But on that midsummer night (it was July 1908, XNUMX), the citizens of Thunder Bay, a Canadian port on Lake Superior to transport Ontario's silver and wheat, they didn't know they had invented something that would cause controversy to this day. She was born thedaylight savings time: clocks moved forward in the summer, to gain sixty minutes of light e save energy, and returned to their place in the fall.
Today it happens in 75 Countries, not at the same time but almost always in the middle of the night, to have less effect on transport timetables. This year we will start at 2:00 on 25 March, to go back to 3:00 on the last Sunday in October, as happens throughout the European Union. In between, predictably, the usual trail of threads (does it really save money? Is it bad for your health? Does it alter biorhythms?) which resurfaces every year and which last month even led to discussion of theEuropean Parliament. A patrol of deputies, led by the Finnish green Heidi Hautalawould like to abolish it. Strasbourg replied that for now it is not the case, but the matter can be explored further.
Follow the light
After all, it is more than two centuries that talks about it. The more the metropolis and the industrial revolution expanded, the more the idea of altering the circadian rhythms to gain time – and work, and money – he made his way. With a surprise name among the very first theorists: Benjamin Franklin, American scientist and politician, inventor of the lightning rod but above all among the founding fathers of the United States. In 1784 he wrote an article on the Journal de Paris: “An economical project for diminishing the cost of light”. That is, how to save energy (in this case, the consumption of candles) through semi-serious ideas – firing cannon shots at dawn, taxing the shutters of houses, rationing the candles themselves – but centered on a basic idea: push the Parisians to get out of bed earlier, when the light allows it. Franklin even counted up the wax that could be saved: 64 million pounds, almost 30 million kilos. In intention it was a satirical essay, in fact the idea was now on the table.
Even if we have to arrive at the end of the following century for the first proposals in the opposite direction: instead of pushing man to follow the light, we directly move the hands. Two hours, according to the idea of the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson (1895), which had taken cues from his studies of insects. Or 20 minutes for each of the Sundays in April, to then go back to September with the same rhythm: he asked William Willett, an English builder, in 1907, arguing that «everyone likes the evenings when there is more light, everyone complains when the days get shorter and almost everyone has words of regret when they think that the early morning light is so little seen or used…». Elegant prose to support a request that the gossip of the time attributed above all to his passion for golf (it seems he was very sorry to stop playing when it got dark), but which pushed towards a draft law discussed the following year; it became bogged down by opposition from farmers and ranchers, concerned about the impact on labour.
Problems that evidently were less felt in Ontario.
Summer time
It is not known whether the parallel discussion was inspired by Europe or not, but the fact is that Thunder Bay arrived first, in that summer of 1908. And immediately other cities followed: Regina, Winnipeg, Brandon. In 1916, the Manitoba Free Press, a regional newspaper, wrote that summer time had become "so popular that municipal ordinances now introduce it automatically". It was April 3, 1916. Just four days before the law that adopted it in Germany and Austria, the first European countries to adopt it.
It was full World War; that of Franklin's followers was no longer a good idea, but a necessity. Everything that could be saved had to be saved. So much so that Great Britain and France followed suit. And in the same year, on June 4th, theItaly, where summer time was experienced in alternating phases (abolished by fascism, restored in flashes between 1940 and '48), before being definitively adopted in 1966, in full economic boom.
Is it still useful?
No one found fault at first. All agree on the motivation of what in English is called, not surprisingly, Dst, that is Daylight-saving time, “time for savings”. Then, with the increase in consumption of housewares and appliances, someone began to raise doubts: PCs, TVs, air conditioning work anyway, light or not. And then, how much you save really?
The first large study of the energy effects of DST, conducted by Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant in the United States and published in 2011, even found a increase in consumption by 2-4% due to daylight saving time. Enough to rekindle controversy and open up other research, with often contradictory results. At least until the research published two years ago by Thomes Havranek, Dominik Herman and Zuzana Irsova, of the Karlova University in Prague. Simple title (“Does daylight save energy?”) for a complex development, if it is true that it is a meta-analysis of 44 global studies. Elaborations, tables and calculations made on the results of the work of all the colleagues who had done research on the subject, to arrive at a not exactly sensational conclusion: the savings exist, but they 0,34% a year on a global scale and with a thousand variables linked above all to geography (the closer you get to the equator, the less you save). Not much, if you read the raw number. A lot, replies those who point out that we are talking about the consumption of one and a half billion of inhabitants of planet Earth. Certainly not enough to end the controversy over what the authors themselves define as "one of the most widespread and controversial political initiatives in the world".
It's Italy? In line with the study by Havranek et al. Terna, the company that manages energy flows, calculated a last year saving of 567 million kilowatt hours (110 million euros): more or less 0,16% of the national requirement, or the equivalent of the consumption of 200 families. However, this was down compared to the peak in 2011, when 647 million kilowatt hours were saved. But multiplied by a decade, they give more than one billion euros of savings. And translated into CO emissions2, make 320 tons less a year. As if 150 diesel cars suddenly disappeared from circulation.
Health issue
And yet, the major criticisms of summer time come from rather than from those who keep energy accounts doctors and health professionals. The alteration of the circadian rhythm affects the body, which takes about a week to adapt. This little shock similar to the jet lag, repeated twice a year, would have significant consequences. A Swedish study speaks of an increase of heart attacks during the first three weeks of daylight saving time. Statistics are cited that record increases in accidents, from traffic and from work, due to tiredness on the first Mondays after the passage. Even Facebook he found that on the Monday following the shot there are more people who define themselves as "tired". Even if, over time, the "happy" and "wonderful" numbers on social networks increase, an effect that supporters attribute to long evenings. While to the extra hour of sunshine there are those who also connect the reduction, in summer time periods, of road accidents involving pedestrians (13% fewer victims, in the USA) and even thefts (7% less, again in the United States).
Pros and cons, basically. Divided into lists which – we can bet on – will grow longer in the next few days. Like those of the "practical advice" to face thenow X, which we will see again as if there were to prepare for an intercontinental journey: adapt the alarm clock a little at a time, take walks in the open air, don't forget breakfast... But above all, remember that the watch must be worn forward, not back. That yes, there is always someone who asks.
From Eniday.
