Does Daylight Saving Time Really Save Oil?

[Sunstone]

Today would once have been the first day off Daylight Savings Time but Congress recently lengthened the period the country spends on DST. Congress reasoned that DST reduces the consumption of oil. But is there any reason to believe that DST really does reduce oil consumption? Or, is that just a myth?

 

[Smoke]

But is there any reason to believe that DST really does reduce oil consumption?

Daylight Saving Time causes global warming, according to a letter to the editor by Connie M. Meskimen of Hot Springs, Arkansas.

You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ? Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat.
​

One assumes that Connie was kidding. Full text here.

 

[Willamena]

They do it just to mess up astrologers' calculations.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ? Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat.

I do hope that was not intended to be serious.
I do not see how DST can reduce oil consumption, considering a large chunk of the population uses electricity to light their houses.

 

[Nanda]

Really? I always heard that it was to allow farm kids more hours of daylight after school to help during the planting/harvesting season.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

We have had it here, since it seems for ever.. we even had double summertime during the war... to fit in more working hours.

I can not see that it does anything that starting work/ school at a different time would not do equally well.

At my school we played 2 hours sports every day.
in summer it was after lessons at about 3 till 5
In the winter it was after lunch from 1 to 3 followed by two lessons.

Farmers have to milk their cows at the same time what ever the clock says.

It is a load of nonsense I wish it was fixed at some thing all the year round... say split the difference.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Really? I always heard that it was to allow farm kids more hours of daylight after school to help during the planting/harvesting season.

When we push the clock back in the fall, would there not be less sunlight after school?

 

[Nanda]

When we push the clock back in the fall, would there not be less sunlight after school?

But that's at the very end of harvest time.

 

[jeffrey]

Umm... I also heard that they want to curtail the making of blow up dolls, seeing they are made of plastic, an oil byproduct. I heard they thought about using wood instead, like knotty pine, but the thought of lawsuits from splinters and of course the tree huggers raising hell but an end to that thought. Is nothing sacred?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Today would once have been the first day off Daylight Savings Time but Congress recently lengthened the period the country spends on DST. Congress reasoned that DST reduces the consumption of oil. But is there any reason to believe that DST really does reduce oil consumption? Or, is that just a myth?

I think that in the summertime, DST does allow more working hours without artificial light, though the real impact of this depends on having a workplace that has available natural light to begin with.

However, whatever the positive effects of DST generally, I think extending it has much less benefit. By the previous Daylight Savings/Standard fall switchover, around here, it's dark late into the morning. For us, extending DST another week just means having the lights on for an hour in the morning instead of an hour in the evening. There's no real difference. There might be some benefit further south, but up here, the extension is useless.

As Luke Wolf pointed out, though, none of this affects oil consumption. Energy consumption, maybe, but I don't know of any large-scale generators that run on oil or gasoline.

 

[Melissa G]

I hate daylight saving. We should not play with the cloaks, and instead, we should stay in harmony with the Solar day.

Melissa

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I hate daylight saving. We should not play with the cloaks, and instead, we should stay in harmony with the Solar day.

I think playing with the cloaks is acceptable on Hallowe'en or at J.K. Rowling readings.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Farmers have to milk their cows at the same time what ever the clock says.

It is a load of nonsense I wish it was fixed at some thing all the year round... say split the difference.

This is a good point. When Indiana switched to DST, the governor argued it would economically better the state. The problem with this is Indiana's economy revolves around factories and farms. Plants and animals do not perceive the 'extra' hour, and since factories always have all the lights on, that argument is easily debunked.