Why do we have daylight saving time?
Daylight Saving Time, when the clock is set one hour ahead during the summer months, is observed in about 70 countries worldwide, including some in every populated continent. Originally Benjamin Franklin’s idea, Daylight Saving Time is a little bit different everywhere it is practiced and has been controversial since its introduction. Daylight Saving Time has two main purposes: to increase evening daytime hours for outdoor leisure activities and to save on energy consumption. Benjamin Franklin first conceived the idea that would become Daylight Saving Time during a 1784 post as an American delegate in Paris. It was similar to his oft quoted maxim, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Half-jokingly, Franklin suggested that Parisians shift their sleep schedules an hour back in order to save on candles in the evening. He did not suggest changing the clock, however.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/2008… At 2:00 a.m. local on Sunday, most of the United States (except Hawaii and Arizona) will leave daylight saving time behind and fall back an hour to standard time. The annoyance of resetting clocks (or forgetting to, and showing up an hour early for appointments on Sunday) may raise the question of why we bother with this rigmarole in the first place. Daylight saving time is most often associated with the oh-so-sweet extra hour of sleep in fall (and the not-so-nice loss of an hour in spring), but some of the original reasons for resetting our clocks twice a year including saving energy and having more daylight hours for retailers, sporting events and other activities that benefit from a longer day.
First of all, it”s the law. We in the United States, and in almost every industrialized country, advance our clocks one hour in the spring. (Actually, as of 2007, we in the U.S. get a jump on daylight saving time before winter is officially over. But “winter ahead, fall back” just doesn”t have the same ring to it.) Technically, the big “spring ahead” happens at 2 a.m. on a Sunday. But most people adjust their clocks before bed on Saturday night. Then, we leave ”em that way all summer. In Europe, it”s called “Summer Time,” but in the U.S. it”s “daylight saving time.” In autumn, we return to standard time by setting our clocks back an hour — the “fall back.” Along with the semiannual confusion, there is controversy around daylight saving time. Some people think it saves energy and thereby, perhaps, helps average Americans save money. The argument here is that we keep our lights off more when the Sun is still up later in the day.
