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Farmers shrug off daylight savings: See no difference, neither do their cows
Abolish Daylight Savings Time in the USA

 

 

Time stops: Russia abolishes daylight saving time practice
Published: 08 February, 2011

President Medvedev has announced that Russia will not come off daylight saving time starting autumn 2011. Medvedev argued that switching clocks twice a year is harmful for people’s health and triggers stress.

­The move means that Moscow and St. Petersburg will stay at GMT+4 hours year-round, instead of reverting to GMT+3 for the winter period. Mid-winter sunrise in Moscow will therefore occur at around 10am, with an even later daybreak for the northern capital.

"Every fall and every spring we are swearing at this system,” Medvedev said. “Our biorhythms are damaged. We are all angry. We either oversleep and turn up late for work or wake up too early and don’t know what to do with this free time. Let alone poor cows and other animals that can’t understand why they should have their meals or be milked earlier or later.”

The daylight saving system has long been subject to discussion. Medvedev first suggested considering its abolition back in November 2009, which was followed by massive studies of the subject.

The report published by Russian Academy of Medical Sciences revealed that when the clocks are changed, the number of heart attacks increases by 1.5 times, the rate of suicides grows by 66 per cent, and many more people call the ambulance service.

The rest of the article can be found at http://rt.com/news/daylight-saving-time-abolished/

 

 

PRESS RELEASE
From: Steven A. Gustafson
421 W. Main St.,
New Albany IN 47150
(812) 945-9600
Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2000
Re: Daylight Saving Time Complaint
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Steven A. Gustafson has filed a petition for mandamus, declaratory judgment, and injunctive relief in United States District Court. The purpose of this complaint is to challenge the observation of Daylight Saving Time in Southern Indiana as illegal, and compel the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation to enforce the law. Daylight Saving Time, as is well known, is a federal statute requiring people to set their clocks one hour ahead between the first Saturday in April and the last Saturday in October. Under Federal law, any state may by law elect to exempt either the whole state, or all of the area within that state that lies within any one time zone, from Daylight Saving Time. Indiana has exempted all of the area within Indiana that is in the Eastern Time Zone from Daylight Saving Time. Notwithstanding these laws and Indiana’s exemption, there have been areas in Indiana, usually those counties close to Cincinnati, OH, and Louisville, KY, that have observed Daylight Saving Time. It is unclear what, if any, legal warrant exists for this observance. Ohio and Kentucky have refused to exempt their citizens from the operation of Daylight Saving Time. The time change extends to the hours of both State and Federal courthouses in these counties, which operate on Daylight Saving Time during spring, summer, and fall, and puts them out of step with the rest of Indiana in the counties that observe Daylight Saving Time.

The petition challenges this unofficial observation of Daylight Saving Time in these counties as illegal. It moreover alleges that the Secretary of Transportation is required to enforce the law, and has not done so; and requests the court to require the Secretary of Transportation to formulate a plan to enforce the time law as written in Southern Indiana.

A copy of the Complaint that has been filed, and a legal brief which will be filed, that sets forth the Plaintiff’s legal position, is submitted together with this press release. Claims made in a legal pleading give only one party's version of the facts and law.

Steven A. Gustafson, attorney at law
Fox & Cotner: PHONE (812) 945 9600 FAX (812) 945 9615
http://www.foxcotner.com
Just say NO to UCITA.
Gustafson v. Secretary, USDOT.doc
Gustafson - Memorandum for Motion for Summary Judgment.doc

From: "Steve Gustafson"
Subject: Update on anti-daylight saving time lawsuit.
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001
I just wanted to give you an update on the anti-Daylight Saving Time in So. Indiana lawsuit.

The lawsuit was dismissed late last year by the U.S. District Court. The court ruled that I didn't have standing to challenge the local and illegal observance of DST in Southern Indiana, and by the language of the opinion, I cannot imagine anyone ever qualifying.
Steven A. Gustafson, attorney at law

From the Everett Herald:

To end daylight saving time

Ready, set

At 2 a.m. Oct. 25, [1998] clocks fall back one hour as daylight saving time ends. There’s a group, called standardtime.com, that doesn’t appreciate having their sleep and schedules disrupted twice a year by the program. According to its Web site at www.standardtime.com, though some people appreciate the extra hour of sleep in the morning, many more will find themselves plunged suddenly into darkness as they come home from work or after school events, unable to stay awake in the evening or in the wrong place at the wrong time because they forgot to reset clocks. A grass-roots campaign against the time change includes a petition drive.

Whether daylight-saving time will ever be reformed remains to be seen. In the meantime, don’t forget to set your clock back one hour on Sunday, October 25, at 2 a.m.

Dear Sheila:

Saw your site. Nice. But the real reason to stop clock resetting is because it serves no social good whatever. Not even those who support it are benefitted by it! Based on a delusion, society has chosen to penalize itself for no gain - to anybody; to office workers as well as to farmers. That is because the noble ecological premise on which the practice is based - to save energy use - is not effected by clock resetting. The environment is not beneffited. Clock resetting results in a net social loss - not in a social gain. Apparently the whole civilized world has conspired to participate in a monumental imbecility. The piece which follows explains. An earlier version was published in several newspapers around the country. You are free to incorporate it on your web page if you like. I am an Emeritus Professor of Physics at UCLA.

Marvin Chester

THE BIANNUAL CLOCK RESET RITUAL
by
Marvin Chester

The aborigines of Frago-Mungo Land beat the ground with a bird feather for three days each year in early spring. They are celebrating a tradition. They believe that berries appear on bushes only if the earth is tickled.

Nobody checked the facts so they go on doing it. Americans have an earth tickling ceremony. It's the biannual clock resetting for Daylight Saving Time. Like feather dusting the earth, it doesn't do much harm and it doesn't do much good. It's just a silly practice.

The Daylight Saving Time idea started in war-time. It was a conservation measure; a response to dwindling national resources. Factories and offices could reduce electric lighting needs if daylight hours fit working hours better. This fit is accomplished instantly and easily by resetting the clock. Here is the idea.

The traditional working day runs from 9 am to 5 pm. It begins four hours before 1 pm. It ends four hours after 1 pm.

The business day centers around 1 pm. But the hours of daylight center around 12 noon. By ancient tradition noon means mid-day. It divides daylight. For the ancients artificial light was scarce. Their noon divided both the business of the day and the light of day.

We moderns work into the night and sleep late in the morning. So the middle of the business day has slipped back. It now comes an hour after the middle of daylight. Our business mid-day comes at 1 pm. The middle of daylight is at 12.

Many felt conscience bound to rectify this iniquity. If the business day centers on the sunshine day we get greater use of the light of day. We'll need less and so use less artificial lighting, argued many a senator. It may well be worthwhile to center the business day so as to maximize the benefit of daylight.

The clock then should be kept set for this benefit. It should be fixed on Daylight Saving Time. Why ever shift the clock back to the off-center business day? Why go back to light-wasting Standard Time during part of the year?

The answer for some is a matter of life style. They find it unappealing to have darkness in the morning. Standard lime makes winter mornings lighter at the normal clock waking hour. "It pushes darkness into nightime where it belongs.", say some among us. And, indeed, there are more dark Standard-hours at day's end. There are less dark ones at day's start.

The Standard Time off-center business day originally evolved to permit sleeping late. Daylight Saving Time eliminates this achievement. More important: people respect tradition. Many of us have humility before nature's complexity. We are loathe to tamper with nature's division of daylight merely to suit the changing fashion in business hours.

Reasoned one senator, "They won't like the government tampering with the clock. Time is sacred." So he suggested a compromise. "We'll adjust the clock, but only during part of the year." The senator cemented patriotism to tradition in the normal political manner. For patriotism we have half a year of Daylight Saving Time; for tradition we have half in Standard Time.

But our clock resetting dates are at the wrong time of year. There are only two short intervals during the year when Daylight Saving Time actually does save daylight relative to Standard Time. And for one of these we use the wrong clock setting!

There is no saving in mid-summer. In summer tne daylight hours far exceed the business day - adjusted or not. Sunrise comes before the business day begins. The sun sets after the business day ends. No daylight is saved because, with either clock setting, business hours are daylight ones; no artificial light is needed.

In mid-winter also Daylight Saving Time has no daylight saving advantage over Standard Time. The hour difference between the two determines merely which hours will require electricity - not their number. For example, four of the eight normal business working hours may require electric lighting in mid-winter. On Standard Time these four are different from the four arising under Daylight Saving Time. But since, in either case, there are four dark hours neither setting has a savings advantage.

Only during two short periods of the year does Daylight Saving Time actually reduce workplace energy consumption. These occur between the seasons of summer and winter. Daylight Saving Time does reduce business day electric lighting needs in very late fall, around October, and in very early spring - in February and March.

Remarkably, in February and March the nation is on Standard Time, not Daylight Saving Time. Thus in one of the two short periods during the year when Daylight Saving Time is efficacious we don't even use it! The last Sundays in April and October are improperly chosen. These dates do not fully secure for us the daylight saving advantage of Daylight Saving Time!

Can a ritual be less rewarding? Few participants take pleasure in it. It is a joyless exercise for most. It is a painful one for many. It's a burden to people who schedule travel and transportation. It's a nuisance for farmers, agricultural workers, animal care givers and child care givers. Innocent living things cannot be made to change their habits by man's clock resets. It consumes a forest of trees in the paperwork resulting from lateness on a clock reset Monday. And few office buildings and factories even use daylight for their lighting! In commerce electricity is used regardless of sunshine.

We live in a world far different from that of earlier in the century when Daylight Saving might have made some sense. Today it does not accomplish the small good for which it was introduced. It does not even fully save daylight.

Considering our own ritual of the biannual clock reset who would dare smirk at those in Frago-Mungo Land beating the ground with a feather. At least the Frago-Mungians enjoy themselves doing it. They celebrate their delusion. We merely suffer ours.

Sheila:

I run two mainframe computer systems in Atlanta, GA and we are required to IPL the the systems twice a year to correct the system clock for DST time changes. (An IPL in simple terms is like rebooting a PC, but is a much more complex task taking up to 1 hour to complete) While the spring time change is performed without too much fuss, the fall change present an unique problem.

In the fall, when the time goes back one hour, there is the risk that time stamps will overlap. In time critical applications, problems can occur because the system will not know which event took place first. We are forced to shut own the two mainframe systems and leave the them down for 1 hour in order to ensure that the time stamps don't overlap. This represents a large loss to my company in the form of a three or more hours of lost computing time each year. (Two hours for the IPL's and one hour for downtime in the fall)

Despite the dramatic decline in the cost of computing in the past 10+ years, mainframe computing is still a relatively expensive process. My company is not alone in facing this problem. Ending Daylight Saving Time would eliminate 2 annual headaches in the Information Processing business.

Thanks,
Don Outlaw