Why Do Some Countries Have Daylight Savings?

If you are one of the 70+ countries in the world  who change their clocks twice a year, you may have   asked – or been asked – “Why?” This question is  usually met with vague answers like “I think it’s   for the farmers?” But why do we voluntarily give  ourselves jet lag twice a year? And when did we   start doing it? In this video, we’ll explore how  the practice came about, which countries adopted   this method, and if it is still necessary today. There is an enduring legend that when a Native   American was told the reason for daylight savings  time, he remarked, “Only a White man would believe   you could cut the foot off the top of the blanket,  sew it onto the bottom of the blanket, and you’d   be left with more blanket.” The quote is popular  amongst those who are irked by the bi-annual clock   changing; after all, it doesn’t account for the  fact there are more hours of daylight in the   summer than in the winter. So, why change the  time if we can’t put more hours into the day?  Well, it wasn’t always the case that time  was a set notion, and in ancient Rome,   they did, in fact, make the days longer in the  summer. Just as we do, the Romans divided each   day into twenty-four units, but instead of  being equal, the Roman twenty-four-hour day   was made up of twelve hours of dark and twelve  hours of light. As they divided the hours of   sunlight into twelve all year round, a Roman  hour during daylight would last seventy-five   minutes during mid-summer and just forty-five  minutes in mid-winter. The changing length in   hours was gradual and would even out during the  equinox when the day and night were roughly the   same length. In this way, the Romans maximized  the working day during the summer and took   advantage of the extra downtime in the winter. American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin   first planted the seed for modern daylight savings  time. While living in Paris during the summer in   the late 18th century, he noticed how he would  often stay in bed after sunrise, and in 1784,   he mused about how many candles people could save  by waking up and getting their tasks done earlier   to make total use of the extended days. However,  at that time, it had little to do with clocks,   as people were used to resetting their watches  to “local time.” Clock synchronization did not   happen until the 1830s with the introduction  of the electric telegraph. Franklin’s solution   was to fire cannons in each square as  the sun rose “to wake up the sluggards   effectually and make them open their eyes  to see their true interest.” So, for those   night owls that dread the clocks “springing  forward,” it could have been a lot worse!  Nearly one hundred years later, in 1895, an  amateur New Zealand entomologist and professional   postman, George Hudson, lamented his lack of time  during the day to dedicate to hunting bugs. He   proposed that the clocks should be changed by two  hours in the summertime to allow more daylight for   leisure time in the evening. He also argued that  this would save on the use of artificial light   and greatly benefit “the numerous classes who  are obliged to work indoors all day, and who,   under existing arrangements, get a minimum of  fresh air and sunshine.” Although some agreed with   his suggestion, it was mostly met with ridicule. In 1862, the Prince of Wales and future   King Edward VII purchased the Sandringham  Estate in Norfolk as a retreat from London,   as he wanted a place he could enjoy his hobby  of hunting. One of his main leisure pursuits was   shooting. To make the most of the winter daylight,  he invented Sandringham Time, instructing that the   clocks on his Sandringham Estate should be set  to half an hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.  The man who would finally realize the dream of  forcing people to get up earlier in the summer   lived in Chislehurst in southeast London. He was a  builder named William Willett, and he loved to get   up at the crack of dawn during the summer to go  horse riding. One particularly glorious morning in   1905, Willett noticed that many people were still  snoozing in bed with their curtains drawn to keep   out the sunlight. Willett decided it would be much  better for them to be up and about as he was and   decided that someone should do something about it. And so, he did. By 1907, Willett had   self-published a pamphlet entitled “The Waste of  Daylight,” in which he proposed that the clocks   should be moved forward by twenty-minute  increments every week in April and then   reversed in the same way in September. He cited  more time for recreational activities as well as   lowering the cost of lighting as reasons for the  change. Other early birds came flocking to support   the idea, including politicians David Lloyd George  and Winston Churchill, President of the Board of   Trade at that time. Churchill gave an impassioned  speech supporting daylight savings, declaring,   “An extra yawn one morning in the springtime, an  extra snooze one night in the autumn is all that   we ask in return for dazzling gifts. We borrow  an hour one night in April; we pay it back with   golden interest five months later.” Arthur Conan  Doyle also supported the proposal, but although he   agreed with the principle, Doyle disliked the idea  of a gradual change, stating, “A single alteration   of an hour would be a round number, and cause less  confusion.” Although a bill to implement the time   change was debated in parliament, its opponents  included British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith,   and it received strong opposition from the  farmers, who followed the sun and not the clock   and argued that a clock change would put them out  of sync with the non-farming world. The bill was   narrowly defeated in 1909. Willett continued  to advocate for a summertime change until his   death in 1915, just one year before daylight  savings was finally implemented in the UK.  On April 30, 1916, Germany became the first  country to implement daylight savings time. It was   well into the First World War, and Kaiser Wilhelm  II hoped that by moving the clocks forward, the   Germans could save much-needed coal by reducing  the need for artificial lighting. By May 17, the   United Kingdom had decided to follow suit, and on  Sunday, May 21, the British changed their clocks   for the first time. It wasn’t long before France,  Italy, Russia, and Australia wound their clocks   forward. After America joined the war in 1918,  they also adopted DST. Although America also cited   fuel saving as the reason for the change, the US  Chamber of Commerce was the major backer of the   policy, causing some to argue that the change in  time was to encourage Americans finishing work to   make the most of the evenings by indulging in some  retail therapy. Recreational activities and sports   certainly gained a boost from the change, with  golf ball sales skyrocketing and baseball games   enjoying a later start time due to the lighter  evenings. However, the movie industry hated the   new time change, as people were less likely to  want to sit in a dark theater when it was light   outside. Farmers get a lot of flack about why we  have daylight savings, but American farmers – like   the British ones – felt it was detrimental to them  as they had less time in the morning to collect   milk and harvest crops ready to go to market. After the war, Germany ceased to use DST, but   countries such as the United Kingdom and Ireland  continued to change their clocks. Some countries   were divided as to whether or not to keep DST.  In France, the rural population didn’t like it   and abandoned it by 1920, whereas the major cities  still benefited from the system and continued to   use it. In 1923, the French Cabinet decreed they  would end the clock changes, but that working   hours would start and stop thirty minutes earlier  from the end of April to the start of November.   The Parisians, however, refused to give up DST and  continued the seasonal time change. New York City   held onto the lighter summer evenings in America,  but the surrounding rural areas did not. The   chaotic time differences were exacerbated as each  municipality chose if and when the clocks changed,   causing confusion due to oscillating time  changes. According to records, drivers on   the bus route traveling from Steubenville, Ohio,  to Moundsville, West Virginia, had to change the   clock no less than seven times in forty miles! Daylight savings once again spread throughout   Europe with the outbreak of World War II. As the  Nazis began invading and occupying countries such   as Poland and Denmark, changing the clocks was  one of their enforced rules. In the Netherlands,   they moved the local time forward by one hour and  forty minutes, bringing it in line with Central   European Summer Time. However, the Dutch didn’t  change the clocks back in the fall and remained   on DST year-round until 1942. After 1942, the  Dutch adopted the twice-yearly clock change   but only for three years before abolishing it. In  Britain, where they had continued to practice DST,   they doubled down, changing the clocks to  one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time in   the winter and two hours ahead in the summer  to try and increase productivity. In America,   Franklin Roosevelt enacted a year-round  DST after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  After the war, many countries kept DST  in an effort to conserve fuel needed to   rebuild their nations. Still, later, a host of  European countries, including France and Italy,   repealed the measures as they were  an uncomfortable reminder of the war.  In America, ongoing confusion led to Lyndon B.  Johnson signing the 1966 Uniform Time Act – the   first peacetime DST law in the US. It stated that  states could adopt DST or opt out, but should they   choose to use the system, it would be observed  for six months of the year before returning to   standard time for six months. Between 1968 and  1971, Britain tried sticking to DST all year   round, but having an extra hour of darkness in the  mornings during winter proved deeply unpopular.  During the 1970s, another global crisis  led to the majority of European countries   reintroducing DST. In 1973, Richard Nixon tried  to call for year-round daylight savings time,   but it was as disliked as it was in the UK.  As energy prices shot up worldwide due to the   oil crisis, Europe was again changing  its clocks by the end of the 1970s.  In 1986, the US extended their DST months to  seven, but it was no longer about saving money   but making money. The golf industry and  manufacturers of barbeque equipment claim   that the extra month was worth between $200  million and $400 million in sales. In 1996,   the European Union standardized the DST schedule.  It made it what it is today, with all countries   in the European Economic Area, including  Switzerland but with the exception of Iceland,   changing their clocks at 01:00 UTC on the last  Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October.   In 2005, the US extended its summer season again,  observing eight months of Daylight Savings Time.  Since its conception, the peacetime use of DST  has been questioned, as the pros don’t seem to   outweigh the cons. In general, lighter evenings  in the summer seem to help retail, sports, and   tourism but harm agricultural and mail delivery  workers. Claims that DST reduces energy usage,   traffic accidents, and outdoor crimes have  never been completely proven. In America,   some studies have shown that energy costs rise due  to DST due to increased air-conditioning use. Not   only are there not many quantifiable bonuses of  DST, but a Finnish medical study also suggested   that changing the clocks disrupts the body’s  circadian rhythms, which may lead to strokes.  In 2019, the European Parliament voted in  favor of removing DST from the EU, with each   member state having to decide whether to remain on  “summer” or “winter” time permanently. Obviously,   the events of 2020 put that decision on the back  burner, and plans have not yet been set in motion.  The future of daylight savings time remains  uncertain, and only about a third of the world’s   countries still use DST. It is most common in  Europe, but it is also practiced in North America,   South America, Australia, New Zealand,  Egypt, and parts of the Middle East. So,   what do you think? Is daylight savings worth  observing? 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