Why Do We Use Daylight Saving Time? In 1895, a postal clerk and - TopicsExpress



          

Why Do We Use Daylight Saving Time? In 1895, a postal clerk and entomology hobbyist in New Zealand named George Vernon Hudson became the first to propose a daylight saving time schedule so he could have more time after his shift to catch insects. Independently, a Londoner named William Willet proposed a daylight saving time schedule in 1905 so that he would have more time to play golf during the summer. While both of the proposals gained quite a bit of attention, neither led to the adoption of a daylight saving time practice. The first daylight saving time practice was adopted in 1916 by Germany and their allies during World War I as a means to save coal for the war effort. Much of the rest of Europe quickly followed suit. Russia implemented daylight saving time in 1917, after the abdication of Czar Nicholas II. And the United States adopted daylight savings in 1918 after becoming heavily involved in the war effort. World War II brought the return of the daylight saving time practice to most of Europe and North America. Great Britain even advanced their standard time one hour and daylight saving time two hours during the war effort. In the United States, following the war, the practice of daylight saving time was left up to state and local governments. Which quickly led to chaos as neighboring communities often had different daylight saving time start and end dates, while other communities chose not to observe daylight saving time at all. The mass confusion led to the Uniform Time Act of 1966. The act standardized the daylight saving time practice, but allowed for states and local governments to petition for exemption. Following the rolling blackouts of the early 2000s, the U.S. Congress passed t he Energy Policy Act of 2005 extending daylight saving time one month. A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2008 found that the daylight saving time extension saved about 1.3 Tera Watt-hour (TWh), or roughly 0.03 percent of the electricity consumed over the year. Where Is Daylight Saving Time Used? The practice of daylight saving time is used in about 70 countries worldwide. Most of the countries implementing a daylight saving time program are located a good distance from the equator. Daylight saving time is not observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and most of Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation). In much of Europe, daylight saving time begins the last Sunday in March and continues until the last Sunday in October. Russia abolished the biannual daylight saving time change in 2011. However, the practice was stopped when the clocks were in summer time--meaning many regular commuters travel to and from work in the dark. There are now renewed cries to reinstate the daylight saving time practice.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:52:52 +0000

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