Daylight Saving Time Ends

It's that time of the year again: specifically, the end of Daylight Saving Time. I woke up on Sunday morning and saw one clock reading 7 a.m. and the other 8 a.m. For a couple of minutes I was confused: Did the power go off last night? Am I seeing the time correctly? How come there are two different times? Then I realized that it was the end of Daylight Saving Time for the year, and that to our advantage, and joy, the world had moved backward by an hour. (It is the moving forward that is not so much fun!) Fully awake by now, I asked myself the same questions I always do when going through this ordeal twice a year: “But what’s the point? Does it actually work?” And like probably all of you, I have not gotten answers to these questions that make sense or are very convincing. This time, however, I checked a few articles on the internet to see if I could discover more, but the needle has not moved much. There is a debate as to the effectiveness of daylight saving. The practice does indeed reduce some energy consumption, but the amount of energy saved is small and not enough to make an impact. Because of this, many critics think it is not worth the hassle of going through the change. For others, even though lighting usage is reduced, it is mostly effective only in certain areas of the world, and because demand for heating and cooling have increased, electricity consumption is about the same. So there was nothing new to chew on. However, I did learn a few interesting facts:

• Only 70 countries around the world "save daylight" every year.
• In the United States, Hawaii and most of Arizona do not observe daylight saving.
• States are not required by law to follow it, but even so, all of them besides Hawaii and Arizona do.
• New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut all have bills in the works to get rid of Daylight Saving Time.

All I can say is, let’s enjoy the extra hour while it lasts, as we all need an extra hour of sleep this time of the semester!