Is there a reason for changing clocks back to Standard Time ?

[Three Cedars]

Here we are 45 days away from the winter solstice and logic would dictate going back to DST 45 days after the solstice which would be about Feb 5 at 2 am but no someone figures March 12 is the day to go back to DST 81 days after the winter solstice .

Curious as to why this silly practice is still happening .

[Too Little Time]

There is no obligation for you to turn your clocks back or forward. It may make it convenient for you.

I don't know if the selected dates are appropriate or not. I do know that setting clocks is different than setting clocks back. Different in how the change in light affects me.

[CWSmith]

There is no obligation for you to turn your clocks back or forward.

Unless you want to be on time for anything...

[Keith Wilson]

I hate it. Sunset's now at 4:53.

[Bobcat]

In the mid 70's, we had DST all year for a year or two. Sunrise in Seattle was as late as 9:00am. Not a fan of going to year round daylight savings time.

[Canoeyawl]

Corporate profits, the only reason for most "traditions" in this country

[Jimmy W]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/healt...ess/index.html

Standard time, which we enter when we move our clocks back in the fall, is much closer to the sun’s day and night cycle, Zee said. This cycle has set our circadian rhythm, or body clock, for centuries.

That internal timer controls not just when you sleep, but also when you want to eat, exercise or work, as well as “your blood pressure, your heart rate and your cortisol rhythm,” Zee added.
A call to ban Daylight Saving Time for good has come from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine: “Current evidence best supports the adoption of year-round standard time, which aligns best with human circadian biology and provides distinct benefits for public health and safety.”

The proposal has been endorsed by more than 20 medical, scientific, and civic organizations, including the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the National Parent Teacher Association, the National Safety Council, the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms and the World Sleep Society.



When President Richard Nixon signed a permanent Daylight Saving Time into law in January 1974, it was a popular move. But by the end of the month Florida’s governor had called for the law’s repeal after eight schoolchildren were hit by cars in the dark. Schools across the country delayed start times until the sun came up.

By summer, public approval had plummeted, and in early October Congress voted to switch back to standard time.

A similar backlash occurred when the US first implemented Daylight Saving Time in 1918, as a way to to reduce demand for electricity usage by adding sunlight to the end of the day in response to World War I. (Studies since have found little to no cost savings from the practice.) The time switch was so unpopular that the law was repealed the following year.

“The United States has tried permanent daylight saving time twice before and ended it early. The UK tried once before and ended it early. Russia tried it once, so did India and ended it early,” Klerman said. “I think we should learn from history.”

[Canoeyawl]

Under Reagan
"In 1986 in the U.S., the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was amended to change the beginning of Daylight Saving Time from the last Sunday of April to the first Sunday of April."

And Kingsford Charcoal who had lobbied congress to the tune of $10 million, reaped $25 million in additional sales the first week...

Edit: and then came W Bush who's economy was failing rather dramatically so he pushed daylight savings as far as possible. Remember his plea to "Go Shopping"

"There was something unsettling and creepily disproportionate about the idea that Congress couldn't muster the will to improve energy efficiency, so it voted to change time itself -- but leave that aside. The rationale for the new daylight savings calendar was that it would reduce energy use by encouraging people to use less electric light, but that assumption hadn't been well tested -- and a new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals that the policy likely encouraged Americans to use more energy by running heaters and air conditioners more than enough to offset the decreased use of light, and to spend more money doing so. Indeed, the primary beneficiaries seem to have been the retail and sporting-goods lobbies, who pushed for the bill because it makes people want to stay out later and shop or hunt. (Lobbies who opposed the bill included the Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, presumably because fewer people want to attend services before dawn, as well as the National Parent-Teacher Association.) In other words, like many other laws passed during the Bush administration, it was a sop to business that left ordinary folks holding the bag -- in this case a bag lunch packed during pitch-dark late October mornings."
https://www.npr.org/2010/11/10/13121...ylight-savings

[AndyG]

I hate it. Sunset's now at 4:53.

I'm over ten degrees north of you: sunset @ 4.23.

...I hate it more!

Andy, 44 days until solstice.

[TomF]

I like the extra hour of sleep that one Fall night, but it doesn't make up for losing it the previous Spring. The Fall experience feels like finding an unexpected $10 in a coat pocket, which promptly evaporates into a couple of cups of coffee or an extra 2 minutes standing at the gas pump.

Takes me a good week to feel balanced again in the Spring though, with an hour of life sucked out like I was Wesley strapped down to the machine in The Princess Bride.

[Garret]

I hate it. Sunset's now at 4:53.

I'm with you Keith! 4:33 for us today.

[TomF]

One of the huge benefits of leaving Edmonton for Fredericton, significantly further South, was seaasonal daylight.

There were a couple of months every year I'd leave for work in the morning, and come home at the end of the day, and never see more than twilight. Brutal.

[Keith Wilson]

There was something unsettling and creepily disproportionate about the idea that Congress couldn't muster the will to improve energy efficiency, so it voted to change time itself -

Silly. We can't 'change time itself' any more than we can change the laws of physics. The numbers we assign to various times are utterly arbitrary conventions, something we invented so that we can coordinate human activities, all start work at eight, catch the plane that leaves at 11:25, or meet our friends at the restaurant at 6:30.

[bamamick]

I was always told it was so schoolkids didn't have to stand at the bus stop in the dark. I do know one thing, just as soon as the time changes I start getting very sleepy right around 6pm, if not earlier. Heck, I'll be honest with you: I start getting sleepy as soon as the sun sets.

Mickey Lake

[Ian McColgin]

I don't get why DST has any support since all the excuses turn out to be false, growing increasingly insane at higher latitudes more irrelevant towards the tropics.

[Peerie Maa]

I was always told it was so schoolkids didn't have to stand at the bus stop in the dark. I do know one thing, just as soon as the time changes I start getting very sleepy right around 6pm, if not earlier. Heck, I'll be honest with you: I start getting sleepy as soon as the sun sets.

Mickey Lake

Yes, there was a classic bit of red top sensationalist journalism in the year we tried not altering the clocks.
Unfortunately, on the day we did not make the change, a schoolgirl was hit by a car in the dark. The gutter press were all over it, entirely missing the point that if the accident had happened a day or two before, there would have been no story.

To answer the OP, bureaucratic inertia?

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

https://www.rospa.com/road-safety/ad...s/clock-change

Daylight saving all year round please.

[CWSmith]

If you put your clocks back an hour in the fall, the sun goes down an hour earlier and it comes up an hour earlier.

If you stay on DST, the sun comes up at the later time.

Personally, I don't care. However, I bet if we adopt DST year round the people who now complain about the sun going down too early will then complain about the sun coming up too late.

[Too Little Time]

Unless you want to be on time for anything...

A couple days ago I was surprised to read that some people wear 2 watches to keep track of their preferred time and mandated time. All year long they stay on the same time and tolerate those who change from season to season. I expect they get used to the process as they experience it. When I travel across time zones, I don't change my watch and I try to not change my hours of sleep.

As noted in post #7 school districts have opted out of changing their actual hours in the past.

[Canoeyawl]

Silly. We can't 'change time itself' any more than we can change the laws of physics. The numbers we assign to various times are utterly arbitrary conventions, something we invented so that we can coordinate human activities, all start work at eight, catch the plane that leaves at 11:25, or meet our friends at the restaurant at 6:30.

I'm all in with "meeting our friends", but "Start work at eight"?
That's not happening

[Tom Montgomery]

​.
All I know is that my dog is still operating on Daylight Saving Time. He resents the time change.

[Canoeyawl]

​.
All I know is that my dog is still operating on Daylight Saving Time. He resents the time change.

And what about Fergus?
Has he anything to say about this indignity?

[Nicholas Carey]

One of the huge benefits of leaving Edmonton for Fredericton, significantly further South, was seaasonal daylight.

There were a couple of months every year I'd leave for work in the morning, and come home at the end of the day, and never see more than twilight. Brutal.

That's pretty much Seattle from mid-November through February.

[Garret]

[Keith Wilson]

Most of our friends in Europe are a lot farther north. Edmonton's at 53.5 degrees, Seattle at 47, Minneapolis at 45. OTOH, Paris is at 49, London at 51.5, Edinburgh at 56.

[John Smith]

Here we are 45 days away from the winter solstice and logic would dictate going back to DST 45 days after the solstice which would be about Feb 5 at 2 am but no someone figures March 12 is the day to go back to DST 81 days after the winter solstice .

Curious as to why this silly practice is still happening .

In my book I suggested setting clocks half an hour in between and leaving them there.

[jdmcintyre]

57 deg 56’ N and 16.20 today. I tried rebelling once but got very very confused.
With absolutely no medical knowledge I'd vote for double summer time, I quite like getting up in the dark.

[Three Cedars]

post #24 was rather good

[goodbasil]

When DLST was introducd Saskatchewan declined. Some thing about upsetting the cows. Not easy to reset your watch with a cloven hoof.

[Bobcat]

That's pretty much Seattle from mid-November through February.

True, but one year around the winter Solstice I was in Kodiak, AK. It got light around 9 am and dark by about 3:30 pm. I concluded we don't have it too bad in Seattle.

There was always that day in February when I would leave work and realize it was still light. Then I knew spring was coming

[Breakaway]

I would have missed much of this morning’s lunar eclipse if we had not turned back time.


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[John Smith]

Many people think we get more daylight by setting the clocks ahead. Truth is we only move the time we have daylight. If it gets dark earlier in the evening, it gets light earlier in the morning.

This may have been an advantage at some time in the past, but in today's world it makes no sense to me.