That Time Again

It’s that time again — time to change the clocks. It’s just something we do, and just like about everything today, it’s controversial. All of the United States, with the exception of a couple of states, practices daylight saving time. Many people don’t like the concept of setting clocks back an hour in the fall and then setting them forward an hour in the spring. 

According to a recent poll, only 33% of Americans see the purpose of DST. In fact, over 83 million people have sent messages to Congress petitioning for the end of daylight time. Of course setting the clocks forward one hour in the spring doesn’t create more daylight — the Sun still rises and sets just the same, but it does change the time on our clocks, so in the spring we add an hour of natural daylight to our afternoon schedule.

I know, every year at this time I dwell on DST, so if you’re tired of hearing it, come back tomorrow — there’ll be a different subject….
One of the reasons Daylight Saving Time started was because of time zones. Time zones were introduced by major railroad companies in 1883 to avoid confusion that caused train crashes because of different local times. These time zones were enforced by the Interstate Commerce Commission and it also enforced daylight saving time years later in order to help the World War I effort.
(Germany had incorporated daylight saving time during World War I to conserve fuel and power. The idea was that if there were more hours of daylight in the day, people would spend more time outside and less time inside, therefore saving energy. Apparently the U.S. thought that was a good idea and incorporated daylight saving time as well.)

After the war, daylight saving time was abolished, but some states chose to continue using it. That created the confusion with transportation all over again, so daylight saving time was reincorporated nationally. 

So the argument continues — those favoring DST think it contributes to improved road safety, and a decrease in robberies — the extra daylight gives people more time for outdoor recreation, and the brighter evening boosts the tourism industry and local economies.
Opponents claim there is no justification to continue using daylight saving time — it doesn’t save energy and we’re not in the midst of a world war. It’s nothing but a nuisance that messes with our biological clock and life.

But no matter what you think, we’ll all be changing our clocks before we go to bed tonight or tomorrow — or at least some of them. A lot of ours automatically change — if we do away with DST, I wonder if all our appliances will be smart enough to know it — or — will we need to get all new stuff — or — maybe we’ll just have chaos…..
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