Opinion
 

That lost hour is put to good use

Summer Dawn Gorbea

This morning we all grumbled and dragged ourselves out of our respective beds one hour earlier than we normally have to. Why? Because of the ever-delightful enforcement of daylight-saving time. On the first Sunday of every April, we all set our clocks forward one hour and prepare for torture.

I am not a morning person. Normally, I like to consider myself a fairly pleasant person. In the morning, however, I turn into an evil beast that will growl at and potentially harm anyone brave enough to wake me. So being forced to wake up one hour earlier is one of the worst possible things I can imagine.

So I decided to look into some of the facts of this horrendous and seemingly pointless practice. Of course, like so many other things have, it all started with Benjamin Franklin. While in Paris in 1874, Franklin was often confined to his house with gout and gallstones. He used some of this time to write "An Economical Project," an essay that first introduced the idea daylight-saving time as a way to make better use of daylight and to conserve the use of candles and the oil lamp.

The idea was not fully advocated until a man named William Willet took up the cause in his 1907 pamphlet, "The Waste of Daylight." In it he proposed the somewhat confusing idea of setting the clock forward twenty minutes on four Sundays in April until it was a full hour ahead. Though the idea was put forth in British Parliament several times, it was never taken seriously. Willet died in 1915 without his idea being realized.

Throughout the following years, the idea never fully died and eventually came into widespread usage. However, it was done in a disorderly fashion since there was no uniform standard as to when the time change should take place. In 1966 the Uniform Time Act was passed in the United States, establishing a nation-wide standard within each time zone.

Though there has been some opposition -- from the likes of farmers and those with sleep disorders -- there has been a general feeling that the use of daylight-saving time has been beneficial. In a study done by the U.S. Department of Transportation, it was found that the country's energy usage is cut down by less than one percent because of daylight-saving time. Though this may seem an insignificant number, I believe that in this area, we can use all the help we can get. In addition, it's been found that crime and traffic injuries have also been decreased because of the increase in daylight hours.

So grumble all we want about waking up early, but perhaps we should give daylight-saving time another chance. It has its perks, and hey, if Mr. Franklin says it's OK, then it must be. And besides, who can beat that sweet feeling in October, when we'll get to sleep in one hour later? I'll just have to tame that evil morning beast of mine.

Gobea, a columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at spicypepperpoet@aol.com.