# Daylight saving time - again. Let's go to back to "God's time" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 11, 2021, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707 "2021-03-11T12:12:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/21 "2021-03-11T16:40:14Z")
> [@lum\_s\_husband](#): > > We should all be using sidereal time, as Christ commanded. If sidereal time was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/22 "2021-03-11T16:49:38Z")
This is not true. First of all, by the time the Church got around to fixing the date,Saturnalia had been pretty gone. Next of all, Early Christmas in no way would compete with a big holiday full of merrymaking. It was just another Saints Feast day (and there were lots of these), which means you didnt have to fast, you lit a candle or two and had a prayer. Hardly a riotous time. 🥳 Christmas didnt become a big holiday until Charlemagne, who decided to make that day a BIG Holiday- as coincidentally that was the day the Pope crowned him Emperor. 🤔 hmmm. No, Christmas was arrived at by backwards math, based upon a few kinda known dates. Mind you, they were likely wrong, but it had nothing to do with competing. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/23 "2021-03-11T16:54:30Z")
No, it was to save electricity. [https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-8-things-you-didn-t-know-about-daylight-saving-time](https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-8-things-you-didn-t-know-about-daylight-saving-time) _How much energy does Daylight Saving Time save? In 2008, [Energy Department experts studied](http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=12285) the impact of the extended Daylight Saving Time on energy consumption in the U.S. and found that the extra four weeks of Daylight Saving Time saved about 0.5 percent in total electricity per day. While this might not sound like a lot, it adds up to electricity savings of 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours – or the amount of electricity used by more than 100,000 households for an entire year. These electricity savings generally occur during a three- to five-hour period in the evening._ ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/24 "2021-03-11T17:02:07Z")
You realize that “God’s time/natural time/local time” would have thousands of different local times, right? Each city or town would determine noon on its own. Time zones are not natural. ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/25 "2021-03-11T19:00:24Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Do away with clock changes and leave us the extra hour in the evenings. Amen to that. I’m in the office in the mornings, I don’t care if it’s dark. I need the light when I get home in the evenings to take care of outside chores. The left coast is on the verge of going to DST year round, I wish they’d get off the fence and get it done (I’m looking at you, California!) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/26 "2021-03-11T19:32:45Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I suspect there’s a real pole-equator divide on this issue. In subtropical regions, where you get fewer hours of sunlight during the winter, daylight savings can seem troublesome. Nah, most people I know up here hate the changing around too. Especially anybody whose work is related to the actual availability of daylight; we’re already adjusting to the sun and don’t want to also have to adjust to the clocks in order to work with everyone who’s on clock time. Pick one or the other, or halfway inbetween if you’d rather, and leave it alone. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/27 "2021-03-11T21:40:56Z")
Yeah, I know that “God’s Time” once referred to the local time for every single location. I was just using that term because it would be a selling point to the booboisie (Mencken’s great word). The back-to-nature people might prefer “Nature’s time”. New-Age people might refer to it as “Gaia’s time”. Anyway, please don’t get to hung up on the terminology. I was just referring to the idea that a gradual shift would have beneficial effects while preserving “saving daylight”, etc. And a gradual shift might be become feasible as more and more people change to using their smart phones to determine the time, instead of referring to clocks and watches. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/28 "2021-03-11T22:13:16Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Nah, most people I know up here hate the changing around too. Especially anybody whose work is related to the actual availability of daylight; we’re already adjusting to the sun and don’t want to also have to adjust to the clocks in order to work with everyone who’s on clock time. > > Pick one or the other, or halfway inbetween if you’d rather, and leave it alone. You know, I’ve never heard anyone here ever complain about the act of changing clocks. It;s just something you ave to do twice a year, and certainly no big deal. In fact, I think most of my countrymen would be insulted if you implied that doing so is somehow “difficult”. I mean, are you telling me I’m too stupid to change a clock!? Besides, most people use their phones as clocks and they already change themselves. That said, people usually grumble a bit in the fall, as Winter Time (as we call it) means shorter afternoons; conversely, the move to Summer Time is welcomed as the unofficial start of spring. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/29 "2021-03-11T22:14:19Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You know, I’ve never heard anyone here ever complain about the act of changing clocks. It;s just something you ave to do twice a year, and certainly no big deal. In fact, I think most of my countrymen would be insulted if you implied that doing so is somehow “difficult”. It’s not the act of changing clocks that’s difficult. It’s the disruption of sleep schedules. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/30 "2021-03-11T22:19:01Z")
So you lose one hour of sleep, for one night. That’s a big deal? Or do you mean that you have to adjust to going to sleep and waking up an hour earlier or later? Seriously? I’ve moved 7 time zones numerous times in my life, and adjusting to _that_ never took me more than a week. Adjusting to one hour is nothing. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/31 "2021-03-11T22:36:27Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I’ve moved 7 time zones numerous times in my life, and adjusting to _that_ never took me more than a week. Adjusting to one hour is nothing. Nothing for you, you lucky soul. Many, many people are not so lucky. For me, I wake up at the same time every day, so “adjusting” to Daylight Saving Bull actually means adjusting my life to being up at 4 a.m. part of the year and at 5 a.m. part of the year. I am a big sports fan and when the wake-at-four time is going on I fall asleep before the games are over. And there is very little to do at 4 a.m. when the paper is not even out yet. Yes, you are lucky. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/32 "2021-03-11T22:48:35Z")
I second the “Pick _ **one** _ and stick with it.” [Old Man] Personally, I don’t care if kids have to go to school in the dark. I did as a child, and found it character-building. Besides, most kids are _driven_ to school today. When’s the last time you _saw_ a child walk to school? And even if they are, they’re carrying a smartphone that has the ability to light their way. Now get off my lawn, you damn fool non-book-learnin’ kids. [/Old Man] I vote for Cthulu time. Dark _and_ evil, every moment of every day. Tripler _ **I** _ walked in the dark. Uphill. Both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/33 "2021-03-11T22:54:29Z")
The system I’d like to see would be that, every morning, at the moment of local sunrise, clocks would reset to 6 AM. Schools, businesses, etc. could then take for granted how light it would be at a certain time in the morning, and set whatever start times made sense for that. Morning hours would be as consistent as possible, which appears to be the aim of DST, and there would be no abrupt changes. And local noon would, on average, be 12:00. The downside, of course, would be that the time would be different everywhere, even in places at the same longitude. But we’re getting to the point where all clocks precise enough to care are controlled by computers, anyway. If you’re in New York and you want to know the current time in Los Angeles, you don’t subtract three hours (or wait, is it add three hours?); you just ask a computer “What time is it in Los Angeles right now?”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/34 "2021-03-11T23:09:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The system I’d like to see would be that, every morning, at the moment of local sunrise, clocks would reset to 6 AM. Schools, businesses, etc. could then take for granted how light it would be at a certain time in the morning, No they couldn’t - they days aren’t just starting earlier and later, they’re also getting longer and shorter. With your system sometimes 1pm would be before midday. Also: “Schedule a meeting at 10:00 on Friday.” “Okay, we have fifteen team members in ten cities. Presuming you mean 10:00 here, that means, hold on, let me check my solar tables…” (twenty minutes later…) “Okay, I have the meeting scheduled, and everybody will be online when you log in at 10:00.” “Great, good jo- -wait, did you say when _I_ log in at 10:00? This meeting was called by the boss, in Fresno. He wants us to be there when _he_ logs in.” “Aughh!” ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/35 "2021-03-11T23:13:15Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I assume there’s a valid reason that school hours can’t be shifted so kids don’t start in the dark? The problem is that lots of other things need to adjust around school hours, like work schedules for parents and after-school care. And if you don’t do this en masse in a coordinated fashion, then you end up with a patchwork of changes as each school district chooses a different date or a different time adjustment and there’s all kinds of chaos. Daylight Saving time solves these coordination problems pretty well. > [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Too bad we could not have a system where the day starts 20 seconds earlier every day for the first 180 days of the year, and then starts 20 seconds later for the last 180 days of they year. It would require adjusting too many existing timepieces. But —Maybe once most people live by “cell phone time”, it could be a thing. As we trend toward all clocks being computerized and networked, this becomes a real possibility, and it’s better than doing away with a time shift or doing it in big jumps twice a year. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/36 "2021-03-11T23:33:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So you lose one hour of sleep, for one night. That’s a big deal? > > Or do you mean that you have to adjust to going to sleep and waking up an hour earlier or later? Seriously? I’ve moved 7 time zones numerous times in my life, and adjusting to _that_ never took me more than a week. Adjusting to one hour is nothing > **[Daylight-saving time is literally killing us — it's time to end this switch](https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-deadly-2018-3)** > > Daylight-saving time begins on Sunday, March 12, 2023. Years of data tell us the bi-annual switch is deadly. Here's how it puts stress on our bodies. > **[Fatal accidents following changes in daylight savings time: the American...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11152980/)** > > Objective: This study examines specific hypotheses that both sleep loss and behavioral changes occurring with the time shifts for Daylight Savings Time (DST) significantly effect the number of fatal traffic accidents in the United States of... > **['Spring forward' to daylight saving time brings surge in fatal car crashes](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200130144410.htm)** > > A study of 732,000 accidents over two decades has found that the annual switch to daylight saving time is associated with a 6% increase in fatal car crashes that week. Not to mention, try explaining that time shift to livestock. Or even to a cranky three year old. You may not be bothered by time shifts; but lots of people are. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/37 "2021-03-11T23:39:19Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > You may not be bothered by time shifts; but lots of people are. This seems to be the case. My “normal” sleep schedule varies by more than an hour practically every night. I get up anywhere between 5:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., depending on what’s I have scheduled for the morning. Perhaps in retirement I’ll wake up at the same time every day. But I’m not arguing with those of you on a more set schedule, just celebrating our differences. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/38 "2021-03-12T00:06:59Z")
I said you could take it for granted in the morning. Obviously there has to be changes at some point in the day. As for scheduling meetings, the boss in Fresno would push a button that says “Schedule meeting for 10:00 my time”, and that would show up automatically on everyone else’s calendars at whatever time that would be for them. All of the “checking of solar tables” would be done by computers, and be finished in milliseconds. Which is how it’s done anyway, with our current system (what, you don’t think corporate meeting-schedulers actually keep track even of time zones by hand, do you? Or which states don’t go on DST, or any of the myriad other tiny details in the current system?). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/39 "2021-03-12T00:25:57Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Not to mention, try explaining that time shift to livestock. Why would you need to? Farmers dont work by the clock they work by the sun. Same with their livestock. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707/40 "2021-03-12T01:09:06Z")
The cows, pigs and chickens have an hour less to live. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-saving-time-again-lets-go-to-back-to-gods-time/937707.md?page=3)