Senate votes unanimously to make DST permanent

[wanderingback]

I guess I don’t really see what the big deal is. When I lived overseas we never changed the clock and everyone survived, why is this always a debate?

In addition, I guess what makes it weird to me is that if we get rid of time change then it seems weird to call it "daylight savings time" because wouldn’t it just be the time? Like it’s the time all the time so why does it need a specific name? Lol. Time is so arbitrary. Maybe I need an edible or something to understand it.

[cville]

I am THRILLED not to have time changes 2x/year. Honestly don't care which sticks.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Mar 15, 2022 16:38:31 GMT -5 jene said:

MN friends:

I love daylight savings time and am 100% on board with this. It's already dark here till late am anyway and I'd prefer to have some daylight in some portion of my non-work day.

[TR]

Mar 16, 2022 8:49:54 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

In addition, I guess what makes it weird to me is that if we get rid of time change then it seems weird to call it "daylight savings time" because wouldn’t it just be the time? Like it’s the time all the time so why does it need a specific name? Lol. Time is so arbitrary. Maybe I need an edible or something to understand it.

Yeah, it would just be the new Standard time, I suppose. Just a different - off the GMT. I wonder if they'd switch the abbreviation to EST/CST/MST/PST from the EDT, etc.

Time IS arbitrary and weird. I feel the same way about the calendar. Which is just time in a different context.

[aurora]

Mar 15, 2022 20:19:56 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

So if the northern states have a hard time…this could really suck for Alaskans, right? I ask because I still can’t figure anything out.

In December in much of Alaska it is dark when you go to work and dark when you leave. Shifting an hour wouldn't really change that for most people. In June you go to sleep when it's light out and wake up to the same, again regardless of daylight or standard time. It would be noticed more in September and March when there are 12 hrs/day of light and dark.

[macmars45]

Mar 15, 2022 20:19:56 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

So if the northern states have a hard time…this could really suck for Alaskans, right? I ask because I still can’t figure anything out.

They already only get 4 hours of light in the winter and you never see it fully dark in the summer assuming you sleep at night (according to my H who grew up in Anchorage). I can't imagine permanent standard time or DST makes a bit of difference to them.

[eponinepontmercy]

Mar 15, 2022 16:21:24 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Is this where I admit I have no clue which one is DST and which one isn’t DST. I know "spring" forward and "fall” back but get confused when people say things like “make DST permanent."

Same.  Every time I try to understand it, I get dizzy.

[rubytue]

Mar 16, 2022 9:05:09 GMT -5 TR said:

Mar 16, 2022 8:49:54 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

In addition, I guess what makes it weird to me is that if we get rid of time change then it seems weird to call it "daylight savings time" because wouldn’t it just be the time? Like it’s the time all the time so why does it need a specific name? Lol. Time is so arbitrary. Maybe I need an edible or something to understand it.

Yeah, it would just be the new Standard time, I suppose. Just a different - off the GMT. I wonder if they'd switch the abbreviation to EST/CST/MST/PST from the EDT, etc.

Time IS arbitrary and weird. I feel the same way about the calendar. Which is just time in a different context.

Or maybe, eastern would now admit it was Atlantic, Central now eastern, mountain now central, etc. 

This blows my eastern-centric brain. I completely admit to being privileged in that most of my nationwide meetings typically are based on eastern time. One of my committee coordinators moved to Sand Diego, and her meeting notices now come out in pacific time. On the plus note, I no longer have morning committee meetings 😂

[karinothing]

Mar 15, 2022 16:56:42 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

@@@

There are plenty of studies that show that later school start times are beneficial to kids anyway, so I think we have alternatives to the whole "kids will be on school busses in the dark" thing.

@@@@@

Our local districts are moving ES to 730am start and HS to 920am start. So ES kids will be at school for like 50 minutes before the sun rises lol. Our school typically does morning recess (so before school) but I am guessing that can't happen in the dark. I mean obviously my personal reasons are not a reason to make laws, but I do worry about kids walking in the dark. We have too many people and not enough buses. We already have to spread start ties over 2 hours. I don't think we can start HS after 10 because they have to give people enough time to do things after school too.

I get that other countries have kids walking to school in the dark, but I feel like the US has worse pedestrian safety.

[picksthemusic]

One of WA's senators, Patty Murray, was in on this bill and was bragging about it on Twitter. I didn't bother reading the replies because I'm sure folks were complaining.

I'm indifferent for the most part, just want to not have to worry about changing my clocks.

[msmerymac]

Mar 16, 2022 10:03:55 GMT -5 rubytue said:

Mar 16, 2022 9:05:09 GMT -5 TR said:

Yeah, it would just be the new Standard time, I suppose. Just a different - off the GMT. I wonder if they'd switch the abbreviation to EST/CST/MST/PST from the EDT, etc.

Time IS arbitrary and weird. I feel the same way about the calendar. Which is just time in a different context.

Or maybe, eastern would now admit it was Atlantic, Central now eastern, mountain now central, etc. 

This blows my eastern-centric brain. I completely admit to being privileged in that most of my nationwide meetings typically are based on eastern time. One of my committee coordinators moved to Sand Diego, and her meeting notices now come out in pacific time. On the plus note, I no longer have morning committee meetings 😂

When I lived on the west coast, I was subtly yet constantly thinking about what time it was elsewhere. I really don't worry about that now that I'm back on the east coast unless I'm scheduling a meeting across time zones. 

[HRH Queen Dick I]

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[AJL]

Mar 15, 2022 23:44:06 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Mar 15, 2022 16:26:55 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

LOL saaaame.

I will hear no complaints about DST after living nearly a decade in a place that didn't do it, which resulted in 4:30 a.m. BLAZING sunshine and 6 p.m. darkness. 

One size does not fit all, fyvm!

3am sunrise in summer and 4pm sunset in winter. It has nothing to do with them not changing their clocks but rather the whole country on the same time zone, and we were really far east. I'm now in the 5th country I've lived in that doesn't change clocks. Thankfully half of them were basically on the equator so it didn't matter.

I don't really understand why this of all things is where sides come together. It's a fucking clock. How about worrying about things like treason. Yes, I'm grumpy this morning, and it has nothing to do with my clock.

Wait what? Permanent DST means we get rid of time zones? I’m confused.

[sonrisa]

Mar 16, 2022 12:02:39 GMT -5 AJL said:

Mar 15, 2022 23:44:06 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

3am sunrise in summer and 4pm sunset in winter. It has nothing to do with them not changing their clocks but rather the whole country on the same time zone, and we were really far east. I'm now in the 5th country I've lived in that doesn't change clocks. Thankfully half of them were basically on the equator so it didn't matter.

I don't really understand why this of all things is where sides come together. It's a fucking clock. How about worrying about things like treason. Yes, I'm grumpy this morning, and it has nothing to do with my clock.

Wait what? Permanent DST means we get rid of time zones? I’m confused.

She's talking about China. 

[basilosaurus]

Mar 16, 2022 13:32:39 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Mar 16, 2022 12:02:39 GMT -5 AJL said:

Wait what? Permanent DST means we get rid of time zones? I’m confused.

She's talking about China. 

I'm not; it was Japan, so not quite as extreme as China. We were roughly the same latitude as nyc, and they definitely don't have 3am summer sunrise. It's a surprisingly wide country, something like 1000 miles, about a third more than a typical time zone at that latitude.

And no I don't think it means getting rid of time zones. I was just relating that some locations the clock doesn't really align with a relatively equal balance before and after noon (solar time vs clock time). This seems like it would exacerbate that. Whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of your personal views as evidenced by this poll.

[laurack]

I don’t know why this messes with my head so much, I consider myself an intelligent person yet after the clock changes I’m still all “ok so it’s 6.30 now, which is like 5.30 last week. And it’s getting dark. But that means last week it would be dark at 5.30 so I have an extra hour of light now
…” then someone says something that makes me think the opposite of what I had just concluded is true and I’m like wait am I wrong about the time change …

Anyway I think I prefer more light in the evening but I’ll take either, anything to make the clock changing stop.

[mouse]

West coast (best coast), and I’m realizing that my mental map of time zones is like a reverse of that old New Yorker cover. Like, there’s western, then at some point a smooshed something that’s mountaincentral (no real defined borders - could be centralmountain but I think I was right the first time ((but then again I was shocked to find out where northwestern university is))), and then out East it becomes Atlantic? Eastern? 3 hours ahead anyway.

[boiler717]

I hate this. I HATE DST. Part of it is that we didn’t have it for so long, but it’s mostly because I hate going to be when it’s still blazing daylight in the summer (sun doesn’t set until close to 10 pm and I go to bed at 8/8:30). I would much rather have light in the morning but the 10 pm sunset is just bizarre.

[boiler717]

Mar 16, 2022 18:32:40 GMT -5 boiler717 said:

I hate this. I HATE DST. Part of it is that we didn’t have it for so long, but it’s mostly because I hate going to be when it’s still blazing daylight in the summer (sun doesn’t set until close to 10 pm and I go to bed at 8/8:30). I would much rather have light in the morning but the 10 pm sunset is just bizarre.

Also if it was DST in the winter, sunrise wouldn’t be until after 9 am. That is ridiculously late. Right now our winter daylight hours are basically 8-5:30 which seems reasonable.

[mcsangel2]

Mar 15, 2022 20:42:09 GMT -5 rubytue said:

Mar 15, 2022 17:34:07 GMT -5 rubytue said:

Can you clarify? MDer here, sunset at 4:30pm in winter. If er make DST permanent (per the headline), then the sun won’t set until 5:30. I’d find that bliss!!

But, I’ve found many of the people who what to “do away with” DST really hate the time change *to* DST, not the time itself. It’s standard time that would have the sun setting at 3:30pm. 

edit - ok. I read through more of this and the other thread and I stand corrected. This is for real the first time I’ve heard people saying they want the light in the morning and don’t mind early darkness. 

Quoting myself bc, GD this is confusing. So, yeah… keeping standard time all year would change nothing in the winter. It won’t make the clock say 3:30 when the sunsets, it’ll still be 3:30. There is part of me that says, DUH, Ruby. The other part says, NO ONE CAN KEEP IT STRAIGHT.

I think you're still confused. If, where you live, the sun sets at 4:30pm in the winter (when everyone is on standard time), changing to permanent daylight time means your winter sunsets would be occurring at 5:30pm, not 3:30pm.

[rubytue]

Mar 16, 2022 21:53:37 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

Mar 15, 2022 20:42:09 GMT -5 rubytue said:

Quoting myself bc, GD this is confusing. So, yeah… keeping standard time all year would change nothing in the winter. It won’t make the clock say 3:30 when the sunsets, it’ll still be 3:30. There is part of me that says, DUH, Ruby. The other part says, NO ONE CAN KEEP IT STRAIGHT.

I think you're still confused. If, where you live, the sun sets at 4:30pm in the winter (when everyone is on standard time), changing to permanent daylight time means your winter sunsets would be occurring at 5:30pm, not 3:30pm.

Yes. If we stay on DST, then yes, it’s 4:30. But if we “do away with DST” (that is, stop having daylight savings time, stay in standard), it doesn’t change winter sunset. But in my flurry of running around like chicken little, my first post was saying if we so away with changing times, and move back an hour, OMG the sun would set an hour earlier in the winter. Which is completely wrong. 

[pixy0stix]

I used to think I had a really good grip on all of this...

[mcsangel2]

Mar 16, 2022 22:04:04 GMT -5 rubytue said:

Mar 16, 2022 21:53:37 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

I think you're still confused. If, where you live, the sun sets at 4:30pm in the winter (when everyone is on standard time), changing to permanent daylight time means your winter sunsets would be occurring at 5:30pm, not 3:30pm.

Yes. If we stay on DST, then yes, it’s 4:30. But if we “do away with DST” (that is, stop having daylight savings time, stay in standard), it doesn’t change winter sunset. But in my flurry of running around like chicken little, my first post was saying if we so away with changing times, and move back an hour, OMG the sun would set an hour earlier in the winter. Which is completely wrong. 

No. If we keep daylight savings all year round, your winter sunset will be at 5:30. If we continue doing what we have been for decades, then winter is when we are on standard time ANYWAY, and when we would continue to be on standard time. In that case your winter sunsets will continue to be at 4:30 (if I understood your original post correctly to say that 4:30 is usually when you have sunset in the winter).

[RitzyHeifer]

So I was listening to something on NPR today that explained the unanimous consent passage, which is why this was passed. It’s not that everyone voted FOR it, but no one objected to it so it automatically passed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unanimous_consent). Apparently several senators were not even aware it was being put forth.

(And I live on the western edge of the Eastern time zone, so DST means broad daylight until 10/10:30 pm in summer which really messed with me after living for years in Central time zone).

[dancelnow]

Mar 19, 2022 11:06:41 GMT -5 RitzyHeifer said:

So I was listening to something on NPR today that explained the unanimous consent passage, which is why this was passed. It’s not that everyone voted FOR it, but no one objected to it so it automatically passed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unanimous_consent). Apparently several senators were not even aware it was being put forth.

(And I live on the western edge of the Eastern time zone, so DST means broad daylight until 10/10:30 pm in summer which really messed with me after living for years in Central time zone).

I am listening to the Vox Today Explained podcast about this right now and how this process is used (and could or could not be abused)

[notreal]

Mar 22, 2022 16:40:54 GMT -5 dancelnow said:

Mar 19, 2022 11:06:41 GMT -5 RitzyHeifer said:

So I was listening to something on NPR today that explained the unanimous consent passage, which is why this was passed. It’s not that everyone voted FOR it, but no one objected to it so it automatically passed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unanimous_consent). Apparently several senators were not even aware it was being put forth.

(And I live on the western edge of the Eastern time zone, so DST means broad daylight until 10/10:30 pm in summer which really messed with me after living for years in Central time zone).

I am listening to the Vox Today Explained podcast about this right now and how this process is used (and could or could not be abused)

I fully believe this was a test to see if it could be done before trying it with something more serious.