Mudita Journal

Daylight Wastings Time

December 17, 2002 · Filed under: Current Events, Personal
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It’s not unusual this time of year to hear folks complain about how early it gets dark, with the short days, and now I’m wondering about it from an economic angle.

Earlier this week I was driving around trying to find a place to wash my car. The first place I tried wasn’t open, probably because it was dark — at a quarter past five. I’m sure the car wash owners miss the business, but who wants to wash their car in the dark?

As I drove past the sporting goods store, I started thinking about how it must affect them. In the winter, it’s too cold to run in the morning. But it’s too dark to run in the evening. Same for tennis, biking, and most other forms of exercise. Surely this affects their business. I guess the 24-hour fitness centers aren’t complaining, but how many other industries are hurt by the lack of light?

At first blush, it seems like there would be a lot of economic incentives to just stick with DST year-round. Or am I missing something?

Posted by Joshua Zader · Trackback URL · Link
  • http://www.centerforconsciousliving.com Carol Low

    Hey, JOsh. Some of us recall when the feds instituted DST year-round in some misguided attempt to save energy. First and foremost: I HATE DST onprinciple because I like knowing that at noon the sun will be at the highest point. That is after all the point of the thing–the better to tell tome when lost in the woods with, my dear. If some folks want to stay up later inthe summer or go to bed earlier in the winter, so be it. But I like my clock to correspond relatively closely to the sun, thanks. Back to the past, though, the wonderful advantage the feds gleaned when they forced DST year-round was that I got to WAKE UP IN THE DARK, too. So I never saw the sun for an entire winter, basically. See, if 5 pm is light, then 6 am is dark.
    K

  • Tom Lancaster

    I have always assumed that the instigators of daylight savings were morning people and in the evening went home to the 6 o’clock news and bed. Being of the opposite persuasion. I don’t find dragging my tired body out of my comfortable bed in the morning any less onerous whether it is daylight out or not. I have always maintained that a proper time to arise is when the sun is warm. If they have to change the time at all, I think they should change it the opposite way to the current method. Getting out of work at 5 PM in the dark would be much improved by an extra hour of daylight. The most pleasant time of the day in the summer is early evening which could be enjoyed more an hour earlier. Besides it must be a capitalist plot to make everyone leave the comfort of their air conditioned offices at the hottest time of day. Merely to save the company’s energy bill and send us all home to swamp-coolers. I am waiting in unfulfilled anticipation for the government to recompense me for the labor of changing 200 clocks to the new “correct time twice a year.

  • http://nonserviam.com/solan Svein Olav Nyberg

    Thiis is not a defence of DST, but there is a good historical explanation of it at webexhibits. Where I live, Norway, we have close to 24 hours of sun in the summer anyway, so that we don’t get much extra sun (if any) by switching our sunny hours around. Also, since I work on very flexible time, I obey my internal clock more than I do the offical chronology.

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