2007.03.11
NPR had this Tufts professor Michael Downing who, judging by the title of the book "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time" isn't too crazy about the change. But his argument seemed to be based on the expected energy saving, which he thinks just aren't there.
I'm willing to grant him the energy issue, even (or especially) if that's Congress' stated justification for fiddling with the change. But I think it's silly not to admit that 90% of the feeling for DST is a personal preference thing. Do you like an hour of "extra" daylight after work, or are you more annoyed at the risk of having to get up while it's still dark? (Downing also seemed to indicate that it's a feelgood PR ploy not just on more light in the evening, but of Spring "starting" earlier.)
On NPR he mentioned some other factoids, like how New York City was one of the forces keeping DST alive as an idea past the war, even as the farmers hated it... that NYC retailers found their sales increased with the additional evening light.
I wonder if Downing would be OK with a permanent change to the equivalent of DST, if it's the biannual shift that bugs him, or he just wants more light in the morning.
Image of the Moment
| --Han Solo & Mr. Chewbacca from Eric Poulton's Steampunk Star Wars series. Only 4 images thus far (he just added the Death Star: Massive Solar-Orbiting Electro-Mechanical Analytic Engine, Mark 6) but some really fun ideas. (Wikipedia's Steampunk definition dwarfs my 2001 explanation...) |