It’s that time again — the beginning of daylight saving time. In the United States, daylight saving time lasts for a total of 34 weeks, running from early to mid March to the beginning of November.
This year, daylight saving time will starts on March 13 — more than a full week before the official start of spring. Daylight saving time will end on November 6.
Under the conditions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. Prior to passage of that Energy Policy Act, the clocks had sprung ahead on the first Sunday in April and remained that way until the final Sunday in October. The entire United States observes daylight saving time with the exception of Hawaii and a part of Arizona (Northeast Arizona (Navajo Nation) does not use DST.)
The time shift means we lose an hour of sleep, but we’ll enjoy more evening light for the next eight months.
A lot of people are saying, what if we advanced the clocks this weekend and never had to turn them back? That idea is gaining some traction and a bill has been reintroduced in Congress that would eliminate standard time and keep daylight saving time year-round.
Florida’s state legislature actually passed its own version of the bill in 2018 — however, individual states aren’t permitted to change their DST schedules without federal approval from the Department of Transportation, which means an act of Congress is required.
The US first introduced daylight saving time in 1918, two years after Germany and other European countries started advancing the clocks to conserve fuel and energy during World War I. Congress abolished the practice after the war and it wasn’t used again nationwide until President Roosevelt introduced year-round DST during World War II from 1942 to 1945.
During the energy crisis in the 1970s, the United States experimented with year-round DST from January 1974 to October 1975. Since then, we’ve switched the clocks back to standard time during the winter months.
Critics of the current DST schedule argue that changing the clocks twice a year disrupts sleep schedules, increases car accidents and the risk of heart attacks, seasonal depression and other health issues. Critics of the current system say using DST year-round would improve our society’s health, as we wouldn’t have to adjust our clocks and sleep schedules, and more evening light during the winter months would give people extra time to exercise outdoors after work, as well as benefit the economy.
Of course, making daylight saving time permanent doesn’t actually provide more sunlight. Because of the Earth’s tilt, the sun spends less time above the horizon during the winter and that means we have shorter daylight hours. Year-round DST would only shift daylight from the morning to the evening, meaning the sun would set an hour later than we’re used to from November to March. Naturally, the drawback is that mornings would be noticeably darker from November to March. A lot of parents and teachers oppose the idea of darker winter mornings, saying it could put children’s safety at risk.
So if we keep it like it is some people won’t be happy. If we change to year-round standard time some people won’t be happy. If we change to year-round daylight saving time, some people won’t be happy. I guess it’s true that you can make some of the people happy some of the time, but you can’t make all the people happy all of the time.
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