Dear Daylight Savings Time,

[akirlu]

God damn it, it was just starting to get a bit light at 5:30 in the morning. Not daylight, but at least a hint of gray dawn pale around the edges so it wasn't full dark. Yes, I'm sure I'll appreciate having an extra hour of light in the evenings eventually (right now, it doesn't really help 'cos the train I can catch doesn't pull in that early), but now that the rain is lovely and warm instead of wintry mix, Shoobie wants to stay out and hunt worms in the mud when I let the dogs out for their morning pee. It's somehow all that much worse to have to wade out into the mudpit formerly known as the side yard in the pitch dark of night to retrieve the Little King of Everything.

Comments

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I can't even remember the bogus justifications for being on DST eight months out of the year, but I don't think anybody likes it or benefits from it in any way. So why are we doing this???

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Considerable savings on energy, apparently. In the mid-70s it was found to save the energy equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil, per day. I imagine it's more, now, even with CFLs and LED bulbs on the upswing.

See, I mean I know the light will return in the early mornings eventually, even fairly soon, it's just that living comparatively far north it just feels like being knocked back a month in terms of morning daylight, and by March I'm definitely greedy for every solar photon I can get before I get to work.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Sure, having DST in the summer probably saves a little energy (although I have never believed the huge numbers its proponents ginned up). When there's 16 hours of daylight you might as well get up earlier so as not to waste the first 2 or 3 hours of natural light.

But when there is less than 12 hours of daylight, people are going to turn on their lights at both ends of the day, so where's the saving?

Actually, since we now observe only 4 months of "Standard" time, does it even make sense to keep calling it that? It looks to me like Daylight Saving Time is the new normal, and that other thing should be called "Winter Snoozing Time" or something.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Shoobie, I feel ya. That's about how I looked at 6am (5am) this morning.