USA Lawmakers Move One Step Closer Toward Ending Daylight Saving Time Change (permanently)

[Dashmellow]

Why daylight saving time is worse for your body than standard time​

 

[joe384]

Why daylight saving time is worse for your body than standard time​

I've always thought that daylight savings time is absolutely bonkers in the modern world, for about 30 years I have always been of the opinion we should stay on standard time all year round (at least for the UK anyway)

I think I have mentioned on this forum before that back in 2012 there was the Daylight Savings Bill in the UK that didn't pass. This was to have the UK stay on DST all year round which I think is a mistake as in December some places in Scotland would not see daylight till 10am!

A lot of the motoring organizations here in the UK wanted to keep DST, as the argument was people were more tired in the evening and more daylight at evening times would prevent accidents. I think it has been since proven that the actual changeover is what causes the most accidents!

Also I think the non-scientific language and reasoning used is very childish eg. "Sunshine Protection Act", "Daylight Savings". You are not saving sunlight, you are not "protecting sunshine"

 

[joe384]

Interesting bit of text from one of the papers, DST in winter would actually make things even worse!

The chronic effects of DST have not been studied directly, but we know that DST increases the time difference between the social clock and the body clock (Borisenkov et al., 2017). More and more studies show that time differences between the social clock and the body clock challenge our health (Koopman et al., 2017; Mota et al., 2017; Parsons et al., 2015; Roenneberg et al., 2012; Rutters et al., 2014; Wong et al., 2015), are associated with decreased life expectancy (Borisenkov, 2011), shorten sleep (Borisenkov et al., 2017; Wittmann et al., 2006), cause mental (Foster et al., 2013; Levandovski et al., 2011) and cognitive problems (Díaz-Morales and Escribano, 2015; Haraszti et al., 2014), and contribute to the many sleep disturbances in our societies that are estimated to cost approximately 2% of the gross domestic product (Hafner et al., 2017). If we established DST throughout the year, the chronic effects would become more severe not only because we have to go to work an hour earlier for an additional 5 months every year but also because body clocks are usually later in winter than in summer with reference to the sun clock (Kantermann et al., 2007). The combination of DST and winter would therefore make the differences between body clocks and the social clock even worse and would negatively affect our health even more.

 

[Nigel]

This was to have the UK stay on DST all year round which I think is a mistake as in December some places in Scotland would not see daylight till 10am!

Down in Essex, daylight saving time may not be important to you, but as you get further north it gets exponentially more important, and the Shetland Islanders would be very unhappy to lose it. By the time you get to Iceland it stops working, in mid winter you can't get up when daylight arrives because daylight never arrives. Last century when the whole of UK ran on the same schedule with everyone working 9-5 and everyone watching/listening to the BBC at the same time, there was good reason for a national change, but I'm not sure that is valid any more, no good reason why Shetland schools should move their start time an hour in autumn and another hour in winter, while Essex schools stick to the same GMT year round. If the school children all want to watch their children's TV programs when they get home, they can watch on demand TV instead of broadcast TV.

I think keeping DST year round is just stupid, much better to scrap DST and move the timezone, the result is the same except that you don't need to configure an extra setting on all your devices! And if you want to keep your timezone, just get out of bed an hour earlier!

 

[Street Guardian USA]

Permanent daylight saving time bill gets renewed push in Congress​

Permanent daylight saving time bill gets renewed push in Congress

The Sunshine Protection Act stalled in the House after it passed the Senate last year by unanimous consent.

www.nbcnews.com

US senators reintroduce bill to make daylight saving time permanent

A bipartisan group of 12 U.S. senators on Thursday reintroduced legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent, nearly a year after the Senate voted unanimously to end clock switching.

www.reuters.com