I definitely get that, in the summer. But in January? There's a notable difference on the paths near my house all winter, let alone the mornings. I just can't see a reason not to stop changing the clocks at this point.
Sure, it's going to depend on what kind of activities you do. I cross country ski, ice fish, hunt. Sometimes, with kids, and we like to just head out for the morning. Having it dark until 9am could be the difference between going and getting back for lunch, or having to pack a lunch, or dealing with hangry significant others.
Again, I'm not super passionate about either, I could make it work if we decide to not change the clocks.. Just so happens that my personal preference is more light earlier. I also haven't seen any compelling argument for keeping DST.
Also I understand this is a provincial question being tagged onto the municipal ballot, but what happens when the vote is to stay at DST, but other jurisdictions (Rest of Canada) vote to stay the course, are we now going to have a 2 hour time change from BC for half the year (Might suck when we play Seattle and Vancouver so much and their 8oclock starts are now 10pm),
Are we only 2 hours from Ontario during the winter months (That might be good for catching eastern games on tv!). Maybe my opinion would be different if the question had a caveat about only doing it if it was happening in other jurisdictions at the same time - maybe this should be a federal question?
Never had much issues with our kids. How do any of you people who complain about their kids, and the one hour time difference, travel outside the province with your kids, or take them on a vacation? Must be an unmanageable nightmare...
People need to remember where we live (hint - it is not near the equator). If you keep daylight time, then have fun having the sun come up at 9:15 am in winter (and your kids going to school in the dark). If you keep standard time, have fun with sunrise at 3:30am in summer. If only there was an easy system that would give you the best of both worlds...
It's more like my kids' biological clocks are fixed and I can nearly set the time to their sleep schedule. The toddlers wake up around 6-7AM and no matter how I try and tweak their bed time earlier, it's basically fixed.
So, OK, sorry I am wrong. It's not that the kids are affected, it's that they're unaffected. This means I'm going to be waking up at 5-6AM instead? Or is it the other way around and I'm going to be relishing at waking up at 7-8AM? I dunno, I'm sleep deprived right now either way and I can't process this type of maths.
I did some math earlier in this thread, but it's worth repeating due to the upcoming vote on the issue. Permanent DST means roughly double the amount of mornings you'll start your day in the dark. Using 8am as the cut off, this is the number of days where the sun rises after 8am:
Normal time: Nov 19 - Feb 8 = 81 days
Permanent DST: Oct 15 - Mar 10 = 146 days
That is a massive change that I don't think is appreciated. Russia tried permanent DST about 10 years ago and abandoned it only a few years later. They have cities with similar daylight as us, so they are probably a good proxy.
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I did some math earlier in this thread, but it's worth repeating due to the upcoming vote on the issue. Permanent DST means roughly double the amount of mornings you'll start your day in the dark. Using 8am as the cut off, this is the number of days where the sun rises after 8am:
Normal time: Nov 19 - Feb 8 = 81 days
Permanent DST: Oct 15 - Mar 10 = 146 days
That is a massive change that I don't think is appreciated. Russia tried permanent DST about 10 years ago and abandoned it only a few years later. They have cities with similar daylight as us, so they are probably a good proxy.
OK, but how does that actually impact people? Like for me, that part of the day isn't actually useful for things outside anyway. Whether I drive to the office in the dark is basically irrelevant. And the opposite point is that you have that many more days with the hour of sunlight at the useful part of your day.
I also just personally hate the time change. I don't even care about the kids...I get up and go to the gym before work. When we fall back, I guess I gain an hour of sleep, and that's great. When we spring forward though, it's terrible. Statistically there are more accidents that Monday morning, likely because people are more tired from that hour change. And why? So it's light out at 8:10am for more days? It's utterly pointless.
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Question: Does DST reduce the amount of days where our commutes coincide with the light shining at that damn angle that is right into our eyes?
I also seem to recall the light angle during my commutes around DST being like that and the time change getting rid of it. That part of DST I kinda appreciate.
Unless I recall incorrectly...
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Question: Does DST reduce the amount of days where our commutes coincide with the light shining at that damn angle that is right into our eyes?
I also seem to recall the light angle during my commutes around DST being like that and the time change getting rid of it. That part of DST I kinda appreciate.
Unless I recall incorrectly...
I think the switching on both sides increase the length of sun in the eyes because you go through that transition twice instead of once.
Staying on regular or daylight would solve the problem.
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OK, but how does that actually impact people? Like for me, that part of the day isn't actually useful for things outside anyway. Whether I drive to the office in the dark is basically irrelevant. And the opposite point is that you have that many more days with the hour of sunlight at the useful part of your day.
I also just personally hate the time change. I don't even care about the kids...I get up and go to the gym before work. When we fall back, I guess I gain an hour of sleep, and that's great. When we spring forward though, it's terrible. Statistically there are more accidents that Monday morning, likely because people are more tired from that hour change. And why? So it's light out at 8:10am for more days? It's utterly pointless.
I think its more about your internal bio-clock than anything. Your body's clock runs based on sunlight, so forcing your body to start the day in the dark for more days than absolutely necessary is not good long term. That's why experts say we should get rid of DST, to avoid messing with the bio-clock in the first place, but to go to standard time all the time. There is a reason we are in the time zone we are in.
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I don't have the sun shining in my eyes in the morning, but to no longer have it in my eyes driving home a little after 4 in the winter would be nice. that said, I understand that permanent standard time is better for peoples body clocks. Also geographically it seems we should be more on BC time then Winnipeg time...so this will be opposite in the winter
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Longitudinally we belong in PST (UTC -8 = 112.5 W to 127.5W); Calgary = 114 deg W (Edmonton is 113.5W).
So permanent DST would simply put us where we "should" be.
No, you have that backwards.
Permanent DST would make us the same as Central Standard Time year-round, which is 2 hours ahead of where we should be. Even on Mountain Standard Time, we're already an hour ahead of our natural time zone.
In reality, in Calgary (and Edmonton, Red Deer, and Lethbridge), we're so close to the "natural" dividing line (which is slightly west of Bassano), that we're a half hour out of sync with solar noon whether we're in Pacific or Mountain time. During MST, our solar noon is about 12:30pm. If we were in PST, it would be about 11:30am. During daylight time, our solar noon is about 1:30pm. If you were perfectly centred in the time zone, solar noon would happen at exactly 12:00pm (with some slight variation from day to day because the Earth's orbit isn't precise).
The northern BC-Alberta border is 120 degrees west, which is the natural centre point of the Pacific Time Zone. For Grande Prairie, which is just east of the border, they're perfectly located for the Pacific Time Zone, so permanent DST would put them 2 hours out of sync... plus, they're so far north that they barely get 7 hours of sunlight in December, meaning their sunrise around Christmas wouldn't be until about 10:30am on permanent DST.
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This is one of those things I just dont have an opinion on. Aside from being cranky for five minutes when I realize its dark at 4:30 again in December, I get over it pretty quick. Makes no difference to me one way or another which was we go
For Alberta, given the location of our main population centres, the 30 min in between compromise would be most mathematically correct...whatever that means since both longitude and time are artificial constructs.
LA/San Fran, NYC/ DC, Chicago, Denver are all just about smack-dab in the middle of their mathematical time zones (though Chicago is right on the border of where CST vs. EST actually change).
In Europe, Madrid is west of London, but in time zone +1, which is centered closer to Berlin and Rome.
We can always argue around the extremes near the solstices...for me it boils down to whether a theoretical day should be structured with light from 6am-7pm or 7am-8pm (civil twilight being probably more useful to consider than sunrise/sunset).
