It's regular as clockwork.
Every time the clocks change, there are cries of "no fair!" from the UK's more southerly citizens.
Surely we could have more daylight if we changed our whole time system, they argue?
They do have a point. From their perspective, they are losing daylight in the evenings. Surely, they say, it would be better to stumble around in the dark in the early mornings when no one needs the light too much? Surely it would be better to have slightly longer light in the evenings?
Unfortunately, the up-to-now excellent 10:10 campaign has decided to take on this cause. They're linking it to CO2 emissions. Surely the pollution will reduce with everyone getting more daylight in their lives?
I have my doubts. For a start, the whole thing only benefits those in Southern England. If you move the clocks forward, then Scottish schoolchildren and office workers will still be sitting in the dark at 10am. How does having darkness at 10am reduce CO2 emissions?
Conversely, in the evening during the winter it will be getting dark at 5pm instead of 4pm. That's not that big a difference, and certainly won't change the habits of those who shuffle home and then plonk themselves in front of the telly with a ready meal for the rest of the evening.
As for road safety, I heard one politician on the radio say with assurance that lighter evenings will mean less road accidents, because people are more alert then.
More alert after work? Surely you jest. And besides, the increase in accidents during the darker mornings doesn't seem to have been taken into account.
So I'm sorry 10:10, but this is one campaign I will not be signing up to.
4 comments:
Ah, let's disagree on something for the first time (great new theme, btw).
An extra hour of morning light doesn't help me: mornings are times to let the caffeine get me up to speed and to come to, gradually, thereby. An extra hour of daylight at the useful end of the day: I'd be delighted.
But I have no idea about the carbon impact: my guess is it'd be a wash.
Working shifts, it honestly doesn't make much difference to me personally. I also suspect that if you take the UK as a whole then the emissions would go down, purely due to the larger population who would benefit.
Maybe when Scotland is independent we'll be moved onto Salmond Standard Time - the compromise half-an-hour behind the rest of the UK!
This is somethin' that's bugged me fer years. They trialled double-summer-time in the late 60s for a couple of years. Ah wis a lollipop lady then, so ah ken whit ah'm talkin' aboot. It's true tae say that the dark mornings lead to an increase in road accidents and deaths. However, this is more than made up for by the decrease in accidents at the other end of the day. People tend to drive faster on the way home than on the way to work. Kids certainly take less care as they run home than they do as they trudge to school in the mornings.
DST, or GMT+1 and GMT+2 in summer would save many lives and should be enacted on this basis alone. It would also bring Britain into line with ECT European Central Time which is an efficiency measure which could save us billions.
The argument often deployed against DST is that in winter Scottish farmers would be forced to milk their cows in the dark. Well if our farmer's cannae grope around and find a coo's udder in the dark they're mibbe in the wrong job. Let me try.
Funny you should mention cows. I was in Queensland a few years ago when they were debating whether to implement Daylight Savings at all.
One of the main arguments against it was that it would confuse the cattle!
Post a Comment