I'm seeing a lot of debate on here about whether we should:
(a) make Daylight Savings Time permanent (as
@elonmusk and others propose — we tried it briefly in 1974, only to repeal it soon thereafter),
(b) make Standard Time permanent (as we had before 1918), or
(c) leave the current system in place (with its annoying pair of clock changes).
We the People demand that our Government break the Law of Physics known as “Pick Two of Three”. Let me explain.
There are many situations where there are three desirable things, and any pair of them can be satisfied, but not all three. In this case, they are:
I. Better Winter: No late sunrises. If we were still following Daylight Savings, sunrise would be around 8:30 am, and buses would be driving kids to school in pitch darkness. Cost: (there’s always a cost! There are no “solutions”, only tradeoffs…) early sundown, 4:30 pm, and the seasonal depression that comes with it.
II. Better Summer: No early sunrises. In Standard Time, sunrise in the summer would be as early as 4:30 am, and sundown 7:30 pm. This is a rare win-win: by shifting forward an hour, sunrise is a little later (a godsend for those with small children, who wake up when the sun does), and there’s a glorious extra hour of evening.
III. No changing clocks twice a year
The current system picks I+II, permanent Standard Time gives I+III, and permanent Daylight Savings is II+III. You can’t have all three. No matter how much we insist, the Government cannot legislate Sunlight.
This is reminiscent of a more famous “Pick Two” situation that voters ask of the Government:
I. Spend a lot of money on me
II. Don’t tax me a lot
III. Don’t let inflation get high
Any combination of two can be done, but not all three. When We the People demand the impossible, the only politicians who can get elected are those who campaign on satisfying us; these are, by definition, charlatans.