European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

I&#x27;m glad we are getting rid of daylight savings time. It&#x27;s a biannual disruption of sleep cycles that costs lives (in increased accident rates) for at best marginal benefits: for most of europe sunrise and sunset times change too fast for an additional hour to really matter.<p>Still, I think given the choice most people would have prefered to stay in summer time instead of winter time (or equivalently: to abolish DST and move the timezone by one hour).<p>The actual proposal is only 8 pages long and also worth a read [1]<p>1: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europarl.europa.eu&#x2F;RegData&#x2F;etudes&#x2F;BRIE&#x2F;2018&#x2F;630308&#x2F;EPRS_BRI(2018)630308_EN.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europarl.europa.eu&#x2F;RegData&#x2F;etudes&#x2F;BRIE&#x2F;2018&#x2F;63030...</a>

&gt; There were 4.6 million replies [to the online] consultation, 70% of which were from Germans.<p>Germans make up around 15% of the EU population. So by this metric they&#x27;ve got an out-sized democratic participation in the EU by a factor of almost 5x.<p>As seen on a solar map [1][2] Germany isn&#x27;t even particularly badly impacted by this issue compared to say France or Spain. There&#x27;s some truth to the saying that Germany basically runs the EU, but as results like this show mostly because they seem to be making an effort to give a crap about it and its policies.<p>1. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.poormansmath.net&#x2F;images&#x2F;SolarTimeVsStandardTimeV2.png" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.poormansmath.net&#x2F;images&#x2F;SolarTimeVsStandardTimeV...</a> (source: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.poormansmath.net&#x2F;how-much-is-time-wrong-around-the-world&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.poormansmath.net&#x2F;how-much-is-time-wrong-around-t...</a>)

The news is not correct. Member states cannot chose to keep the daylight savings, but they will have to choose between keeping the summer time or winter time. This is to ensure uniform time keeping in the union to reduce trade costs.<p>quote:<p>&quot;Consequently, the Commission proposes to discontinue the seasonal time changes in the Union, while ensuring that Member States retain the competence to decide on their standard time, in particular whether they will move to the standard time corresponding to their summer-time on a permanent basis or whether they will apply their current standard time permanently. &quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eur-lex.europa.eu&#x2F;legal-content&#x2F;EN&#x2F;TXT&#x2F;PDF&#x2F;?uri=CELEX:52018PC0639&amp;from=EN" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eur-lex.europa.eu&#x2F;legal-content&#x2F;EN&#x2F;TXT&#x2F;PDF&#x2F;?uri=CELE...</a>

I recognize that this is probably an unpopular opinion but I live for the days when the sun sets at 9pm.<p>DST really factors in quite well for night owls like myself. I&#x27;m aware there is a strong degree of detraction in terms of complicating time keeping and body clock adjustments.<p>It makes the daylight stretch into what we conventionally consider the night. In the winter, I&#x27;m always somewhat a little sad that the sun sets before I even leave the office (~4-4:30pm), but I&#x27;m always in a much better mood in the summer when I leave the office at 5pm and still have hours of daylight left in the day.

People often say they would rather have permanent summer time, but from observation it seems everyone sets their rhythm around solar noon regardless, so why not make noon = noon. During the summer months Spain&#x27;s solar noon is between 2 and 2:30pm. Guess what time Spaniards sit down to eat lunch? In the summer the UKs solar noon is around 1pm, guess what time all the office workers pour out on the streets to eat lunch.

&gt;The proposal would give each member state a choice from 2021: either to keep the current summer time system or scrap the twice-yearly clock changes<p>So if you travelled vertically within a timezone, you could end up going back and forth by an hour repeatedly, depending on the state’s decision made here?<p>Truly, a design made by committee.

It&#x27;s really a simple question. How should you approximate this curve?<p><pre><code> ....................*****..... .................***.....**... ................*..........**. *.............**.............* .**..........*................ ...**.....***................. .....*****.................... </code></pre> If you think it should be this, you want permanent standard time:<p><pre><code> .............................. .............................. .............................. ****************************** .............................. .............................. .............................. </code></pre> If you think it should be this, you want permanent summer time:<p><pre><code> .............................. .............................. ****************************** .............................. .............................. .............................. .............................. </code></pre> If you think it should be something like this, you want some kind of DST system:<p><pre><code> .............................. .............................. ****..........**************** .............................. ....*********................. .............................. ..............................</code></pre>

People vote for &quot;summer time&quot; because they, d&#x27;oh, prefer summer. But summer time in winter is atrocious. And there are many people getting up early, they&#x27;re (mostly) called &quot;the poor&quot;, those generally brown people who clean up your office hours before you come in, prepare food early so that you can eat at noon, collect trash, etc. I know, they don&#x27;t vote and don&#x27;t really count, who cares if they can&#x27;t see the daylight all winter long?<p>Yeah, that&#x27;s a cynical take on the class orientation of HN... (I don&#x27;t get up at 5 and never ever reach the office before 10:30 myself).

I hated DST, but now that I have kids I really like it - it means in the summer I have one more hour of sunlight to play with them outside after I come back from work.

The consultations might have had a different result if there had been a practical multiple-choice test with questions that link the idea of DST to actual consequences. Like:<p><i>Would you like to go to work in the light or in the dark during winter time?</i><p><i>Would you like to have some daylight while having barbecue at 9pm in the summer.</i><p>...<p>(My concern is that people had no idea of the practical consequences beside <i>sucks-to-have-to-get-up-one-hour-earlier</i> and will be in for a rude awakening)

I have been wondering for a while: will this decision trigger any significant work to make software compatible?<p>Or is it &quot;just&quot; a timezone library to update and voila?

Made this little visualization of the night&#x2F;dawn&#x2F;sunrise&#x2F;day&#x2F;sunset&#x2F;dusk&#x2F;night times throughout the year.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;codepen.io&#x2F;JohannesEH&#x2F;full&#x2F;JzVgeR" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;codepen.io&#x2F;JohannesEH&#x2F;full&#x2F;JzVgeR</a>

Mind that this is just a step in the legislative process not the final thing. Next step is the EU Council where relevant ministers of the individual member states have to find an agreement. Some governments aren&#x27;t that enthusiastic ..

Turkey removed DST in 2017 after 47 years, and it did not cause much trouble.

I don&#x27;t have a strong opinion on whether we&#x27;re better off with or without the seasonal time change. But I don&#x27;t like the idea of individual member states opting in or out, which is what this ruling allows.<p>I&#x27;ve lived the past few years in a border town where many people will live in Germany and commute to Austria, or live in Austria but do their regular shopping in Germany, or regularly go on weekend mountain hikes that may cross the border multiple times. Hopefully the authorities are smart enough to avoid the kind of situation where the two regions would end up in different time zones for half the year and all the ensuing confusion over bus and train times, opening hours and so on.

Not bad, they now at least understand the basics of PR! Always combine an unpopular decision (uploadfilter) with a popular one (summer time).

Conveniently this is going to steal a lot of press from the copyright reform

&gt; The European Parliament has backed a proposal to stop the obligatory one-hour clock change which extends daylight hours in summer EU-wide.<p>&gt; which extends daylight hours<p>No, it doesn&#x27;t. The number of daylight hours is exactly the same no matter what your clocks do.<p>All DST does is force everyone to change their schedules so that they wake up earlier, go to work earlier, come home earlier, and go to bed earlier. It effectively forces businesses to open an hour earlier and close an hour earlier because of society&#x27;s expectations.<p>When you describe it this way, the entire process sounds like something that takes place in a totalitarian state run by a crazy person. Yet here we are as a group claiming it somehow helps farmers (it doesn&#x27;t, it makes things more challenging for them). The only people who truly benefit from DST are golfers (and golf course owners) who can leave work an hour early and get in a few more rounds.