Why daylight saving time?

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Daylight saving time, when clocks are set one hour ahead during the summer months, is observed in approximately 70 countries around the world, including some on every populated continent. Originally Benjamin Franklin’s idea, it is a little different wherever it is practiced and has been controversial since its introduction. The clock change has two main purposes: to increase the evening daylight hours for outdoor recreation and to save on energy consumption.

Benjamin Franklin first conceived the idea during an assignment in 1784 as an American delegate to Paris. It was similar to his oft-quoted maxim of him, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Almost jokingly, Franklin suggested that Parisians move their sleep schedules back an hour to save on candles in the evening. However, he didn’t suggest changing the watch.

William Willett of London was the first to propose an actual clock shift to move one hour of light from morning to evening in his 1907 pamphlet, Waste of Daylight. Although his efforts led to a 1909 bill drafted in the British Parliament, his idea was not respected during his lifetime and he died in 1915 before seeing his plan go into effect.

World War I was the catalyst for many countries to adopt daylight saving time, as the potential for energy savings was attractive. Germany and Austria were first, in 1916, followed quickly by Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, Manitoba, the Netherlands, Norway, Nova Scotia, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey and Tasmania. Australia and Newfoundland joined in 1917, and the United States was relatively late, starting the practice in the spring of 1918. It was so unpopular that it was repealed the following year, and although some cities and states retained the practice, it would not return to be national law until the Second World War.

DST has a long history of controversy, with vehement opinions on both sides of the debate. It is notoriously unpopular with farmers, who already face darkness in the morning and whose animals do not readily adapt to the time change. Some people appreciate the increased daylight in the evening, while others are annoyed by darker mornings. However, the change has been shown to have a significant effect on energy savings, and although 70% of Americans get up before 7 a.m., the increased energy use in the morning is more than offset by the savings in the evening.

Even the practice of changing watches has created a lot of confusion over the years, as it is not always applied consistently. Its use was not standardized in the United States between the 1945 and 1966 Uniform Time Act, causing significant problems for transportation, broadcasting, and other industries that relied on a standard national time. Daylight saving time is also not always an hour adjustment; it was variously a 20-minute or two-hour tempo change. In modern Russia, as in Britain during World War II, clocks are one hour ahead of standard time in winter and two hours ahead in summer. Many countries, including the United States, have gone through alternating periods of observing and not observing change.

Since the Uniform Time Act of 1966, DST has been mandated and standardized throughout the United States. States that do not wish to comply must pass a separate state law. States that span two time zones may observe it in one of the state’s time zones and not the other, making the time uniform throughout the state during the summer months. Beginning in 2007, the period in the United States was extended by three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall in order to increase energy savings, as mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

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