Daylight Savings Time Savings Disputed

[Mugu]

by Richard Cooper

Now that spring has come we Americans have mostly moved our clocks forward with the change to Daylight Savings Time (DST). Some lawmakers and others have advocated year-round DST in order to save energy.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported "Daylight Saving Wastes
Energy, Study Says" by Justin Lahart (WSJ Feb. 27, 2008) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120406767043794825.html. We learn that University of California Santa Barbara economic professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant took note of Indiana's adoption of statewide daylight savings time in the spring of 2006. Relying on data from Duke Energy Corp. embracing seven million meter readings over a three year period in southern Indiana they could compare before and after DST.

Their conclusion is that rather than saving energy costs, Indiana consumers paid an additional $8.6 million in electricity costs. As there is a direct correlation between electricity production and emissions from power plants, Indianans were exposed to increased air pollution with the health risks that increase imposes.

I read this preliminary draft study myself and you can too at http://www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~kotchen/links/DSTpaper.pdf entitled "Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy? Evidence From A Natural Experiment In Indiana." The increased electricity they attribute to people in the hotter months coming home from work and cranking up the air conditioning. In the cooler months the heat is raised in the morning.


Read complete article at:
http://www.groundreport.com/Health_and_Science/Daylight-Savings-Time-Savings-Disputed

[otohara]

1. I Heard This A Couple Weeks Ago

it makes perfect sense - hopefully this will be revisited and either have the DST shortened or get rid of it all together.

[HereSince1628]

2. being in the far western part of a time zone Indiana doesn't

see the benefits the same way a place like Milwaukee does.

The shift is pretty dramatic here as suddenly an hour of light becomes available. People frightened of the night time shadows in parking lots suddenly have time to make a dash to the store in sunlight, and they do. It makes an appreciable bump in evening sales.

[MadHound]

13. Being in your same time zone, I have to disagree

The shift isn't dramatic, and an hour of daylight doesn't suddenly become available. All that happens is an hour of daylight is transposed from the morning to the evening. Frankly for farmers it sucks, since it is one less hour of daylight where we can work in the cool of the morning.

And frankly, I see no reason to institute DST simply for the sake of a relative handful of people who are scared of their own shadow. After all, it isn't like most parking lots aren't lit up like noontime anyway.

[HereSince1628]

14. Yes, that's right. Shifted from the morning when most people are working

to the afternoon/evening when people are free to shop.

I suggest going to a retailer and having a conversation about how the time change has affected their business. It is a real deal.

[DeadEyeDyck]

3. I always thought we just add an hour every night

Maybe 2. I could use the sleep.

[Zywiec]

4. Isn't it Daylight Saving Time and not Daylight Savings Time?

I think if Mr. Cooper is going to write an article about something, he should at least know what it is called.

Just saying...

[RebelOne]

12. The correct usage is daylight-saving time

It should always be in lower case with a hyphen.

[high density]

5. I would love constant DST

The sun going down at soon after 4pm in the December is painful. I'd much rather start my day in the dark than end it that way. Being way east on the zone sucks big time. (teeee heee)

[Liberal In Texas]

6. I don't care what they decide on, I wish they'd just stop this insane changing

the clocks twice a year.

[Mugu]

7. That's my feelings in this matter as well.

Pick a system and stick with it.

Regards, Mugu

[Liberal In Texas]

9. Besides the 20 some clocks I have to change manually, I have others that

are designed to change themselves back and forth (like the one in my XM radio). Well, somebody didn't tell my devices that congress has been monkeying with the time we change forward and back. So, unless I manually change them, they will be wrong until the former date rolls around. If I manually change them, I'll have to change them AGAIN when that old date rolls around.

If one argues that kids will be waiting for the bus in the dark or something, change the time school starts.

Yes, pick a time and stay with it. We need to just stop this idiocy.

[zorahopkins]

8. I Love DST

I just love DST.

I like it when the sunsets are later in the evening.

I just hate it when it starts getting dark at 4:15 in the afternoon.

I wish we could have DST all the time!

[cosmik debris]

10. If we switch to GMT or Universal time

The business owners and employers will decide which hours to use.

The free market may be better at solving this problem than the government.

[pansypoo53219]

11. just pick a time.

this moving it has fucked up everything.