I am sad to say that daylight savings time was introduced in a Canadian city.  Thunder Bay Ontario to be exact.   The theory is the one hour shift allows better use of daylight and saves energy.

Early to Rise etc

My first reaction is the inventors of this strange and annoying practice were not aware of the old proverb “early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise”.

Although I guess rising early regardless of whether it is dark or light still works.  Personally I prefer the light when I get up.

Saving Energy

Obviously moving sunset to occur one hour later (and sunrise is one hour later) does not change the amount of daylight.  That is the amount of time between sunrise and sunset (daylight hours) does not change.

So why is energy use decreased just because the it get’s dark later.  The answer is based on when people get up and when they go to bed on average.

Theoretically, the more closely the average time people go to bed coincides with it getting dark and the time people get up on average maps more closely to when it is getting light than less use of electricity (lights,  entertainment electronics, and such) results.

Really!

I find it hard to believe there is a good measure of the average times people get up and go to bed.  Also many factors influence the use of electricity and other energy sources far beyond whether it is light or dark outside.

In my humble opinion (really) this change in time twice a year is just an annoying exercise that causes all of use to shift our internal clocks a little bit for no valid reason.