When will the time change?
The majority of the United States observes daylight saving time, which is mandated by federal law, from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November. The time changes by one hour at 2 a.m. on November 5, which is that date this year.
According to the website Time and Date, Chicago will have its first sunset before 7 p.m. even before that. The city will have less than 12 hours of daily sunlight by September 23.
Federal law requires that the majority of the country observe daylight saving time from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. On November 5, which is that date this year, the time is changed by one hour at two in the morning.
Chicago will have its first sunset before 7 p.m., according to the website Time and Date. By September 23, there will be fewer than 12 hours of daylight per day in the city.
What is daylight saving time?
Some want to credit Benjamin Franklin as the creator of daylight-saving time since he stated in a 1784 essay about saving candles that “Early to bed, Early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” But that was more intended as humor than as a serious thought.
In order to save fuel, Germany was the first country to implement daylight saving time on May 1, 1916, during World War I. Europe as a whole quickly followed.
On March 19, 1918, the United States finally implemented Daylight Saving Time. It was disliked and eliminated following World War I.
Franklin Roosevelt implemented year-round daylight-saving time on February 9, 1942, referring to it as “wartime.” It continued until September 30, 1945.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966, which imposed standard time across the nation within designated time zones, was the law that made daylight saving time mandatory in the US. It specified that on the final Sunday in April and the final Sunday in October, the clocks would go forward by one hour at 2 a.m., respectively.
States might still choose not to observe DST as long as they did so for the whole state. Congress implemented an energy-saving trial of year-round daylight-saving time from January 1974 to April 1975 in the 1970s as a result of the 1973 oil embargo.
Why would they change the time?
Energy cost savings are one of the most well-established justifications for DST. Regarding whether it actually does, there have been a lot of contradictory findings.
According to a Department of Energy assessment from 2008, the additional daylight-saving time that George W. Bush signed into law in 2005 reduced daily electricity use by around 0.5 percent. In addition, that year, a National Bureau of Economic Research study discovered that the change in daylight saving time increased residential electricity demand by about 1%, “contrary to the policy’s intent,” driving up Indiana’s annual electricity costs by $9 million and increasing pollution emissions.
When President Richard M. Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act into law in the midst of a fuel crisis in 1974, he specifically cited energy savings as his justification. But the experiment that was supposed to last for two years didn’t even last a year. Eight months into the trial, on September 30, 1974, the Senate decided to switch the country back to regular time due to widespread unhappiness.
Daylight saving time continues to have ardent support, particularly from proponents of business who claim it stimulates the economy.
The person that wants to end Day light savings.
The European Union and a number of American states, including California, Florida, and Ohio, are either thinking about doing away with the shift or have already started the process.
The Senate abruptly and unanimously approved legislation in March 2022 to end the twice-yearly time changes and make daylight saving time a permanent fixture. However, the bill was unable to pass the House. In March 2023, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio reintroduced the legislation.
The new law will take nearly a year to go into effect if Congress approves it and President Biden signs it.
The majority of Mexico’s Senate sent its president a measure in October 2022 to abolish daylight saving time, although it made an exception for the region closest to the United States.
Russia, China, and India do not observe daylight saving time. Hawaii and much of Arizona also don’t. However, in northeastern Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and the Navajo Nation they do observe it.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine requested that daylight saving time be abolished in 2020. The academy warned in a statement that the shift could increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular events as well as increase the number of accidents on the road since it throws off the body’s internal clock.
Sources:
NBC Chicago: When do we turn our clocks back? Illinois’ time change for 2023 is coming up.
NY Times: Why Do We Change the Clocks, anyway?
Reuters: U.S. Senate approves bill to make daylight saving time permanent.
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First Insert Image Courtesy of Bill Smith’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Second Insert Image Courtesy of Karen’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
