Daylight Saving Time: Good or Bad?

As many of you already know, Daylight Saving Time(DST) is meant to help in conserving energy. But what are the true effects of this act? For the most part the verdict is still out, on whether this will actually help conserve enrgy. I would like to hear from all of you out there on your thoughts about this issue. So far I have heard mixed reviews on the overall importance and effectiveness of DST. Below are two interesting articles on the subject.

Daylight Saving Time Extended by Four Weeks in U.S. Starting in 2007

Every spring we move our clocks one hour ahead and "lose" an hour during the night and each fall we move our clocks back one hour and "gain" an extra hour. But Daylight Saving Time (and not Daylight Savings Time with an "s") wasn't just created to confuse our schedules.

The phrase "Spring forward, fall back" helps people remember how Daylight Saving Time affects their clocks. At 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March, we set our clocks forward one hour ahead of standard time ("spring forward"). We "fall back" at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November by setting our clock back one hour and thus returning to standard time.

The change to Daylight Saving Time allows us to use less energy in lighting our homes by taking advantage of the longer and later daylight hours. During the six-and-a-half-month period of Daylight Saving Time, the names of time in each of the time zones in the U.S. change as well. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time, Central Standard Time (CST) becomes Central Daylight Time (CDT), Mountain Standard Time (MST) becomes Mountain Daylight Tome (MDT), Pacific Standard Time becomes Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), and so forth.

Winners of new daylight savings

The jury is still out on whether extending daylight savings this year will translate into energy savings -- the stated goal behind the move -- but there’s no doubt that some industries expect to cash in on the clock change.

Among the sectors that stand to gain the most when the time changes as of tomorrow morning, providing an extra three weeks of sunshine this spring (another week will be added on in the fall) is the some sports and recreation industries.

“Golf has been the biggest winner in the daylight saving sweepstakes,” said Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.