Four years ago, Congress in its infinite wisdom extended daylight saving time (DST) by a month, with the goal of saving energy. Lots of energy.
The bill’s champion, Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, said it would save consumers a generous $4.4 billion over 15 years.
Of course, Mr. Markey was just repeating what has long been an established truism among policymakers: Setting the clocks forward in the spring saves energy because people don’t have to turn their lights on as much as at night.
Just one problem. While daylight saving time might “save” daylight, it doesn’t appear to save energy. In fact, it very well might do the opposite.
A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that daylight saving time actually ended up increasing energy consumption.
That study looked at Indiana, where until 2006, only 15 of the state’s 92 counties abided by DST. That year, a state law required all Hoosiers to “spring forward,” which let researchers compare the energy consumption of millions of homes before and after the change.
What did they find? Daylight saving added about 1 percent - or $9 million - to Indiana homeowners’ electricity bills, owing mainly to increased heating and cooling bills.
Another study looked at California before and after DST was extended in 2007 and found no statistically significant effect on energy consumption, nor did a study in Australia.
There have likewise been oft-repeated claims that DST saves lives by cutting traffic accidents. After all, we all know that driving in the dark is more dangerous, so it stands to reason that pushing sunset back an hour should cut crashes.
But while some studies found no meaningful overall effect, and some slight benefit, at least a few studies found that traffic accidents climbed as much as 7 percent in the days immediately after switching to DST - because drivers are more tired from losing the hour of sleep. And these studies found that accidents didn’t go down nearly as much after the clocks fall back.
More here
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
2 comments:
What started as a noble cause during the FDR administration has strapped us with annoyance and extra expense for almost 80 years.
I'm sure that there's some bureaucratic office and a bunch of federal jobs attached to making it happen each year, and it's an office that needs to be shut down asap.
When I was reading this article my thought was this: "I am going to write a comment and ask how this can be blamed on the dirty, anti-freedom Liberals,"
Thank you, 9:55, for not letting me down.
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