Daylight savings came up on me unexpected this year. Isn't it supposed to be the first weekend of April? Sunday morning, I looked at my watch, looked at the clock on my computer, and realized one of them was probably wrong.
Then I looked it up - starting March 2007, the United States changed Daylight Savings permanently, extending it one month.
What's the point? I mean, people tell you that it's saving money, and that it's worthwhile - but has anyone actually done studies to prove it? Today I found this article by National Geographic, addressing these questions. Figured you folks might enjoy it, too.
Extended Daylight Saving Time Not an Energy Saver?
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
March 7, 2008
On Sunday people in the United States will roll their clocks forward an hour at 2 a.m. and begin the country's second consecutive year of extended daylight saving time.
The change, adopted into law last year, was touted as a way to save energy. But some studies suggest the move actually has consumers using more power—and paying bigger energy bills.
Hendrik Wolff, an environmental economist at the University of Washington in Seattle, is skeptical of the purported savings.
Wolff and colleague Ryan Kellogg studied Australian power-use data surrounding the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when parts of the country extended daylight saving time to accommodate the games.
The pair compared energy use in the state of Victoria, which adopted daylight saving time earlier than normal, to South Australia, which did not.
"Basically if people wake up early in the morning and go to bed earlier, they do save artificial illumination at night and reduce electricity consumption in the evening," Wolff said.
"Our study confirmed that effect. But we also found that more electricity is consumed in the morning. In the end, these two effects wash each other out."
Continue reading "Daylight Savings" »
