{"id":172,"date":"2011-10-17T08:44:20","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T14:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/?p=172"},"modified":"2011-10-17T09:08:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T15:08:13","slug":"another-effect-of-lobbying-extended-dst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/?p=172","title":{"rendered":"another effect of lobbying: extended DST"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.mnn.com\/green-tech\/research-innovations\/stories\/do-we-still-need-daylight-saving-time<\/a><\/p>\n

As long ago as 1897, countries around the world began instituting daylight saving time, adding an hour of sunlight to the afternoon. This meant communities could be more productive \u2014 people could work longer, and when work was done it was still bright enough to run errands and stimulate the economy. The added daylight also meant more exposure to Vitamin D and the added time for people to exercise outdoors<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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Everyone from factory owners to retailers embraced the change. Even the candy lobby supported the new system, figuring\u00a0<\/strong>the extra hour of sunlight meant it would be safer for kids to go trick-or-treating on Halloween<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt has several technical benefits as well,\u201d Dr. David Prerau, author of “Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time<\/a>,”\u00a0explained during a phone interview. \u201cIt\u2019s been found to reduce energy usage by doing something called load smoothing\u201d \u2014 separating out electrical loads throughout the day to better deal with the valleys and peaks of energy usage \u2014 \u201cand so you\u2019re going to generate energy more efficiently and therefore have less effects on pollution.\u201d A study by the U.S. Department of Transportation showed that the country’s electricity usage is cut by 1 percent each day<\/a> because of daylight saving time.<\/div>\n
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But not everyone is on board with the time shift.<\/div>\n
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Is daylight saving time a fait accompli or will time ever just stand still? Downing doesn\u2019t see a light at the end of the tunnel. \u201cSince 1966, every 20 years, Congress has given us another month of daylight saving. We’re up to eight months now,\u201d<\/strong> he says. \u201cAnd there is every reason to believe that the [U.S.] Chamber of Commerce, the national lobby for convenience stores \u2014 which account for more than 80 percent of all gasoline sales in the country \u2014 and Congress will continue to press for extensions until we adopt year-round daylight saving. And then, why not spring forward in March or April and enjoy double daylight saving time?\u201d<\/div>\n
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background:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.webexhibits.org\/daylightsaving\/c.html<\/a><\/div>\n
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Only a minority of the world’s population uses DST because Asia<\/span><\/a> and Africa<\/span><\/a> generally do not observe it\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Daylight_saving_time<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.mnn.com\/green-tech\/research-innovations\/stories\/do-we-still-need-daylight-saving-time As long ago as 1897, countries around the world began instituting daylight saving time, adding an hour of sunlight to the afternoon. This meant communities could be more productive \u2014 people could work longer, and when work was done … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}