By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
APRIL 8, 2022 | So, what’s your take on how we should keep the time?
Do you like the idea of “Spring Forward” and then “Fall Back?”
How to count the time is controversial. The timing question has strong advocates among us for both sides.
Now the U.S. Senate has jumped into this fray. If the Senators had their way, our country would be permanently on what we now call Daylight Saving Time. On March 15, the Senate passed legislation that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent starting in 2023. No longer would we have to move our clocks forward, then a few months, move them backwards in the four standard time zones.
It’s confusing. After being on the ball about changing our clocks for years, this year we fouled up. I moved the clock hands the wrong way a few weeks ago, awakening to find the sun shining brightly, instead of the darkness I had expected. I immediately recognized what I had done. And by then it was too late to attend our regular early church.
The recent Senate action, which must be approved by the House of Representatives and signed by the president to go into effect, will give us more sunshine late in the day. But that will be for all 12 months of the year, so that some people will have to get up when it is really dark each winter, up perhaps 2-3 hours before dawn. Some call that a drawback in the winter for this idea.
What time the sun rises is a problem all around the world. In 2019 the European Union voted to allow its member countries to choose whether to adopt saving time throughout the year. But the countries could not agree which time to adopt, and then came the pandemic, so Europe doesn’t give us direction.
While the United States changes its clock twice-annually, two states do not: Arizona and Hawaii. They remain on standard time. So does Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Countries cannot change time easily. Britain in 1968 set its time permanently forward. But the people balked and raised a ruckus, and by 1971, Britain was back changing their clocks twice a year.
Some people seek compromise, wanting eight months of “saving time,” and four months of standard time. But that still means switching twice a year.
Another proposal would make two time zones, east and west, in the United States. That would mean lots of unusual sun risings for people at the edges of the time zones.
We think we have problems with time? How about mainland China?
China is 3,100 miles wide, west to east. The USA is 2,800 miles wide. Whereas the United States has four time zones, China does it differently: the whole country runs on Beijing Time, that is, one time zone.
With Beijing closer to its eastern border, that means those in China on the western edges of the country are four to five hours behind the time the sun rises in Beijing. You’re talking about those western Chinese being really out of sync! Something like this can be serious!
We suspect the people of our country are split on the time question. But that might not stop the Federal Government stepping in and telling us what time it is, regardless of the sun.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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