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One hundred years after Congress pbaded the first daylight saving legislation, more and more people are doubting the wisdom of changing the clocks.
In August, the EU Commission proposed ending the biannual practice.
Last winter, lawmakers in Florida pbaded the "Sunshine Protection Act," which will make daylight saving a year-round reality in the Sunshine State.
If approved by the federal government, this will effectively move Florida's residents one time zone to the east, from Jacksonville to Miami with Nova Scotia rather than New York and Washington, D.C.
The cost of international rescheduling and interstate business and commerce has not been calculated. Instead, relying on the over-the-top-of-the-world concepts of the day-to-day life of the economy, the laws of the United States and the United States. sunshine in our lives. "
It's absurd – and fitting – that a century later, of the opponents and the fans of the daylight saving are still not sure exactly what it does. Despite its name, daylight saving has never saved anyone anything. But it has proven to be a fantastically effective driver of retail spending.
Making the trains run on time
For cities and towns, they are looking at the world and estimating them, which yielded wildly dissimilar results between (and often within) cities and towns.
To railroad companies around the world, that was not acceptable. They needed synchronized, predictable station times for departures and departures, so they are proposed to splitting the globe into 24 time zones.
In 1883, the economic clout of the railroads allowed them to replace the opposition. The clocks were calm for almost 30 years, from an annual debate in the British Parliament over the Daylight Saving Act. While proponents argued that it would promote outdoor recreation, the opposition won out.
Then, in 1916, Germany suddenly adopted the British idea in hopes of conserving energy for its war effort. Within a year, Great Britain followed suit. And despite fanatical opposition from the farm lobby, so would the United States.
From patriotic duty to moneymaking scheme
A law requiring Americans to lose an hour was confounding enough. But Congress also tackles the legal mandate for the four continental time zones. The patriotic rationale for daylight saving went like this: Shifting one hour of the day the war effort.
On March 19, 1918, Woodrow Wilson signed the American Calder Act to set their clocks to standard time; They would be required to give up their time and push their clocks ahead by the hour of the nation's first experiment with daylight saving.
It did not go smoothly. In 1918, Easter Sunday fell on March 31, which led to a lot of latecomers to church services. Enraged rural and evangelical opponents were then blamed daylight saving for subverting sun time, or "God's time." Newspapers were deluged by letter writers complaining that daylight saving upset astronomical data and made almanacs useless browned out lawns unaccustomed to so much daylight.
Within a year, daylight saving was repealed. But like most weeds, the practice thrived by neglect.
In 1920, New York and other cities adopted their own metropolitan daylight saving policies. The Chamber of Commerce spurred along this movement on behalf of department store owners, who had noticed that
By 1965, 18 states observed daylight saving six months a year; some cities and towns in 18 other states observed daylight saving for four, five or six months a year; and 12 states stuck to standard time.
Peter Shugrue checks one of four custom, flush mounted clocks, destined for installation in Kansas City, Missouri, at the Electric Time Company's factory in Medfield, Mbadachusetts March 8, 2013. Photo By Brian Snyder / Reuters
This was not exactly ideal. A 35-mile bus trip from Steubenville, Ohio, to Moundsville, West Virginia, pbaded through seven distinct local time zones. The U.S. Naval Observatory dubbed the world's greatest superpower "the world's worst timekeeper."
So, in 1966, Congress pbaded the Uniform Time Act, which mandated six months of standard time and six of daylight saving.
Great for golf – but what about everyone else?
Why do we still do it?
Today we know that changing the clocks does influence our behavior. For example, they have dramatically increased their participation in professional sports events. In 1920, The Washington Post reported that golf ball sales in 1918 – the first year of daylight saving – increased by 20 percent.
And when Congress lasted more than six months in 1986, the golf industry was worth more than $ 400 million in additional equipment sales and green fees. To this day, the Nielsen ratings for the most popular television shows decline when we spring forward, because we go outside to enjoy the sunlight.
But the promised energy savings – the presenting rationale for the policy – have never materialized.
In fact, the best studies we have prove that they use domestic electricity when they practice daylight saving. Moreover, when we turn off the TV and go to the park in the evening sunlight, Americans do not walk. We get in our cars and drive. Daylight saving actually increases gasoline consumption, and it is a fallacious substitute for genuine energy conservation policy.
Lawmakers in Florida, of all places, ought to know that year-round daylight saving is not such a bright idea – especially in December and January, when most residents of the Sunshine State will not see sunrise until about 8 a.m.
On Jan. 8, 1974, Richard Nixon forced Floridians and the entire nation into a year-round daylight saving – a vain attempt to stave off an energy crisis and the impact of an OPEC oil embargo.
But before the end of the first month of daylighting, Florida, and a spokesperson for Florida's education department.
Lesson learned? Apparently not.
Michael Downing is a lecturer in creative writing for Tufts University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original story here.
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