So, are you feeling it today? Your big reward?
Like most Americans - except in Arizona, Hawaii and a few other places - Texans got back that extra hour of sleep we lost in March.
The second half of the consummately absurd ritual known as the changing of the clocks took place at 2 a.m. this morning, as daylight saving time made its customary autumnal retreat.
San Antonians could stay burrowed in their bed sheets for a delicious extra hour, the sole perk of this antiquated biannual rite of passage.
Question: Was it worth it? Now that you’ve gained back those previously purloined 60 minutes of slumber, were the extra evening hours of sunlight during spring and summer worth the disorientation you’re likely to feel over the next few days or even weeks?
Experts say that even though Americans gain an hour of sleep as the country reverts to standard time, their bodily rhythms may nonetheless be thrown off balance once again, as the clock and the light do their seasonal trade-off, thanks to this nonsensical and artificial practice.
Sure, the consequences of the November clock change aren’t as serious as those of the annual shift to spring-forward, which show up in a host of dangerous increases - in car wrecks, work injuries, heart attacks, depression, medical errors and suicides, all linked to the strain of sleep deprivation brought on by the sudden time change in March.
That doesn’t even count the less dramatic toll of lost productivity and a nation gripped by a lousy collective mood until everybody’s body and brain adjusts.
The idea of manipulating the clock to increase daylight hours harkens back to the 1800s. The actual practice began in the United States in 1918, as a way to conserve energy during World War I. The country was powered on coal then, and the time change made a certain sense.
The national stretching out of the daylight hours blinked on and off at different times and places after that, but became fully ensconced in America in the ’60s and ’70s. Among other theories, the idea held that having more sunshine at the end of the day would save on energy as people kept the lights off.
But studies have shown that daylight saving time doesn’t conserve energy, or rather doesn’t conserve it very effectively - in some instances, it actually increases energy use.
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The U.S. Department of Energy determined in 2008 that sticking to just one time format year-round could save approximately 0.5 percent of electricity per day nationwide.
It would be one thing if Americans were besotted with changing their clocks twice a year. But surveys show they hate it.
Lawmakers have been less then sympathetic. Indeed, in 2005 Congress passed legislation that extended daylight saving time to an extra week in the fall, so that families could have an additional dusky hour to trick-or-treat on Halloween - an obvious case of the pernicious influence of Big Candy in the halls of power in Washington.
Last year, a handful of Texas lawmakers put forth a bill that would have given voters the chance to decide at the ballot box whether to stay on either standard time or daylight saving time year-round.
The bill made it to a Senate subcommittee, where it died an inglorious death. It never even got a hearing. Other legislation that would have abolished daylight saving time and committed Texas to year-round standard time went nowhere, too.
When the Texas Legislature convenes again in January, House Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, for one, plans to again put forth legislation that would let voters decide. If voters choose to keep to standard time, the change will be automatic. If they decide to go with daylight saving time year-round, Congress would have to amend federal law to let states permanently remain on it.
We think it’s worth it. We’re tired of being cranky - or worse - just to forestall darkness for a handful of months each year. Let’s fall back and just keep it that way.
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November 01, 2020 at 04:00PM
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Editorial: Springing forward sets Texans back - San Antonio Express-News
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