I don’t know what we’ve been thinking all these years. Daylight-saving time is so wonderful. It’s hard for me to figure out why our civilization didn’t collapse from 1776 to 1918 when we didn’t have it. I think we’ve missed the boat and aren’t using all this "extra daylight" to our advantage. Only an hour of it just isn’t enough. If the average person works from 8:00 to 5:00, they only get about 4½ hours of this magical daylight after work and only at the peak of the summer. How tragic; how morally reprehensible. We all deserve much more daylight that happens when we change our clocks. After all, we all know that clock changing, not nature, miraculously creates daylight. I propose what I’d like to call "supersonic DST on steroids."
What we need to do is set our clocks ahead nine hours. This would create nine hours of after-work daylight in the winter and twelve additional daylight hours in the summer. On the horrific standard time, the sunrises at 7:48 a.m. and sets at 5:02 p.m. on December 21st. On supersonic DST, the sun would rise at 4:48 p.m. and set at 2:02 a.m. On June 21st, the sunrises at 5:56 a.m and sets at 9:02 p.m. DST. With this new improved and fortified DST, the sun would rise at 1:56 p.m. and set at 5:02 a.m.
This is the ultimate daylight-saving proposal. I’m psyched about how many wonderful after-work daylight hours will be used. Think of the endless possibilities. Our society will be so much more productive. Little Leaguers now only have until about 9:30 p.m. to play in the light which they desperately need since there are no lights in any playing fields or parks. With supersonic DST, the leaguers could play, we could work in our yards, and do all kinds of recreational activities until 5:30 a.m. We don’t want trick or treaters to go out in the dark. After all, Halloween is all about daylight. Now trick-or-treaters could go out in the daylight until 2:25 a.m.
Oh, we mustn’t forget outdoor barbeques. I have no idea how to turn on my energy-saving lights in my backyard, so we have to change our clocks so we can have one. We could run even more businesses like drive-in movie theaters into bankruptcy. Any outdoor pageants that don’t start until a ridiculously late hour shouldn’t happen anyway. Oh, and how great it will be to wait until 6:00 a.m. to start the fireworks on the Fourth of July. It’s so neat to have them now at 10:00 rather than 9:00. It makes it nice to return from them so late when you still have to get up early for work the next day.
Who cares if children will have to go to school and even have recess in the dark? That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if the incidence of heart attacks and traffic accidents increase when we advance our clocks. Nothing matters except having daylight after work. No one knows how to have fun or do anything unless it’s light outside. Sunsets are devastating. I can’t stand the romantic summer evenings. I’m so glad we never have them in Utah because by the time it gets dark in the summer, it’s time to go to bed. We could worship the sun for many more hours after work.
Some say American society is in decline, all this additional daylight will not only save it, but make it thrive again. Retailers will be ecstatic about all their increased business. So what if we’ll use even more gasoline by driving around for more hours? Who cares how much longer we’ll run our air conditioners in the summer or our heaters in the morning during the winter? We will once again truly find our place in the sun because we have the ultimate daylight-saving time.
While our very bright Congress (no pun intended) is legislating the time, they need to legislate the temperature as well. We need a law to raise the temperature ten degrees in the winter, then lower it by the same in the summer.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The President orders energy standards
President Obama has signed a Presidential Memorandum ordering higher energy efficiency standards on items such as dishwashers, lamps, and microwave ovens. I will write him a letter about how daylight-saving time causes greater energy usage. Here are three studies about this:
1. An April 5, 2007 USA Today article cited Energy Department figures to report a 3% increase in gasoline consumption during the three-week time period in March compared to the previous two years on standard time
2. A study out of Berkeley by Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff concludes that changing to daylight saving time earlier may use more energy because of increased demand when it's dark in the morning. The authors studied an earlier springtime DST change in Australia prior to the 2000 Olympics. They question if this clock change saves energy like it used to because "the widespread adoption of air conditioning has altered intraday patterns of electricity consumption." (see http://www.ucei.berkeley.edu/PDF/csemwp163.pdf)
3. A27 February 2008 Wall Street Journal article cited a UC Santa Barbara study showing residential electricity soared up to four percent in Indiana after DST was imposed on that state in 2007. The reason why was increased air conditioning use in the evening. The study also finds that reduced evening lighting in March is offset by people using their heaters for a longer period of time on cool mornings. The study can be viewed at http://www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~kotchen/links/DSTpaper.pdf
When Congress extended DST in 2005, they ordered an Energy Department study to see if it really saves energy. This report was due in December 2007. Now fourteen months later, it still hasn't been released.
1. An April 5, 2007 USA Today article cited Energy Department figures to report a 3% increase in gasoline consumption during the three-week time period in March compared to the previous two years on standard time
2. A study out of Berkeley by Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff concludes that changing to daylight saving time earlier may use more energy because of increased demand when it's dark in the morning. The authors studied an earlier springtime DST change in Australia prior to the 2000 Olympics. They question if this clock change saves energy like it used to because "the widespread adoption of air conditioning has altered intraday patterns of electricity consumption." (see http://www.ucei.berkeley.edu/PDF/csemwp163.pdf)
3. A27 February 2008 Wall Street Journal article cited a UC Santa Barbara study showing residential electricity soared up to four percent in Indiana after DST was imposed on that state in 2007. The reason why was increased air conditioning use in the evening. The study also finds that reduced evening lighting in March is offset by people using their heaters for a longer period of time on cool mornings. The study can be viewed at http://www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~kotchen/links/DSTpaper.pdf
When Congress extended DST in 2005, they ordered an Energy Department study to see if it really saves energy. This report was due in December 2007. Now fourteen months later, it still hasn't been released.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)