Daylight savings is a trick
The US House of Representatives thinks we should be on daylight savings all the time. Let me tell you what this really means:
They want everyone to 8-to-4 rather than 9-to-5.
We say that, in spring, we change our clocks. This is a lie of partial omission. We certainly do something to the clocks. But the important thing we do is get up one hour earlier every single day until fall.
Think about it this way: daylight savings doesn’t change what’s going on with the sun. There is only one moment in the day when the sun is highest. Astronomers call this moment “solar noon.” We designed the world’s time zones so that solar noon is as close to 12pm as possible, in as many places as possible.
Daylight savings doesn’t change the motion of our planet. Solar noon remains when it is. We just call it 1pm rather than 12pm. During standard time, when you get to work at 9am, that’s 3 hours before solar noon. During daylight “savings,” 9am is 4 hours before solar noon. You’re getting to work at 8am standard and eating lunch at 11am standard.
Many people make claims about how daylight savings is better: they say there is “more daylight” after work, that we save energy, that we shop more, or that we are less likely to be victims of crime. Rather than dispute the evidence, I ask instead: are any of those things worth getting up an hour earlier and starting work at 8am rather than 9am?
Our bodies pay attention to the sun and they are not fooled by clocks. Our bodies know we are waking up an hour earlier every day, and, on average, they do not like it.
Imagine if I said: Hey, America! It would be safer and more efficient if we all got up an hour earlier every day. Then we could eat dinner at 6pm, rather than 7pm. We could go out to the club at 8pm, rather than 9pm. We’d be back home at 11pm, rather than midnight. Then we could get up at 7am, and be at work at 8am. Think of how great that would be!
If you want to work 8-to-4, I say, sure! Go ahead! But don’t make the rest of us do it.
This is an edit of a piece I wrote back in November 2022.