Burning daylight
Published Saturday, March 22, 2008
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Stumble It!March 17, 2008
To the editor:
Congratulations Fairbanks, you are now halfway to the day of the “Midnight Sun.”
According to the U.S. Naval Observatory (which observes such things) the sun rose in Fairbanks on March 16 at 8:04 a.m. and set at 7:57 p.m. for a total just 7 minutes short of 12 hours of daylight — a gain of 6 minutes of daylight from the day before.
Not a bit of this daylight was created by fiddling with your clock the week before on March 9, when Alaska once again gave up morning light to gain evening light by observing Daylight Saving Time.
Many citizens of Fairbanks once again suffered from state-sponsored jet lag as their circadian rhythms adjusted for the lost hour of sleep Sunday night. Some probably missed an airline flight or missed some other important date on Sunday if they forgot to advance all their timekeeping devices or if some computer-based timekeeping device didn’t get reprogrammed.
Daylight Saving Time is supposed to save energy. No utility or consumer group in Alaska supports this claim. Energy use in Alaska is a function of temperature and length of day and both vary so greatly that use of DST is not a factor.
Unlike 1967, when DST use in Alaska started, business communications now use the internet, voicemail, faxes, and other technologies that allow business communications 24/7.
Alaska now does business with nations such as China and Japan where DST is not observed. Besides, with creation of the mega-time zone in Alaska in 1983, Fairbanks and Anchorage permanently advanced one hour and we have been 3 hours from Seattle ever since. Being an additional hour away from Seattle for part of the year isn’t going to cause economic collapse in Alaska.
Four times since 1999, legislation to end DST has been before the legislature. Individual committee chairmen, who refused to allow hearings or refused to allow the bills to advance, stopped this effort.
I was involved in a truly grassroots initiative petition drive to put the issue on the ballot. We simply didn’t have the funds to be gather signatures statewide in the time allowed. But at least we tried and our effort seemed to be well received by the citizens of Alaska we were able to contact.
If you are tired of clock changing for no good reason, please contact your legislator and ask him to remove this irritant from our lives.
You can read more about this subject at the website created to address this issue: www.endalaskadaylightsaving.com
Community Discussion
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Heck, I live in Georgia and I'm tired of daylight-saving time.
If we really can't just stay on standard time year-round, and we can't stay on DST year-round, maybe we should split the difference like Newfoundland and stay on standard-plus-:30 year-round.
Is there a petition started? I went to endalaskadaylightsaving.com and it's useful information, but I am not one to "write" a snail-mail, nor am I the one to "phone" my legislature. You stated "We simply didn’t have the funds to be gather signatures statewide in the time allowed." I have been involved with several online petitions, an it is simple and it's easy and it's FAR REACHING. Check out this cool tool: http://www.gopetition.com/howtostartapet.... Please come back here to post info re: a petition if you start one re: DST; I'd be interested in helping!
@MADmama: A legal petition requires signatures and addresses. While the gopetition site is a good way to rouse support, it's meaningless when applied to a legal situation such as this.
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So, ok I get it everyone is bored and looking for something to do. But I have to ask this question, Do you really think you are going to change something that has been happening for ever by petitioning? There are better things you can do with your time. The day light savings is not only for "saving energy" but it also has alot to do with the earths rotation. if we dont keep turning our clocks then eventually there will be morning at night and visa versa. Granted we could just totally screw up our sleep and stay up for a day to re-regulate but give another 50 or so years and we would have to do it all over again... well not us maybe our childrens children, but you get my point. Is petitioning and getting people all hyped up for this really nessecary? I cant see it going any further than the secretary of the legilation. They may gett a good laugh out of it but thats about all. If you feel you need to petition somehting, find something use full like a place where homeless people can get documnets they dont have so they can get a job and have what we all have, a warm place to live, food on our table and a clock that we have to change time on twice a year.
Babymom, I'm curious to know your thoughts on the leap year.
babymom, i dont understand how you think changing the clocks an hour forward and an hour back each year keeps the day from turning into night...
"The day light savings is not only for "saving energy" but it also has alot to do with the earths rotation. if we dont keep turning our clocks then eventually there will be morning at night and visa versa."
Wow! This is the second article today with posts that make me seriously question the IQ of some people in this town. No wonder Plato thought that only the intelligent should be able to rule... *rolls eyes*
This is almost as good as the article I saw last year where a female lawyer blamed global warming on the legislature for making us have that "extra hour of daylight" every spring!!!
LOL! Thanks for the laugh, babymom!
As far as DST goes - it is a pain, but if only we (Alaska) drops it, then we'll just have to try to remember "How many hours difference is it between <any state> and here this time of year?"
Personally, I know the time difference between here and West Coast (1 hour) to East Coast (4 hours) is the same all year round. Why should we complicate that? In the summer its X hours, in the winter its Y hours, and what date does it change on again? Dropping DST in just Alaska will only complicate the confusions.
I think we should stay consistent with the rest of the US.
Babymom - you can't possibly be serious. I think you're confusing Daylight-Daving Time with the leap year. Enough said.
As far as the content of the article is concered, I agree with the author. Not all of the fifty states observe DST. I think we ought to be part of the group that doesn't.
Here's my reasoning: DST was originally developed for two reasons: (1) to save energy by proving more daylight during evening hours when families are at home using lights and (2) to allow for more workable farming hours during summer evening hours. Given the amount of daylight Alaska receives during the months DST is observed, it makes no sense whatsoever to observe DST based upon the purpose behind DST.
Additionally, all observing DST does for us is to push solar noon to sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon for us here in Fairbanks. Bethel, Nome, and Kotzebue have it even worse. Their solar noons come around 2:00 to 3:00 pm.
As far as getting confused as to what time it is in "the rest of the US", not all states observe DST as it is. There is no legitimate reason why we should either. What's the problem with adding an hour to calculate time during the DST months to figure out what time it is in those states that do observe DST? We're not intelligent enought to add 1 hour?
Furthermore, Alaska doesn't even belong bunched into one time zone. If Alaska was laid over the lower US, we'd see Southeast over Florida and the western Aleutians over California. I doubt anybody thinks that grouping Miami and L.A. into the same time zone makes any sense. As the sun came up over Miami at 6 am, it would still be pitch black in L.A. until 9 a.m. The same would hold true for sunset. As the sun set over Miami at 7 pm, it would take approximately another 3 hours for it to set over L.A - putting senset at 10 pm. A solar noon in Miami occurring at 12:00pm would not occur in L.A. until 3 pm. I think you get the point. So why does grouping Ketchikan and Attu together in one time zone make any more sense than that? Time zones are loosely calculated on a given number of lines of longitude per hour. Alaska crosses enough lines of longitude to allow for three to four time zones. Southeast in one, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Mat-Su Valley, Barrow, Kenai Peninsula in another, western AK and the eastern Aleutians in a third, and the western Aleutians in a fourth. Alaska used to be in separate time zones and we ought to go back to that.
In closing, taking part in DST makes no sense for Alaskans whatsoever. Why live under pointless legislation??? It's like having the old blue laws such as not working in your yard on Sundays. They make no sense. Tradition is not a good enough justification for the government to waste time and money switching our clocks twice a year. DST ought to be adandoned in AK and we ought to divide our time zone.
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