DST Shift is Complete Rubbish

So, I got out of bed and noticed that I'd lost an hour of sleep on Sunday morning, and noticed that it was yet again dark when I awoke (I had just started getting used to the fact that my early (very early) morning commute was starting to benefit from the sunrise). Moaning, grumbling and complaining, I went on with my day.

Then I got really upset. Why? Because I'm completely baffled by the hubris it requires for congress, a committee of politicians, to arbitrarily decide to shift time. What baffles me even more is that these morons actually think that it will save energy. According to multiple sources, including this one, that thought is a complete fallacy. While surely we might save some energy in the evening because of the extended sunlight hours, we will probably have to consume that same savings first thing in the morning because we're turning on more lights, some of us probably brew more coffee to wake up from the change in time, and depending on your location, you might even turn the heat on an hour earlier.

This is complete and total rubbish, and I'm ashamed of congress for not only being so completely naive, but for the rest of the United States in allowing this to happen. If some scientist went to congress and reported that there had been a mishap in the calibration of the atomic clock, and we needed to move Daylight Savings Time in order to compensate for it, I could buy that certainly. But instead, congress (because we all know that they're genius scientists) decided that they would save 100,000 barrels of oil per day by moving DST up by 3 weeks. According to the noted study, among dozens of other reports, that's hogwash. People will still work for 8 hours a day, regardless of DST. If you shift time ahead by an hour, then you're just changing when people consume their energy and for what purpose, you're not necessarily changing how much energy people consume.

And one last nail in the coffin: how much energy, in terms of cost of man-hours have been invested in patches, IT personnel and labor costs, and plain simple frustration in the fact that nobody's devices were prepared for the DST shift? How much did it cost to get the stock exchanges ready for this early shift? I can darn well bet that we've already spent far more than any anticipated energy savings.

Next thing you know congress will decide that it will be more convenient if we consider the earth the center of the galaxy, perhaps to save energy in educating students.

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion. Feel free to do with this opinion what you will, but it remains my opinion nonetheless. I am not claiming that the single report by those college students is fact and law. What I am claiming is that I doubt anyone in congress put any real thought into the true financial and business impact of this decision. Sure, a lot of people love having more light after work, but is it worth it? Also, many conspiracy theorists are convinced that the real reason for the shift in DST is because shoppers spend more after work when it's light out, so they were hoping to extend the spring shopping season by a few weeks.

Personally, DST to me is an artifact of a flawed system. Time is time, it doesn't change. The position of the sun indicates the constant passage of time, and if we have to come up with crap like DST to compensate for our arbitrary, inconsistent lifestyles and shift it for political reasons, all it tells me is that our system is wrong.

tags: congress  rubbish  farce  dst  science  

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