Florida Senate OKs bill for year-round Daylight Saving Time

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida is a step closer to living up to its nickname as "The Sunshine State."

A bill to let Florida remain on Daylight Saving Time year round is headed to Gov. Rick Scott's desk after the state Senate approved it 33-2 on Tuesday.

If Scott signs the "Sunshine Protection Act," Congress would need to amend existing federal law to allow the change.

While the rest of the Eastern United States would set their clocks back in the fall, Florida wouldn't, leaving it with more sunshine in the evening during the winter. Northwest Florida is currently in the Central time zone.

Hawaii, most of Arizona, and a handful of U.S. territories — including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — do not observe Daylight Saving Time.

Is daylight saving time worth the trouble? Research says no

pbs.org - Today the sun is shining during my commute home from work. But this weekend, public service announcements will remind us to “fall back,” ending daylight saving time by setting our clocks an hour earlier on Sunday, Nov. 5. On Nov. 6, many of us will commute home in the dark.

This semiannual ritual shifts our rhythms and temporarily makes us groggy at times when we normally feel alert. Moreover, many Americans are confused about why we spring forward in March and fall back in November, and whether it is worth the trouble.

The practice of resetting clocks is not designed for farmers, whose plows follow the sun regardless of what time clocks say it is. And it does not create extra daylight – it simply shifts when the sun rises and sets relative to society’s regular schedule and routines.

The key question is how people respond to this enforced shift. Most people have to be at work at a certain time – say, 8:30 a.m. – and if that time comes an hour earlier, they simply get up an hour earlier. The effect on society is another question. Here, the research shows that daylight saving time is more burden than boon.

No energy savings

Benjamin Franklin was one of the first thinkers to endorse the idea of making better use of daylight. Although he lived well before the invention of light bulbs, Franklin observed that people who slept past sunrise wasted more candles later in the evening. He also whimsically suggested the first policy fixes to encourage energy conservation: firing cannons at dawn as public alarm clocks, and fining homeowners who put up window shutters.

To this day, our laws equate daylight saving with energy conservation. However, recent research suggests that it actually increases energy use.

This is what I found in a study co-authored with Yale economist Matthew Kotchen. We used a policy change in Indiana to estimate daylight saving time’s effects on electricity consumption. Prior to 2006, most Indiana counties did not observe it. By comparing households’ electricity demand before and after daylight saving time was adopted, month by month, we showed that it had actually increased residential electricity demand in Indiana by 1 to 4 percent annually.

The largest effects occurred in the summer – when shifting clocks forward aligns our lives with the hottest part of the day, so that people tend to use more air conditioning – and late fall, when we wake up in a cold dark house and use more heating, with no reduction in lighting needs.

Other studies corroborate these findings. Research in Australia and in the United States shows that daylight saving time does not decrease total energy use. However, it does smooth out peaks and valleys in energy demand throughout the day, as people at home use more electricity in the morning and less during the afternoon. Though people still use more electricity, shifting the timing reduces average costs to deliver energy because not everyone demands it during typical peak usage periods.

Other outcomes are mixed

Daylight saving time proponents also argue that changing times provides more hours for afternoon recreation and reduces crime rates. The best time for recreation is a matter of preference. However, there is better evidence on crime rates: Fewer muggings and sexual assaults occur during daylight saving time months because fewer potential victims are out after dark.

Overall, net benefits from these three durational effects of crime, recreation and energy use – that is, impacts that last for the duration of the time change – are murky.

Other consequences of daylight saving time are ephemeral. I think of them as bookend effects, since they occur when we change our clocks.

When we “spring forward” in March we lose an hour, which comes disproportionately from resting hours rather than wakeful time. Therefore, many problems associated with springing forward stem from sleep deprivation. With less rest, people make more mistakes, which appear to cause more traffic accidents and workplace injuries, lower workplace productivity due to cyberloafing and poorer stock market trading.

Even when we gain that hour back in the fall, we must readjust our routines over several days because the sun and our alarm clocks feel out of synchronization, much like jet lag. Some impacts are serious: During bookend weeks, children in higher latitudes go to school in the dark, which increases the risk of pedestrian casualties. Dark commutes are so problematic for pedestrians that New York City is repeating the “Dusk and Darkness” safety campaign that it launched in 2016. And heart attacks increase after the spring time shift – it is thought because of lack of sleep – but decrease to a lesser extent after the fall shift. Collectively, these bookend effects represent net costs and strong arguments against retaining daylight saving time.

Pick your own time zone?

Spurred by many of these arguments, at least 16 states have considered changes to daylight saving time this year. Some bills would end daylight saving time, while others would make it permanent. For example, Massachusetts is studying whether to move in coordination with other New England states to Atlantic Time, joining Canada’s Maritime provinces one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. If they shift, travelers flying from Los Angeles to Boston would cross five time zones.

Some states have good reason for diverging from the norm. Notably, Hawaii does not practice daylight saving time because it is much closer to the equator than the rest of the nation, so its daylight hours barely change throughout the year. Arizona is the sole contiguous state that abstains from daylight saving time, citing its extreme summer temperatures. Although this disparity causes confusion for western travelers, the state’s residents have not changed clocks’ times for over 40 years.

In my research I have found that everyone has strong opinions about daylight saving time. Many people welcome the shift in March as a signal of spring. Others like the coordinated availability of daylight after work. Dissenters, including farmers, curse their loss of quiet morning hours.

When the evidence about costs and benefits is mixed but we need to make coordinated choices, how should we make decisions? The strongest arguments, with the exception of energy costs, support not only doing away with the switches but keeping the nation on daylight saving time year-round. This provides the benefits of after- work sun without the schedule disruptions. Yet humans adapt. If we abandon the twice-yearly switch, we may eventually slide back into old routines and habits of sleeping in during daylight. Daylight saving time is the coordinated alarm to wake us up a bit earlier in the summer and get us out of work with more sunshine.

Spring Ahead?: Proof daylight saving time is dumb, dangerous, and costly

FINALLY

BostonGlobe.com - If you hate daylight saving time and the confusion and sleep deprivation it brings, you now have solid data on your side. A wave of new research is bolstering arguments against changing clocks twice a year.

The case for daylight saving time has been shaky for a while. The biannual time change was originally implemented to save energy. Yet dozens of studies around the world have found that changing the clocks has either minuscule or nonexistent effects on energy use. When Indiana finally implemented daylight saving in 2006, residents actually used more electricity.

Daylight saving time isn’t just a benign relic of the 1970s energy crisis. The latest research suggests the time change can be harmful to our health and cost us money. The effects are most disruptive in the spring and fall, right after time changes. Clocks in the US will spring forward this year on Sunday. Most of Europe moves to daylight saving time two weeks later.

The suffering of the spring time change begins with the loss of an hour of sleep. That might not seem like a big deal, but researchers have found it can be dangerous to mess with sleep schedules. Car accidents, strokes, and heart attacks spike in the days after the March time change. It turns out that judges, sleep deprived by daylight saving, impose harsher sentences.

‘Even mild changes to sleep patterns can affect human capital in significant ways,’’ Cornell University researchers Lawrence Jin and Nicolas Ziebarth wrote last year.

Some of the last defenders of daylight saving time have been a cluster of business groups who assume the change helps stimulate consumer spending. That’s not true either, according to recent analysis of 380 million bank and credit-card transactions by the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

The study compared Los Angeles with Phoenix in the 30 days after the March and November time changes. Arizona is a natural test case since it’s one of the two states, along with Hawaii, that doesn’t do daylight saving. In the spring, according to the consumer transaction data, the additional hour of evening daylight in Los Angeles managed to slightly boost card spending per person, compared with that in Phoenix, although by less than 1 percent. That spending uptick is swamped by the negative impact of the November time change, which sees the darkened population of Los Angeles spend 3.5 percent less at local retailers.

Daylight turns out to be a surprisingly large factor in how often workers stop at stores on their way home from their jobs in the evening. ‘‘At the end of the day, it’s either dark or light, and [people are] going to make an impulse decision at that point,’’ Diana Farrell, president and chief executive of the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

One possible explanation for the sharp spending decline, Farrell said, is that the extra hour of darkness could push more people to shop online rather than in-person. The study looked only at transactions via local retailers.

Daylight saving time may threaten our health, hurt local retailers, and otherwise disrupt our lives. But can anything be done about it?

As Hawaii and Arizona show, the US government gives states a choice as to whether to adopt daylight saving time. But states aren’t currently allowed to switch to daylight saving time year-round. Last year, 19 bills were pending in state legislatures around the US to end the biannual time change, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. None passed.

Daylight saving is ‘‘an example of how sticky policy can be,’’ Farrell said.

A bill signed by Governor Charlie Baker in August included a provision establishing a task force to study if Massachusetts should leave Eastern Standard Time behind. The commission would analyze putting the state on Atlantic Standard Time throughout the year, rather than springing forward every March and falling back every November.

And since the beginning of the year, state legislators elsewhere have introduced an 20 bills on the topic, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Eleven bills, including proposals in Texas and California, would put states permanently on standard time; nine of the bills aim to make daylight saving time permanent, many of them by urging lawmakers in Washington to change the rules.

That looks unlikely. In a search of bills pending in the Congress this year and last year, none mention daylight saving. (ontinueReading

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Related: Get it right, people: It's not Daylight Savings Time

California: Could this year be the last for daylight saving time?

End DST, Sign the petition and let Congress know you are fed up with clock changing: https://www.petition2congress.com/6284/end-daylight-savings-time (US)

A dozen states are considering getting rid of daylight saving time. Is that a good thing?

- As Americans brace to lose an hour of sleep this weekend in the name of energy saving, marking the beginning of daylight saving time, nearly a dozen states are considering abandoning the whole clock-shifting practice altogether.

States like Alaska and Rhode Island are considering bills that would place them squarely in one time zone, without the hassle of falling back every November and springing forward every March. Right now only two states, Arizona and Hawaii, rebuff the practice.

Ending the practice of switching clocks would probably be a good thing: Numerous studies have shown that shifting the clock forward affects our health, with rates of heart attacks, traffic accidents, and workplace injuries all seeing an uptick in the few days following the beginning of daylight saving time.

The question is in which directions should states move — permanently back, or permanently forward? (Full Story)

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Daylight Saving doesn't work. The practice needs to scraped altogether. Moving clocks ahead one hour doesn't make it lighter out. That's not how the sun works..

Should Daylight Saving Time be ended? California State lawmaker says yes

- A lawmaker is proposing that California do away with Daylight Saving Time, ending the practice that has had people springing ahead and falling back since state voters approved the practice 67 years ago.

San Jose Assemblyman Kansen Chu said he heard from constituents that the twice-a-year time change is disruptive, especially for elderly residents.

“I heard some complaints last year from some of the senior citizens (in my district) and their care providers who say this one-hour difference really impacted their lives,” Chu told the Sacramento Bee.

Chu also said that evidence suggests that the time change is related to more workplace accidents and that it also does not decrease energy consumption.

So he has introduced Assembly Bill 2496 which would end the practice in the state. You can read his proposal here.

Chu is not the only one who wants to end the dreaded (?) practice that confuses body clocks and aggravates parents trying to get their little ones out of bed an hour early every spring.

More than 81,500 people have sent petitions to Congress via the website End Daylight Saving Timedemanding an end to the time switch.

“This proposal will simplify scheduling, travel, and commerce. And by ending semi-annual clock tampering, it will also allow people to get more sleep, be better adjusted to their daily routine, avoid missed appointments resulting from failure to reset clocks, and, most importantly, save lives,” the website says.

“Please stop the messing with our schedules. It’s an antiquated practice that only aggravates people. As it is Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and America Samoa do not participate in this practice.” Read the rest HERE

Daylight-saving time ends this weekend

(techinsider.io) Get ready for a shock to your system on Nov. 1 — it's time to turn back our clocks an hour for the end of daylight-saving time.

Daylight-saving time ends on November 1, 2015 at 2:00 a.m.

At 1:59 a.m. on Sunday morning our clocks will bump back an hour, to 1:00 a.m. instead of turning to 2:00 a.m. That gives us an extra hour of sleep and means the sun will seem to rise an hour earlier than we are used to.

According to lore, daylight-saving time (yes that's the right way to say it) was created during World War I to decrease energy use. This John Oliver clip also mentions that it started with the Germans during that time as a fuel-saving measure.

The debate still rages as to whether or not this time-switch does save energy (there are even groups that want to abolish it all together), but along the way we've seen signs that it has negative effects on our health and the economy. (Source)

Time to Kill Daylight Saving

(TheAlantic) 03/08/15 - As most people no doubt noticed given that they were robbed of an hour of sleep, Sunday marked the beginning of Daylight Saving Time in the United States, Canada, and several other countries and territories in North America. For morning people, Daylight Saving is a drag, depriving them of an hour of tranquil morning light. But for others, "spring forward" brings with it the promise of long, languid afternoons and warmer weather.

Like millions of other Americans who have slogged through an uncomfortably cold winter, I'm looking forward to the change of season. But Daylight Saving Time is an annual tradition whose time has passed. In contemporary society, it's not only unnecessary: It's also wasteful, cruel, and dangerous. And it's long past time to bid it goodbye.

Daylight Saving has been an official ritual since 1918, when President Woodrow Wilson codified it into law during the waning days of World War One. Nowadays, its ostensible purpose is to save energy: One more hour of sunlight in the evening means one less hour of consumption of artificial lighting. In 2005, President George W. Bush lengthened Daylight Saving Time by a month as part of a sweeping energy bill signed that year, citing the need to reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil.

But does Daylight Saving Time actually make much of a difference? Evidence suggests that the answer is no. After the Australian government extended Daylight Saving Time by two months in 2000 in order to accommodate the Sydney Olympic Games, a study at UC Berkeley showed that the move failed to reduce electricity demand at all. More recently, a study of homes in Indiana—a state that adopted Daylight Saving Time only in 2006—showed that the savings from electricity use were negated, and then some, by additional use of air conditioning and heat.

The simple act of adjusting to the time change, however subtle, also has measurable consequences. Many people feel the effects of the "spring forward" for longer than a day; a study showed that Americans lose around 40 minutes of sleep on the Sunday night after the shift. This means more than just additional yawns on Monday: The resulting loss in productivity costs the economy an estimated $434 million a year.

Daylight Saving Time may also hurt people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, depriving them of light in the mornings. "Our circadian rhythms were set eons ago to a rhythm that didn’t include daylight savings time, so the shift tends to throw people off a bit,” Nicholas Rummo, the director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, New York, told HealthDay News. The switchover to Daylight Saving Time is also linked to an increase in heart attacks as well as traffic accidents.

Those of us who have lived with Daylight Saving Time our whole lives might feel disoriented without it. But the millions of Americans in Arizona, Hawaii, and territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have survived just fine without it. Not to mention the billions of people throughout Asia, Africa, and South America.

It's said that Benjamin Franklin first proposed a version of Daylight Saving back in 1784 as a way to save candles. This, no disrespect to old Ben, should tell us how silly and obsolete the tradition has become. President Obama—and leaders elsewhere in the world—should do the sensible thing and scrap it. Full Story

Prepare To Spring Forward! Daylight Saving Begins This Sunday

Abolish Daylight Saving Time

(DogoNews) - With winter drawing to a close, at least according to the calendar, it is time for North Americans to "spring forward." This means that on Sunday March 8th, most residents will move their clocks ahead by an hour. Known as Daylight Saving Time, this age-oldritual dates all the way back to World War I.

The first person to suggest the time change was Benjamin Franklin, who ponderedabout it in a letter written to the editor of the Journal of Paris in 1784. Over a hundred years later, in 1895, New Zealand entomologist and astronomer George Vernon Hudson, presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society, in which he suggested a two-hour shift. His motivation was to get extra daylight hours to spend on his favorite hobby - collecting and examining insects. However, it was not until 1907, when British resident William Willett marketed it as a way to save energy, that changing the time was seriously considered.

Even so, it took British officials another nine years to make it a law. United States followed a couple of years later to enable World War One soldiers to get extra combat time. Once the war ended, the time change was repealed only to be reinstated again for the duration of World War Two. It was not until April 1966, that 'Daylight Saving'became a permanent fixture on the American calendar. This time around it wasrationalized as a way to conserve energy and provide farmers additional daylight hours to take their fresh produce to market. However Hawaii and American Samoa, as well as, some cities in Arizona, opted out

Over the years, many countries all around the world have joined in the tradition. However, while most still change their clocks at the end of March or April, Americans keep bringing the date forward. Former President Ronald Reagan started the trend in 1986 when he moved Daylight Saving from the last to the first weekend in April. In 2005, George W. Bush, not only moved up the "spring forward" date to the second Sunday in March, but also extended the "fall back" date out an additional week in November.

While these changes have helped reduce the long dreary months of winter by about five weeks (at least according to the clocks), there is now a growing movement to repeal time change. Elizabeth Scott, a Republican member of the Washington House of Representatives recently told the House committee that the time switches cause sleepdeprivation, which she believes lead to accidents and numerous health issues.

In Idaho, House Majority Leader Mike Moyle put in a bill to end the State's Daylight Saving ritual. In his report, he states that it results in "disruption to families, businesses and individuals.” New Mexico Senator Cliff Pirtle’s proposal to abolish Daylight Saving has already been agreed upon by the Senate Public Affairs Committee. If it becomes law, 2015 will be the last time the State's residents will have to change their clocks. Read the Rest

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The Reason For Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time Explained.

Ah Daylight Saving Time, It Be Just Another Hoax.

Russia Abolishes Daylight Saving Time Practice - http://rt.com/news/daylight-saving-time-abolished/

I Believe It's Time To End Daylight Saving Time. Please Sign The Petition - http://www.standardtime.com/petition.html   Or Contact Your Local State/National Representative. U.S. Federal Law Allows Any State To Opt Out Of Daylight Saving Time.