Is it the weather, sunshine blasting, highly caffeinated spring thang? Partly. It's the idea that those long days return starting tomorrow. Daylight Saving Time arrives mercifully tonight.
This is the third year we'll turn clocks ahead a month earlier than in the past, thanks to The Energy Policy Act of 2005. (Hawaii and most of Arizona are the only states that don't observe DST.) What's not to enjoy with the sun setting later and later. I can hide the knives! You know the feeling fellow winter doldrum haters...dark by 5pm the veil that creeps over your brain like fog because the sun doesn't shine long enough to burn it off?? Lucky you respite is on the way hooray! Throughout the centuries poets have described a sense of sadness, loss and lethargy which can accompany the shortening days of fall and winter. Many cultures and religions have winter festivals associated with candles or fire.
Benjamin Franklin first suggested Daylight Saving Time in 1784, but it was not until World War I, in 1916, when it was adopted by several counties in Europe after they initially rejected the idea. Historically, it’s all about decreasing the time from sunset to when people retire for the evening, therefore reducing household energy consumption. According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, energy savings projected through 2020 adds up to $4.4 billion with 10.8 million less metric tons of carbon driven into the air.
But what about our body’s energy? In our sleep-deprived society where every second counts, sleeping one hour less may be more problematic than we realize. From an insomniac standpoint it simply means I read more.
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1 comment:
I have always liked this story:
When told the reason for Daylight Saving time, an old Indian said, "Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket."
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