Saving Daylight

Try explaining Daylight Saving Time to a dog - the fact that their dinner is suddenly delayed by an hour is a punishment they’ll never comprehend.  I would think that of all the bewildering things that their human companions do - having clocks and changing them every 6 months must just about top the list.

Most people think Daylight Saving Time was implemented to help farmers, but don’t blame us, we are way too practical for that. Farmers plan their day around the sun- not the clock. It doesn’t really matter what time it is – if a job needs to get done it gets done, hopefully before the sun goes down.

Changing the clocks was first jokingly suggested by Benjamin Franklin. Impressed by how many of his contemporaries in Paris slept late, he wrote an anonymous article to a Parisian paper suggesting that maybe they should change the clocks so people would wake up with the sun and go to bed early in the evening and save on candle wax.

The first serious lobbying effort for Daylight Saving Time was in 1895 in New Zealand when an amateur entomologist wanted more daylight after work so he could study bugs. (Okay I am as bewildered as my dog on this one). It was eventually implemented during WW1 in several countries as an effort to save fuel and other resources for the war effort. It was disbanded in the United States after the war and reinstituted for WW2 - and kept until now.

Most Americans want the biannual practice to stop. Some would prefer we stick with Standard Time, and some want Daylight Saving Time.  Many health advocates think Standard Time, with more light in the morning, is in line with our circadian rhythm and healthier for us. Daylight Saving Time provides more daylight in the evenings which proponents think encourages people to go out and spend money. (I have to say, it’s never had this effect on either me - or my dog).

Personally, I don’t care a lot one way or the other, but I think the whole notion of saving daylight is a bit of a misnomer. There are only so many hours of light in any given day and if you really want to save time, how about we just keep the clocks exactly as they are - don’t reset them and stop arguing with our dogs.