The semi-annual insanity is upon us.
G.V. Hudson is to blame
It is time for my semi-annual rant and wish that G.V. Hudson had a different hobby. Hudson, a New Zealander, collected insects and was a shift worker. In 1895 he proposed Daylight Savings Time so he could collect insects after work in daylight. The world rightly ignored his idea but it was also championed by a golfer William Willett in 1907. He fought for it tirelessly and the world rightfully ignored him as well. But, to save energy during WWI, Germany adopted Daylight Saving Time and soon other countries in the conflict followed. The time pox has been on humanity since. In the fall Americans set their clocks back to standard time. In the spring they go back on artificial time.
Golfer William Willett had the same bad idea
As I have mentioned before I stopped changing my clocks a dozen years ago. People who visit my home know I stay on “Deane Time.” I absolutely refuse to go on “daylight savings time.” The entire idea strikes me a silly particularly when one considers there is a fixed amount of daylight no matter how we set our clocks. It is rightfully called “daylight slaving time.” Only the government would cut the top foot off a blanket, sew it on the bottom, and then argue the blanket is longer.
What really got to me was the seasonal flipping: Springing forward, falling back, feeling miserable. Time change always left me out of sorts for weeks. For more than a decade now I don’t flip. I don’t change the clocks, when I get up, when I eat, when I go to bed or when I feed the animals. This family stays on standard time. I just recognize that for half the year the rest of the country thinks it is ahead of me by one hour.
Semi-annual nonsense
Fortunately nature is not so wrong-headed. Animals and plants ignore the time change. Cows get milked at the same time no matter what hour it is. Plants grow the same while we pretend there is more light in the evenings during summer. (Though as a kid I remember marveling that at 9 p.m. it was still light outside.)
There is also a philosophical reasons. So much of our lives is artificial. And artificial “daylight savings time” is but one more thing to knock us out of sync with the world around us. I spend a lot of time with Mother Nature and I prefer her time to man’s. And grumpy me, I like to use my watches (12- and 24-hour) as compasses, and that’s easier if one stays on solar time. Thus I do. And more than one study shows it actually cost more to go on Daylight Savings Time than not and is less healthy.
From a factual point of view, the majority of people on earth do not go on Daylight Savings Time. How sensible. Asia doesn’t nor does Africa. Most equatorial countries don’t. Great Britain and Ireland tried staying on DST permanently from 1968 to 1971 but went back because it was unpopular. Most of Arizona does not go on DST. Lead the way Arizona. Daylight Savings Time is a bad idea that needs to go away. You can refuse to let it disrupt your life. We all have phones and computers to remind us what the outside world thinks is the right time. Let them but keep your personal life on standard time. You can do it. This weekend I have nothing to change and no misery to go through. Give it a try.
(In 2018 Florida passed a measure to stay on Daylight Savings Time permanently, as Great Britain and Ireland tried and rejected 50 years ago. Called the “Sunshine Protection Act” it requires congressional approval because DST is a federal dictate. Florida’s request is not going to happen in a bitter, divided place like Washington D.C. which has other priorities than sunshine in the sunshine state. If Florida had decided to stay on standard time it could do that without federal approval. Unless Florida revisits the legislation you are stuck with flipping. Opportunity missed. You screwed up Tallahassee.)
I disagree with changing the clocks, but I think that in the Eastern US we should stay on DST all year round; that is, we should turn the clocks forward one fateful Spring, and never change them back again.
This is even more true in the UK, where in the dead of Winter it’s night by 15:30.
If you want to stay with Solar Time (and there are good reasons that makes sense), then I suggest that we shift our lives back an hour. The normal work day would be 8-4 instead of 9-5; children would start and end their school day an hour early; the 10 o’clock news would become the 9 o’clock news, etc.
While I could live with DST I prefer solar time, but what I really hate is flipping twice a year. That is why I refuse to do it. If I remember correctly the UK tried not long ago staying on DST for three years and it didn’t work out.
I hate DST. HATE
It is unnatural.
I have always thought it was stupid also. It doesn’t make any sense, I would much rather be on solar time all year.
Ah, Dean, if you were chained to a cubicle or otherwise employed in a ‘normal’ job on a regular workday schedule, you would no doubt have more sympathy for DST – though your points about changing twice a year and being out of synch with nature are well taken.
Of course, there is little to forage after a workday in the winter in northern New England, eh? Still, changing the hours of the ‘standard’ workday, and schoolday, does make more sense. Isn’t it wonderful to not have to be constrained by those?!
I am nearly 64 and in that span of time I have had cubicle jobs and even then I ignored the time change.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to change the time of a workers shift twice a year rather than changing time itself?
Right on the money. I absolutely hate DST, and all summer long I have to remind myself of the REAL time to stay sane.
“Ah, Dean, if you were chained to a cubicle or otherwise employed in a ‘normal’ job on a regular workday schedule, you would no doubt have more sympathy for DST.”
I am a cubical worker and i hate DST with a passion. Having lived in Asian and Arizona where it is not practiced I find it even more annoying.
I’ve had it. I’m going to solar time and not conforming.
If more people would just do this we could get off this rubbish once and for all.
I was a cubical inmate for quite a while. I still refused to go along with the nonsense, which is again this week. Except you are all now joining me.
Just found your site while searching for pictures of wapato (duck potato) sprouts and am enjoying it quite a bit for the most part. I was put off by what I construe of the use of some narrow-minded language being used for native Americans in the wapato article, in particular because a lot of what we know about indigenous food was conveyed by them.
Despite being an old-timer too and perhaps because I only recently received my bachelors degree, which included anthropology course on native Americans so I’ve become sensitive to the use of certain inflammatory words. I’ve also worked for some tribal governments on green, renewable energy project and have found much to respect about their culture. Regardless of my disagreement, I think you have a great site, which I’ll continue to visit.
I do agree with your position about the inanity of dst. My premise is that it is a control issue – to get everyone to go along with something because the government wants us to be obedient. Might be too wild for some, but I just think common sense has left us.
Thanks again for your site.
At least I did not call them squaws…
“At least I did not call them squaws…”
Only “squawlettes”, which is somehow better?
(This comment is made with gentle amusement, not indignation or castigation.)
You must be referring to another article rather than the one on time. And I thought I had written such things out.
Hey Green Deane,
Very fun website. I love your humor and good nature. I agree with your assessment of DST. It has been shown to actually cause more harm with the interruption of the sleep cycle and does not save us any energy. It is interesting that 93% of plants are inedible to us. I think that the plants that are edible should give us some nutrition and or medicinal value. While it is true that some pretty flowers can make the food we eat more appealing I wonder what is the the actual nutritional value. I think that foraging also has an important benefit beyond the actual food that you harvest. It allows you to be closer to nature and to observe it at its finest. Without plants we would have little to eat but we cannot eat grass we are not designed that way. But as you point out we can eat what eats the plants. One last point most of what we take as fact is in fact myth. It is important to be skeptical and to really learn and this website I believe helps to accomplish that.
Tell me a story! The youngest children, eyes sparkling, are ready to hear a story. If it’s getting dark, and there are prospects of bedtime delayed, so much the better.
And the older we get, the more eager to tell. That reminds me… When I was your age,…
And basically, it’s all myth. Believe what you choose. Close your eyes, make a wish, blow out the candle!
Well, I have to be the lone voice of pro-DST. I agree it’s a pain to reset the clocks twice a year – personally, I’d rather be on DST all year long. As long as most of the population’s day is constrained by the 9-5 workday, it matters whether you have more free time before work or after work. Personally, I enjoy having a bigger chunk after work, and enjoying long summer evenings. Time zones are equally abrupt; I used to live on the west side of the local time zone line and it’d be dark by 4pm in winter; now I live on the east side of it and it gets dark at a more reasonable 5pm. The only part of the anti-DST argument I can’t relate to is how difficult it is to change one’s (internal) clock by an hour. Over the years I’ve traveled to India regularly to visit relatives – a 10 1/2 hr time change – and jetlag only lasts a day or so. I don’t even notice a one hour change.
Great Britain tried DST permanently but only for a few years because people didn’t like it.
… there may be something seriously wrong with men, or women, who think they can change what time the Sun comes up …
“Daylight savings time” is on my “to be abolished” list!
I thought I was alone in my absolute disdain of this bs!!
We need to stay on DST all year long!! So many people are forced to work under horrible florescent lights in offices and desperately need that extra hour of light in the evenings.
Hello, “Green Deane”:
Not only are those good reasons for eliminating so-called “DST”,
but I think I know the best reason yet;
EVERY year, a few people DIE because of “DST”.
[Usually, pedestrians or joggers/runners. ]
NO amount of money is worth a single human life.
The only reasonable solution is ELIMINATE “DST”; the sooner, the better.
Trying to justify “DST” for economic reasons [slavery, anyone?] is just plain WRONG!
Have a GREAT day, Neighbor!
I personally call economic restraint: budgeting. I do this on a personal and family level. When I ran my small business…it applied to the business AND personnel. It sucks to have to make those descisions especially on our tougher months. None the less…it was one that had to be made so that I could continue to do business AND manage any personnel what so ever. I’ll also say…DST. I just keep it at 8:30 vs. 9:00 for scheduling. But as a solar geared person I also track solar noon for my own energy management (narcolepsy as well as temp management at home to assist in budgeting)
Deane,
I agree with you that it is a preposterous exercise. I, too, tend to ignore some of the more ludicrous and unnatural features of our society, sometimes to my great disadvantage.
But, as a practical matter, how do you deal with being an hour off of what most of your fellow Floridians consider the correct time, for half of the year? While I admire your adherence to principle, I feel you must spend an inordinate amount of time explaining why
you were actually on-time for that 10:00 meeting.
For one I’m sure his smart phone and calendar help him track that and stay on time(as I do…I pride myself on being early) but sensibly I only adjust my wake and sleep time by a half an hour in either direction . Keeps me easily adapting for DST and on a tidy schedule for my meds and what my circadian rithym “should” be. (Narcolepsy with DSPD)
Yes Sir, a pet peeve of mine since traveling to parts of the world that have the good sense to stay in sync with reality, and as such reject the artificial. The fact that we allow this nonsense reveals something about us.