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2015 October / November Daylight Savings Time Changes


snowyco

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For all the FB friends who have been posting Oct. 4'th Daylight Savings "Spring forward" clock changes **

Daylight savings times do change tomorrow for a few of our mates:
.
Most of Mexico "Falls back" on: ~ October 25'th, 2015 ~

.
(most of) the USA "Falls back" on: ~ November 1, 2015.~
.
New Zealand "Springs forward": ~ September 27 ~

**Australia "Springs forward": ~ October 4 ~

.

UK ~ like Mexico ~ "Falls back": ~ October 25 ~
.
Canada ~ like the USA ~ "Falls back": ~ November 1 ~

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"Here on the western edge of our time zone we need DLST like we need a hole in the head."

Not "need"

I agree, but it is great to have darkness while one sleeps to 7 or 7:30 with an extra hour later before nightfall when one can really appreciate it.

Go to a North America map, stick your finger on Denver

Run that finger due south

Lake Chapala

That looks like the Mountain Time Zone to me

I love it

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Here on the western edge of our time zone we need DLST like we need a hole in the head.

Exactly right for both scientific and practical life reasons.

As we move far from the equator, like the USA & Canada, the seasonal sunrise and sunset times vary more and more. The extreme side of this happens inside the Arctic Circle where the sun never sets in the summertime and never rises in the wintertime.

Mexico is substantially closer to the equator than the USA & Canada, which means if we had reasonable time zones, we really would not need Daylight Savings Time.

Mexico is a very wide country, spanning almost as much E-W distance as the USA, meaning it would make sense for the Caribbean coast to have a different time zone than Baja, to have our clocks start the day reasonably close to sunrise.

Daylight Savings Time did work for the USA at one time, but not now. Daylight savings time was changed to the current goofy dates by Reagan in his attempt to spur the backyard-industries/activities like barbecuing, gardening, etc. There was a $4 billion bump in consumer debt as homeowners got an extra hour in their yards after work, earlier in the Spring.

But just like Reagan's bogus claims that our lawns pollute more than our cars, Ronnie also believed that changing the dates of Daylight Savings Times for America (a big diverse country) would magically reduce energy consumption. It turns out that Reagan was completely wrong. People left work an hour earlier in the Spring, and fired up their air-conditioners for an extra hour during Spring & Summer.

In the Fall/Winter, Reagan's changes caused businesses in the north to run their heat an extra hour longer in the afternoon - causing families to heat their homes as the kids came home from school at 3:00pm, while businesses also have to simultaneously heat as the workers work an hour later in the late afternoon.

Is it time to drop Reagan's "reforms" and take it all back to Ben Franklin's wise practical useful times?

, applied rationally

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And for a more complete and less political view of the origins and adaptations of DLST, see this:

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/history.html

Modern DST in the U.S.

In the United States, DST caused widespread confusion from 1945 to 1966 for trains, buses and the broadcasting industry because states and localities were free to choose when and if they would observe DST. Congress decided to end the confusion and establish the Uniform Time Act of 1966that stated DST would begin on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October. However, states still had the ability to be exempt from DST by passing a local ordinance.

The U.S. Congress extended DST to a period of ten months in 1974 and eight months in 1975, in hopes to save energy following the 1973 oil embargo. The trial period showed that DST saved the energy equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil each day, but DST still proved to be controversial. Many complained that the dark winter mornings endangered the lives of children going to school. After the energy crisis was over in 1976, the U.S. changed their DST schedule again to begin on the last Sunday in April. DST was amended again to begin on the first Sunday in April in 1987. Further changes were made after the introduction of the Energy Policy Act of 2005...

Daylight Saving Time (sometimes called Daylight Savings Time) is now in use in over 70 countries worldwide and affects over a billion people every year. The beginning and end dates vary from one country to another. The European Union adopted the “Summer Time” period that was used in the United Kingdom for many years, where DST begins on the last Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October.

The DST schedule in the U.S. was revised several times throughout the years. From 1987 to 2006, the country observed DST for about seven months each year. The current schedule was introduced in 2007 and follows the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which extended the period by about one month. Today, DST starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. Currently, most of the United States observes DST except for Hawaii and most of Arizona, as well as the U.S. insular areas of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam.

People have been fooling around with DLST long before and after one political administration in the U.S.

And I still wish it would just go away!

:)

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True that DLST existed before Reagun, but he made the first really big change:

In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan moved daylight saving time dates when he signed Public Law 99-359.
The legislation revised the start time of DST to the first Sunday in April. According to language in the law, the edit was made to provide "more daylight outdoor playtime for the children and youth of our Nation, greater utilization of parks and recreation areas, expanded economic opportunity through extension of daylight hours to peak shopping hours and through extension of domestic office hours to periods of greater overlap with the European Economic Community."

I forgot that the second trickle-down guy ( "W" Bush) made a second round of big DLST changes - making DLST dates even more out of whack

President Bush signed a broad energy bill law (Energy Policy Act of 2005) on Monday August 8, 2005. Bush's change further extended Daylight Saving Time by four weeks beginning in 2007.

The bill called for Daylight Saving Time to begin three weeks earlier on the second Sunday in March and end one week later on the first Sunday in November.

It turns out that both Reagan and "W" 's changes both had the opposite effects (more energy used nationally for heating & cooling) from their claims.

I agree that the current system(s) are out of whack ... go back to Ben Franklin's system.

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Again, your simplistic politicized blaming of DLST ignores history, what the Europeans were doing and the fact that these laws were and are passed by Congress, not mandated by presidents. The Congress that passed the law changes during Reagan's presidency was not even controlled by his political party.

Presidents sign stupid trivial legislation all the time to "go along to get along." There's no evidence that either of them assigned any significance to DLST. Apparently a bunch of politicians thought the changes were good ideas or the legislation wouldn't have been introduced or passed by Congress.

Presidents used executive orders to enact their administration's priority items when they can. DLST has never been enacted or modified by executive order to my knowledge. There are a lot of players involved in the enactment of legislation by Congress. Attributing such legislation to one individual is not how the system works.

Knock off the "trickle down" sideways political editorializing or the thread will be edited and suspensions handed out if needed. You know the rule about politics on this board.

And you are absolutely correct about the fictional nature of the energy savings used to justify DLST. Stick to the non political aspects of the discussion if you want the thread to continue.

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