DST Probably Costs You Money

Go ahead and call me a whiner, but I still hate Daylight Saving(s) Time. There are two main arguments in favor of DST: it saves money and we get more summer light in the evening after work.

A couple of UCSB researchers (maybe grad students?) put together this little analysis of the first argument. They compared energy usage differences between parts of the great state of Indiana, some parts of which observe DST ("the stupid parts") and other parts don't ("the smart parts"). After doing some calculations slightly more complicated than my monthly budget they came to the shocking conclusion that "contrary to the policy’s intent—DST results is an overall increase in residential electricity demand. Estimates of the overall increase in consumption range from 1 to 4 percent." Roughly translated that means, "DST is a crazed meth addict that has been stealing your kids' milk money and shooting it into his tourniquet-pinched arm." I, like all reasonable people, am against meth addicts stealing my kids milk money. I don't know who originally thought up this whole shenanigan, but whoever he is, he owes me some money.

Okay, so DST doesn't save any money, but what about the increased daylight hours after work thing? I have to admit, I find the last hour of daylight kind of magical. If the whole rest of the country is really sold on this, then I say fine, let's do it. In fact, let's do it all the time. Let's not switch back in the winter. We could just embrace this DST thing year-round. We'll spring the clocks forward one year and collectively forget to switch 'em back. If we need more light after work in the summer, then why not in the winter too?

War in Iraq, mortgage crisis, health insurance, blah, blah, blah. I haven't heard any of the presidential candidates addressing DST-gate yet, but its early so I'm hopeful. If I get the chance to ask a debate question via YouTube, this is so going to be it. The time is now. People are looking for something different, a new direction. Can you smell it people? That's change in the air.