What's the Deal with Daylight Saving Time?

I have a confession I love daylight savings.

I do. When the clocks go foreword in summer, and you get those lovely long evenings. Magical. And when the clocks go back and you get a nice sleep in ah. Brilliant.

Today we are talking about the founding of the most controversial change to time since Ug looked at the sun and said it was noon.

Daylight savings, moving clocks forward 1 hour in summer to DLST and back to standard time in Winter.

Daylight savings has been accused of everything from causing depression to being a subtle form of voter suppression… because… clocks… and something.

Daylight savings is today used fully or partially in 62 countries. First introduced nationally in 1916.

Daylight savings has a surprisingly long origin, and weirdly predates clocks.

Unsurprisingly prior to gas and electrical lighting societies generally just measure daylight hours. And some Ancient cultures, such as the Romans and Greeks while foramulating their time systems used forms of daylight savings changing their timing of a day depending on seasons.

Modern daylight savings was first proposed by none other than founding father Benjamin Franklin… is the myth promoted by the film National Treasure. Franklin had nothing to do with daylight savings.

Franklin was a proponent of ‘early to be early to rise’ and spoke passionately about waking earlier to save on candles. For which he was roundly mocked. One satirical cartoon satirized Franklin as proposing the firing of canons before dawn to get people out of bed.

Franklin actually couldn’t have proposed daylight savings as we consider it today even had he thought of it because time actually meant something different at this period. Precise schedules were unnecessary and times varied from town to town.

Universalized Time as we use it today was first used nationally in the UK in 1847 to help the functioning of railway lines. And time was only internationally standardized in 1884.

But that is a topic for another time.

As industrialisation and trains forced the workforce to standardize more. Governments began debating nationally or regionally synchronized time. And with that came the understanding that most businesses didn’t open based on time but sunlight. Opening later in winter and earlier in summer. However these debates never really went anywhere.

And businesses continued opening whenever it suited them.

Daylight savings as we use it today was first proposed in 1895 by George Hudson avid butterfly collector and clock buster.

Hudson who lived in far southern New Zealand. Thought standardised time didn’t work for Summer, As it left to few daylight hours for him to collect his butterflies. So proposed moving clocks forward in summer so workers had more time to enjoy the sun.

At least until computers were invented and you were expected to work 9 – 5 then 5 -10 at home and unpaid… it’s almost like working conditions have gone down in the modern world… anyway back to the butterflies, I mean daylight savings

Hudson published a paper proposing a 2 hour shift forward in 1895 to the Wellington Philosophical Society where it… kind of fizzled. Because politicians neither cared about Hudson’s butterflies or workers rights.

However in 1905 British builder William Willet proposed day light savings in the UK because dusk kept interrupting his golf games.

Willet is often credited incorrectly with inventing Daylight savings. As Willets powerful friends put the first DLST bills to parliament. Willets idea was presented to British parliament in 1908 but was roundly rejected. The very first city to introduce day light savings was port Arthur in Canada the same year.

The daylight savings crusade however got a powerful ally through industrialization.

See with the introduction of indoor heating and lighting, the industrialised world was consuming horrendous amounts of coal and gas.

Proponents for day light savings began arguing that if people woke earlier and had more daylight they would go to bed earlier. Consuming less electricity and gas.

Now this idea gained them some support but not enough. But knock knock, it’s the horrors of the first world war.

With the war grinding on. Everyone began to realize the importance of not running out of resources.

Unsurprisingly it was Germany and Austro-Hungary, fast running out of all of their resources who first thought screw-it. And gave daylight savings a go on a national scale in a desperate attempt to save coal, and possibly to collect butterflies.

Germany and Austro-Hungary adopted DLST in 1916 to the delight of Entomologists. Triggering a wave of acceptance for the practice. Britain, and France, adopted it later in the year Russia in 1917 and the USA in 1918. However most abandoned it after the war. With a resurgence during world war two. And another one in 1970 during the oil crisis. Until most of the far north and far southern countries used DLST.

All to hunt those sweet butterflies, or preserve coal. One or the other

Which raises the obvious question, does it work?

Well George Hudson following the implementation of DLS would go on to win three science medals and published two books on entomology, the butterflies and moths of New Zealand in 1928

And the posthumous Fragments of New Zealand entomology. In 1950

So there you go DLS has been a resounding success, good bye and… what? Oh right the coal.

Well coal consumption during the war went down…

So it succeeded. Many countries abandoned DLS after the wars no longer needing the savings. However in the 1970’s following the oil crisis and the beginning of the environmental crisis, the idea to reduce energy consumption was renewed. And DLS was readopted across the world.

In 2005 the US even moved Daylight savings a week earlier under the argument it would reduce energy use… except.

The, enter the 21st century and the technological age. With wonders like air conditioning. Which have drastically increased our year round power consumptions and has completely changed human behavior so that going to sleep at or near dusk is no longer common.

Worse the introduction of mobile phones, portable computers, and better home entertainment has pushed office work and after work entertainment into the home and into the night.

The consequence is hilariously that it might actually be linked to an increase in coal consumption.

We can’t actually say. Numerous papers have been published saying it both raises and lowers energy consumption.

However the rates at which it does are around 0.4%

Studies at worst suggest increases in energy consumption, billions of dollars lost economically, increases in suicide and voter suppression.

A 2016 paper in the American Economic Journal by Arthur Smith, estimated the economic cost of DLST was nearly 300 million dollars and between 30 and 400 deaths annually which just… doesn’t seem like something that could be measured… and isn’t. The deaths are vehicles crashes. Which the author assumes are caused by lack of sleep… because there is an increase in crashes after the American spring transition.

Just to pile on he also in the first paragraph uses the historical myth of Ben Franklin… bad economist.

Studies in favour of DLST have suggested, better engagement with after work activities, improved health and at most a 0.4% energy saving.

And just to throw some hyperbole in the Pro side I found one proponent arguing it decreases murders and rapes. Which… there is little real evidence for.

Whether daylight savings is harmful or productive is… uncertain leaving the terrifying possibility for both those that love and hate it that it may be neither.