Saving Daylight; Loosing Sleep all for Changes in Seasons

The reason we have Daylight Savings time is to better use the daylight; we take a complete hour of the daylight from the sunrise and move it to the sundown time and to centralize the time zones.

The equator is a defining line of night and day, people who live on or near this line that separates the earth have almost exactly 12 hours of both day and night. People who live closer to either the Sout h or North Poles have longer periods of summer daylight. The exception to this would be Alaska which experiences six months of daylight and six months of darkness. The tropics do not typically change their clocks because the daylight savings has no effect on their summer weather.

A small, but significant amount of energy is saved by switching to Daylight Savings Time, even though most people do not like the idea of loosing an hour of their sleep. The amount of conserved energy equals to approximately one percent each and every day since less electrical energy is generated for appliances and lighting each day during the summer months.

Other small benefits from increasing the daylight hours include decreasing the number of automobile accidents and more daylight in the evening hours encourages people to go out and shop more so there is an economic impact as well. Some say that the additional sunlight that provides Vitamin D – something that many American’s are lacking due to their prolong indoor workload – is a good thing while others in the medical community say that prolonged exposure to the sun could be harmful and cause skin cancer.

Daylight Savings Time disrupts sleep patterns, especially for those who work nights, the very young and the elderly; but it also encourages more physical activities for every age group by providing additional light at the end of the day for outdoor sports activities such as soccer, biking, hiking and walking and then in the hot summer months, swimming.

For farmers, it doesn’t matter what time the physical clock says, the crops can not tell time.

There are three states that do not participate in the Daylight Savings Time ‘ritual’ and some of the American territories including Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. In addition, Indiana with most of the Eastern Time Zone section of the state and the entire state of Arizona. There are many countries around the world that also do not believe there are benefits to the Daylight Savings Time and therefore do not move their clocks forwards or backwards.