I've always thought the practice of changing our clocks for Daylight Saving Time (DST) was silly. (Actually, I tend to think that time-zones aren't needed either, so I'm a bit of a odd one.) But whenever I complain about the practice, I'm always confronted with the counter-argument that "it's for the farmers." Well, I'm not a farmer, nor is anyone I know, nor can anyone I know explain why a farmer would actually want to change their clocks, so I've always wondered what "the farmers" actually think about it.
The internet could have answered this question for me long ago, but it wasn't until this CNN article, "Congress may extend daylight-saving time", that I decided to look into it more. As it turns out, farmers don't actually like DST. The trouble is: cows and plants tend to ignore what time the clock reads.
For once, the post on slashdot about the news actually had some pretty smart conversation in it. And from that, I found a link to this article, "Daylight Savings Time on national Review Online", which is filled with wonderful quotes like these:
"When the first DST law was making its way through Congress, farmers actually lobbied against it."
"Urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home."
Ahhh...an urban businessmen conspiracy. I like the sound of that!
Of course, The Man presents a different argument, which is based on saving energy. The claim is that if worker bees get home while the sun's still out, they're less likely to turn on the lights in their homes, which conserves energy. The Wikipedia Daylight Savings Time page has this to say about it:
"United States Department of Transportation studies showed that DST reduces the country's electricity usage by one percent during each day DST is in effect."
Well that's good—we'll need that extra electricity to run the air-conditioning an hour earlier.
[update: 2005-04-08] After reading this, someone emailed me this link for more history about DST: http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/index.html. The first few pages are pretty good, but it doesn't give a good reason for changing the clocks in the winter. I'm all for extra sunlight in the evening; I just think we should stay on "summer-time" year round. Of course, after reading more about it, my opinion may be based on me living close to the equator. Apparently people who have dark, cold winter's like to shift the clock to maximize sunshine during lunch; whereas sunlight isn't really a problem for us.