PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT: High time we stopped time-change circus

The big day is almost upon us.

Nope, not talking about the U.S. presidential election nor, on the same scary events theme, Halloween.

In between, and appropriately enough in dead of night, we’ll observe the annual tradition of shifting clocks back by an hour.

Some greet the twice-a-year change with open arms, others with dread. A lot of us see it as an unnecessary bother. Complaints about “springing forward” or “falling back” sprinkle many conversations each March and October.

In spring, we gain daylight after work, but at a cost — losing an hour’s sleep in the morning. In fall, we get that hour back, but commutes home — for those still commuting during the pandemic, anyway — are often in darkness.

Evidence for the supposed rationale for shifting the clocks, that it saves energy, is questioned by many scientists. Meanwhile, experts say forcing people to quickly adjust to a different schedule — in the case of DST, one considered misaligned with natural body rhythms — can have negative health effects, including raising risk of stroke, heart attacks and other ailments.

How’d we get into this time-shifting convention?

The advent of daylight saving time is often tied to the First World War. But some trace the concept back to the late 1700s, when Benjamin Franklin, posted in Paris, apparently ironically noted Parisians could save candles if they just got up earlier and didn’t stay up so late.

In 1895, George Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist, wrote a paper proposing two-hour time shifts every spring and fall — so he could catch more bugs for his collection.

In 1905, William Willett, an avid English golfer who didn’t appreciate dusk cutting short his link time, pushed a similar idea, except using one hour.

The First World War changed the calculus. Germany and Austria-Hungary, to conserve coal, brought in the first state daylight saving time plans in spring 1916. Britain and its allies, including Canada, followed suit.

The system has been rolled back a few times, but became firmly established in the West during the oil price shocks of the 1970s.

Interestingly, daylight saving time seems a Western convention. According to Wikipedia, Africa and Asia largely don’t use it.

Nobody likes the need to shift back and forth. Why don’t we just drop the whole business and stick with one approach?

That could happen sooner than you think.

Governments are increasingly looking at staying with either standard time or daylight saving time (or, as they say in Europe, winter and summer time).

In March 2019, the European Parliament passed legislation calling on all member states to choose one way or the other by 2021 — March for countries going to permanent summer hours and October for those opting for permanent winter hours.

A number of U.S. states have already passed or are looking at legislation to do the same thing.

In Canada, Saskatchewan has been on standard time year-round for 60 years. Yukon moved to full-time daylight saving time this year. In Ontario, the government is supporting a private member’s bill to switch to full-time daylight saving time, although the change would be contingent on Quebec and New York also joining.

Haven’t heard of anything similar in Nova Scotia, at least not yet.

Which would you rather all year, standard or daylight saving time?

I might opt for the former. Who wants it to be pitch black outside when it’s almost 9 a.m. on a winter’s morning?