Rant time: I really and truly hate (so-called) daylight saving time. Of course when you think about it, it doesn't actually "save" daylight at all. All it does is rob Peter to pay Paul. You lose an hour in the morning and gain an hour in the evening: A zero-sum game. So what's the point? Well, the theory is that some people would like an extra hour of daylight in the evening and be prepared to give one up from their morning. The kind of people who like this are usually people who have nothing to do of a morning and like to lounge around in cafés, bars and restaurants of an evening. The problem is that in most of Australia (Tasmania is a little bit of an exception) the evening daylight effect is not that great. Even with daylight saving the sun sets comparatively early because we are too close to the equator to get the pronounced evening daylight effects that you would experience closer to the pole. But what does it matter, I hear you ask? "An hour's an hour; extending sunset from 6.30pm to 7.30pm in regions closer to the equator still gains you an extra hour of evening daylight as you would if you extended sunset from 9pm to 10pm in regions closer to the pole. True, but you have to weigh the purported benefits of daylight saving time with its costs. And I don't think extending sunset from 6.30pm to 7.30pm is worth the hassle. Here are two reasons why daylight saving is not worth it.
For starters it's not good for your health. It disrupts your sleep patterns which leaves you feeling tired and cranky and as a result unproductive. I can testify to that first hand. I always feel much better in Summer when I am in a time zone adopting standard time (eg Queensland, or Western Australia before it adopted its current trial of daylight saving time). I would feel much more rested than I would under a regime of daylight saving time. Traditionally I would have to put up with five months of sleep deprivation but now my state's useless politicians have gone and extended that to six. Thanks a bunch! The only positive in all this is that things aren't (yet!) quite as bad as Europe where they have seven months of "Summer" Time a year. And how's "Summer Time" for a false descriptor anyway? The UK, along with much of Northern Europe, doesn't even get one month of Summer a year, let alone seven! Anyway, I digress.
A second reason against daylight saving time is that it causes disruption to business, as this article before the changes came in predicted and this article about Ebay auctions now shows. Of course this specific incident was not a result of daylight saving in general but some states (namely Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales as well as the ACT) extending their daylight saving period. I experienced the wrong end of this first hand when I flew home to Australia this year. I was due to land in Sydney in the autumn just after daylight saving had ended (by a matter of hours actually, i.e. I was due to land at 7.45am standard time after the clocks had been put back an hour six or so hours previously). Anyway, after I'd booked my ticket and at very short notice my state's spineless politicians simply decided to extend daylight saving without giving any good reason and without properly consulting the public. The "reason" for doing this was simply because other states such as Victoria and South Australia wanted to extend theirs and we therefore had to follow suit. (I thought the point point of federalism was that states have the freedom not to conform to everyone else's mistakes!) Anyway, this change caused a lot of confusion in Australia -- both in the silly states that introduced it (as people didn't know that the usual date for putting the clocks back had been delayed) and in the more sensible states which eschew daylight saving (as people there had no idea what time it was in the silly states). And if so many people in Australia didn't have a clue when the clocks were going back, you can imagine the chaos it caused for people outside of Australia -- including me! When I booked my flight I was told I was arriving in Sydney at 7.45 am. At the time of my booking that was right. And that's what time I told my family. who would be meeting me at the airport. And shortly before my departure I again told them that time because (a) I had no idea that the Government had changed the rules about when daylight saving ends and (b) the airline (Emirates) also had no idea (in fact shortly before departure its website was still quoting the scheduled arrival time in standard time). Of course daylight saving was indeed extended further into the autumn which had the effect of pushing back my scheduled arrival time by an hour which meant that my brother who along with the rest of the state was still on daylight saving time turned up at the airport an hour earlier than necessary which meant that he had to pay for an extra hour's parking (on top of the plane's added delay due to a medical emergency while we were on the ground in Bangkok).
Anyway, rant over. I really don't like daylight saving -- but with good reason. And there's even a facebook group for others who want to see an end to daylight saving in Australia.
For starters it's not good for your health. It disrupts your sleep patterns which leaves you feeling tired and cranky and as a result unproductive. I can testify to that first hand. I always feel much better in Summer when I am in a time zone adopting standard time (eg Queensland, or Western Australia before it adopted its current trial of daylight saving time). I would feel much more rested than I would under a regime of daylight saving time. Traditionally I would have to put up with five months of sleep deprivation but now my state's useless politicians have gone and extended that to six. Thanks a bunch! The only positive in all this is that things aren't (yet!) quite as bad as Europe where they have seven months of "Summer" Time a year. And how's "Summer Time" for a false descriptor anyway? The UK, along with much of Northern Europe, doesn't even get one month of Summer a year, let alone seven! Anyway, I digress.
A second reason against daylight saving time is that it causes disruption to business, as this article before the changes came in predicted and this article about Ebay auctions now shows. Of course this specific incident was not a result of daylight saving in general but some states (namely Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales as well as the ACT) extending their daylight saving period. I experienced the wrong end of this first hand when I flew home to Australia this year. I was due to land in Sydney in the autumn just after daylight saving had ended (by a matter of hours actually, i.e. I was due to land at 7.45am standard time after the clocks had been put back an hour six or so hours previously). Anyway, after I'd booked my ticket and at very short notice my state's spineless politicians simply decided to extend daylight saving without giving any good reason and without properly consulting the public. The "reason" for doing this was simply because other states such as Victoria and South Australia wanted to extend theirs and we therefore had to follow suit. (I thought the point point of federalism was that states have the freedom not to conform to everyone else's mistakes!) Anyway, this change caused a lot of confusion in Australia -- both in the silly states that introduced it (as people didn't know that the usual date for putting the clocks back had been delayed) and in the more sensible states which eschew daylight saving (as people there had no idea what time it was in the silly states). And if so many people in Australia didn't have a clue when the clocks were going back, you can imagine the chaos it caused for people outside of Australia -- including me! When I booked my flight I was told I was arriving in Sydney at 7.45 am. At the time of my booking that was right. And that's what time I told my family. who would be meeting me at the airport. And shortly before my departure I again told them that time because (a) I had no idea that the Government had changed the rules about when daylight saving ends and (b) the airline (Emirates) also had no idea (in fact shortly before departure its website was still quoting the scheduled arrival time in standard time). Of course daylight saving was indeed extended further into the autumn which had the effect of pushing back my scheduled arrival time by an hour which meant that my brother who along with the rest of the state was still on daylight saving time turned up at the airport an hour earlier than necessary which meant that he had to pay for an extra hour's parking (on top of the plane's added delay due to a medical emergency while we were on the ground in Bangkok).
Anyway, rant over. I really don't like daylight saving -- but with good reason. And there's even a facebook group for others who want to see an end to daylight saving in Australia.
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