Friday, March 7, 2008

Daylight Savings doesn't really save

I've always hated Daylight Savings time. I'm not big on change and I love when I have a regular steady schedule, so it's just not fun to change the time on the clock twice a year, just because someone somewhere thinks that it makes people use less energy. My dislike of change is not unusual amoung the autistic community.

Today, what is at the top of the news on Yahoo!? Why it's a story about how Daylight Savings doesn't save on energy costs. In fact not only does it not save, but more energy is used during Daylight Savings, then when the same area Standard Time during the summer. In Indiana, where they just recently started changing to Daylight Savings time, politicians had promised that changing would save consumers a total of about $7 million a year in energy costs. A recent study showed that the truth is more like spending an additional $8.6 million per year. Now admittedly that does average about $3.19 a year for each house, but think of the principle here. We've been told for decades that Daylight Savings was to SAVE money on energy.

This kind of news really is upsetting. I mean I could handle that I get messed up twice a year and go through tons of stress and many nights shorts lots and lots of sleep if it was for something good. But now I learn that not only is it not useful in any way, but they knew that it might not be working as advertised as far back as 1976. For some reason this is not surprising at all.