About (Daylight) Time - Printable Version +- Forums (https://thenauticalalmanac.com/Forum) +-- Forum: Main Forum Area (https://thenauticalalmanac.com/Forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: General Topics Here (https://thenauticalalmanac.com/Forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=2) +--- Thread: About (Daylight) Time (/showthread.php?tid=235) |
About (Daylight) Time - PeterB - 04-03-2022 The US senate has recently passed an article to make Daylight Savings Time (summer time when the clocks are set one hour ahead) permanent. This isn't the first time the USA has experimented with this concept. They did it in January of 1974 to October of 1975. There was an oil crisis going on at that time and the idea was that this would somehow save heating oil because of the “longer” afternoon daylight. It all sounded like a good idea but once implemented it was disastrous. People hated it because they had to get up in the cold and dark on winter mornings to go to work or school. They found the dark mornings far more objectionable than changing their clocks. The action was soon repealed and we returned to springing forward and falling back. I remember that experiment with our system of time and I recall it as being totally miserable in those winter months. However, I suppose it is all a matter of what you are used to. I live near the eastern edge of the USA Eastern Time zone. My Wife's family comes from close to the western edge of the same time zone. When we go to visit them we are always acutely aware of the nearly 1 hour later sunrises (and sunsets) at the western edge of the same time zone. In a related bit of trivia Paris, which is almost due south of Greenwich, runs one hour ahead of UTC (GMT) in the winter and then they set their clocks ahead another hour to European Summer Time in the summer months. In Paris when your watch says its almost noon in the summer the sun will be about 30° east of the meridian – a time most of us would consider late morning. Artists say the light is somehow special in Paris – and now you know why. Daylight Savings Time Article PeterB |