GreenTeaHarbor1297
Capri
In light of Congress voting on the Sunshine Protection Act and various news articles discussing how sleep scientists are saying that standard time should be made permanent instead of DST, I thought I'd ask this here.
Would you rather have permanent DST, or permanent Standard Time?
As for me, I'm going to wait and see the replies on this thread both one way and the other before I cast my own vote on this thread of mine.
Now, one common argument against the use of permanent DST instead of permanent standard time is that around the Winter Solstice, the sun won't come up until 8am, meaning that you'll have kids going to school in the dark. One common counter-argument to this is to have school start times be later, but the problem is, if you start school later, you'll also have to end school later. Even with permanent DST, you'll still not get that much daylight after hours around the Winter Solstice as the sun would still be going down at 6pm, and with later school start times and subsequently kids getting off school later, these kids would not be getting enough sunlight hours after school for outdoor recreation. Granted though, one thing I would suggest in this case is for the long off-season school break to be in the winter instead of summer, or at the very least winter break extended from 2 to 8 weeks, and summer break shortened from 10 to 4 weeks. This is not only for the daylight issue, but also because roads are generally much more dangerous to travel on in the winter. Plus, there are environmentally friendly methods to keep school buildings cool in the summer without using air conditioning.
Honestly, around the Winter Solstice, I would much rather have sunlight at 5pm than 7am. Granted, this may be because I usually wake up at 8am, but there is a valid point made that sunlight in the evening is far more important than sunlight in the morning.
My biggest gripe with DST is during the summer months, with the sun not going down until 9pm. Personal gripes being this gives me less night sky leisure time for creative pursuits that come more naturally at night than in the day. Even beyond my own personal biases though, the sun going down at 9pm is certainly problematic for parents that have to put their children to bed at this time, especially for parents of kids that are too young to understand the hours of the clock yet and just have in their mind that "bedtime is when it's dark outside", I remember it throwing me off back when I was in first and second grade when my parents would send me to bed at that time.
In a way, I'd rather, if we had to keep changing clocks at all, I'd rather invert DST, where we would "fall forward" and "spring back". I could also suggest for using 30-minutes in between DST and standard year-round so that around the Winter Solstice there would still be twilight as early as 7am and as late as 6pm, and where in the summer it should be mostly dark by 9pm.
Then again though, a lot of this is coming from the perspective of someone living in Colorado. Some users on this forum may live in more northern states like Minnesota or Washington State, where with the current clock-switching system it'll get dark as early as 4pm in the winter and as late as 10pm in the summer, or maybe some users in places such as Scotland or Sweden where you have white nights in the summer and very little sunlight in the winter. Others may live closer to the equator where sunrise and sunset times are more consistent throughout the year.
But anyways, what are your thoughts regarding this topic? Would you rather have permanent DST, or permanent Standard Time?
Would you rather have permanent DST, or permanent Standard Time?
As for me, I'm going to wait and see the replies on this thread both one way and the other before I cast my own vote on this thread of mine.
Now, one common argument against the use of permanent DST instead of permanent standard time is that around the Winter Solstice, the sun won't come up until 8am, meaning that you'll have kids going to school in the dark. One common counter-argument to this is to have school start times be later, but the problem is, if you start school later, you'll also have to end school later. Even with permanent DST, you'll still not get that much daylight after hours around the Winter Solstice as the sun would still be going down at 6pm, and with later school start times and subsequently kids getting off school later, these kids would not be getting enough sunlight hours after school for outdoor recreation. Granted though, one thing I would suggest in this case is for the long off-season school break to be in the winter instead of summer, or at the very least winter break extended from 2 to 8 weeks, and summer break shortened from 10 to 4 weeks. This is not only for the daylight issue, but also because roads are generally much more dangerous to travel on in the winter. Plus, there are environmentally friendly methods to keep school buildings cool in the summer without using air conditioning.
Honestly, around the Winter Solstice, I would much rather have sunlight at 5pm than 7am. Granted, this may be because I usually wake up at 8am, but there is a valid point made that sunlight in the evening is far more important than sunlight in the morning.
My biggest gripe with DST is during the summer months, with the sun not going down until 9pm. Personal gripes being this gives me less night sky leisure time for creative pursuits that come more naturally at night than in the day. Even beyond my own personal biases though, the sun going down at 9pm is certainly problematic for parents that have to put their children to bed at this time, especially for parents of kids that are too young to understand the hours of the clock yet and just have in their mind that "bedtime is when it's dark outside", I remember it throwing me off back when I was in first and second grade when my parents would send me to bed at that time.
In a way, I'd rather, if we had to keep changing clocks at all, I'd rather invert DST, where we would "fall forward" and "spring back". I could also suggest for using 30-minutes in between DST and standard year-round so that around the Winter Solstice there would still be twilight as early as 7am and as late as 6pm, and where in the summer it should be mostly dark by 9pm.
Then again though, a lot of this is coming from the perspective of someone living in Colorado. Some users on this forum may live in more northern states like Minnesota or Washington State, where with the current clock-switching system it'll get dark as early as 4pm in the winter and as late as 10pm in the summer, or maybe some users in places such as Scotland or Sweden where you have white nights in the summer and very little sunlight in the winter. Others may live closer to the equator where sunrise and sunset times are more consistent throughout the year.
But anyways, what are your thoughts regarding this topic? Would you rather have permanent DST, or permanent Standard Time?
