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Getting off the time-change ride of terror is a hot topic, but for all the wrong reasons [1]

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Date: 2022-11-14

Most of America after we "spring forward" into time insanity

One of the first big news events I remember from my childhood – besides the bracing thrill of the 1969 moon landing – is the spectacular failure of the 1974 attempt to stay on daylight saving time year-round. The news images were stark: the blindingly bright camera lights as they sliced through the pitch-black darkness to illuminate children exiting their school buses on a pre-dawn winter morning. It was a national attempt to stop the bi-annual, biological-clock disaster that is time change. And it was an abject failure.

Nobody likes time change – not then, not now. Yet, while legislative bodies often discuss putting an end to it, the “solution” that is most often considered is a non-solution – that of staying on DST year-round. Staying on standard time year-round is the only tenable solution. It’s also the coolest one – and I mean that literally. But it is rarely considered.

DST was instituted in the U.S. in 1918 as part of the war effort as a way to save energy because people would need to use their electric lights less during the longer summer days. That made sense in 1918, because – given the utter lack of any other electric appliances – average home electricity use consisted entirely of lights. Now, of course – particularly since the invention of air conditioning – light bulb usage no longer claims the lion’s share of our electricity bills. With home AC so much more ubiquitous, in fact, we’re now asked to use our other large electric appliances – dish washers, etc. – later in the day to avoid those mid-day peak-electricity-use hours. Here’s the problem: those peak-electricity-use hours correspond very nearly with daily peak-heat hours.

Consider this: when on DST, the daily temperature maxes out at about 5pm. That means we are choosing the absolutely hottest time of the day to exit work and get into our sunbaked cars to fight traffic, all while desperately hoping our vehicular ACs will cool us down before we faint from heat exhaustion. On standard time, the daily temperature peaks at about 4pm, so the summer heat has already begun to dissipate by the time we leave work and, by the time we’ve reached home, our houses have also had a chance to begin cooling down. And yet, we’re still pushing our peak at-home time up an hour every summer so we are more in line with peak daily-heat hours.

I realize that having an “extra” hour of sunshine during the summer is what makes DST so wildly popular. Because I grew up in Arizona – one of the few states that embraces sanity by adhering to standard time year-round – I have always been baffled by that argument. When you live someplace as hot as Phoenix, sunset is a blessed reprieve from the stifling heat given off by that blazing solar disc of ours. When I lived in Arizona, the summer sun simply could not set too soon for me. As the nation’s summers grow ever warmer – consider the blistering heat waves of the past year – earlier sunsets should be gaining appeal elsewhere.

The point is, staying on standard time year-round would make all of your favorite outdoor evening activities – like watching baseball or grilling burgers – cooler. You might need to turn on some lights before you’re done, but they won’t make you sweat or heat up your home the way the sun does.

Regardless, while just two states stick to cooler permanent standard time, 19 states have passed legislation to observe DST year-round. However, none of them actually does so. That’s because such a change can only be done under federal law. Congress has fiddled with making DST year-round, most recently in March of this year when the Senate passed a bill, but has been unable to get legislation through both chambers since the 1974 debacle.

Interestingly enough, absolutely any state may choose to adhere to standard time year-round without getting permission from Congress. This means we could, in fact, all be spared the torment of setting our clocks back and losing an hour of sleep next spring – and every spring thereafter – if our state lawmakers would enact the one solution that actually solves the time-change problem.

If the U.S. House passes the Senate bill, I have no doubt we will see a repeat of 1974. Parents will watch as their children head off for school in the dark during the very next winter and will rightfully raise a stink about it until the whole thing is scrapped yet again. Because, unless schools across the nation decide to alter their start times every winter – which, I suspect, parents would hate even more than a pre-dawn start time – that problem is not ever going to go away. Then, we’ll all be stuck springing forward and falling back again until enough people forget why we can’t observe DST year-round and start the whole dizzying process over again.

As a native Arizonan, I was blissfully unaware of the twice-annual angst that is time change until I moved to New Mexico. Thanks to our planet’s solar orbit, each and every day is either slightly longer or shorter than the day before. This progression brings about the change in seasons and, since it is natural, it’s not something that most of us find shocking. But when we “fall back” an hour every winter, us 9-to-5ers are instantly thrust into darkness the very next time we leave work. I’m well aware that it’s going to be dark at 5pm at some point every winter, but I like to get used to the idea gradually. You know – on a day-by-day basis as nature intended. The time change in spring is an ugly jolt for an entirely different reason. That mournful loss of an hour of sleep always takes my body at least one week to get used to. My mind stays pissed off about it for even longer.

I’m willing to bet that, should the whole nation go on standard time permanently, few people would even notice that loss of an hour of evening sunlight. Because, again, there’s the whole natural progression thing.

BeltaneBaby is a writer who has lived in Albuquerque, NM, since 1991. She was born on May 1st (AKA Beltane), which is far too soon after the spring time-change. Aside from her family and friends, the only thing she misses about Arizona is the sweet bliss of never having to change her clocks.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/14/2135865/-Getting-off-the-time-change-ride-of-terror-is-a-hot-topic-but-for-all-the-wrong-reasons

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