“We estimate the four-week daylight savings extension, which lessened the early onset of darkness in the fall and added more daylight in the spring evening hours, decreased annual robberies in the USA, resulting in a social cost savings of at least $59 million per year”.
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New Hampshire is one of the 48 states operating on Daylight Saving Time, which bumps the clocks ahead an hour each spring then back again an hour in the fall. So get ready to change the time.
The idea that Daylight Saving Time was created to help farmers get their harvests in is so ingrained into the national consciousness, it’s hard to believe it’s not true.
Most advocates cite a 2008 report to Congress by the Department of Energy which showed that total electricity savings from the extended daylight-saving period amounted to 1.3 terawatt-hours, or 0.03 per cent of electricity consumption over the year.
Former President Harry S. Truman described it as a “monstrosity in timekeeping”. However, Daylight Saving Time does not make much of an impact on sleep-wake cycles. William Willett suggested another form of DST after breakfast one morning in London in 1905, frustrated that so many people slept through a large portion of the mornings during summer months. If they get their way, Sunday would be the final time Michiganders have to re-set their clocks to accommodate the time change.
KIMT.com reminds everyone that when you change the clock, the batteries in your smoke detectors should also be replaced.
“Moving the hours around twice a year is a complex matter”, Dieno writes on his change.org petition. They are not alone: the USA territories of Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Mariana Island also skip the change.
Seven months later in the USA, time went back to Standard for most of the country.
While there have been debates as to whether the clock-shifting actually saves any energy and arguments are getting more frequent that the biannual changes can cause health problems, there hasn’t been a move to get away from them.
1945-1966 – There is no federal law regarding Daylight Saving Time.
Efforts to kill of Daylight Saving Time are almost as old as the time shift itself, and even today a few are trying to get it repealed.
According to information found at aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/daylight_time.html, the railroads began the idea of standard time in 1883.
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But those in favor of Daylight Savings argue that while the airline industry takes a hit, the practice benefits the economy overall, through savings on powering artificial light.
