Who are We Saving it For?

[bcholmes]

Fugh. Do you know any actual people (not corporations) who were jumping up and down saying, "hey, let's change over the scheduling of our daylight savings time to be equivalent to the new US schedule. That'd be swell"?

Comments

[djehutydjesi.livejournal.com]

Heck, I don't know any people over here that are jumping up and down for it either....

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

I don't know any actual people in the US (other than the politicians) who were jumping up and down for the changes in Daylight Savings Time...

One of the people on my flist pointed out that 1) it doesn't really *save* any daylight at all and 2) it doesn't save energy, because a) people are more likely to go shopping when it's still daylight, so instead of being home burning up electricity, they're in their cars burning gas and emitting pollutants, and b) when you get up in the morning and it's dark, what do you do? Turn on the lights! Oy...

Growing up, I had always heard that DST was supposedly this great boon for farmers and ranchers, and my thought was "How? The cows and pigs and chickens and horses &c. don't care what the clock on the wall says, and neither do crops." Oddly enough, I heard the same thing from the kids who were growing up on the farms and ranches...

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

In reality, the farmers and ranchers hate it. They've been one of the big lobbies against any attempts to expand DST in the past.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes.

Well, not people who were specifically excited about it being equivalent to the U.S., but people who are excited about the new schedule -- I had a couple of posts on my friends list from people who were really excited about it (because it meant more daylight hours after work).

I have to admit that not changing to follow the U.S. would be a huge logistical headache. Personally, I'd have rather that neither they nor we had changed, but assuming they had, I think us changing to match makes sense.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

The whole deal is a needless complication, IMHO. I don't know whom it's supposed to benefit at all. The only people that care how much daylight there is are already scheduling their lives by when daylight *is*, not what the clock says, anyway.

It doesn't even save energy!

[(Anonymous)]

A new study by UC Berkeley researchers looking at Australia in 2000 found that extending DST there actually increased energy consumption!

Enough is enough, why are we wasting time with this DST nonsense?

http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11578/ (http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11578/)

[redbird]

I know one person who noted that she doesn't mind the switchover, because for a little while the rest of the world is keeping a schedule closer to her body clock, but I don't think she prefers having that now rather than a month later.