A Look at Our Fiddling With Time

You might think this whole clock-shifting business is a modern invention, but the seed of it goes back a ways. Benjamin Franklin, way back in 1784, wrote a pretty funny piece about Parisians and their candles, but the real push for what we know as DST started picking up steam in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Down in Aotearoa, a fellow named George Vernon Hudson figured in 1895 that an extra two hours of daylight in the evening would be just dandy for his bug-collecting hobby. At the antipodes, a builder, William Willett, was campaigning hard from 1907 for more daylight for folks to enjoy themselves after work.

But it was World War I that really lit a fire under the idea. On April 30, 1916, Germany and Austria-Hungary were the first to say, "Let's try this", mainly to save coal for the war. Pretty soon, the United Kingdom, France, and the U.S. jumped on the band wagon. So, it wasn't so much about a grand new philosophy of time, but more of a "hey, this could help" measure during tough times, with saving energy being a big part of the sales pitch.

A hundred years later, you’d think we’d all be on the same page, but not by a long shot. Only about a third of all the countries out there actually do the seasonal clock shuffle, and it’s mostly a European and North American thing. Even then, you've got places in the U.S. like Hawaiʻi and most of Arizona that just say, "No, thanks". Australia’s a bit of a patchwork too, with Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory sitting it out.

Actually, if you look at the last ten years or so, a whole bunch of countries have decided to ditch DST – places like Azerbaijan, Brazil, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Namibia, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Uruguay and, yes, our Sāmoa have all said, "We're good". Egypt’s an interesting one: They stopped DST in 2014 but then brought it back in 2023, hoping to save some energy. The European Union, they standardized their DST back in '96, but in 2018, the European Parliament voted to stop the mandatory changes. That’s been put on hold while everyone tries to decide if they want to stick with summer hours or standard time all year round. It’s a similar story in the U.S. At least 19 states, including Texas, have laws ready to go for year-round DST, but they need a green light from the federal government first.

Back in Oceania, it's a mixed bag. Parts of Australia and Aotearoa do DST. The land of the long white cloud, for instance, locked in its current DST schedule (last Sunday in September to the first Sunday in April) back in 2007 after a bit of public discussion. Fiji, they’ve tried it on and off, liking the extra daylight for fun and business, but then they decided not to do DST for 2021-22. Hawaiʻi doesn’t bother with DST, partly because if they did, the sun would be coming up awfully late, even in June, given where they sit latitude-wise. And Sāmoa, they used DST from 2010 but called it quits in 2021.

So, why all the back and forth? Well, it comes down to what folks think DST does for us, and what it might do to us.

That main argument from way back – saving energy – is still front and center in the debate. Some studies show it helps a bit, especially cutting down on the need for lights in the evening, and maybe some cooling in the summer. We've seen figures like a 519 GWh reduction in southern Norway and 882 GWh in Sweden annually. Research even suggested an overall 0.5% dip in total electricity use because of DST. But then, plenty of other folks look at our modern lives – all the air conditioning, heating, computers, and gizmos – and say any savings on lights get eaten up by everything else. Studies in places like Ōsaka, Japan, even figured DST might make people use more electricity, what with more AC needed on warmer nights and folks staying up later. And how this all affects big office buildings and other commercial spaces? That’s a piece of the puzzle still being figured out.

Then there's how it makes us feel. That hour shift can mess with our sleep, and some research has linked it to a short-term rise in traffic accidents and even heart trouble right after the clocks change in the spring. Martín-Olalla & Mira found about a 5% increase in the traffic accident rate in the U.S. for the week after the spring jump, calling it a regular but relatively small blip compared to all the other things that cause accidents. On the flip side, having more daylight in the evenings is great for getting outside, and some say it makes the streets safer then.

This gets into our body clocks, or circadian rhythms. Some worry that DST, especially if we went to permanent summer hours, throws our internal clocks out of whack with the sun, like we're always living an hour ahead of ourselves. But then again, others argue that seasonal DST is just helping us match our day to when the sun actually decides to show up, which changes with the seasons, especially if you're not near the equator. They point out that people have always adjusted to the seasons, even before we had electric lights and alarm clocks.

Now, most of this DST talk happens in the context of our busy, modern world. But if you take a step over to a place like Tanna Island in Vanuatu, you find a whole different way of thinking about the sun and time. For the people of Tanna, Met and Mawuk (the Sun and the Moon) are alive, they're part of the story, part of the family, you could say. Their old stories tell how a spirit named Wughin first made light with special trees, then the Moon, and then the Sun. And the regular day and night we know? That was set up by a hero figure, Kalpapen, using a special kava ritual called Temahwa, which is like a bridge between our world and the spirit world. The Sun and Moon are even seen as the parents of the first Tupunus – a kind of spiritual guide and protector of the gardens – tying the heavens right to the good earth that feeds everyone.

While this is ancient history, it still shapes how life is lived today on Tanna. They tell time by the sun's journey: Metetal means the sun's coming up, Nemetipin is when it's high noon, and Metuvo is when it's heading down for the night. Farming is all about the sun – gardens are laid out to "follow the Sun", and what you plant where depends on how much sunshine it needs. Even their houses are often built with an eye to the sun, facing east to catch the morning light, and for reasons tied to their spiritual beliefs. It's a way of life that’s already deeply in sync with the sun’s natural pace, or the Earth’s rather, which makes you wonder if something like DST would even make sense there. It’s these kinds of deep cultural connections to the environment that we, in our own small way, try to understand and help others appreciate.

So, this whole Daylight Saving Time adventure, from its wartime beginnings in Europe to the debates in statehouses today, and from arguments about kilowatts to the ancient ways of the Pacific, it's clear there’s no simple answer. Places like Texas are trying to make a permanent switch while the EU is still mulling it over, and a good chunk of folks in the U.S. just wish we’d pick a time and stick with it, though they don’t all agree on which time that should be.

When you get right down to it, this ain't just about what hour the clock says. It’s about how we choose to live, what we value – be it saving a bit of energy, getting an extra hour of evening light, or staying in tune with the world’s natural rhythms. Whether we’ll see more places saying goodbye to the clock change, or if it’ll stick around in some new way, well, that chapter's still being written. And it makes you think, doesn’t it, about all the different ways we humans try to make sense of our days under the sun.