Better late than never I would like to enter this debate because I
became quite concerned about the lack of objectivity. We seem to have
had lots of comments about myths, folklore and personal prejudices. I
quote James Lovelock "We live at a time when emotions and feelings
count more than the truth, and there is vast ignorance about science."
I have a foot in each camp of sundials and clocks, and being a general
student of time I am in favour of summer time throughout the year and
then DOUBLE summer time, known as Single Double Summer Time (SDST). I
have two reasons for this. During the world wars various countries
had continuous summer time and then double summer time for the simple
and glaringly obvious reason that the latter is to make the maximum
use of a free resource, and conserve strategically important reserves
of coal and oil. Happily we no longer have these constraints, but one
correspondent believes the energy savings nowadays to be of the order
of "only" 1% in the USA. Minor to the individual, but such an annual
saving for the USA as a whole, will amount to about 4,000 Megawatts
(Wikipedia, World energy resources and consumption).
My next point concerns the lack of symmetry of the 'effective day'.
Let us say that on average we rise between 7 and 8am, work "9 to 5",
have evening leisure and go to bed at 10 - 11pm. It is obvious that
the middle of the effective day is about three in the afternoon. Now
there have been some smart comments about setting our alarm clocks an
hour or so earlier, which may suit the self employed or retired, but
the fact is that modern society likes many activities to start at
agreed times, such a shopping, commerce, industry, travel, etc.
Society as a whole (at least in the UK and most of Europe) understands
the benefits of the one hour summer time change, and indeed is happy
to make the change, as it has done so for nearly 100 years. In fact
some organisations even plan events to take place on "spring forward"
or "fall back" days, and during the winter months, many look forward
to the "longer summer evenings" (which could be even longer with
double summer time). Note that the one hour shift still leaves the
middle of the effective day at about 2pm. I quote list member Dick
Koolish "The problem with all these arguments is that they assume
that all hours of the day are equally useful, and they obviously are
not. A sarcastic or funny joke doesn't change the fact that most
people today have more waking hours after noon than before noon."
With regard to the individual early start, as advocated by Frank King,
we could suppose that he rises at 5am every day, and if his sleep
pattern is like mine, he would need to go to bed about 9pm. This is
inconvenient for the vast majority, particularly for evening social
events, and Frank may have difficulty staying awake during the
speeches at the Fellows' dinners. I have been told that slumping
forward face-first into the dessert whilst the Master is on his feet
is considered a bad career move. Apart from the joke, another concept
is the 'end of the day'. Most theatres, cinemas and other public
events start closing about 10pm, and most of the nation watches the
10pm news prior to bedtime, and the end of the day, may I suggest, is
more sharply defined than noon (much more so, for most of the
population). In other words, it is much more convenient for society
as a whole to flick a switch, as it were, and all change an hour at
once to synchronise social events, at the very least. In the UK the
electricity consumption falls sharply during the evening (ref 1), and
shifting the hour spreads the load and reduces consumption.
I now turn to various reports and studies. The entry in Wikipedia is
very informative and wide ranging, although it appears to suffer by
trying to be all things to all men. However, I realised that data
from one country or economic or climatic region does not necessarily
apply to another. If follows that any critics of this essay must
beware of generalisations, and my writings are necessarily centred on
the British Isles. Nevertheless I hope that others can learn from the
reports referenced.
Many years ago I purchased a useful report at the Greenwich
Observatory, written by Mayer Hillman of the Policy Studies Institute
under Nuffield funding, entitled "Time for Change, Setting clocks
forward throughout the year, a new review of the evidence", dated
1993. See reference 2 for details. Although somewhat dated, many of
the conclusions are still valid, and an updated version does exist.
Road accidents studies feature prominently and I quote "In 1992 the
Transport Research Laboratory carried out a detailed analysis of of
the likely effects of year round single and double summer time.
(Overall) ... a reduction of 140 fatalities, 520 serious injuries and
1300 slight injuries... Three quarters of the reduction would accrue
during the 22 weeks during winter (a result that surprised me) and a
quarter when the clocks were on the summertime setting." The reason
for me supporting double DST follows from the 3 year experiment in the
UK from 1968 to 1971, but this was discontinued for precisely the
reasons given in my opening quotation from James Lovelock. Hillman
regrets that some of the reasons were close to deliberate mis-
representation of accident statistics by some newspapers, since
debunked in Hillman's report and others.
Reference 3 is a report from the Engineering Department, University of
Cambridge and from their study I quote
Analysis of the data showed that had the clocks not been put back to
GMT in winter, electricity savings of 885 GWhs of electricity could
have been achieved. GB average daily demand for electricity could
have been lower, with a reduction in peak demand for electricity of up
to 4.3% during periods of high demand. The electricity wasted on GMT
could have supplied 200,000 households and around 447,000 tonnes of
CO2 emissions could have been avoided.
With double summer time, even more savings can be made. The report
makes passing reference to the reduction in accidents, which are
significant, and to the economic benefits.
Reference 4 by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
(RoSPA) concentrates on road accidents, but also has a comprehensive
review of the history of DST and quotes studies from many other
countries. It has a truly astonishing analysis that in the 1968-71
experiment: "Overall, about 2,500 fewer people were killed and
seriously injured during the first two winters of the
experiment." (One of the sundial list members regards double summer
time as "an insanity". I fail to see what is insane about saving
lives - back we go to James Lovelock again: ...emotions and feelings
count more than the truth.)
The RoSPA report repeats The Policy Studies Institute’s 1988 report
of their comprehensive study into different ways of achieving a better
match between daylight and waking hours, which gave at least 10
reasons in support of a move to SDST:-
• An overall reduction of about 600 road traffic fatalities and
serious injuries in the winter months
• A major saving in energy and fuel costs due to the better matching
of waking hours with daylight hours
• Opportunities for making journeys for social and recreational
purposes in daylight are considerably extended which is a major
advantage for all groups in the population who are apprehensive about
going out in the dark
• An overall increase of well over one quarter in the number of hours
for daylight-dependent leisure activities in the evening.
• Improvement in general health and well-being
• Small reduction in burglaries and assault carried out in the
evenings due to the extra hour of daylight
• Extension of the tourist season and a boost of 4% in tourist related
earnings
• Additional annual earnings of £150 million for the leisure industry
as a result of the increase in leisure activity
• Improved convenience of travel and goods transport to and from Europe
• Matching time with Europe would benefit trade and communications
The RoSPA report, does however, note that over the years driving,
social, environmental (some countries use more air conditioning, etc),
worldwide trade and other factors have changed, etc, and calls for
another trial of single and double summer time.
There are disadvantages of DST to the construction industry, some
farmers, and those whose jobs start very early in day. The cost of
even changing all the clocks has been mentioned. For the latter, many
have clocks that are controlled by radio signals that change
automatically (I have four, discounting the computers and video
recorder) and I regard my own efforts for a modest collection of
clocks as quite minimal against the reduction in my lighting costs.
On the other hand, public clocks are different matter, but I have
never heard of this being used as a reason for discontinuing DST.
Those who oppose single and double summer time may be chastened by
Hillman's remark that "... many of the objections to SDST are weak or
ill founded." Let us hope that objectors to this essay will read the
reports carefully, and if counter arguments to my admittedly selective
statements can be found, please let them be based on science and logic.
Facts
1. Time can be defined to what we want it to be.
2. Central European Time extends from Estonia (25ºE) to Spain (9ºW)
(A little over 2 nominal time zones). Note that west Spain is further
west than the most westerly part of the UK, and Spain is effectively
on SDST.
3. China operates on Beijing time extending from 135ºE to 75ºE, over
4 time zones ("It's the economy, stupid". A notice in the 1992
presidential campaign headquarters for Bill Clinton).
4. The whole calendar was changed in 1582 (and we are fretting over
the odd hour...).
Opinions
a. Energy conservation and CO2 emissions are becoming very important,
and the proponents haven't yet fully latched onto all year daylight
saving and double DST - they will, they will.
b. Opponents of DST are in a difficult ethical dilemma on energy
saving grounds, and in the USA acutely so.
c. Opponents of DST are in a difficult ethical dilemma on road safety
grounds where, in the UK, the reduction in fatalities is estimated to
be between 104 and 138 (quoting from a later Transport Research
Laboratory report TRL368 (1998).
d. We need not be trapped by tradition.
e. There are bigger things to worry about than assigning a particular
number to when the sun is notionally due south.
I hope that I have shed some light on the annual silly debate, and
look forward to some acclaim (I hope) and probably some protests.
Regards, Doug
Reference 1. UK daily and weekly electricity demand, see www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/Realtime/Demand/Demand8.htm
Note the nearly 50% drop between about 8.30pm and 11pm.
Reference 2.
Time for Change Mayer Hillman Senior Fellow Emeritus
Publisher
PSI, £5.95, 1993, pp40
Summary Please note this publication is available as a free download
- see the link below
It is over 25 years since the UK discontinued the three-year
experiment of setting clocks one hour ahead of GMT in the winter,
thereby maintaining British Standard Time throughout the year.
In 1988 PSI published Making the Most of Daylight Hours, based on the
findings of a study aimed at establishing the consequences of
achieving a better match of waking hours and daylight hours by putting
clocks one hour ahead of their current setting in both summer and
winter. The conclusions - that the benefits would far outweigh the
costs - were widely welcomed in the media. Subsequent public opinion
polls have shown a 3 to 1 majority in favour of the reform.
This review updates and summarises the findings of Making the Most of
Daylight Hours, and incorporates additional evidence previously
unavailable. It explores all the key issues relating to the theme:
accidents and security; leisure activity; health; work and industry;
domestic tourism; overseas travel; trade and communication; fuel
consumption; Scotland; and political issues.
download as a single file (pdf - 7.8MB) ISBN: 9780853745464 (pbk)
ISBN: 9780853748281 (pdf)
Reference 3.
Daylight Saving, Electricity Demand and Emmisions; Exploratory Studies
from Great BritainYu-Foong Chong, Elizabeth Garnsey, Simon Hill and
Frederick Desobry. Department of Engineering, University of
Cambridge, 27 October 2007. Can be viewed at www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/people/ewg/091022_dst.pdf
Reference 4.
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
Single/Double Summer Time Position Paper, May 2003, Revised September
2004, Updated October 2005
www.rospa.com/roadsafety/info/summertime_paper.pdf
Probably the most useful 20 page report, which lists 40 organisations
which responded to questionnaires, and with 27 references
On Mar 17, 2010, at 10:30, Ruud Hooijenga wrote:
It seems to me that several of the arguments used against DST work
against the whole concept of standard time.
Why would New York need to set the clock differently from the clock
in California?
“If people want to get up earlier to take advantage of the sunlight,
they can do that without the government telling them to reset their
clock” is as good an argument against different time zones as it is
against DST. Indeed, why not a global time zone? Wink wink.
On the concept of having DST all year round: in May 1940, The
Netherlands were put on Berlin time. That, plus the yearly switch to
DST (introduced in 1916), meant that the clocks were set forward one
hour and forty minutes.
The change back to “standard” (Berlin) in autumn was postponed
“until further notice”, and we wound up with DST for two-and-a-half
years.
When the war ended, the Dutch abolished DST, evidently fed up with
it. However, in 1977 DST was introduced again, and we still have it.
1916 was, I believe, also the year in which the United States
adopted “Daylight saving and standard war time”. In “times of
national emergencies”, DST would be kept all year ‘round.
I think Roosevelt instituted year-round Daylight Saving Time, called
"War Time," from February 1942 to September 1945.
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