Down with DST

Well, here we are suffering through DST (Daylight Savings Time) again.  While “Falling Back” isn’t a traumatic as “Springing Forward”,  I still prefer leaving things alone.  I used to think Indiana was progressive for not participating.  That was confirmed when I lived under DST for a few years in Georgia that pretty much confirmed my feelings, so I was pretty vocally against the change when it happened.

I ran across an article by an economist, Allison Schrager, titled:  “The US needs to retire daylight savings and just have two time zones—one hour apart”  I learned a few things including how little of the world observes DST.  The cool map above is from her site.  The Wikipedia link to Daylight Savings Time above shows a map that indicates large portions of the globe that did observe DST no longer do so.

Ms. Schrager‘s article brings out some good points and is an interesting read.  It actually makes the point that DST probably is a drain on our economy.  She also cites a Staff Report by the California Department of Energy analyzing the change extending DST a few years ago, the Abstract of which says, “The extension of Daylight Saving Time (DST) to March 2007 had little or no effect on energy consumption in California, according to a statistical analysis.  The most likely approximation is a 0.2% decrease during these three weeks.  Given the natural variation in consumption, however, the margin of electricity use change associated with early DST could have been one and a half percent of increase or decrease without such effects showing up statistically. Formally, weather- and lighting-corrected savings from DST were estimated at 0.18% with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 1.5% savings to a 1.4% increase.”  In other words the benefit amounts to squat in California…

The concept of two time zones is interesting.  I don’t know if that’s necessary.  Though maybe it would clear up all of the border disputes that we currently have.  All the malarky about about getting Indiana to conform quickly went to the wayside and we still have different counties observing different time zones.  We didn’t clean up the confusion as was touted as the reason Indiana needed to conform.

If you’re not too wonky from the effects of DST, you might want to take a look at the article.  It makes the points much better than I can.  If you want to read my previous rants on this topic, plug in DST or Daylight Savings Time in the search box on the right.

*  Image Borrowed from www.qz.com