Extra Hour

[Dr. Shane]

Most of us living in America set our clocks forward Sunday morning. That means we will have an extra hour of sunlight in the evening.

What do you plan to do with your extra hour?

This evening I was able to clean up the yard a bit and mow the lawn.

[olger]

Put some roofs on.

olger

[Stan]

I was thinking of sending mine to Aussieland where they lost an hour.

[Norman Byers, N.D.]

I don't know what I want to do with it but I know that I am staying up later than before, well not really but the clock tells me so.

Norman

[Gregory Matthews]

Re: "That means we will have an extra hour of sunlight in the evening."

Come now Shane. The total hours of sunlight is fixed based upon astronomical issues. Yes, it changes during the rotational year. But, it remains fixed by those issues for each day. Changing our clocks does not change the number of hours of sunlight that we experience on that day. It only changes the named hours by which we define that period of sunlight.

<img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/sorry.gif" alt="" /> I just had to say the above. <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/banplease.gif" alt="" />

[Beryl]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

I was thinking of sending mine to Aussieland where they lost an hour.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Well, don't worry about sending it to Western Australia. We are one of the sensible states that believe that nature knows best! We leave the clocks as they are! I believe that those who are worried about being 3 hours behind Sydney (normally 2 hours behind) can get up one hour earlier, and knock off one hour later. Still the same! And that leaves the rest of us to enjoy things as they are!

Beryl

[Dr. Shane]

Daylight savings time adds an hour of sunlight in the evening by subtracting it from the morning. So if one counts the amount of sunlight before noon it will be an hour less and the amount of sunlight after noon will be an hour more. So it does add an hour more of sunlight in the evening but not an hour more of sunlight to the entire day.

I believe it was originally done so that farmers could work an hour later. Thus it starts just before farmers begin planting and ends just after the harvest. However since tractors now have electric lights the farmers really don't need the extra hour of sunlight to continue working.

I belive we continue to set our clocks ahead so as to conserve energy. Homes and stores wait an hour more before turning on their lights and it saves so much energy that governments have considered extending daylight savings time so as to save even more energy.

I like it because it allows me to spend more time outside after work either doing home improvements, yard work or playing with the kids. Of course that means less time at Adventist Forum.

[Amelia]

I'm saving my hour for when I really ,really need it.

[cricket]

Yes!! I'm using my extra hour in the morning--when it is darker longer, it means that the children stay in bed longer. All the more time for me to share with God! As for the extra hour of sunshine in the evening: it means more time to share outside with my kids!

But, since I always burn the candle at both ends anyway, there's really no extra time at all.

[Halfstep Denise]

Some of us in Northern California are thinking of it as one less hour of rain! Has anyone here started building an ark?

Halfstep Denise

[GreatLakesGramma]

Shane, farmers have never needed daylight savings time to get more work done. Thay have always typically gotten up long before daylight to begin their chores. I know of no farmers who have ever appreciated daylight savings time, even before lights on tractors. Dairy farmers especially hate it. (I am a dairy farmer's daughter, by the way.)

[Dr. Shane]

So much for believing old wives' tales.

[:"blue"] The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay, "An Economical Project." Read more about Franklin's essay.

Some of Franklin's friends, inventors of a new kind of oil lamp, were so taken by the scheme that they continued corresponding with Franklin even after he returned to America.

The idea was first advocated seriously by London builder William Willett (1857-1915) in the pamphlet, "Waste of Daylight" (1907), that proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September. As he was taking an early morning a ride through Petts Wood, near Croydon, Willett was struck by the fact that the blinds of nearby houses were closed, even though the sun was fully risen. When questioned as to why he didn't simply get up an hour earlier, Willett replied with typical British humor, "What?" In his pamphlet "The Waste of Daylight" he wrote:

"Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shortage as Autumn approaches; and everyone has given utterance to regret that the clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used."

Today, approximately 70 countries utilize Daylight Saving Time in at least a portion of the country. The only major industrialized country not to have introduced daylight saving is Japan.

While European nations have been taking advantage of the time change for decades, in 1996 the European Union (EU) standardized an EU-wide "summertime period." The EU version of Daylight Saving Time runs from the last Sunday in March through the last Sunday in October. During the summer, Russia's clocks are two hours ahead of standard time. For example, Moscow standard time (UTC+3) is about a half-hour ahead of local mean time (UTC+2:30); this is about the same situation as Detroit, where the standard time (UTC-5) is also about a half-hour ahead of local mean time (UTC-5:32). During the winter, all 11 of the Russian time zones remain an hour ahead of standard time. With their high latitude, the two hours of Daylight Saving Time really help to save daylight. In the Southern Hemisphere where summer comes in December, Daylight Saving Time is observed from October to March. (The clock at above right is viewed from within the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.)

Not the tropics

Equatorial and tropical countries (lower latitudes) generally do not observe Daylight Saving Time. Since the daylight hours are similar during every season, there is no advantage to moving clocks forward during the summer. China has had a single time zone since May 1, 1980, observing summer Daylight Saving Time from 1986 through 1991; they do not observe DST now.[/]

[Kountzer]

Catch up on the lawn work on Monday that I didn't do Sunday.

DB

[Dr. Shane]

Yes, yes, yes. Now I can do my home improvement projects on Sunday and get the lawn during the week.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Daylight Savings Time is highest on my list of "pet peeves." Personally, I feel that we need it more in the winter, when the sun sets around 5 PM, a LOT more than in the summer, when the sun sets hours later already!

[Michelle]

I would agree with GLG about needing the sun in the winter--you mean it actually shines in the winter in Michigan? I could count on one hand the number of times I actually saw the sun in any winter of the 7 I spent in Michigan.

I loved living in Hawaii where the time doesn't change--you just have to remember how many hours different you are from the East coast (same here--we're now 12 hours apart, as opposed to 13).

Speaking of Michigan, though--one of the most odd situations is the Michiana area where the majority of Indiana doesn't change time and Michigan does, and for 1/2 the year they are separated by an hour. Very odd and annoying for people who live in one state and work or go to school in the other. My DH had a girl who came to his school from about 2 hours away in Indiana--after the Michigan time change, she was leaving at 5:00 local time to get to school. Also really annoying if you want to go shopping or out to eat and forget that the stores and restaurants in IN are an hour "behind." Can also lead to some interesting ticketing situations if flying through South Bend.

M

[GreatLakesGramma]

Um, well, yeah, the sun does shine once in a while during the winter here.

Actually, some years we do have a lot of sun. This past winter was sunny more often than gloomy. It's usually the coldest days that are the sunniest, but this year was an exception, being a very mild winter overall.