't have too much problem changing them once and obviously won't have trouble changing them again but it's kind of funny.

[slackmaster]

49. No patches for your embedded systems, eh?

Just wait until 2038 when all system clocks based on the Unix implementation of time run out of numbers.

That will make Y2K look like a Sunday picnic at the beach.

[customerserviceguy]

46. I know my father's pissed about it

I had to go set his pill reminder an hour ahead a few weeks ago, then set it back an hour after it automatically updated last Sunday. If you balance the many dollars spent on large businesses having to deal with this against minimal energy savings, it seems obvious that this was a goofy idea.

[bdamomma]

50. oh just change it back to the original time.

or just don't have it at all, Europe doesn't do it.

[ileus]

52. I rather enjoyed it....only way for it to have been better is...

If it never changed to begin with.

[Marnieworld]

53. As an IT person this switch made my life hell for 2 weeks

Nice to see all of that effort for no benefit. Lovely. :sarcasm:

[lagavulin]

54. Daylight Saving is not about energy saving....

...it's about consumerism. Increased daylight in the evening inspires people to shop and spend after work instead of going straight home.

The Japanese began experimenting with daylight saving about 10 years ago or so, specifically as a means to try to throw-off the recession they were in. They still haven't adopted it officially, tho'.

Oh, and in case it hasn't already been pointed out several times, it's properly called Daylight Saving Time, not Savings Time...

[Gregorian]

56. How about Ride a Bike to Work Day?

Nooooooooo. Can't do that, now. This is America, where lazy slobs drive their monstrous hunks of metal on wheels EVERYWHERE. If you don't ride a bike, you won't really understand my attitude. Try it sometime.

It's my rant. If we want to save energy, it is going to take WORK. Period.

[wildflowergardener]

57. daylight savings

I wasn't happy about the early daylight savings time, but now that it's here, I am glad - it gives me an extra month to try to get my gardens ready with it light after work - hard to do when it's dark out when I get out. Also Spring came alot earlier this year so I've already had to mow the lawn - it's been in the 80's I think, here in St. Louis, but now they say it's going to get into the 20's here this week.

Meg