Thoughts on daylight saving change

One more day light saving starts on Sunday March 13, probably this is sixth or seventh time I am moving my clocks ahead or behind. I felt stupid when I did it first time, why this whole country is busy in moving their clocks!  That too, when I was in California I should MOVE my clock to catch up office on time and should NOT touch my clock when moved to Arizona.

The term Daylight saving time (DST) itself says ‘save day light’. That means to use the day light to its full potential. The clocks are adjusted forward one hour when spring starts and are adjusted backward in autumn. This will be the decision by local Governments whether to participate in day light saving and to move the clocks officially.

Some people assume that the origin of daylight savings time had something to do with farming, but that's not really true. According to California's Energy Commission, Congress enacted DST as a way to conserve U.S. resources during World War I and again during World War II. Today, approximately 70 countries utilize Daylight Saving Time in at least a portion of the country Including United States, Russia, Canada, Cuba, Australia EU etc. Worldwide, the continents of South America, most of Africa and much of Asia (including India) do not participate in daylight savings time.

Pros and cons:

Savings in Energy -Daylight Saving Time gives us an additional hour of daylight in our waking hours. That is, one hour less a day to use lighting. People use the sun instead of electrical energy for lighting and the hope is to save lots of oil each day.

Maximum use of the workday- Daylight Saving Time causes people to change their sleeping hours so that they rise closer to sunrise and make better use of their working hours.

Accident Prevention- Due to Daylight Saving Time most heavy traffic will be during daylight hours. As the danger of accidents is greater during darkness, it is safe to assume that Daylight Saving Time will reduce traffic accidents.

Crime reduction-Criminals don’t like the daylight, so the rate drops a bit during the evening!

The cons are, it creates unnecessary confusions and I believe there are no sufficient back up data to prove that DST can save energy- think simple way , you come home early, it’s hotter, you crank up your a/c sooner to cool it down, plus you do more driving, another method of energy waste. Some even say why not split the difference and do a half hour and that way it never has to change. Make sense right!

In India we don’t have a daylight saving. It’s because India falls on the equator meaning that part of the Earth still receives the same amount of sunlight as it will in winter or summer. So it’s useless to have daylight savings time. But we have summertime like school in summer start an hour early and during winter a late. So basically it’s the same thing in a way but different as everyone's watch is an hour early.

Pakistan is introducing daylight saving time for the first time from next weekend, becoming the only country in South Asia to change its clocks for the summer. This is to support the energy crisis by taking advantage of an extra hour of daylight.

China does not have daylight savings time and they also have only one time zone which makes things easier even though it is a very big country. Now let’s look in to the history of how the time zones emerged?

History of ‘Engineering Time zones’

Let’s go back to the history of engineering time zones. As per the Canadian brain who developed time zone (apologies I don’t remember the name) that we still use today. He proposed that the world be divided into 24 time zones, each spaced 15º (fifteen degrees) of longitude apart (like 24 sections of an orange). He came to this idea because Earth completes a rotation every 24 hours and there are 360º of longitude, so each hour Earth rotates 1/24th of a circle or 15º.

Why China maintains only one time zone?

The People's Republic of China is the largest country in the world with only one time zone (Supposed to have five time zones). It is larger than the continental U.S., but they manage with only one time everywhere. This single time zone is China Standard Time, or Beijing Time, (GMT+8). It is the decision of Republic of China to stick with only one time zone to avoid confusions. India is the second largest country with only one time zone after china!

So I was wondering how people work there, According to my Chinese colleagues in office, Much of China is still agricultural, with the people farming the land. As farmers, they are not as concerned about the official time of day, but rather, the work is dictated by the sun and the needs of crops and livestock. And in the office people works with respect to their standard time, the same way most of people works on shifts.

I was curious at how this affects surrounding countries and I realized that if you travel from Pakistan to China, the time changes by three hours!

Would the United States be better off with only one time zone?

The continental United States (meaning the 48 states on the North American continent, which excludes Hawaii and Alaska) is divided into four time zones. From east to west, they are: eastern (EST), central (CST), mountain (MST), and Pacific (PST). Each of these time zones is one hour apart; with times being successively earlier as you move west. So if it's 3 p.m. eastern time, it's 2 p.m. central time, 1 p.m. mountain time, and noon Pacific time.

Here in US, everyone starts working at 9 AM, (Of course not everyone, just average.) no matter where you are. But if you say "I will call you at 9 AM", I don't know when exactly you are going to call, unless we are in the same zone. In China, if you say "I will call you at 9 AM", I know when you will call. But people do not all go to work at 9AM. It also creates confusions and extra coordinating efforts. Let’s take my example: for me the database server is in NYC (EST) and services boxes are in Texas (CST) and the users are from CA (PST), I sit in Phoenix office (MST) and offshore resources are from Bangalore (IST)! What else you want to go mad!

But if all of the US were put on Washington time, sunrise would occur in California in the summer after 8:00 AM. In Hawaii it would be several hours later. So people who live here already enjoyed the benefits of multiple time zones and may not be comfortable to go back to the other way. May be it is affecting productivity and creating confusions but people are happy with the system that we already have.

"I don't mind going back to daylight saving time.

With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I've saved all year." ~ Victor Borge