Is it spring yet? We’re turning the clocks back Sunday morning and going on Daylight Saving Time — yes, “on,� for those of us who are perpetually confused by the concept. Back when we used to do it on the first weekend in April, we could hope for spring. Not any more.
This marks the third year of an extended Daylight Saving Time, established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for the same reason it was first adopted in 1916: to save energy by not turning on the lights for another hour.
So, we now start a month earlier, and go “off� Daylight time a week later than we had in previous years.
Extensions have happened before, within the lifetime of most Lakeville Journal readers. During the energy crisis in the 1970s, Congress moved up the starting date for two years. In 1974, it was as early as Jan. 6. In 1975, it began on Feb. 23.
This year, at 2 a.m. on March 8, Connecticut residents will turn the clocks ahead one hour. We change them back on Nov. 1.
This is expected to save energy, based on the schedule the majority of Americans keep.
The notion of Daylight Saving Time is said to have been first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in his whimsical 1784 essay, “Turkey versus Eagle, McCauley is my Beagle.�
It took World War I and electric lights to inspire a few years of light saving. It went back into effect in 1942 and lasted until the end of World War II. Some places left it in place after the repeal; others did not. It wasn’t until 1966 that the Uniform Time Act was passed. Still, the act allowed for any state or location to opt out.
Throughout the 20th century, many states opted not to observe it; this year, the only state that will not change its clocks is Arizona. Most countries in the northern hemisphere observe it, but many southern hemisphere nations do not.
Here are some bits of time trivia:
• Say it three times: “Spring ahead, fall back.� That’s the easy part, although we always have to dig it out of our memory and repeat it like a mantra before laying hands on the clocks.
(We won’t get into the wonder of cell phones and computers that are controlled by an unseen satellite and reset by technological magic.)
• It’s “saving,� not “savings.� We are, in theory at least, saving daylight, so saving is a verb. Savings would be a noun and the phrase would not make sense.
• It doesn’t happen uniformly across the country, or the world.
• Many people believe that Daylight Saving Time was created to make the days longer for farmers. Well, maybe they can work longer at the end of the day, but that would only be necessary because they lost an hour in the morning. Mother Nature takes care of lengthening the days. And tractors now have headlights.
In some states, Indiana for one, farmers have rallied against the change, saying it unnecessarily disrupts their schedule and throws off milk production in dairy herds.
Studies have also shown a marked increase in morning accidents the week after the clocks are changed.
Useful or not, some form or another of Daylight Saving Time is observed throughout much of the world. In 1996, the European Union (EU) standardized it and called it European Summer Time (that certainly makes it easier to remember when it’s “on� and when it’s not).
In the southern hemisphere, countries that make the change do so at the beginning of their summer (which is the beginning of our winter).
In places near the equator, where day lengths are nearly the same year round, it is of no use. In Alaska, where sunlight sometimes lasts for 24 hours, there has been talk of abolishing the practice.
Currently, only one country observes Daylight Saving Time year round: Kyrgyzstan has been doing so since 2005, which begs the question, what difference does it make?
Here, there are states in which various counties have taken it upon themselves to do their own deciding on the matter. In places that border time zone lines, it gets even trickier.
Speaking of tricks, what happens to trains, which have to adhere to strict schedules in order to move around safely? The answer is so simple, it sounds made up. In the fall, they stop at 2 a.m., wherever they are, and wait out the extra hour. In the spring, they pick up the pace and try to make up the lost hour as best they can.
In the end, it matters little to many of us, except that we groan about losing an hour of sleep in the spring, and take vindictive satisfaction in enjoying an extra hour in the fall.
