This post is all about time.
For years, there has been a growing clamour for the end of Daylight Savings Time (hereinafter referred to as Daylight Time). For all the (pardon my language) whining that goes on every spring and fall, you'd swear that the nation shuts down every time change, as all those poor, stunned souls try bravely to adapt their hidebound routines to a shift of one hour.
Perhaps I've been fortunate. I've never been one to gauge the passage of time by hunch and gut feeling; I take what the clock says.
Also, for more than 50 years I have been a DXer, in the AM broadcast band, so I often stay up late or get up early to chase those loggings. In short, I've learned to live and thrive on variations in my sleep schedule.
Here's how the time change goes for me: I wake up and note the sun ahead of or behind its usual position. I look at the clock, and that's what time it is. Sure, I have the occasional sensation that the day is out of sync; but as I said, I'm quite accustomed to that. When the clock says it's time to sleep, I go to bed. If I'm not ready for bed, I'll stay up an hour--and the next night I'll have no problem going to bed 'early' or 'late'.
In case anyone is interested, the purpose of Daylight Time is to shift our clocks to make use of the morning sunlight. This trick works wonderfully well in summer, when the sun would otherwise rise around 4am in most of southern Canada. In fact, several decades ago, the province of Newfoundland experimented with Double Daylight Savings Time. Huge success, but any media coverage focused on the extreme inconveniences it caused people.
Now, let's have a look at the consequences of permanent daylight or standard time.
PERMANENT STANDARD TIME
Permanent Standard Time seems a no-brainer, especially in winter, when the run rises close to 8am, and sets shortly after four in the afternoon. But let's fast-forward to summer. Now, because we're on Standard Time year-round, get ready for 4am sunrises, and sunsets around 8pm. Bleah! Most of us miss out on two solid hours of daylight in the morning, with Daylight Time. No--let's throw away three hours of daylight, and let the sun set mid-evening while we're all still awake. Oh, yeah, much better...
PERMANENT DAYLIGHT TIME
So, most people are recommending a shift to permanent Daylight Time. This introduces problems in the winter. Now, the sun will rise close to 9am in the winter, and set shortly after five. That's hardly an improvement. So you'll get up, eat breakfast, get washed, changed, see the kids off to school, commute to work--all in the dark. The dubious payoff is that now it's light for half of your evening commute. Big whoop.
IN THE END
In the end, it boils down to a simple question: are longer summer days worth an hour's inconvenience twice a year? And, if not, which way will you lean: going to work in the dark for all of January; or summers where the evenings last two hours, max? I promise you, in the long run, it's just not worth it.
