Sunrise, Sunset (or The Trouble with Lazy Populism)

A few years back I was stunned at the response from voters aged 30 and under to a political issue which would be generous to describe as fringe; the ban on Sunday liquor sales in Minnesota.

I'll agree the ban was stupid, a remnant of Minnesota's Puritan, Euro-immigrant, religious restrictive standards, mutilated into a self-righteous victory for morality.  What stunned me wasn't that people were willing to entertain getting rid of the old standards, but rather the fervent attitude of those who were screaming for this political injustice to end, primarily 30 and under voters.

This is a group of voters who hopeful Democrats (nervously) bank on showing up for them during election season, but who fail to appear time and time again.  Suddenly here they were, and they were loud; so loud they scared the politicians in St. Paul into updating the rules, allowing people to stop by and get booze on the way home from church. Progress!

I call this 'Lazy Populism;' not because the issue itself (Sunday liquor sales) isn't an issue, but rather because it was a minor issue, a problem which really only affected heavy drinkers who had a penchant for failing to plan ahead.  This issue suddenly became a life-or-death issue for many young voters.  These voters don't show up in impressive numbers when it really mattered, like when Trump was on the ballot in 2016, or as their rights as students and workers were on the ballot, or as the environment was on the ballot, or as funding for the arts was on the ballot, or when a woman being able to legally get an abortion was on the ballot.  Those things didn't get them angry and to the polls, but the desire to get a pony keg of Special Export on a Sunday: "You're violating my rights!!!"

We just had another example of Lazy Populism a few weeks back when the bellyaching over turning the clocks ahead one hour for Daylight Saving Time (DST) brought an obscene amount of overly dramatic pleas to "stop the insanity!"

Daylights Saving Time in the United States (the process of taking the hour of sunlight early in the morning during Spring, Summer, and the first half of Autumn and moving it to the evening hours, to cut back on energy consumption) began in 1918 as a tactic to conserve energy during wartime.  The idea behind it makes a lot of sense; if people, companies, and municipalities did not have to turn on lights until an hour later in the evening by taking the hour of daylight from the morning when we are mostly still in bed, springing the clocks ahead one hour in Spring, that's one hour less of fuel that needs to be spent.  Then in mid Autumn, when the tilt of the earth started working against energy conservation, the people Fall back, get an extra hour of sleep, and move on with their lives.  A lot of countries started Daylight Savings during wartime, and the concept grew over time. Most of the United States partakes in the process still today.

But now a contrarian view has emerged: "Daylight Saving Time kills so many people and really doesn't save us any money, so why are we losing ONE HOUR of sleep in Spring?!?"  Having followed Republican politics, I know when someone adds horrible outcomes to a minor issue to try to give them more righteousness, provenance, and followers to their cause.  After talking with a Democratic lawmaker who is 100% convinced that changing the clocks is one of the worst things in American culture today, I stepped back. Was this argument simply 'Lazy Populism,' or was there validity in their claims that Daylight Savings Time should be stopped at all costs? 

I just spent far more time than I ever wanted reading up on this issue, and the real answer (as usual) is more complicated than it seems.  Let's start with the question:

Does Daylight Saving Time actually save on energy use?

Yes, it does, and while it's nowhere near what it did when it was originally started, it still saves a lot of energy.  

Many of the studies you find on DST energy use are focused only on domestic energy use (the energy you use in your residence).  A lot of people have honed in specifically on one study which is quoted a lot, one that looked at domestic use in Indiana.  Most 'domestic only' studies show indeed DST is no longer saving on energy consumption when it comes to US citizens in their homes.  Some studies even show DST uses more energy, but those studies are generally confined to a region or state, where other factors affect consumption (not circumstances that can be applied across the country).  Domestically, energy use today is (in most cases) the same in both DST and Standard time, and one or two studies show regional domestic energy use is actually higher under DST.

This shouldn't be too much of a surprise.  When Daylight Saving Time began, most households had only a few electrical appliances; lights, an iron, and possibly one or two other appliances.  Compare that to the modern house, with electric heating and cooling, fans, computers, charging cords, televisions, and a bevy of 'smart' household appliances.  The main reason domestic energy use is not curbed by DST is the modern household never really shuts down, so electricity use is a constant.

But here's the problem with these studies.  They only focus on domestic use, and many of them also (as I mentioned earlier) look at a specific regional slant of domestic energy consumption.  Domestic energy use is only one part of our energy consumption, so it's somewhat dishonest to present Domestic energy use as overall energy use. Part of the reason there are very few studies that factor in the 4 major uses of electrical consumption (domestic, commercial, military, and municipal) is because this is a massive study to undertake.

Management of the time zones in the United States, and hence Daylight Saving Time, falls under the prevue of the Department of Transportation (who knew!), which states when factoring all energy consumption into the equation (domestic, commercial, military, and municipal), the United States still saves about 1% of their total energy consumption while observing Daylight Saving Time.  A lot of these savings come from commercial buildings shutting down before it gets dark and municipalities and military bases not having to turn on lights for community activities until later (but there is a HUGE question mark when you factor in the last two years of workers working from home).

Let me add that a study from the Department of Energy in 2008 looked into the cost savings of expanding DST.  Their study showed a four-week extension of DST would end up saving enough energy to power 100,000 households per year, JUST IN THOSE FOUR WEEKS! 

So yes, Daylight Saving Time does still today save energy, even with domestic use far higher than it was in the past.  If someone says "No it doesn't," I guarantee the report they are about to quote only looked at domestic use, and likely was the aforementioned report which only looked at domestic use in Indiana.

Does Daylight Saving Time lead to a massive die-off every year?

This question is not so cut and dry. 

There definitely is a mysterious rise in heart attacks (not all of which equal death) in the first week of Daylight Saving Time.  Studies in both the USA and Europe point to the disruption of sleep patterns and biological rhythms as likely culprits, but medical experts really can't say for sure why this phenomenon happens.  The rise in heart attacks is about 5% for the first week of DST, and that means, definitively, some people are dying. 

Also, there are studies that point to increases in fatal traffic accidents in the first week of Daylight Saving Time, somewhere around 6%.  This is mostly chalked up to sleepy drivers, but is the problem DST or drivers who just refuse to go to bed a little earlier to combat the KNOWN shift in time? 

On the other side of the traffic death argument is a RAND Corporation study which shows the increase in sunlight during evening driving hours in the summer decreases traffic accidents involving vehicles by 6% to 10%, and traffic accidents involving a vehicle and pedestrians by 8% to 11%, undoubtedly saving countless lives. 

Not dismissing the increase in heart attacks and traffic accidents in the week after DST, but cutting traffic accidents for the entire run of DST probably has saved far more lives than are lost in the first week of Daylight Saving.

What are the consequences of getting rid of Daylight Saving Time?

Let me start with the things we can say definitively about this question.  First, there isn't a consensus on getting rid of DST.  Some people want to get rid of DST and stay on Standard Time all year like we used to be.  The other side wants to just adopt DST all year long.  Both sides will make their argument on which one is better but there is no consensus on which path we should take.

The one undeniable benefactor of getting rid of DST permanently is the energy industry, primarily oil, gas, and coal.  Demand for their product will go up.  It is not easy to see how many of the studies that are anti-DST are funded in part by the oil, gas, and coal industries, but considering the movement away from fossil fuels, this might be an attempt by them to maximize profits before the shoe drops.  One could make the argument, to make sure the energy industry is not pushing an agenda here, to only get rid of DST when energy production in the US is mostly renewable.

As far as consequences in regards to health and mental well-being, most of this is speculative, but I think there will be a whole slew of issues people will be upset about, regardless if we adopt DST for the year or if we return to Standard time permanently.

In Minneapolis, if we were to stay on Daylight Saving Time year-round, the sun would not even rise until 8:50 AM, almost 9 in the morning in late December! And Minneapolis is in the middle of the time zone. For a city on the western side of a time zone, like Indianapolis, the sun will rise on January 1st around 9:05 AM.  I can't say for sure what the impact of such a late sunrise would be for people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder but undoubtedly you will have more depression and more suicides with the darker mornings.

You say "Fine! We'll just go back to Standard time year round!" Overlooking the increase in traffic accidents we'll get with the loss of extra light on summer evenings, let's focus on the quality of sleep a person would get with Standard Time.  The sunrise in late June in Minneapolis will be 4:24 AM.  That's sunrise! The day will start getting light at 3:45 AM.  And once again, we're in the middle of a time zone.  In Portland Maine, on the far eastern side of the Eastern Time Zone, their SUNRISE will be at 3:57 AM! 

People will have to spend money buying heavy-duty drapes and blinds to keep their rooms dark, and undoubtedly many people will be losing sleep, or will have restless sleep, for a large portion of summer. As anti-DST people complain about the dangers of sleepy drivers for the one week after we spring ahead, will they downplay the undoubtedly FAR large amount of sleepy drivers we'll have from mid-May to mid-July if we were to return to Standard Time year round?

To all the Anti-Daylight Saving Time people out there, stop whining and just suck it up.  It's just one hour in March, an hour you get back in November.  Although it does not save energy like it used to, it still does save energy.  Although DST undeniably causes health issues and even death, there is a likely far larger cost of life to get rid of DST, regardless of how we get rid of it.

This article will not save DST.  Quite the contrary!  It's likely politicians will get rid of Daylight Saving Time.  They desperately want to look like populists, so even though the evidence DST still works is out there for anyone to read, they'll ignore the truth and go along with the lemmings in an effort to embrace the irrational zealots rallying around their cause célèbre.  They could be populists by embracing healthcare for all, or equality for all, but those issues are hard to achieve, and this one gives them a participation trophy they can proudly display on their mantle. 

This is just Lazy Populism, and if we follow through with getting rid of Daylight Saving Time, we will soon be treated to the next bout of Lazy Populism, the SAME EXACT PEOPLE who bitch and moan about losing an hour in Spring with DST will either be bitching and moaning about the late sunrise in late December, or bitching and moaning about the early sunrise in late June.  When that does happen, AND IT WILL HAPPEN, how long before we suddenly have politicians insist "We need to get back to Daylight Saving Time!"