Penny Thoughts: What Does Daylight Saving Time Save?

You may not know this – or even care for that matter – but we have only about two more months of Daylight Saving Time (DST). It may seem a bit early to engage in a discussion of DST, but, hey, I figure if Wal-Mart can start advertising for Halloween now – and it is clearly more than six weeks away – there is no reason we cannot take a look at why we manipulate our clocks to accommodate some rather outmoded convention, which I believe is still necessary. (See the conclusion.)

DST was started in 1918 so it is 102 years old and every state in the USA observes DST except most of Arizona and all of Hawaii. From timeanddate.com we learn that it begins “on the 2nd Sunday in March and ends on the 1st Sunday in November.” Furthermore the schedule we now use was introduced in 2007 and is subject to the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The US Department of Transportation governs the use of DST according to Section 110 of that act. Nevertheless, the act does not impinge on the rights of individual states and territories which choose not to adopt DST.

I have become annoyed with this “Spring forward and Fall back” nonsense – or is the other way around? – and since there have been numerous changes and alterations since 1918, I decided to explicate this monstrosity of time function and use a word you might want to look up (explicate) to vent my frustration.

In November 2018, The National Geographic did a nice little piece to celebrate the one-hundredth year of DST in America. The article pointed out that Benjamin Franklin made an allusion to DST centuries before it was ever adopted, but no one ever followed up and neither did he.

The resounding theme was the desire to save energy – more light meant less energy to provide heat or light. Since coal was the major source of energy, it all made sense. Ironically, the Brits, our cousins and kin, thought it would be a grand idea, and even Winston Churchill and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fancied the idea which was come upon by a British builder named William Willett who saw it as a means to save daylight. Unfortunately, the British government rejected it.

In an even greater feat of irony, in 1916 it was the Germans during WWI who had flirted with the idea of preserving time, and while other countries, including England, were pondering the idea of DST, the Germans instituted it almost immediately.

The U.S. followed suite in 1918 and the added dimension of establishing Time Zones at the same time in America was a bonus which solved many transportation and economic conundrums.

In the 1970’s with the oil embargo, our time manipulation became even more egregious with DST being extended to ten months in 1974 and eight months in 1975.

Good people, my question still remains: with our energy sources not as stressed as they were when DST began, why do we still need it? From my perspective, more daylight in the afternoon rather than in the morning would seem to help our agricultural economy. Besides, I just plain like sunsets and DST year-round would give me more time to enjoy them with my family.

So, yes, I would like it if Congress would make DST just plain “ST” – that is, “Standard Time”.

On a voice vote, then, how many FOR DST year-round? And how many Opposed to Year-round DST?

Hmm, well, under the authority of Section of 110 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 I declare that the “AYES” have it!

So, on November 3, 2019, by voice-vote proclamation we the citizens of the sovereign community of Demopolis, Alabama, cannot and will NOT turn our clocks back!

OOO-RAH!