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2007 QLD Govt
research: review

Why is Brisbane
afraid of the dark?


Dual time zone or 'double standard' time

When a faded curtain is not a joke

Hold back the night

Light without progress

News

Links

Epilogue

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Recommended links/reading


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.

The more recent links entered are marked * .


Queensland links:

[Recommended]
'Daylight saving beyond the faded curtains', John Ridd, Science Alert Australia & New Zealand, 24 September 2007


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.

'Against daylight saving' Lavartus prodeo (blog), 3 November 2005

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.

Diffidence (weblog)

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.



WA daylight saving trial:

'More on daylight saving', Interlogue, 13 March 2007

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.

Interlogue (blog essay): 'Daylight saving on the cards', 20 October 2006

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.

[Recommended] No Daylight Savings

A general website focusing on issues and views in the case against daylight saving for Western Australia.

Several news articles on the WA daylight saving trial appear at Light of Day News.


Energy-saving claims from extensions to daylight saving debunked by two peak US research bodies


1. Electricity Savings from Early Daylight Saving Time, Adrienne Kandel, Electricity Demand and Analysis Division, California Energy Commission, February 2007

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.’

Other reading:

'Daylight saving doesn't save energy,' Stephen Pincock, ABC Science Online (Australia), 15 March 2007

'Will Daylight Time Mean Energy Savings?' Marianne Lavelle, U.S. News and World Report, 7 March 2007

'The Daylight Saving change: no savings, no point', Ken Fisher, Ars Technica, 3 April 2007

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.


Daylight saving and health

* 'The Effects of Sleep Disorders and Daylight Savings Time', NaturalNews.com, 11 August 2008

Features an excerpt from an interview with sleep expert Dr. Michael Breus on sleep disorders and the affects of daylight saving time.

'Steps help brain adjust to daylight saving', ABC News (US), 29 March 2006

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.'

[Recommended] 'Losing Sleep at the Market: The Daylight Saving Anomaly,' Mark J. Kamstra, Lisa A. Kramer and Maurice D. Levy, American Economic Review, September, 2000

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.

Kamstra et al published a reply to Pinegar in: 'Losing Sleep at the Market: The Daylight Saving Anomaly: Reply,' American Economic Review, September 2002. (As with the original Kamstra article above, this also was not published in Australia.)

‘Beware stocks and daylight saving’ Simon Fraser University News, 1 April 1999 This article covers aspects of the Kamstra/Kramer/Levy research before the study's final results were published in the American Economic Review in 2000.

[Recommended] 'Sleep Deficit, Fatal Accidents, and the Spring Shift to Daylight Savings Time’, Stanley Coren, Inabis ’98

[Recommended] 'Daylight saving time sure bet for increase in accidents, fatigue' Stanley Coren, Self Help, 1 November 1994

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!)


Book review:

[Recommended]
Spring Forward: the annual madness of daylight saving
by Michael Downing (Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington DC 2005)

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'.

See also: 'Toothpaste plus snake oil equals daylight saving,' Michael Downing, Huffington Post, 7 March 2008


United States anti-DS advocacy:

*[Recommended] floridahatesDST.org

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.

Repeal Daylight Saving Time in Alaska

Covers the long campaign struggle to end daylight saving in Alaska. The Alaskan issue is also referred to in the Light of Day News.


End Daylight Savings Time

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.


Opinion pieces - Australia:

'So what's the rate of interest today on daylight saving?' David Campbell, The Age, 1 January 2008

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.

'Morning glory nothing for irksome majority to make light of', Sydney Morning Herald, 27 September 2002

Op-ed piece by NSW journalist, broadcaster and morning-phile, Mike Carlton. (Scroll down to find article.)


Opinion pieces - international:

[Highly recommended] 'Toothpaste plus snake oil equals daylight saving,' Michael Downing, Huffington Post, 7 March 2008

[Recommended] 'Spring forward, fall back: a point of view,' Lisa Jardine, BBC News, 9November 2007

'Daylight saving time does not save anything', David Brunner, April 2006

'Running for daylight', Jim Brunelle, MainToday.com, 28 July 2005

[Recommended] 'Federal reshuffling of our days', Gail Jarvis, LewRockwell.com, Gail Jarvis, 16 June 2005

'Unhappy hour', John J. Miller, National Review Online, 1 April 2005

'Let there be no daylight savings time', Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 5 July 2003 ‘Daylight Savings Time: A Distraction from Learning’, John Champagne

'Capitalism causes DST', Anne York, New Times (CA), 22 October 1998

'Daylight-savings time is a joke (literally)', Carly Schuna, The Scarletand Black Online, Volume 119, Number 15, January 31, 2003

'Daylight saving: proving P. T. Barnum was right again', Editor's Sidebar,Ontario (Resource site)

'Making time stand still: East Bohemian baker campaigns against daylight saving time.' The Prague Post, 21 March 2001

'Government decides, again, to implement daylight savings time', Jordan Times, 22 March 2000


Attitudes to time

* 'Time to cool off the pace of life,' Jennifer Dykes, newsobserver.com, 4 October 2008

‘Rush to nowhere’, New Internationalist # 343 March 2002


'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 saving and IT

[Recommended] *
'Daylight saving time worse than Y2K?' (blog) Christopher Jennings, DailyTech, 8 April 2008

'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)


Merchandise**

Cafe Press

Daylight saving products available - both pro- and anti-DLS.

(**Disclaimer: The above link is provided as INFORMATION ONLY. Please note that Light of Day does NOT sell merchandise.)