Daylight Savings Time

[Ridgerunner]

Good morning. It's time to reset the timers on your grow lights.

 

[swampducks]

I stopped using timers because they keep failing. I got tired of buying a new one every few months. Good morning to you, too though.

 

[Southern Gardener]

More time to spend out in the garden!!! :coolsun

 

[digitS']

. . . unless you are in the Arizona zone of resistance . . .

But then, the folks in the Sonoran Desert would no longer have plants under lights, I suppose.

Good Morning!

Steve

 

[lesa]

I love this time of year! So much promise in that extra daylight! I am pretty sure I have a problem, since I look forward to working until 9:30 at night!! Can't wait!

 

[The Mama Chicken]

I'm excited too! More time to play in the garden and my hubby will have more time to teach me to shoot after work. I've been having to wait for weekends to get my target practice in.

 

[kevs-chickadees]

. . . unless you are in the Arizona zone of resistance . . .

But then, the folks in the Sonoran Desert would no longer have plants under lights, I suppose.

Good Morning!

Steve

So glad I don't have to deal with this, actually I don't even understand the reason for it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

My biggest adjustment will come in how I lock the chickens up at night. During regular time, I lock them up after I wash the dishes and and then take the daily kitchen garbage to the compost heap. During DST, they have not yet gone to bed when I do that, so I have to adjust my routine. Once it warms up and dries out enough, I'm usually working outside until close to dark anyway, so that's easy. But until I get used to the new routine, I have to work to remember to go lock them up.

There are different reasons given for switching to DST. This is the one I best remember.


Following the 1973 oil embargo, the U.S. Congress extended Daylight Saving Time to 8 months, rather than the normal six months. During that time, the U.S. Department of Transportation found that observing Daylight Saving Time in March and April saved the equivalent in energy of 10,000 barrels of oil each day - a total of 600,000 barrels in each of those two years.

Likewise, in 1986, Daylight Saving Time moved from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April. No change was made to the ending date of the last Sunday in October. Adding the entire month of April to Daylight Saving Time is estimated to save the U.S. about 300,000 barrels of oil each year.

 

[thistlebloom]

Well, I'm with Arizona on this one. Lighting is not a significant energy consumer, and no matter what the clocks say, or when it gets light or dark outside, we still use our appliances. We shower, do laundry, cook, heat or air condition the same, so I guess I'm not sold on the supposed reasoning behind fiddling with the clocks. I know it's been controversial since it's inception.


Studies for and against abound:

In 1976 the National Bureau of Standards disputed the 1975 DOTs study and found the energy savings to be insignificant.
The DOTs study still influences decisions about DST.

"The argument in favor of saving energy swayed Indiana, where until 2005, only about 16 percent of counties observed Daylight Saving Time. Based on the DOT study, advocates of Indiana DST estimated that the states residents would save over $7 million in electricity costs each year. Now that Indiana has made the switch, however, researchers have found the opposite to be the case. Scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, compared energy usage over the course of three years in Indiana counties that switched from year-round Standard Time to DST. They found that Indianans actually spent $8.6 million more each year because of Daylight Saving Time, and increased emissions came with a social cost of between $1.6 million and $5.3 million per year."

And I often wonder, who is it that gets to decide the dates for this disruption? In recent years it's been pushed back to begin earlier
and has been held later into the fall.

But I'm a morning person, and like to get up with the light, so in the summer when it's light around 4:30 I will be outside getting chores done before I have to get on with my work-for-money day.

I do find it a little aggravating in the evenings to have to wait for the chickens to go to bed so that I can lock them up before I hit the hay.

 

[digitS']

My understanding is that the US Congress decided in 2005 to do the last "spring ahead" by 3 weeks.

I was in Oregon 50 odd years ago when that state chose not to join others in the change. The retailers were all for daylight savings and store clocks were set ahead all over town! Southern Oregon is too close to California for setting itself apart. Mass confusion reined!

Arizona just claims to join Denver during the winter and Los Angeles during the summer. They know that Coloradans are snowbound half the year and Californians can't cross the desert the other half.

Steve