Yes, we’ll all feel awesome when we get to sleep in guilt-free for an extra hour tomorrow morning … lookin’ forward to it. But I was kind of bummed again this year that it didn’t happen before Halloween…there’s a lot of extra candy to be had in that extra hour of darkness, man!
I thought I’d Google Daylight Savings Time for us and “shed a little light” on it. Tee hee. Get it?
First – Why We Get Less Candy (which is at the top of my list of concerns): The change to daylight savings time that moved it from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November was part of George W. Bush’s Energy Policy Act of 2005. The idea was that if we had even MORE hours of daylight in the summer, we’d turn the lights on for fewer hours and save energy.
So now we move the clocks forward on the 2nd Sunday of March instead of the first Sunday in April — which adds 3-4 more weeks of extra light in the Spring and we move the clocks back on the first Sunday of November instead of the last Sunday of October – which adds 1 additional week in the Fall. Clearly, no one on Capital Hill thought the candy thing through!
Second – When We Started Doing This: At the end of World War I and for years, states were allowed to decide whether or not they wanted to observe DST. It wasn’t until 1973 that an official law was passed.
Third – Who Isn’t Playing: Hawaii, most of Indiana and Arizona don’t observe DST. But why?
- Hawaii apparently doesn’t follow it because they are so close to the equator that they already have longer days and so it’s unnecessary.
- Arizona asked for and received an exemption from the law citing the state’s extreme heat problem, saying that if they were to adopt DST, the sun would stay out until 9pm in the summer and it’s too late for “evening” activities (like drive in movies that were popular back then and putting the kids to bed).
- Indiana‘s farmers griped and moaned that they get up before dawn anyway to work the farms and fields and don’t like pandering “sleepy heads”. True fact!
Oh, the things you learn here on the Social…right?!
