Items are grouped loosely according to themes, and then chronological
order. The
links here refer either to daylight saving research or to more extended,
reflective perspectives on the anti-daylight saving case. For more immediate
news articles on the subject, go to Light of Day
News.
A
rare example of a published article stating the DLS opposition viewpoint
(the scarcity of which is by no means an accident!). Full of sound scientific
arguments and social obvervations concerning the misguided push to introduce
daylight saving to Queensland. The article originally appeared at the
political website Online
Opinion, where it includes comments from readers. 'Daylight
saving energy?', Andrew Bartlett, 16 January 2007
Website article
by Andrew Bartlett, Australian Senator and Brisbane resident, who mainly
argues against daylight saving for Queensland, and in favour of more research
on the viability of the energy saving argument.
Another well-argued
Brisbane-based blog that comes out against daylight saving. Good article
- and also interesting to view the blog comments at the end, which are
almost entirely split along temperate/tropical lines.
A
lively dissection of the main arguments put forward by Queensland's pro
daylight saving business lobby each year in the media.
To
put the above article in perspective, anyone who is interested in the
reality of Queensland's business and economic health - as opposed to the
'financial backwater' and 'commercial hardship' mythology heavily promoted
by the Brisbane-Gold Coast pro-daylight saving lobby - could take a look
at this article at the Australian
Bureau of Statistics. In all categories of economic criteria, Australia's
two standard time states - Queensland and Western Australia - rank either
at the top or above the national average.
This
Interlogue essay provides an update on the WA daylight saving situation
after passage of the above Bill through both houses of parliament in October
2006. The subsequent introduction of the 3-year trial as of 6 December
2006 has resulted in a considerable community backlash.
(See also Light
of Day News.
Very well-argued
essay about the Bill before the WA parliament to introduce a 3-year daylight
saving trial, written before it was passed into legislation. The essay
provides several much needed anti-daylight saving arguments that the WA
media won't touch - including the UV/skin cancer issue, where the health
implications are almost as critical as they are for Queensland.
Research
paper from the California Energy Commission, which concludes that
the recently implemented US (2007) daylight savings extension is likely
to merely shift electricity use to off-peak hours rather than create a
significant drop in power usage. Electricity use could decline 0.5 percent,
'but the savings could just as well be zero.’ 2.
[Highly recomended]
Does Extending Daylight Saving Save Energy? Evidence from an Australian
Experiment, Centre for the Study of Energy Markets (CSEM), University
of California, January 2007
This study from the University of California, based on data from the early
(winter) shift to daylight saving in Victoria, Australia prior to the
2000 Sydney Olympics, actually reports a negative energy
saving. The report concluded that reduced
energy use in the evening hours was entirely negated by the new morning
spike in power consumption as Victorian households turned on their lights
and heaters while getting ready for work.’
Voltscommissar
- Electricity Industry Watchdog, Website
of Victorian energy expert, Michael Gunter, who recommends the abolition
of daylight saving as a way of reducing the demand on baseload energy
consumption, which is far more polluting than peak-energy generation.
US
biologist David Glass adds fuel to the case against daylight saving, indicating
its negative effects on our body clocks and corresponding flow-on to increases
in traffic accidents.
Glass
refers to a study he made of actuarial tables from the insurance industry:
'If
you look at accident rates, one of the highest days for an increase in
accidents on the highways or in the workplace or whatever occurs on Monday
after the Sunday [daylight saving] phase advance.'
'Annual
Return to Daylight Saving Time', National Sleep Foundation, 30
March 2005
Article
by the (US) National Sleep Foundation, implicating daylight saving as
one of the causes of the nation's chronic sleep deprivation: 'Millions
of lives in this country are affected by the return to Daylight Saving
Time each spring, and for many this means, "losing" an hour
of sleep.'
This article presents the findings of a Canadian team of economists who
examined market returns 1967 to 1997 across four countries - Canada, the
US, the UK and Germany. They found an average larger negative return than
the mean regular weekend for every index they looked at - in fact, the
negative difference was 2 to 5 times greater than the average fluctuations
on normal weekends. Translated into monetary terms, and in the US context
alone, the 'daylight saving effect' implies a one-day average loss of
$31 billion dollars.
The researchers
linked their study with what is known as 'sleep desynchronosis' associated
with the change in the circadian rhythm and its impact on sleep patterns
associated with the twice-a-year clock change.
A rebuttal
to the Kamstra study was published in: 'Losing Sleep at the Market:
Comment,' Michael J. Pinegar, American Economic Review, September
2002. Pinegar's
article (but not the Kamstra article above) was published in Australia,
in Economic
Papers (Economic Society of Australia), with an introduction
by Andrew C.Worthington, December 2003.
Not only
does Coren refute one of daylight saving's core arguments (that it reduces
the road toll), his exhaustive study also sheds light on how the practice
neatly fits Western society's obsession to do away with as much sleep
as possible. Note: Coren is author of the book Sleep
Thieves (1997) and was also a consultant on the Kamstra research
study (above). 'Battling
the effects of daylight saving', Blackmores www.blackmores.com.au,
31 March 2004
Online advertisement/article
appearing at the website of leading Australian health products company,
Blackmores. The article alerts readers to the potential negative impact
of daylight saving 'on our body and morale' and recommends a selection
of health and lifestyle remedies. (The Light
of Day recommends abolishing daylight saving!)
This
highly readable book by American writer/novelist Michael Downing meticulously
charts the century-long history of daylight saving as the stubborn growth
of an essentially bad idea or, as the dusk jacket puts it:
'... a perennially boiling stew of unsubstantiated science, profiteering
masked as piety, and mysteriously shifting time-zone boundaries ... a
true-to-life social comedy'.
Downing dispells
any myths that daylight saving was ever about the lifestyle wishes of
ordinary people. The long arm of big business, big media and big government
casts its shadow over every page. After finishing the final chapter, I
was left wondering if daylight saving should really be called 'Chamber
of Commerce Time'.
Interesting and attractive website on ending daylight
saving in Florida. Also contains a blog. The
Florida daylight saving issue is particularly relevant to the Queensland
perspective because the two states share virtually identical latitude
ranges.
Although the authors of this American website call themselves
'standardtime.com’, they are not against daylight saving as such. Their
aim is to reform United States time zones to eliminate the need to change
clocks twice a year. Even so, the site contains a substantial amount of
very well-argued anti-daylight saving commentary and a set of related
reading links.
Fluffy
piece of anti-daylight saving satire that does nothing to threaten the
smug pro-daylight saving comfort zone entrenched within Australia’s
mainstream media.
As
far as the article is concerned,
we anti-daylighters don’t think about stuff like latitude, longitude,
climate conditions, health issues or seasonal daylight patterns –
no way. We’re just full of muddled, existential angst about where
all that saved daylight goes. Still,
beggars can’t be choosers. An ‘Uncle Tom’ anti-daylight
saving article appearing once every ten years or so is better than no
anti-daylight saving articles at all.
'The
adoption of Greenwich Mean Time in 1884 as the international standard
shaped the first wave of the global economy. Local times and methods of
telling time were swept away. The same process continues to this day.
It became a condition of Mexico joining the North American Free Trade
Agreement that it adopt Daylight Savings Time.'
Not
exactly about daylight saving, but an insightful essay on how the meaning
and value of time has changed with the industrial age and the spread of
the global economy. Gives some indirect insight into daylight saving's
strange popularity among time-deprived Westerners.
'Daylight
savings time (DST) is probably one of the most annoying inventions of
the human race. Each year people spend a week or so adjusting to an hour
forwards or backwards causing all sorts of erratic behavior and poor sleep
while people adjust. Last year the U.S. Government decided to take it
a step further and cause IT professionals and IT vendors to spend plenty
of time and money to satisfy a few politicians with a not so brilliant
idea.'
Eye-opener
of an article, describing the very under-reported IT headaches caused
by daylight saving - in the context of the latest US extension. No doubt,
a similar set of headaches is occurring now in Australia as a result of
its latest DS extension, but will no doubt be 'absorbed' into a general
consensus of how much better off we all are for having it.
European
Union:
European
Union Law Summertime Directive shows the full text of the
European Daylight Saving legislation, as at March 2002. Article 2 of thedirective
states that the choice to join daylight saving is up to the individual
member states and only the annual start/end dates are the EU's concern:
'Given
that the Member States apply summer-time arrangements, it is important
for the functioning of the internal market that a common date and time
for the beginning and end of the summer-time period be fixed throughout
the Community.'
However, this right of 'choice' is applied quite differently in practice.
In 1996, the French government attempted to opt out of Summertime but
backed down after it was threatened by the EU with legal action. This
issue is also covered in Light
of Day News.
Also, in 2001, a Latvian
poll – scroll down link to heading: 'Social and local
interest' – showed that 60 per cent of the
country's population was opposed to daylight saving. The three Baltic
nations - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania - had dropped daylight saving
in 2000. However, Latvia decided to re-introduce the practice in 2001
as part of their preparations to join the EU, which were finalised in
2004 (RFE/RL
Newsline, 3
January 2001)
