This past weekend, while Saskatchewan obliviously slept as usual, the rest of the Western world, or most of it, lost an hour. Don’t worry, they will find it again in the fall.
With the turning ahead of the clock, Daylight Savings Time turned 100 years old. Its benefits were dubious in 1916 and are even more so in 2016. In fact, it is time for the venerable tradition—yes it is little more than that—to go away for good.
First let’s dispense with the mythology. Contrary to popular belief, springing forward and falling back has nothing to do with farming.
In fact, the opposite is true. Farmers were the only organized lobby against DST in the United States. One need only think about it for a few seconds to understand why this is. Farmers’ schedules were and still are to a great extent based on sunrise and sunset, so it can’t possibly matter whether you call sunrise 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. except when it comes to getting product to market, at which point it actually became a disadvantage to farmers.
So, if not for the farmers, why do we do it? That is about as clear as a window covered in mud.
Originally, it was about war. The Germans instituted DST in 1916 during World War I to save fuel by reducing the use of artificial lighting. The United States followed suit beating the drums of patriotism, but abandoned it after the war.
In the first half of the 20th century, the practice was a mishmash of jurisdictional chaos. Cities, counties, sub-national and national governments adopted it willy nilly and often at inconsistent times of the year. In 1966, the U.S. adopted it nationwide and Canada has synchronized with our southern neighbour mainly for consistency in economic and social interactions. Even so, there are still jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada that dance to the beat of their own drummers.
Such as Saskatchewan, which chose to adopt Central Standard Time year round.
Today, the rationale remains energy conservation, although evidence for its efficacy is scarce to non-existent.
Indiana provides the perfect case in point. In the 1960s, half the state adopted the practice while the other half did not. In 2006, the state standardized providing before and after data that indicates not only were Hoosiers not saving, they were spending more. Although lighting costs were reduced slightly, air conditioning costs negated the savings and then some.
If there ever was good reason for the semi-annual time change, the world in 2016 surely argues for discontinuation of the practice. Today, it seems it does little but inconvenience and irritate people. Even in Saskatchewan, while we don’t have to put up with the disruption and readjustment of sleep patterns, we must still adjust to the changing schedules of our neighbours.
In short, we continue to do it for the same reason humans do all the nonsensical things we do, because we’ve been doing it for so long, it has become a tradition.
Some day the practice will end and Saskatchewan will be vindicated for being right all along.
Except for the fact that we are in the wrong time zone. Geographically, we belong in the Mountain time zone. That somehow doesn’t seem right since the closest thing we have to a mountain is a giant pile of garbage south of Saskatoon. Nevertheless, Mountain time is where we belong.
On June 21, the longest day of the year, the sun will rise in Yorkton at 4:34 a.m. and set at 9:09 p.m. Given how we actually live our lives, that simply does not make sense.
In fact, in 1966, a provincial government study concluded that we are geographically in the Mountain time zone, yet somehow made the decision to adopt Central time instead. Again the reasons are as clear as that mud-covered window.
So, while we wait for the rest of the world to come to its senses and stop the antiquated and ridiculous practice of resetting clocks twice a year, Saskatchewan should, one time only, spring forward.
