Saturday, March 10, 2012

Daylight Savings Time Starts 2 AM Sunday March 11 - Clock Springs Forward To 3 AM, Why?

Remember to move your clock forward one hour before going to sleep tonight.

Here's why. Rachel Maddow helps explain Daylight Savings Time.


You Tube Video of 2010 Rachel Maddow Show Explaining Daylight Savings Time

4 comments :

Trevre Andrews said...

And here is a quick calculation of the opportunity cost of daylight savings time.  Once again our government fails to perform a useful function.  

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2144

Frank Farance said...

Monetizing clock-changing as an opportunity cost on a day of rest doesn't make sense. Opportunity cost is "the cost of any activity measured in terms of
the value of the next best alternative forgone (that is not chosen) ..." (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost").  In other words, the 10 minutes it takes to change the clocks on Saturday night or Sunday morning does not displace actual revenue generating time.

Regarding "our government fails to perform a useful function", the legislation had sponsors from both parties, and there are some benefits.  The wikipedia article has includes a history (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time") that highlights (1) the idea came from New Zealand, (2) Germany and its allies started using in in WW1, which motivated other countries to use it.

The benefits (or not) depend upon latitude and culture.  Shifting to permanent DST means kids go to school in the dark in January (I remember that in 1974-75 when Nixon changed the clocks to save energy).  Meanwhile, no summer time means the loss of using extra daylight time in the summer (unused morning hours go to used evening hours in DST).  In other words, no-DST and all-DST both have pitfalls.

Even if there were no DST, spending 10 minutes twice a year to make sure the clocks are set right and the smoke detector has working batteries are benefits that can be monetized.  And while you're at it, changing the clocks to make better use of summer's extra daylight hours, or to make it safer for children to go to school in the winter, is an extra benefit. :-)

YetAnotherRIer said...

Actually, Trevre does have a point. This is not just about the time it takes to adjust the clocks. This is also about the time your body needs to adjust to the change of time. It takes more than just one day (the Sunday the time change happened) for your body to adapt and in the meanwhile most people are less productive. That said....

I also agree that DST is a well meant concept that actually proved to be useful until the last change in 2007 that extended DST for another month or so. The work it involved to implement these changes in IT, for example, was enormous. And in return none of the promises the extended DST was supposed to give us became reality. The DST changes in 2007 were a failure.

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