Daylight Saving, why do we do that?

Daylight saving just started again this year… and have you ever wondered why do we do that, when did it start and what are the arguments for and against it?

It all started in 1784, when Benjamin Franklin while in Paris woke up by noise at 6am finding it amazing that the light of the day was pouring through his bedroom windows and that the sun should rise so early. Back then, the custom was to rise at noon (!) and the astonishment that Franklin had when he discovered that he had wasted 6 hours of sunlight in the day and in exchange would be another 6 hours awake in the evening under candle light, sparkled discussion, as he wrote a letter to the Journal de Paris.

Since then, daylight saving time has been a theme for passionate parliament debate for more than 200 years. In his book “Saving The Daylight”, David Prerau makes an interesting and very informative history recount of how this issue has been dealt with and what other global scientific and organizational subjects derived from it as, for example, standard times, time zones and longitude.

Would you be amazed if we said that along with the obvious reason of “saving energy” (at the beginning candle power and now kWh) daylight saving is also about “enjoying daylight” and “using the light of the day for leisure activities out of working hours”? Saving energy is an obvious reason, but changing the time of the clock has a deeper meaning to mind and body.

According to Mr.William Willet and his daylight saving pamphlet (1907), if you are a 28 years old person (excepting 6 years of childhood), then by now you should have gained 1 full year of daylight! At 50 one would have gained 2 years and at 72, 3 years. This alone is already a good reason to “save” daylight, or not?

A lot of effort was made in some countries to approve a law to regulate daylight saving time during the months of April to October, but it was not before WWI that the daylight saving time was passed as law in some countries (starting with Germany and followed by others) with “saving energy for the war years” as its main reason. Even then, it should be a temporary enforcement to last only during the war years.

During all these years of discussion on whether to implement daylight saving time as a permanent measure or not, the main opponents of the daylight saving law were farmers, as in their view, the changing of the clock would only benefit city dwellers. For them, waking up one hour earlier would mean to harvest in darkness to be able to deliver produce on time for transport connections going from the land to the cities. Other opponents were worried about the time difference between stock exchange markets, as it would mean one hour less of trade.

As it turns out, after the war, some countries in Europe kept the law as permanent clock change for 6-7 months a year, as benefits were greater than the disadvantages of changing the arms of the clocks twice a year. The change that happens in the night hours of Saturdays to Sundays was proposed very early in the discussion, but instead of a one time one hour shift, the first proposals were considering 4 increments of 20 minutes change each (meaning a change of 1:20h) in order to reduce impact on daily life. That would have meant too much hustle to change the clocks for four consecutive weeks. So, instead, one time one hour change in the clocks was much more practical, and the decision to establish the change was made.

Today, all these arguments may sound silly as more than half of the world’s population live in cities, tendency growing. The technological advancement of automatic changing is also very practical, we don’t even think about that anymore.

So, is it still worth the trouble? Does it make sense to save daylight? I would say yes. Think about how good a day of extra daylight hours is. It’s not only about saving energy but rather and more importantly to use daylight in our daily lives, when the sun is shining outside! It’s not a question of leisure per se, but a broader health issue as so many researches have shown how beneficial daylight is to us all.

We wish you all a joyful daylight saving time – until 28th October this year. For more information on the countries and places taking part in daylight saving, check timeanddate.com.

Go Daylight (saving time)!

#thelightingtips