It's just dumb: I’m not going to try to pretend that I’m not biased on this subject, so let’s just put it out there. Daylight saving time is stupid, especially in a modern world that operates 24/7. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.
The European Union has decided that it doesn’t think seasonal time changes make sense either. Reuters reports that the European Commission issued a draft directive proposing to abolish seasonal clock changes.
If approved by the European Parliament, the last required EU clock change would occur on Sunday, March 31, 2019. After that time each member state of the EU would have the choice of whether to remain on “Summer Time” (as it is called over there) or they can switch back to Winter Time on Sunday, October 27, 2019. After that, no further clock changes will be recognized.
“Either we will stay with summer time or those countries that decide to go to winter time, they will switch to winter time in October (2019) and that will be it,” said Commissioner Violeta Bulc in a press conference.
The proposal comes on the heels of an EU survey asking citizens if they were for seasonal time changes. The citizenry responded with a resounding “nay.” Eighty-four percent of the record 4.6 million respondents said that they opposed the bi-annual time change.
"We are clearly heading toward smart cities, smart buildings and smart solutions which will bring much more savings than changes of the clock."
The concept was first proposed clear back in 1895 and was first implemented on a national basis in 1916 by Germany and Austria-Hungary. Other European nations soon followed, and the US partially adopted the standard in 1918, and then more fully implemented it during the 1970’s oil crisis to “conserve” energy.
The thought was to use more light during the day to cut back on electricity usage. During the early days, it was found to only conserve about one percent of energy consumption. More recent studies between regions that observe DST and areas that stay on standard time show no observable energy savings at all.
Indeed, it is the Commission’s opinion that daylight saving time has outlived its usefulness.
“Newer studies confirm that the energy savings are nowadays marginal,” said Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic. “We are clearly heading toward smart cities, smart buildings and smart solutions which will bring much more savings than changes of the clock.”
Now if the United States would just follow the EU’s lead, maybe we could all stop worrying about a 100-year-old rule requiring us to change our clocks twice a year. What do you think?
https://www.techspot.com/news/76506-eu-proposes-scrapping-daylight-saving-time-across-europe.html
