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Finland to propose that EU abolish daylight savings time

65 pointsby cesisover 7 years ago

13 comments

metafunctorover 7 years ago
Here&#x27;s why Finland doesn&#x27;t like DST.<p>In the south of Finland (like Helsinki), in the summer, the sun rises at 4am and sets at 11pm. The entire night is twilight, and it doesn&#x27;t get completely dark at all.<p>In the winter, the sun rises at 9:15am and sets at 3:15pm. At it&#x27;s height, the sun barely rises above the trees.<p>In the northern parts of Finland, things are even more extreme: for a long period of time in the summer, the sun doesn&#x27;t set at all [1]. Similarly in the winter, the sun won&#x27;t rise at all [2].<p>Therefore, for the Finnish people, DST is mostly useless. In the summer there is no shortage of daylight in the evening or in the morning. In the winter it&#x27;s going to be dark in the morning, and dark in the afternoon anyway.<p>For most of the year, there&#x27;s nothing be gained by moving the clocks around. Moving the clocks mostly throws your sleep cycles off for a few days. Especially families with small children seem to get hit especially hard by this.<p>That all said, perhaps Finland should not move to totally abolish DST, since some people in southern Europe appear to like it. At the very least, though, northern EU states should be allowed to opt out of DST.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Midnight_sun" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Midnight_sun</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Polar_night" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Polar_night</a>
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mrtksnover 7 years ago
Turkey did that. The results so far are not promising as apparently more energy is used and people are complaining that they don&#x27;t see the daylight in the winter as it&#x27;s dark outside both when leaving home for work and coming back.<p>Will switch back to daylight saving as nobody is happy(Maybe except for the Energy minister who is the son in law of Erdogan and also runs energy companies).<p>edit:<p>here is a source, it&#x27;s form a Turkish factchecking website: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dogrulukpayi.com&#x2F;bulten&#x2F;kalici-yaz-saati-uygulamasi-elektrik-tuketimini-ne-kadar-arttirdi" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dogrulukpayi.com&#x2F;bulten&#x2F;kalici-yaz-saati-uygulama...</a><p>according to the reports, the effect on increase in consumption is inconclusive(there&#x27;s an increase but not necessarily due to this) but public opinion polls shows that people want to go back to the daylight saving schedule with %66 majority and only %22 of the people like the permanent summer time.<p>here is a news article reporting that Turkey is ending the permanent summer time and going back to the daylight saving time at the end of the 2018: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.milliyet.com.tr&#x2F;surekli-yaz-saati-uygulamasi-2018-de-ankara-yerelhaber-2366624&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.milliyet.com.tr&#x2F;surekli-yaz-saati-uygulamasi-2018...</a><p>I guess you can use Google Translate to verify. The factchecking website also links to the actual reports.<p>BTW, to all DST Haters, check <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;momentjs.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;momentjs.com</a> and calm down. DST is your friend, let the computers do the bookkeeping and enjoy the sunlight.
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mpweiherover 7 years ago
Can&#x27;t happen soon enough for me.<p>Also smart: &#x27;“Member states should mull over together which time – summer or winter time – should be adopted on a permanent basis.”&#x27;<p>Let&#x27;s keep it on summer time, having light at 4 pm is more valuable than at 4 am. (I know, exaggerating, but only a little)
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cornholioover 7 years ago
The great majority of people opposing daylight saving don&#x27;t really appreciate it&#x27;s purpose: DST does not screw up winter, it makes summer better, much better.<p>During the winter, there is limited light no matter what time you use. In a world without DST, social conventions evolve so that work hours, business opening and close times etc. find a compromise that allow most of the activity during the day - a clear preference of the human species that also maximizezes productivity and satisfaction for most people. It&#x27;s irrelevant if that time is called 7 AM or 54 APM, you will tend to start working at the time the winter daylight starts. That&#x27;s our baseline.<p>Since we are no longer use sundials and enjoy predictable schedules, that time and schedule is maintained for the whole year; however, as summer arrives, the days get longer and they stretch both in the morning and in the evening symmetrically. And since most people like to start their activity in a short time after waking up, and the wake time is now fixed by the wallclock to be the same as during the winter, a good part of the daylight that we enjoy happens before most people are awake, say 5AM to 6AM.<p>This is where DST idea comes into play: if the morning daylight is &quot;wasted&quot; since most people don&#x27;t get up so early, why shouldn&#x27;t we &quot;move&quot; that extra hour of light in the evening, so that most of us can enjoy a longer summer day and late twilight evenings by simply moving the clock ?<p>Incidentally, DST reduces electricity consumption, but the main benefit in my opinion is the increased quality of life during the summer, for a very modest price: you wake up an hour earlier one day a year, and then enjoy 183 days with 1h more of light each. The reverse, going back to winter time by sleeping 1h more is essentially free for most people. I love DST and would hate to see it gone for a misunderstanding, it&#x27;s impact over the winter days, when in fact that&#x27;s unavoidable and it&#x27;s real purpose is to make summer better.
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failrateover 7 years ago
I have never loved Finland more than I do right now.
hawktheslayerover 7 years ago
We already thought of this in Arizona.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;k4EUTMPuvHo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;k4EUTMPuvHo</a>
Jhstoover 7 years ago
I recommend anyone interested to look at some of the documentation done in the IANA timezone dataset (historical references of Finland shown here): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;eggert&#x2F;tz&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;europe#L1213" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;eggert&#x2F;tz&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;europe#L1213</a>
albertgoeswoofover 7 years ago
While we’re at it let’s switch to binary time and a global timezone
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cameldrvover 7 years ago
It is fashionable among nerdy people, especially programmers who have to deal with the complicated relationship between different ways people describe time, and the actual flow of time, to not like DST. DST is really good, and really simple though. It&#x27;s a social agreement to do everything an hour earlier in the summer. People like this pattern. Before clocks and railroads and computers, people generally woke up with the sun, and went to bed shortly after dark. In the winter, this meant that people slept a long time, but that was fine because there wasn&#x27;t much to do in the winter anyhow, and it was better to conserve energy, since there wasn&#x27;t much food available.<p>Since we now have artificial light and ample food, we prefer to stay up past sundown and get a consistent 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Still though, people like to wake up after sunrise -- the sunlight is a pleasant and natural alarm clock, and waking up with it is built into our biology.<p>In the modern world, most people have to go to work. Most people prefer to wake up, get ready, and then head to work. If work starts at 9:00 without DST, and you&#x27;re far enough north, the time between sunrise and 9:00 changes a lot. Without DST, people either have to wake up later in the summer, or find something else to do in the morning before they go to work. Most people would rather go to work earlier and go home earlier while it&#x27;s still light out.<p>Now, you could say, employers could understand this and have different summer and winter hours. That&#x27;s true, but there&#x27;s a coordination problem. Suppose a shop opens at 7 in the summer, but 8 in the winter. Maybe their bread delivery happens at 7:30, so now that has to be changed twice a year. That means that the delivery driver&#x27;s route needs to change because not every shop changes their hours, or if they do, they don&#x27;t change them at the same time. DST fixes the coordination problem by just relabelling time, so everyone starts doing everything one hour earlier on the same day across the whole country.
rwmjover 7 years ago
Please yes please. I <i>hate</i> DST. It&#x27;s an enforced twice yearly jet lag for no reason I can discern.
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Promargedover 7 years ago
Poland also wanted to remove daylight savings time (the project was in the lower house) but ultimately it was rejected because all EU countries need to use the same time (DST). It seems Finland is taking it further...
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aristidbover 7 years ago
In 1517174122 daylight saving time is so obsolete...
mezzodeover 7 years ago
DST has it&#x27;s place I think, but given the choice between having it active never or always I&#x27;d choose the latter. The extra daylight is great.