Sunday, March 10, 2019

Will the Sunshine Protection Act Protect Us?

It's that time again.  Today, residents of all but a handful of states (Hawaii and Arizona) find themselves an hour ahead of themselves,   Groggily, we march into the week ahead bemoaning Daylight time.  Why do we need it?  Why do we do it?

Why? (I could also ask why we got up to 47 sunny degrees yesterday and then woke up this morning to snow on the ground, but that's a topic for another time.)
 Leonid and Friends rule!

And will Florida end up saving us from ourselves?

When I visited Florida (from my native New York City) for the first time in July of 1966, I was amazed to discover that Florida, in the same time zone as my native New York City, was an hour behind New York City time.

They were on year round standard time.  They didn't jump ahead an hour at the beginning of spring.  They had the same time year round.  What a concept!

On March 19, 1918 (so we are not quite at the 101th birthday of this thing), the United States adopted the Standard Time Act, enacting time zones and daylight time.

In 1919, daylight time was repealed.  100 years ago this year, we had our chance to escape becoming twice a year zombies.

But then, like the Terminator, daylight time returned.  Again and again, it has returned to the western world. 

Now, Florida, the same state that didn't have daylight time in July of 1966, is trying to save us from ourselves again.

Last year, Florida passed the "Sunshine Protection Act" but they couldn't enact it on the state level because of the Federal law.  So this time, three members of Congress from Florida are trying on the national level.  If passed and signed into law, our country would have year round Daylight Savings Time.


What do you think of springing ahead/falling back?  If we went to a year round time, how would you want to do it?

5 comments:

  1. It's for the birds. DST made sense when it ran from April to October. Now there are so few months on standard time that we might as well just set the clocks ahead one hour and be done with it. They actually did that back in the '70's, you might remember, tried year-round DST, and abandoned it because it "didn't save any energy." Guess what? DST has NEVER saved energy. Never has and never will. I wouldn't mind if this time was the last time we changed the clocks. Or next time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was in college when the "year round" DST was implemented (1973?) and did not enjoy walking to my 8am classes in the dark. Personally, I would "split the difference", go back 1/2 hour the end of October 2019, and keep that time going forward. I agree, it has never saved energy.

      Delete
  2. If there is going to be a change, I suppose I prefer that we go back to standard time. I don't much care for springing forward, since my spring seems to be rusty or broken.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My spring isn't too springy, either, I've felt "off kilter" all day. The going back one isn't as bad.

      Delete
  3. I see one of your commenters already pointed out that they did year round DST in 1975. I did not remember this as I was too young. However, my state of California wants to do year round again. There was a proposition on the ballot in November to start the process, and it passed. We'll see. I don't think California was the only state to consider this.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting! Your comments mean a lot to me, and I appreciate each one. These comments are moderated, so they may not post for several hours. If you are spam, you will find your comments in my compost heap, where they will finally serve a good purpose.